1950s Meat Hijacking

The 1950s were a time of great heists in the Milwaukee Mafia. Most notably there was the burglary at the Reno home of Lavere Redfield. Lesser known was the fraudulent bankruptcy surrounding Scanlon’s Music in downtown Milwaukee. And then, one of the least successful… the hijacking of “hot meat.”

One Mafia-backed Milwaukee gang consisted of Pasquale “Pat” Rosetti, August Pintaro, Anthony Scaffidi, Lawrence Quartana and George Leone (which I covered in the “Scaffidi Family” podcast episode). This group was loosely connected to the Mandella-Fazio gang who ended up in prison for a Kenosha murder.

Anthony LaRosa and Joseph Guarniere

Joseph Guarniere was arrested for larceny and assault and battery in May 1942. He was fined $50 and put on one year’s probation. With him at the time of the crime were George Leone, Amadel Valenti and Nicholas Conigliaro. Police called in Guarniere and LaRosa on January 10, 1944 as suspects in the robbery where Anthony Scaffidi was killed (see the podcast), but they were released without charge the same day.

In October 1945, Guarniere was arrested with Cono “the Weasel” Librizzi, John “Boss Man” Mandella, and Mike Farina. Officers approached them while they were in their automobile and the following items were visible: a revolver, a sledgehammer, a silk stocking mask and two pairs of canvas gloves. The next day in court, the district attorney said, “The police and I are certain that Librizzi is a member of a gang which has been terrorizing Milwaukee for more than a year, and that the gang is responsible for most of the safe cracking jobs in Milwaukee in that time.” Charges against Guarniere were dismissed.

Guarniere was arrested for abandoning his wife Geneva Jean Pruett in October 1950, and then for assault and battery in February 1951. At some unknown time, he also threatened to kill his wife, who had fled to Little Anistor, Alabama with their child. Exactly when Geneva left is unclear, but she gave birth to Joseph’s daughter in 1952. A Guarniere family member told the author that he “was extremely abusive, and almost killed his wife twice. He would lock his children in an outer porch that had a glass window in it, and they watched him beat her.” Apparently, Guarniere “was a great guy when he was sober, but he was an alcoholic, would black out on his feet and that is where he earned the nickname Viper, because he had a Jekyll and Hyde personality. He was extremely vicious when drunk. I have a tendency to believe he would have been violent regardless, it’s just that the alcohol gave him the excuse to unleash his fury on whoever was around.”

Meat Hijacking

Which brings us to our heist. On July 28, 1952, Guarniere and LaRosa stole a transport truck from the Vincent Catalano Fruit Company in Milwaukee. These men were not yet big names in Milwaukee crime despite their growing rap sheets, but this theft would bring them national headlines. 

Salvatore “Ted” Catalano’s semi, which was clearly marked as a Catalano truck, had a refrigerated trailer and Catalano originally told the police that the truck was in the parking lot at T & H Central Dispatch on Layton Avenue at the time it was stolen. The keys were allegedly in the ignition. A dispatcher had noticed the truck missing but figured that Catalano had parked in front of his house as he sometimes did. In fact, this assumption was right. In a follow-up interview, Catalano admitted that LaRosa and Guarniere had shown up at his home and threatened him. They promised to have the truck back in two days, and when they failed to do so, Catalano called the sheriff and made his less-than-accurate report. On the evening of the 28th, the truck was filled with 105 gallons of gasoline at Patsy and Paul’s Service Station, where LaRosa’s Chevrolet was filled up, too.

Meanwhile, Detroit hoodlum Sebastian (Sam) “Banjo Eyes” Vermiglio and St. Louis Mafia member Anthony “Tony the Pip” Lopiparo had stolen a Scott Trucking Company trailer full of 23,000-25,000 pounds of meat from the National Tea Company in Chicago. Lopiparo was already well-known to the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, the Internal Revenue Service and local police. He was a part-owner of the Anthony Novelty Company (a jukebox and pinball machine business) with St. Louis mobsters John Vitale and Anthony Giordano. Vitale, in turn, was suspected in the murder of two union officials that year (1952), and would later be known as an early employer of boxer Sonny Liston – at that time still an armed robber known as the “Yellow Shirt Bandit.” 

