The Pedones: Face of the Black Hand
- Matteo Galante
- Jun 21, 2023
- 9 min read
Updated: Apr 25
The three Pedone brothers - Pietro, Antonio, and Giuseppe - were born in Palermo, Sicily between 1878 and 1887. Pietro and Antonio were reportedly both convicted of murder in Sicily, but escaped from prison and fled to America, establishing residences in the San Francisco Bay Area by 1910. Peter opened a grocery stand while Antonio worked as a fisherman. The Pedones all made headlines shortly after they settled in California.
In August 1910, a shootout at Fisherman’s Wharf ended in the death of Mariano Balestreri. Pete Pedone and Vincenzo Randazzo were accused of killing Balestreri after he refused to sell them fish. They were acquitted in March 1912. After the trial, Pedone was described as belonging to a “good Sicilian family.” That same month, Joseph Pedone arrived in the city. He moved into a building a couple blocks from Pete and became a fruit peddler.
Three months later, a man fired a revolver into Pete’s fruit stand then ran away. Two of the shooter’s friends returned to the area and warned others to keep quiet. In August 1913, a bomb with eight sticks of dynamite was lit below a window of Pete’s home. It was extinguished by a neighbor in the middle of the night before it exploded. Pedone blamed the Black Hand and claimed he had been threatened many times since Balestreri’s death. In mid-October, a second bomb went off outside Pete’s home, shattering the windows, but nobody was hurt.
By this time, Pete Pedone was living in the Sunnyvale house of Mrs. Josephine Bonaccorso. Two weeks after the bombing of Pete’s old home, Bonaccorso was killed. Another boarder at the home, Joseph Mello, was the prime suspect, along with Antonio Pedone and Antonio Liga, the Pedones’ brother-in-law. In September 1914, three months after Pete’s wife Salvatrice (Sarah) and two kids emigrated from Sicily, Joe Mello was ambushed and killed by Joe Pedone and Joe Bonaccorso, Josephine’s husband. Antonio and Joe Pedone were arrested but released November 5th for lack of evidence.
The next morning, Pete left his home by bicycle to pay a San Jose man who helped with his family’s immigration, when he was chased by Paul Tribiani, cousin of Joe Mello. Tribiani fired two shots at close range from a shotgun. Pedone hit the ground but was not injured. Tribiani ran through an orchard, pursued by police for several blocks. Surrounded by a dozen witnesses, he stopped, raised his revolver to his own head, and pulled the trigger. Pete Pedone said the two were friends and knew nothing about the attack.
In April 1915, Giovanni Cannizzaro, fish dealer, contractor, and leader of the Italian colony in San Leandro, was shot and killed in front of his home. Witnesses identified Tony Liga as the shooter. An armed posse of 20 men and bloodhounds swarmed the San Leandro hills, but Liga had already boarded an outbound Western Pacific train.
In September, Antonio Pedone helped plan the assassination of Petaluma Police Chief Ed Husler, who was actively fighting black hand gangs in the area. Two of his associates lured Husler by robbing a series of saloons between Marin and Santa Rosa, then shot him when he intervened. Husler survived, but no arrests were made. Two months later, Antonio was involved in a quarrel with fisherman Santo Abruzzo. Pedone was stabbed in the neck five times. Abruzzo was shot to death. Pedone was again released. That same year, a niece of the Pedones was found headless on a South San Francisco beach.
In February 1916, Antonio was arrested as an accomplice to drug-dealing black hander Pietro LaFata, both suspected of arson and authoring black hand letters in Contra Costa County. Pedone was described as LaFata’s lieutenant. They were immediately released when the key witness, Vincenzo Flores, suddenly died. Flores was the father-in-law of fisherman Francesco Bruno, an associate of the Pedone-LaFata gang. Frank’s son, Vincent “Sterling” Bruno, would become a big player in a west coast narcotics operation in the 1940s.
In May, Nicolo Sigismondo, a cousin of the Pedones, shot to death his common-law wife, Ida Parodi, in their Filbert Street home. The couple had recently bought and sold the Venezia Club House in San Mateo. After the shooting, Sigismondo ran from the house and was chased by a group of citizens who beat and held him until police arrived. He confessed to the killing, claiming Parodi had defrauded him in a business deal. The jury found him guilty of murder, but the judge reduced the conviction to manslaughter, citing testimony that showed Sigismondo acted in self-defense. He was sentenced to eight years in San Quentin and paroled in 1921.
