Donato (Dempsey) Laietta (Newly Expanded)

Donato (Dempsey) Laietta was a mysterious and obscure member of the old Lucchese Family directly affiliated with Joseph (Joe Brown) Lucchese , a Family caporegime and brother of Family boss Tommy Lucchese . Back in the mid-1940s, Laietta got busted for running what was described as the largest floating crap game ever uncovered in Nassau County.

Donato (Dempsey) Laietta -- aka Donato Laieta, Daniel Laieta, and Daniel Latta -- was born in Upper Manhattan on August 10, 1908. He was the youngest of four children born to Antonio and Amelia (nee’ Cartolano) Laietta. His siblings, two sisters and a brother, were named Maria, Brigida, and Giuseppe, respectively.

For many years, the Laietta family lived in Manhattan’s 12th Ward — a section of the city known as “Italian East Harlem,” which was a huge Little Italy-styled neighborhood teeming with newly arrived southern Italian immigrants. It was a densely populated neighborhood of walkup tenement buildings and small stores catering to its Italian community.

The East Harlem section ran from approximately East 100th to East 120th Streets, along 1st Avenue and west through 2nd and 3rd Avenues. It runs from Pleasant Avenue, along the East River, west to 3rd Avenue or so before heading into what is considered to be Central and West Harlem.

“Little Italy” along First Avenue in East Harlem.

The Laietta children each attended the New York City Public School System. Donato reportedly went as far as completing the 7th grade.

Donato, who was more commonly called Dempsey around the neighborhood, and his siblings were raised in a small apartment in a walkup tenement house that their parents rented for their family on East 108th Street. This is where Donato was born and raised, and the neighborhood he would first come in contact with and forge early friendships that would become pivotal to him as a young adult.

By the late 1930s, Laietta started dating a neighborhood girl by the name of Raffaela Raimondi, who everyone called Rae. After a short courtship, Donato and Raffaela decided to tie the knot. They took their wedding vows in a Catholic Church in East Harlem on September 20, 1931. (other data suggests the year was 1940).

The newlyweds initially remained in the immediate neighborhood, renting a small apartment at 305 East 118th Street. Then, on June 20, 1944, Rae gave birth to a son they named Daniel A. Laietta Jr. after his father’s adopted American name. The birth of their son spurred Donato and Rae to relocate to larger living quarters.

Subsequently, they decided to move up to the Bronx, where they rented a more spacious second-floor apartment at 1957 Colden Avenue. By 1950, they moved once again. As Dempseys’ racket profits grew, the Laiettas were able to finally purchase a two-story brick home of their own, complete with a private yard on a quiet Bronx block at 2133 Watson Avenue.

As a cover for his criminal activities, over the years, Laietta listed various legitimate occupations on his income-tax returns. For instance, in 1940, he stated he was the owner-operator of an oil-supply business. By the early 1950s, he switched up and was now listing his legal occupation as an outside salesman for a local wholesale food distribution company.

During World War II — like any other patriotic American citizen — Laietta signed up for the draft. On October 16, 1940, Dempsey went down to the local draft board office and registered with the U.S. Army.

A Mystery Mafioso

NYCPD # E-14013

By the time he reached his early thirties, Donato Laietta was being described on official government documents as a short, stocky man at approximately 5’-5” tall and weighing 210 pounds. He had jet-black hair, dark brown eyes, a fleshy face, and a ruddy Mediterranean complexion.

By at least the 1940s, New York City Detectives say Laietta was starting to travel over the bridge into Queens County more and more to a neighborhood where many other Lucchese Family members and associates both lived and operated, a heavily Italian-populated area known as Corona. Before long, Dempsey became active there as well.

Laietta’s criminal forte seems to have been in illegal gambling, shylocking, and the handling of stolen goods. Although most active in Corona, he was also known to operate in neighboring towns like Rego Park, Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, Flushing, and on Long Island. This was in addition to existing activities he reportedly maintained in Harlem and the Bronx.

Queens law enforcement authorities say he sometimes operated out of a nondescript Corona social club on 104th Street and a neighborhood gin mill located under the elevated train along Roosevelt Avenue called The Old Timer’s Bar. Both locations were known meeting places for local gamblers and hoodlums.

In 1963, a United States Senate Committee was holding hearings to investigate organized crime. The hearings were televised to the public daily and featured a variety of witnesses, from federal and local law enforcement authorities to some of the country’s most notorious mobsters. Former Genovese Family soldier turned informer, Joseph (Joe Cago) Valachi, was one such witness.

During his extensive testimony, Valachi identified several hundred Mafia members for the panel of senators, with Laietta being one of those so named. Valachi described Laietta as a formally inducted soldier serving in the East Harlem-based Family of boss Gaetano (Three-Finger Brown) Lucchese. Valachi said he personally knew Laietta as a longtime Mafia member primarily active in gambling.

Gaetano Lucchese

Laietta’s name was also included on a Lucchese Family hierarchy chart presented to the senators that special agents of the FBI had compiled. For their part, the New York City Police Department listed Donato Laietta as a “KG” or known gambler who had several gambling-related arrests.

Over the years, Laietta has also been named numerous times in federal and local police files and in various news articles published by such major New York City daily tabloids as the Daily News , The Pos t, and Newsday . Laietta was publicly identified as a known criminal associate of Joseph (Joe Brown) Lucchese, a Family caporegime and brother of Mafia Boss Gaetano Lucchese.

