Smurra couldn’t understand why he was indicted at all and put in a motion demanding the government turn over the evidence given to the grand jury to indict him, but the motion was denied by U.S. District Judge Emmett C. Choate in May of 1963.
George Smurra – aka “George Blair” or “Blah Blah” – was born on January 1, 1910, in New York City to Ambrose and Angelina Smurra. His father immigrated to the U.S. From Italy in 1901. He had three sisters named Marion, Julia, and Helen. He also had two brothers named Henry and William.
Smurra and his family lived on 65th Street in Brooklyn until 1925 when George was 15 and the family relocated to Brooklyn. Later, he moved to 200 W. 11th Street in Manhattan.
In 1936, he married Helen Palamarro. They lived 1627 78th St., in Brooklyn until moving to 1404 Plunkett St., in Hollywood, Fla. In 1967, they relocated to 1706 Dewey Street in Hollywood, Fla.. The couple had one son together named Ambrose.
Smurra stood 5-feet 7.5-inches tall and weighed 196 pounds with brown eyes and black hair. He was described as having a stocky build.
FBI #183755, NYPD #B-70645
During the 1963 Senate hearings on organized crime, Joseph Valachi identified Smurra as a soldier in the Genovese Family. Authorities described Smurra as a “strong-arm man” and “killer.”
He was a known associate of many big names in the mob world including John Oddo, Anthony Bonasera, Carmine Lombardozzi, Gus Frasca, and Pete DeFeo. But his biggest associations were with Vito Genovese and Mike Miranda whom authorities claimed he helped in controlling illegal gambling and narcotics trafficking in Brooklyn.
Smurra had a lengthy arrest record that included 28 arrests dating back to 1928. However, he had no felony convictions and only served one jail term. Some of his arrests included:
-November 11, 1928 – burglary (8 months city jail)
-November 25, 1928 – felony assault
-September 17, 1929 – assault and robbery -gun (discharged)
-November 8, 1929 – assault and robbery – gun (discharged)
-January 18, 1930 – aggravated assault
-January 23, 1930 – aggravated assault
-April 15, 1930 – aggravated assault
-May 26, 1930 – grand larceny (acquitted)
-April 2, 1931 – attempted burglary
-May 1, 1931 – assault and robbery (gun)
-October 15, 1931 – assault and robbery (gun)
-November 27, 1931 – burglary
-December 11, 1931 – petty larceny (discharged)
Smurra was known to frequent Club 1717, Elegante Night Club, Pompeii Restaurant, Surburban Nightclub, and Endicott Bar & Grill, all in Brooklyn. He also was believed to have held a hidden interest in the Balinese Supper Club on Washington Avenue in Brooklyn.
Law enforcement claimed that Smurra was also a frequent guest at Joe Sonken’s Gold Coast Restaurant in Hollywood, Florida which was known as the “the mob meeting place.” Mobsters Buster Aloi, Sam DeCavalcante, and Pasquale Machiarole were all known to frequent the restaurant as well.
In May 1930 when he was 21, Smurra was arrested for burglarizing a cigar and stationery store in Brooklyn. Soon after the robbery, the store manager Hyman Hemmelman fingered Smurra as one of three men who together had stolen $30 from the cash register, $65 worth of cigarettes, and a vending machine. Smurra was the only one who had been arrested.
However, when the trial came around in July of that year, Hemmelman wasn’t so sure Smurra was his man.
After the prosecutor asked him to positively identify Smurra, Hemmelman could only say that Smurra “looked somewhat like the man” who robbed him but couldn’t be positive. Smurra was immediately acquitted and Hemmelman was thrown in jail on a perjury charge and fined $5000.
In March 1934, Smurra was charged with felonious assault in a Coney Island court for allegedly stabbing Jerry Mazza, a 21-year-old prizefighter during a quarrel in a poolroom. The case never went to trial.
On August 7, 1944, an arrest warrant was issued for Smurra for his part in the murder of Ferdinand (The Shadow) Boccia. Warrants were also issued for Vito Genovese, Michael Miranda, Peter DeFeo, and Gus Frasca.
When the warrants were issued, Brooklyn Acting District Attorney, Thomas C. Hughes called the men “rats of the city.” Newspapers immediately hooked into the story. The NY Daily News described the men as “gangster overlords of Lower Manhattan” and said the men had murdered “one of their kind.” Even more interesting was that the Brooklyn Daily Eagle described Genovese as a “small-time gangster.”
Boccia had been killed in September 1934 while at his uncle’s Circolo Cristofolo Club and Cafe at 533 Metropolitan Avenue in Brooklyn. Apparently, Boccia had been part of a gambling scheme to bilk an Italian immigrant out of more than $100,000 during a scam card game. Boccia had demanded his share of the money and was promptly murdered.
It had remained unsolved for 10 years until Ernest (The Hawk) Rupolo decided to turn informant. He had just served 9 years in prison for a shooting when he was rearrested for another shooting shortly after being released. He was facing 40 – 80 years this time around.
At the time the warrants were issued, Genovese was stationed in Italy as a civilian interpreter with the Army. The Army didn’t turn him over to the Brooklyn DA until June 1945 – nearly 10 months after the warrant had been issued. No explanation for the delay was given.
Smurra, Miranda, Frasca, and DeFeo had gone on the lam.
Genovese went to trial on June 7, 1946, but was acquitted after Peter LaTempa, who was a witness to the Boccia shooting, died “under mysterious circumstances”.
On September 16, 1946, Miranda walked into attorney Hyman Barsay’s office and announced, “I’m Mike Miranda. I want to give myself up.” He didn’t tell anyone where he had been hiding and pled not guilty. He was freed on February 13, 1947, for lack of evidence.
