Newark crime family
| Also Known As | D'Amico crime family Newark family Newark Mafia family |
|---|---|
| Origins | |
| Founding Location | Newark, New Jersey |
| Territory | Newark and parts of northern New Jersey |
| Lineage | |
| Predecessor(s) | Palermitani/Villabate migration and kinship networks (social milieu, not formal parent corporation) |
| Successor(s) | Newark crews of several New York families Elizabeth/North Jersey organizations (territorial overlap; not simple institutional succession) |
| Profile | |
| Structure | Independent Sicilian-American Mafia borgata with Villabate and other Palermitan connections |
| Activities | Bootlegging Illegal gambling and lotteries Territorial racketeering Murder and factional violence |
| Politics | |
| Leader | Gaspare D'Amico |
| Notable Members | Gaspare D'Amico Antonio Paterno (later Mangano-associated Newark figure; former-member status reported) |
| Activity | |
| Status | Disbanded after D'Amico's 1937 flight |
| Years Active | c. 1920s–1937 |
The Newark crime family was an independent Mafia borgata based in Newark, New Jersey, and led by Gaspare D'Amico. Historical sources also call it the D'Amico family or Newark Famiglia. D'Amico came from Villabate in Palermo province, giving the family a strong Palermitani-origin connection.
The organization was not a branch of the Profaci crime family merely because Profaci and D'Amico shared Villabate origins. Nor was it the same organization as the later DeCavalcante family.
Villabate and Palermitani origins
[edit]D'Amico was born in Villabate and immigrated to the United States with members of his family. Villabate blood, marriage and hometown connections linked several Mafia figures in New York and New Jersey.
David Critchley refers to the “Newark Famiglia” and states that the D'Amicos, like Profaci, came from Villabate.[1] Shared hometown origin supports kinship and coalition analysis; it does not prove Profaci's command or automatic membership for every Villabate immigrant.
Independent Newark organization
[edit]During the 1920s, D'Amico's family controlled or contested bootlegging, gambling and lottery operations in Newark. Northern New Jersey also contained crews associated with the Reina, Masseria, Mangano and Profaci families, along with a separate Elizabeth organization.
These overlapping groups should not be flattened into one “North Jersey Mafia.” D'Amico's family had its own leadership and competed with crews attached to New York organizations.
Public-facing businesses provided meeting places, income and social cover. D'Amico served as president of a macaroni company in Newark according to a 1937 city directory later summarized in an FBI file.[2] Business office and family relation alone did not establish Mafia rank.
Troia challenge and 1935 killings
[edit]Vincenzo Troia, a Sicilian Mafia figure associated in later accounts with Salvatore Maranzano's network, challenged D'Amico's control. On August 22, 1935, gunmen attacked a Newark confectionery identified in reporting as a lottery-gang headquarters. Troia and Frank Longo were killed and three others wounded.[3]
Contemporary reporting documented the killings and lottery context but did not judicially establish that D'Amico ordered them. Later histories linking the attack to an internal succession struggle are therefore attributed rather than stated as conviction fact.
1937 attack and disbandment
[edit]On February 22, 1937, a gunman entered the D'Amico macaroni factory and opened fire. Contemporary reporting said Gaspare D'Amico and relatives were packing macaroni when the attack occurred; D'Amico was seriously wounded, and his father was killed.[4]
Later accounts commonly attribute the attack to a Profaci-linked New Jersey faction. No conviction established Profaci as the person who ordered it, so the claim remains attributed and is not used to make the Newark family subordinate to Profaci.
D'Amico left the United States after the attack. Critchley states that the Newark family disbanded around 1937 after D'Amico was wounded and his father killed.[1] Members and territory were then absorbed or divided among several New York and New Jersey organizations.
This was dispersal, not a one-step renaming as the DeCavalcante family. The later North Jersey family developed through separate Elizabeth-based and other local organizations, even though some former Newark personnel may have entered those networks.
Organizational genealogy
[edit]The narrowest defensible sequence is:
- Villabate/Palermitani migration and Mafia connections → independent D'Amico Newark family → 1937 disbandment → distribution among several families and crews.
This preserves the distinction between common hometown, independent organization, later membership transfer and territorial succession.
References
[edit]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 David Critchley, The Origin of Organized Crime in America: The New York City Mafia, 1891–1931 (New York: Routledge, 2009), p. 290 and associated notes.
- ↑ Federal Bureau of Investigation material released through the National Archives, Newark organized-crime and Essex County prosecutor file summary, including 1935–1937 newspaper and city-directory references.
- ↑ “2 Slain, 3 Wounded by Jersey Gunmen”, The New York Times, August 23, 1935.
- ↑ “Boxer Is Shot Dead in Newark Tavern”, The New York Times, February 23, 1937.