Innocenzio (Johnny the Bug) Stopelli

Innocenzio (Johnny the Bug) Stopelli was a diehard and dangerous mobster in the Genovese Family of Cosa Nostra. He was in the personal crew of mob boss Vito Genovese and operated as a voracious drug trafficker, was involved in the suicide of a showgirl, and President Harry Truman even knew his name.

Innocenzio (Johnny the Bug) Stopelli - aka John Stoppelli - was born on April 10, 1907, at 143 Thompson Street in Greenwich Village. He lived at 153 Madison Street in the “4th Ward” section, near the docks for years.

John Stopelli

There was a period during the 1940s when he had relocated up to the Bronx, residing at 926 East 216th Street, but primarily he was a Downtown Manhattan guy all his life. Although, at one point by his mid-60s, he moved a bit further uptown to the more prestigious address of 200 East 36th Street by the late 1970s, and 35 East 38th Street by 1983, where he lived the rest of his life.

Stopelli's home in Greenwich Village.

Side Note: Stopelli lived only a few doors down from his lifelong associate and capo Antonio Strollo, who grew up at 177 Thompson Street.

Stopelli stood at 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighed a trim 160 pounds. He had black-grey thinning hair, combed straight back, dark brown eyes, and a dark olive complexion.

He was married to the former Marilyn (nee’ Groger), but he and his wife never had any children.

FBI # 67649, NYCPD # B-67307, FBN # NYS4111

A Notorious Genovese Member

John Stopelli was a notorious member of the downtown regime of Vito Genovese, under the auspices of caporegime, and later underboss, Anthony (Tony Bender) Strollo. He was first officially documented as an (inducted) soldier when informant Joe Valachi identified him during the famed Valachi hearings in 1963. He was also subsequently named in both the 1983 and 1988 U.S. Senate Hearings on organized crime.

Johnny the Bug headed his own drug crew that distributed kilo lots of heroin the Genovese Family smuggled in from Europe, operating for decades. He was considered to be one of the most active wholesale traffickers in the United States by the FBN (Federal Bureau of Narcotics), who had pegged him as a top drug trafficker by the 1930s.

Beyond handling narcotics, per se, Stopelli was also considered to be one of the overall bosses of their regime. A highly trusted inner-circle member in league with Strollo.

He was said to have been the “sponsor” of Vincent Mauro for membership into the borgata, with Mauro said to have been groomed under Stopelli.

Vincent Mauro

“Johnny the Bug’s” operating territory, stomping grounds, and hangouts were always in the Greenwich Village section of the Lower Westside along Prince, Sullivan, Bleecker, and Third Streets. His favorite haunts included Milady’s Tavern at 167 Bleecker Street and Tony Pastor’s Club at 130 West 3rd Street.

He was alleged to be a hidden partner with Tommy Annichiario in the ownership Tommy’s Bar located at 171 Bleecker Street, which Stopelli used as a base for various racket operations.

Stopelli’s long criminal record of at least 19 arrests started in 1924, being picked up for:

1924 - Harrison drug act (fine)

1924 - possession of a gun

1925 - drugs (1 year and a day in Atlanta FCI)

1926 - vagrancy

1926 - robbery

1927 - possessing a gun (2.5-5 years in Sing Sing)

1930 - assault and robbery

1935 - safe burglary

1936 - vagrancy

1940 - narcotics law violations

1940 - bribing a government officer (6 months in FCI Danbury)

1941 - vagrancy

1942 - Harrison Act (narcotics)

1943 - held for questioning

1944 - sale of heroin, conspiracy

1945 - federal mail theft

1945 - homicide

1946 - sale of opium (3 years in Milan, Michigan)

1948 - federal narcotics laws (6 years in San Francisco, CA)

He served at least five jail terms in both state and federal prisons.

He numbered among his associates:

Vito Genovese - Family boss who counted Stopelli and his Greenwich Village regime as his personal crew, allowing them to handle various narcotics shipments and other sensitive assignments.

Anthony (Tony Bender) Strollo - A top caporegime under Genovese who later rose to “acting boss” before disappearing. Stopelli’s primary capo for years.

Thomas (Tommy Ryan) Eboli - A soldier in his crew who later rose up to an acting boss position.

Pasquale (Patsy Ryan) Eboli - Tommy’s brother who Stopelli may have later served under after Strollo’s disappearance and presumed murder.

Alfred (Butch) Faicco - A fellow Greenwich Village regime member and neighborhood friend.

Joseph Marone - A partner in narcotics with Stopelli and others.