Smurra ended up turning himself in on April 9, 1947, and Frasca surrendered on April 16, 1947. Both men’s charges were dismissed.
Things had been relatively quiet for Smurra until March 20, 1963 – around the time of the Valachi hearings – when he was charged by a federal grand jury in Broward-Dade County, Florida for being part of an alleged $500,000 mail-order scheme.
Smurra was charged along with John (Big John) Manarite, Jack Pickman, and Harry Tounjian. Smurra himself was charged with 6 counts of interstate transportation of fraudulent checks, 16 counts of mail fraud, and 1 count of inducing Tounjiam to use a fictitious name to further the scheme.
Authorities alleged that Smurra and the others had established three companies in Florida to defraud more than 100 businesses throughout the U.S.
Smurra was alleged to have been the president of Wide World Mail Order Co., 1825 NE 164th St in North Miami Beach and was accused of holding positions in Biscayne Appliance Co., 12737 Biscayne Blvd in North Miami, and The Novelty Shop, 221A Dixie Hwy in Hallandale., which prosecutors claimed was the headquarters of the operation.
Prosecutors charged that the men would purchase goods with bad checks, sell the purchased goods, then keep the money. It was alleged that more than $250,000 in merchandise was fraudulently purchased by Smurra and his cohorts.
The six-month probe was touched off in July 1962 in Fort Lauderdale when a business owner went to authorities after Smurra’s companies bought $1179 worth of expensive dresses and accessories and didn’t pay for them.
But the funny thing was that Smurra wasn’t even the alleged leader of this ring. That role apparently fell to another man by the name of Joseph Moscardino who operated The Novelty Shop and also owned a bar called the Riveria Bar, both in Hollandale.
Moscardino had been subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury before the indictment came down and reportedly pled the Fifth Amendment. He was also set to face trial for burglary charges – not related to the fraud scheme – alongside Big John Manarite.
But Moscardino didn’t have to worry about any of it because he was killed on March 5 1963 while sitting in his car outside his North Miami Beach apartment.
Being that he was the most likely suspect, Big John Manarite was arrested and charged with the murder but was released after authorities couldn’t find any witnesses or a murder weapon.
When the fraud indictments came down, Big John couldn’t be found. He told authorities he was “out west” and didn’t even know he was wanted “until some friends told me I was in trouble.” He surrendered in Miami on May 2, 1963.
Pickman was from Detroit and had been previously convicted for issuing thousands of dollars of worthless checks. Tounjian had been using the name David Berman while representing himself as president of Biscayne Appliance to defraud other businesses when in actuality he was a parking attendant at various North Miami Beach restaurants.
Smurra couldn’t understand why he was indicted at all and put in a motion demanding the government turn over the evidence given to the grand jury to indict him, but the motion was denied by U.S. District Judge Emmett C. Choate in May of 1963.
But in June of that year, Judge Choate ordered the government to give Smurra’s lawyers information on what position Smurra allegedly held with the three companies. Smurra was also given permission to leave Florida and spend the summer in New York while awaiting his September trial
It was a small victory for Smurra, but he wasn’t out of the government’s crosshairs yet.
In August 1963, while enjoying his summer in New York, Smurra was arrested for the murder of Alfred (Freddie the Sicilian) Sanantonio, who was shot to death at his florist shop in the Bath Beach section of Brooklyn on July 11, 1962.
Arrested along with Smurra was Peter Ferrara, who authorities believed was a “suspected racketeer”, numbers operator, and “close associate” of Vito Genovese. Ferrara had several convictions for felonious assault, robbery, and gambling.
Authorities believed the murder was ordered by Vito Genovese because it was suspected Sanantonio was providing information to authorities about Genovese’s narcotics operations. At the time, Genovese was serving a sentence in Atlanta federal penitentiary for a narcotics conviction.
When Smurra and Ferrara were arrested at Ferrara’s business office, police said they found $9,425 on Ferrara and a paper listing 9000 policy plays. Smurra insisted he was only there to cash a check. Both men pled not guilty and were released on bail. Shortly thereafter, the only thing police could charge them with was “associating with known hoodlums.”
Back in Florida, right before trial was set to begin, Harry Tounjian didn’t show up for a pre-trial court appearance. Judge Choate issued a bench warrant and when Tounjian learned of it, he explained that he had no money to travel back to Miami from Los Angeles, where he had gone after being released on bail.
It’s unclear if the trial was delayed because of this, but it had been pushed back to January 1964. However, on January 2, right before trial was set to begin, Big John Manarite and Jack Pickman made “surprise” guilty pleas to fraud. On January 9, Smurra and Tounjian waived a jury trial.
These strange turns of events were enough to cause Judge Choate to order a pretrial investigation. As it turned out, the only thing that came out of this “pretrial investigation” was that Smurra wasn’t guilty of anything.
On January 13, after a “reevaluation of evidence” prosecutors asked Judge Choate to dismiss the charges against Smurra because they had no solid evidence to tie Smurra to the fraud scheme.
A week later, Tounjian was sentenced to one year, Big John was sentenced to 30 months, and Pickman, who got the largest sentence because he had been previously convicted of check fraud, was sentenced to 20 years.
One final note, it was later learned that the $1100 worth of dresses that started off the entire fraud investigation was overstated by the prosecution – the dresses were only worth $400.
In 1967, Smurra was subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury in Florida to give testimony on organized crime in Broward County.
Three years later, the Miami Herald featured Smurra in a photo spread about “The South Florida Mob” which included profiles on Joseph “Joe Scootch” Indelicato, Anthony Accardo, and many others.
Smurra died on January 14, 1981, in Brooklyn.
