O\u2019Brien would then walk down a long corridor with the payroll to another office where it was distributed to the employees.<\/p>\n
On Friday, June 26, there was an unusually large payroll totaling about $18,000 that included two weeks of vacation pay for most of the 175 employees.\u00a0 The money had been delivered earlier that morning by Wells Fargo from the nearby National City Bank.<\/p>\n
At 2:40 p.m., O\u2019Brien completed his work for 103 envelopes that totaled $3,849.56 in pay.\u00a0 Like he did every other time, he packed the envelopes into the box, stepped out of his office and proceeded to walk down the 50 foot corridor.\u00a0 But this time would be different.\u00a0 As he began walking down the hallway, he was confronted by Salvatore Mangiamelli and Thomas Pennino who said, \u201cThis is a stick-up!\u201d<\/p>\n
For a brief moment, O\u2019Brien hesitated.\u00a0 Salvatore stepped forward, put his hand inside his jacket pocket as though he were reaching for a gun and added in an ominous voice, \u201cI mean it.\u201d\u00a0 Salvatore grabbed the box of pay envelopes which O\u2019Brien was carrying and bolted for the nearby stairway.\u00a0 Immediately O\u2019Brien shouted that he had been robbed.\u00a0 Hearing this, a teenage factory worker named Quentin Cashman (perfect last name!) chased Salvatore and Thomas down the seven flights of stairs and out the building.\u00a0 While Thomas and Salvatore were running for freedom, they stuffed their pockets with pay envelopes, scattering some of them as they tried to escape.<\/p>\n
By the time they exited the building running, several people were hot on their heels shouting, \u201cHelp!\u201d \u201cStop them!\u201d \u201cRobbery!\u201d \u201cHold-up!\u201d\u00a0 As this dramatic scene opened onto Furman Street, it just so happened to be that two patrolman of the 84th<\/sup> Precinct were riding by in their car at about 2:45 p.m.\u00a0 When they saw Salvatore and Thomas running away, they also gave chase, like human bloodhounds dressed in blue.<\/p>\n Thomas and Salvatore ran into an old-fashioned apartment house with a court yard, where they managed to lose the trailing cops.\u00a0 At least for the moment.\u00a0 The police did a systematic search of the huge building by following Thomas\u2019s and Salvatore\u2019s footprints left behind on the stairs and hallway (there was a light drizzle that afternoon).\u00a0 They located the pair who was \u201ccowering on a third floor landing.\u201d\u00a0 They were ordered to put their hands up and were searched on the spot.\u00a0 There were about 3-4 pay envelopes found on Mangiamelli and about 16 on Pennino.\u00a0 The police also found a 3 \u00bd inch switchblade on Salvatore.<\/p>\n The building where Thomas and Salvatore escaped into<\/p><\/div>\n The cops brought Thomas and Salvatore back to the scene of the robbery where O\u2019Brien identified them as the robbers. \u00a0His box was found on the stairway and luckily it had most of the pay envelopes in it.\u00a0 Some trusted employees were sent to find the other envelopes which had been scattered down the street.<\/p>\n Thomas and Salvatore were then brought to the 82nd<\/sup> Station House for questioning where Thomas quickly buckled, admitting his guilt.\u00a0 His story was that he met two girls at Coney Island the previous evening and they told him they worked at White House Products Company so he decided to pay them a visit to make a date.\u00a0 Mangiamelli decided to join him and they were on the 7th<\/sup> floor looking for the two girls at the moment O\u2019Brien stepped out of his office.\u00a0 Salvatore admitted he was on the 7th<\/sup> floor with Thomas and had run from the scene of the crime, but didn\u2019t know anything about the robbery.<\/p>\n When Salvatore was interrogated by the police, he was described as \u201cmore sullen and taciturn than his younger partner.\u201d\u00a0 He agreed with Thomas\u2019s story that they met on President Street and that Thomas invited him to come along to a gym for some training (Thomas was a prize fighter and was friends with none other than Rocky Graziano).\u00a0 Salvatore said he was good with that plan and as they walked along, Thomas told him about the two Spanish girls he had met the night before in Coney Island.\u00a0 That was when they supposedly changed their minds and decided to go to the factory to find the two girls.\u00a0 When asked why he would want to meet two girls when he was married with two children, Salvatore said he did not go out with other girls.\u00a0 So then why did he go along to make a date?