Vincent (Vinny Bruno) Mauro - A younger associate who Stopelli was said to have brought around and later groomed. Mauro was said to have been a vicious killer.

Ottilio (Frank the Bug) Caruso - A soldier in the 4th Ward regime who also dealt in heroin. Arrested in 1945 with Stopelli for narcotics, he was also later arrested in Europe for narcotics smuggling.

Joseph (Joe Beck) Lapi - Another soldier of the 4th Ward who would later rise to head that faction. Convicted trafficker and waterfront racketeer.

Charles (Charlie Bullets) Albero - A notorious narcotics dealer who headed an extensive heroin ring based in East Harlem.

Joseph (Joe Cago) Valachi - East Harlem-based soldier and fellow regime member, who was later arrested with Stopelli for narcotics.

Dominick (Iggy) D’Ercole - A top narcotics dealer who headed a huge NYC to Washington, D.C. drug operation in 1945, charged in the same case.

Philip (Philly Katz) Albanese - Another key soldier in the downtown regime convicted of narcotics. Helped run waterfront rackets.

Enrico (Blackie) Tantillo - Harlem-based narcotics trafficker and close regime associate. They were arrested in the same narcotics case in 1945.

Eugene Uricola - Another Mulberry Street alumni and co-defendant of Stopelli in a huge 1945 narcotics indictment.

Peter (Petey Muggins) Mione - A fellow soldier and Strollo regime member with whom he was indicted in a vast narcotics smuggling ring.

Girolamo (Bobby Doyle) Santuccio - A notorious gunman, soldier, and crew member from Greenwich Village who later relocated up to CT

And there were many others in the downtown regimes that Stopelli associated with.

As a teenager, he was arrested by Queens police after he stole a flock of homing pigeons from a pigeon coop in the Long Island City section.

In 1926, he was arrested for having formed a “stickup and robbery crew”. When questioned by detectives, he admitted being its teen leader, and “living off the proceeds of the holdups”.

In March 1926, the then nineteen-year-old Stopelli was arrested for the murder of another young local hoodlum named Louis Bernardo months earlier in October of 1925 inside a pool hall at 108 Thompson Street in the heavily Italian-populated Greenwich Village area.

This neighborhood would turn out to be his lifelong mob stomping grounds. His partner in the arrest, Peter Cinnamo, would later plead guilty to the killing and was sent away for life. Stopelli was charged with burglary.

The Showgirl

In 1938, he was questioned for several hours about the death of a beautiful showgirl named Thelma Giroux. Giroux had only a few years earlier made her way to New York City from her hometown of Butte Montana seeking stardom. She and Stopelli had been dating for about two years, but they had broken up and she went to Chicago to work at the 606 Club.

Giroux had just recently returned to New York City where she and Stopelli reacquainted themselves with each other.

Thelma Giroux

On the evening of April 18, 1938, Thelma plunged to her death after either jumping out of or being thrown out of a fifth-story window of a Times Square honky-tonk residence named the Lincoln Hotel at 44th Street off 8th Avenue. This happened soon after the couple had returned to the hotel after a big night out on the town.

Stopelli told homicide detectives two different stories. One was that he had left the room and then returned to find Thelma gone and the window wide open. His other story was that he was just coming out of the bathroom when he saw her standing naked on the ledge.

Giroux on the street after "jumping" to her death.

"I was coming out of the bathroom when she did it," he told the cops. "She just waved her hand, yelled, 'I'm sick and tired of it all. Goodbye. So long. it's all over." and then…then…she went out the window."

Stopelli was never charged with her death since the police couldn't prove that he had anything to do with it. Cops learned she owed a large hotel bill and was looking for a job but that she also had a deed to a cemetery plot in her effects. Her death was ruled a suicide.

Narcotics and Murder

In March of 1945, Stopelli was one of 137 members in a huge narcotics ring operating in New York and Washington, D.C. They handled marijuana, morphine, opium as well as heroin. Frank Caruso, Dominick D’Ercole, Joseph Dentico, and Harry Tantillo were among his codefendents. Authorities alleged they moved $4,000,000 in drugs over four years.

In November 1945, he was arrested with Vinny Mauro for the murder of an ex-convict named Rocco LoScalzo. LoScalzo, who was out on bail after being charged with robbing a warehouse of $20,000 in liquor was shot to death as he was walking down Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village.

Coincidentally, LoScalzo was last seen alive at DeMartino's Bar, the same bar Stoppelli had a hidden ownership in with Tommy Annichiarico, who was also called in as a material witness. Police had found Mauro 13 hours after the shooting wearing blood-stained clothing, but he denied he had anything to do with the shooting.