Nationally, Lopiparo was known for testifying in front of the Kefauver Committee in 1950, and was said to be close to St. Louis’ Joe Costello, a mobster who had been mixed up in the notorious Bobby Greenlease kidnapping. (For more on the Greenlease case – which has nothing whatsoever to do with the Milwaukee Mafia – I recommend John Heidenry’s book Zero at the Bone: The Playboy, the Prostitute, and the Murder of Bobby Greenlease.)

The meat trailer was found empty by the Racine County Sheriff’s Department the next day. Apparently, the two pairs of hoodlums met up in Racine and moved the “hot meat” from one truck to another. The four men then brought the meat to St. Louis, where Lopiparo’s Mafia friends would sell it to various restaurants and bars. After receiving an anonymous tip, federal agents swooped in and found LaRosa driving the meat-loaded truck, Guarniere as his occupant and Vermiglio following behind in a car. Lopiparo had driven ahead to meet up with the others at their destination. 

Milwaukee police investigating the hijacking received a tip that an attempt was made to sell the meat through Jack Enea’s tavern on St. Paul Avenue; Enea denied this. Enea, a known mobster, will come up in future stories as a close associate of Frank LaGalbo and soon a murder victim.

Harold Klein

After July 1952, Jack Sorce of the J&S Fruit Company (and another relative of LaRosa) told the FBI that Guarniere and LaRosa had come to him for a loan after they had been arrested. He turned them down, but overheard them say that the loan should come from Harold Klein, because he would have made his money if they hadn’t been arrested. Sorce speculated that Klein was behind 90% of the major crimes in Milwaukee (obviously an exaggeration). 

A reliable source said junk dealer Harold Klein, a notorious fence, lost $4,000 in the meat deal. Klein, who would later make the Milwaukee FBI office’s Top Hoodlum list, had previously owned the Bull Ring tavern with August Chiaverotti – yet another underworld character that will come up again. Later that year, an informant told the FBI that Klein had financed the heist. Klein was interviewed by two FBI agents and denied having any part of the hijacking.

Joseph Guarniere and Thomas Piscitello

While out on bail, Joseph Guarniere and Thomas “Tommy Fish” Piscitello were arrested September 1, for disorderly conduct and carrying concealed weapons. Though their relationship is unclear, Guarniere’s mother was a Piscitello, likely making the two cousins.

Sentencing and Release

The new charges against Guarniere were dismissed when he and LaRosa were sentenced to five years in Terre Haute for their multi-state heist. They were released on March 25, 1954 — serving less than two years. Amazingly, at trial, Guarniere and LaRosa told Judge Roy Harper that they were paid $50 each to transport the truck and “didn’t know it had been stolen.” Harper was not so naïve. 

After being released from federal custody, LaRosa and Guarniere allegedly went to top mobsters August Maniaci and Frank LaGalbo to ask for more money, saying they deserved it for not ratting out any others involved. Maniaci told them to take it up with Klein, again suggesting the fence was the mastermind of this crime.

Where Did Everyone End Up?

LaRosa and Guarniere were scheduled to testify before a Federal Grand Jury in April 1954 regarding their meat heist but both refused. Guarniere, undeterred, returned to his habitual life of crime, finding himself arrested for contributing to the delinquency of a minor (March 1955), running a confidence game (July 1955) and forceable rape (also July 1955). Despite all this, there is no evidence he served any significant jail time. 

Guarniere and Vermiglio were later suspects in the 1960 murder of night club owner Izzy Pogrob, whose body was found dumped in a rural ditch, but neither was ever charged. 

Guarniere was killed in an apparent car crash in 1964 after it was made public that he had allegedly become an informant. Vermiglio was caught up in an international narcotics smuggling ring, and was twice deported from the United States. We will elaborate on these two men more in future stories. Lopiparo went to prison for tax evasion in 1958, and died in 1960. Tony LaRosa never made major headlines again. It is unclear if this Tony LaRosa is the same one who was involved in the mob-linked Prize Steak Products company, though it would not be a surprise.