Joseph Lucchese

Other close associates included Family Caporegimes Joseph (Joe Narrow) Laratro , Carmine (Mr. Gribbs) Tramunti, and Joseph (Joe Palisades) Rosato. Fellow Lucchese soldiers he was known to interact with regularly included such hoodlums as Nunzio (Frank) Arra , Frank (Frankie Bell) Campanello , Aniello (Neil) Migliore, Eugene (Little Gene) Giannone , Antonio (Tony Grio) Vadala , and other Queens-based faction members.

Joseph Rosato

Joseph Laratro

Yet, despite this public exposure from time to time, during his underworld career, and for decades since his death, to this very day, “Dempsey” Laietta has remained a mysterious and unknown mafioso.

Biggest Crap Game

In the early morning hours of March 26, 1945, Laietta and six other men were arrested on charges of operating a major floating crap game on Long Island.

After receiving tips from several informants, the police started to set up a hidden surveillance post outside an abandoned warehouse in Valley Stream, a town located in western Long Island. During several weeks of surveilling the building, detectives noticed that several nights each week dozens and dozens of men would go in and out of this location, even though there was no known legitimate company operating there or business based there, and for all intents and purposes, the building was abandoned.

After confirming that the activity there was indeed suspicious, law enforcement authorities went to a Nassau County Judge and obtained a search warrant for the premises.

When Nassau Vice Squad detectives finally raided the location late one evening, they discovered a high-stakes dice game in progress with nearly 100 crap shooters and gamblers in attendance, all crowded around a professionally designed felt-covered crap table.

A police spokesman later stated that members of the vice squad had to break down two outside basement doors and a third steel-reinforced inside door with sledgehammers to gain access to a main room where 88 gamblers were crowded four-deep around the craps table, throwing dice and placing bets. Another dozen or so suspects were also arrested during a search of the premises.

Police raiders said they found and confiscated over $3,000 in cash in a secret stash, along with gambling records, numerous sets of dice, and other types of gambling paraphernalia.

All those present during the raid were detained and hauled in for questioning. Authorities said it took five police cars and a paddy wagon making several trips back and forth to haul a total of 94 gamblers into the Nassau County Police Department’s “holding pen.”

After questioning, police released most of those initially detained after it was determined they were only players in the game. But seven suspects were charged with a variety of criminal offenses, including illegally operating and maintaining a crap game, common gambling, conspiracy, and possession of gaming devices.

In addition to Donato (Dempsey) Laietta, among the others arrested were several men from Queens and the Bronx, including Ugo (Hugo) Coradetti and Nathan (Nat) Colletti, who were both identified as gambling subordinates helping to run the game.

Later, the following afternoon, the gamblers were arraigned before a court magistrate in Nassau County Criminal Court in Mineola. Each suspect was released on varying amounts of bail for a future court date.

At the time of the raid, a Nassau County Police Department official stated these arrests had dismantled the largest floating crap game ever discovered operating on Long Island.

No exact final disposition of the case could be found. But it’s not believed that anyone was jailed in this case.

Last Roll of the Dice

By the early 1960s, Donato and Rae left the five boroughs altogether and moved out on Long Island, where they purchased a small home in the quiet little town of Bethpage. A few years later, they relocated farther east into Suffolk County, buying a small bungalow-style home at 114 Newman Street, in the town of Patchogue, on the island’s South Shore. This is where Laietta is thought to have lived for the rest of his days.

114 Newman Street, Patchogue, L.I.

But the wily mafioso’s life was abruptly cut short on August 30, 1968. At the time of his death, Laietta was still believed to be living out in Patchogue.

No cause of death is officially listed, but “Dempsey” was only 60 years old.

P.S.: Although Dempsey only lived to age 60, it appears that the same trait ran throughout his immediate family. Nearly every one of his immediate family members died young, with the number 62 being especially ominous. For instance, Dempsey’s father, Antonio (1873-1936) died at age 62. His mother, Amelia (1974-1936), died in 1936. She was 62. Sister Mary (1893-1955) also died at age 62. Sister Brigida (1901-1963) was also 62. Only their brother Joseph (1905-1979) survived beyond his early sixties, and he only lived to the age of 73.

P.P.S: Whether intentional or by mistake, it appears that law enforcement followed Dempsey way “beyond the grave.” In 1983, Donato (Dempsey) Laietta was still being listed on an FBI flow chart depicting the current Lucchese Family membership, which was presented to a U.S. Senate Committee during public hearings held to investigate organized crime in America. This, despite the fact that Dempsey had died some 15 years earlier, in 1968.

…Gotta love it!

Until next time…”The Other Guy

Donato (Dempsey) Laietta (Newly Expanded)

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Donato (Dempsey) Laietta (Newly Expanded)

Often Imitated. Never Duplicated. Button Guys of The New York Mafia...There's Only One!

Tour the Underworld with Button Guys

Dive Deeper into the Underworld

The Night Lucchese Boss Tommy Pappadio Got Popped!

Lucchese Family Captain: Joseph “Joe Calabrese” Lagano

Bronx-based Lucchese Soldier: Daniel “Danny Cap” Capra

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