New Orleans' Best Criminal Lawyer

http://www.crimemagazine.com/06/marcello,1019-6.htm From pot dealing, police-and politician-corrupting street thug, Marcello graduated to godfather of New Orleans (and Dallas), governing a vast and violent criminal empire that brought in an estimated $2 billion-a-year. He succeeded Sam Carolla, who was deported to Sicily in 1947. Marcello quickly became a generous financial supporter of Richard Nixon; and, eventually, a suspect in the murder of Nixon’s nemesis: President John F. Kennedy.

Marcello’s first dealings with Vice President Dick Nixon involved Jimmy Hoffa, the mobbed-up Teamsters Union leader. Because Jimmy shared a common enemy with Nixon, Hoffa and his two million-member union backed Nixon against Sen. John Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election. A Louisiana Teamster official who later became a government informant has revealed that Hoffa met with Marcello to secretly fund the Nixon campaign with stacks of cold Mob cash. Edward Partin told Mob expert Dan Moldea: ”I was right there, listening to the conversation. Marcello had a suitcase filled with $500,000 cash which was going to Nixon … (Another $500,000 contribution) was coming from Mob boys in New Jersey and Florida.” Hoffa himself served as Nixon’s bagman. Within a few weeks of that payoff, Vice President Nixon managed to stop a Florida land fraud indictment against Hoffa.

The Hoffa-Marcello meeting took place in New Orleans on Sept. 26, 1960, and has been verified by William Sullivan, a former top FBI official.

Sen. John Kennedy edged out Vice President Nixon in the 1960 presidential election, and Hoffa thanks to Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy was soon sitting in a prison cell for jury tampering and looting his own union’s pension funds of nearly $2 million. Yet the Nixon-Hoffa link remained solid at least until Dec. 23, 1971 when, as president, Nixon gave Jimmy an executive grant of clemency and opened the prison’s gates for him. Hoffa served only five years of a 13-year sentence.

In 1961, Marcello was “deported” to Guatemala by Atty. Gen. Bobby Kennedy. But the Louisiana godfather quietly returned in a small plane piloted by an associate named David Ferrie later considered a prime JFK assassination suspect by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. Identified by the Warren Commission as the lone killer of President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald had his own ties to Carlos Marcello.Jack Ruby stalked Oswald after his arrest finally killing him with a pistol shot to the guts two days after Kennedy’s murder, as the alleged presidential assassin was being transferred from one Dallas jail to another.

Shortly after entering the White House in 1969, Richard Nixon moved to solidify his close favor-trading friendship with Carlos Marcello known in the underworld as “the Big Daddy in the Big Easy.” Their main go-between was old Nixon loyalist and Mob lawyer Murray Chotiner. The pinky ring-wearing Chotiner and his brother were responsible for defending 221 organized crime figures in California.

Chotiner had a White House office and an official government job from which to trade on his powerful behind-the-scenes influence. He had served Nixon since the Navy vet’s very first campaign for Congress in 1946. In fact, Chotiner had introduced Nixon to L.A.’s top hoodlum, Mickey Cohen and pressured Cohen to contribute to the Nixon campaign. Chotiner was associated with scores of other leading gangsters, including Meyer Lansky and Ben “Bugsy” Seigel.

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