Rocco LoScalzo lies dead in the street.

A nine-state alarm was issued for Stoppelli's arrest in order to question him about the murder. Police believed LoScalzo was killed because he was going to squeal about the robbery. Eventually, the charges against Mauro and Stopelli were dismissed for lack of evidence.

In October 1948, Stopelli was one of five mob guys arrested for a California to New York City heroin smuggling network. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics accused the Genovese Family-led conspirators of having brought the narcotics in from Mexico for ultimate distribution around San Francisco, California, and on the East Coast, specifically the New York Tristate area.

Stoppelli was arrested in New York after his fingerprints were allegedly found on a package of heroin sold to undercover agents in an Oakland California hotel room.

Stopelli was convicted in 1949 in a San Francisco court and sentenced to a 6-year federal prison term.

In late 1950, shortly before he was set to begin serving that 6-year term in the San Francisco drug case, Stopelli almost bought the farm himself when he was accosted by a hoodlum named Sam Urchoili in the wee hours of the morning inside The Milady Tavern.

The story goes that Urchoili, well-known in the neighborhood as a nasty and violent hood, just swaggered into this notorious mob hangout and started threatening everybody in the bar. He was well acquainted with Stopelli, and The Bug was alleged to have told him to “get lost,” chasing him out.

A half a dozen buddies of Stopelli caught up to him a few doors down Prince Street, and beat him with steel garbage pails, cracking and badly fracturing his skull. Both men were in "grave" condition when they arrived at St. Vincent's hospital. But they both survived.

Justice Served

Stopelli had been fighting his 1949 conviction in San Francisco, proclaiming his innocence from the moment he was arrested. He claimed the sole fingerprint on that package of heroin was not his and that he had been “set up” by narcotics agents.

In 1950, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Stopelli's conviction. In 1951, his lawyer submitted a motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence that proved Stopelli was innocent.

The government fought it tooth and nail telling the court the new evidence wasn't new at all but "just conflicting." Stopelli's motion was denied.

As it turns out the testimony by their “star witness,” a fingerprint “expert” who swore on a bible that the fingerprints were a perfect match with Stopelli – and which was the sole evidence that won his conviction – was all a lie. The FBI itself had determined that the fingerprint found on that package actually belonged to someone else.

In 1952, after serving almost three years in jail, President Harry Truman interceded and commuted Stopelli’s sentence, without ever implicating or accusing the FBN and FBI agents with wrongdoing, of course.President Truman had been made aware of the case by several influential defense lawyers and friendly, sympathetic politicians.

Johnny the Bug got very lucky, despite having already served almost half his sentence.

Side Note: During the debriefing of a New Jersey-based mob informant Harold (Kayo) Konigsberg in 1965, FBI agents recorded transcripts where Konigsberg stated that a vote and subsequent plan for the 1958 murder of John Scanlon by top Genovese hierarchy members including Tommy Ryan, Chin Gigante, and Tony the Sheik, took place at Stopelli’s King Street apartment in Greenwich Village.

The End of the Road

With the killing of Anthony Strollo in 1962 and the death of Vito Genovese seven years later in 1969, Stopelli slowly faded into the mob’s version of retirement.He was already in his mid-60s and retired from heavy racket activities of earlier years. But he was still somewhat active, albeit in a much more admittedly mundane and docile racket.

In 1977, he was among a large group of Genovese-oriented gamblers picked up for operating a combination multimillion-dollar numbers and sports-bookmaking ring in the New York/New Jersey areas. It was allegedly headed by Genovese captain Vincent (Jimmy Nap) Napol i.

Stopelli was charged with promoting gambling and gambling conspiracy, with authorities alleging that Stopelli and Napoli had been partners in the betting operation. Although it was a major gambling bust at the time, it's unclear whether Johnny the Bug was convicted, or served any jail time, if he was. Napoli was sentenced to a 5-year jail term on his conviction after trial.

This charge was Stopelli’s swan song. He was already pushing 70-years-old. No more was publicly heard from him until his death on January 10, 1993. Innocenzio Stopelli, or “Johnny the Bug” as he was commonly called, was one of the early Italian underworld’s top “workers”.

A diehard, dangerous mafioso, who although little known to the general public, was a pivotal and important figure in New York City gangland. He was 86 years old!

Until next time..."The Other Guy"

Johnny the Bug on Mob Fireside Chat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwJDuUm_g1A

Innocenzio (Johnny the Bug) Stopelli

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