\u00a0 The investigator said that in answer to this question, Salvatore \u201cimpatiently rejects this question with the remark that he does not know, he was just going along to be company.”<\/p>\n Salvatore also said he knew nothing about the robbery and didn\u2019t know who held up \u201cthe old man\u201d (O\u2019Brien).\u00a0 Salvatore admitted that the envelopes were found in his pocket, but he wasn\u2019t sure how they got there <\/em>(italics emphasis mine).\u00a0 When told that O\u2019Brien identified him as one of the robbers, Salvatore said that it was an outright lie.\u00a0 He also disagreed that his partner-in-crime Thomas was the one who held up O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know nothing,\u201d he remarked.<\/p>\n Salvatore\u2019s evasive answers bordered on the hilarious, so I will let the replies speak for themselves, quoting the investigator:<\/p>\n The defendant (Salvatore) admits he ran down the stairs and when they reached the street cries of holdup, and police were raised.<\/p>\n When the improbability of this story was remarked, it was suggested that perhaps the defendant and his partner (Thomas) had agreed upon an alibi prior to the crime in case it misfired.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t remember Pennino saying anything about an alibi.\u201d\u00a0 We asked if Pennino might have made such a comment and perhaps the defendant forgot about it.\u00a0 \u201cHe might have said it, but I don\u2019t remember,\u201d is the defendant\u2019s final remark on this question.<\/p>\n Obviously Salvatore wasn\u2019t giving anything up.<\/p>\n In the end, almost the entire $3,849.56 was recovered.\u00a0 All that was missing was two envelopes that totaled $70.89.<\/p>\n The investigators came to what I believe to be reasonable conclusions.<\/p>\n The defendants stated that it was a spur of the moment stickup, but the evidence said otherwise.\u00a0 When the police told O\u2019Brien it was an impulsive stickup, he said witnesses placed both Thomas and Salvatore in the hallway for about an hour, not for five minutes as they claimed.\u00a0 As for their story about trying to meet the two girls, it seemed very odd that they would try to meet the girls while they were working at their jobs.\u00a0 Plus they didn\u2019t know the girls by full name.\u00a0 Not only that, but Pennino\u2019s description of the two girls was extremely vague.\u00a0 Adding further suspicion to whether this was a planned robbery or not, when Salvatore\u2019s wife was interviewed, she said that on the day of the robbery, Salvatore left the house early in the morning telling her that he was going to visit a factory on Furman Street to inquire about getting a job.\u00a0 He did this because she had been nagging him about his plan to continue to work as a longshoreman.<\/p>\n A glimpse into Mangiamelli\u2019s notoriety at such a young age happened while he was being questioned on this case.\u00a0 In an unrelated matter, the Investigating officer of the case of Alphonse Persico (Carmine\u2019s brother) who had plead guilty to murdering one Steve Bove \u2013 which had received lots of newspaper notoriety \u2013 felt that Salvatore was involved in the murder too.<\/p>\n The final conclusion was that neither Salvatore nor Thomas shared everything they knew about the stickup.\u00a0 Their story of visiting the 7th<\/sup> floor of a busy factory building just to \u201cmeet a couple of broads,\u201d pushed the limits of credulity according to the investigators.\u00a0 O\u2019Brien felt that it was an inside job.<\/p>\n In the end, Mangiamelli was convicted of 2nd<\/sup> Degree Robbery, which was a step down from the original charges of Robbery 1st<\/sup> Degree, Grand Larceny 1st<\/sup> Degree and Assault 2nd<\/sup> Degree.\u00a0 He was convicted on August 14, 1951 and sentenced on October 3, 1951 to 4-10 years at Sing Sing Prison.<\/p>\n Mangiamelli’s Prisoner’s Criminal Record prior to the stickup shows his previous criminal history<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" During the Gallo and Profaci war from 1961-1963, Salvatore Mangiamelli was considered one of the Gallos\u2019 top lieutenants.\u00a0 It was suspected that Salvatore had committed several killings while working for them.\u00a0 He also had a record for conspiracy to commit … Continue reading ![\"The](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newyorkcitygangs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/The-building-where-Thomas-and-Salvatore-escaped-into.jpg?resize=640%2C309&ssl=1\")
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