By late 1916, wealthy San Francisco stonemason Gaetano Ingrassia had been the recipient of several black hand letters, demanding thousands of dollars and threatening to blow up his home with family inside. He brought the letters to Pasquale “Pat” LaRocca, who offered to settle the matter for a fee. The LaRocca brothers - Vincenzo, Pasquale, and Accursio (Leo) - were prominent fishermen in the city, with strong ties to the Sicilian underworld. Vince, a respected mafioso, opened LaRocca’s Corner, a bar that became a favorite hangout for local mobsters, as well as Joe DiMaggio, who grew up in North Beach. LaRocca’s Corner would gain notoriety following the infamous 1947 garroting of Nick DeJohn. Leo was considered the “Crab King” of the Pacific coast and started the A. LaRocca & Sons wholesale fish company. His son, Alphonse, became a high-ranking associate of the San Francisco family.
Ingrassia declined LaRocca’s offer and declared he’d kill any man who tried to blackmail him. He hid weapons around his home and received permission from police to carry a gun in public. On Thanksgiving 1916, he armed himself with two pistols and went for a walk after dinner. As he approached the Buena Vista Ice Cream Parlor on Columbus Avenue near Filbert Street, he was accosted by Antonio and Joe Pedone, who began yelling in Italian. A gun battle broke out and all three men were hit. While Ingrassia was incapacitated in the street, a nephew of the Pedones, Antonino, ran over with a rifle and shot him in the head. In the hospital, Antonio threatened to kill Ingrassia’s nephew who was acting as translator. The three Pedones were sentenced to between 15 years and life in San Quentin.
Ingrassia’s son-in-law, Mariano Alioto, testified in the trial. Mariano was one of seven brothers that immigrated to San Francisco in the early 1900s. His brother, Giuseppe, was regarded as a pioneer in the fishing industry. He founded a brokerage firm, the International Fish Company, organized the major Northern California fisheries into a trust, and was president of the General Fish Company. Giuseppe would also open one of the first restaurants on Fisherman’s Wharf, the Exposition Fish Grotto, in partnership with Francesco Lanza, the first recognized boss of the San Francisco family. Through the brothers’ contributions to the fishing and restaurant industries, the name Alioto would become virtually synonymous with Fisherman’s Wharf. Giuseppe’s son, Joseph, served as mayor of San Francisco from 1968-1976.
One year after Ingrassia’s death, on the day before Thanksgiving 1917, Mariano was seated in a delivery truck for the International Fish Co. on Columbus Avenue, when he was approached by Antonio Lipari, an employee of the Santa Monica Winery and friend of the Pedones. After Lipari started a conversation, he drew a pistol and shot Mariano three times, killing him. He was caught after a car chase through North Beach.
Following Lipari’s arrest, Giuseppe and Ignazio Alioto went to the Hall of Justice to speak with Lipari. Instead, they were arrested for carrying concealed weapons, with the presumed intention of revenge. While not at the hands of the Alioto brothers, Lipari met his fate in April 1918. For the first time in the history of California courts, a mixed jury returned a verdict of murder in the first degree. Lipari was sentenced to death.
Joe Pedone, facing a life sentence, decided to cooperate and provide information on at least ten murders, dozens of bombings, the collection of over $200,000 in blackmail money, and 155 black handers around the Bay Area. Pedone admitted he had killed a woman in Italy, which made him a welcome member of the local gang. He also claimed fishermen brought dynamite from Alaska for the purpose of destroying homes, and that the gang had headquarters in San Francisco, San Jose, Berkeley, Pittsburg, and Martinez. The organization did not hold meetings, but members recognized each other from gestures or passwords. Authorities concluded that the Black Hand was one organization, consisting of rings within rings, and was properly named the “Mafia” or “Camorra.”
Ignazio Pedone, a relative of the brothers, was sought for questioning during the trial but was hiding out in Sacramento. On May 19th, 1920, he left his Grant Avenue home to walk to the corner barber shop when a man stepped out of the shadows and shot him to death. Two accomplices threw Pedone’s body into a passing car driven by Ernest “The Bull” Parmagini, who took it to Harbor Emergency Hospital. Parmagini claimed he was driving by when the shots were fired, and the killers stopped his vehicle and put the body inside. Ernest was a seasoned pickpocket and brother of Antone “Black Tony” Parmagini, one of the biggest rumrunners and narcotic smugglers on the west coast during the 1920s and 30s. Black Tony had high-level connections across the country, including Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and Irving "Waxey Gordon" Wexler.
In April 1923, Pete was arrested for a May 1922 bombing that destroyed the front of a building in Mountain View. Immigration Officers planned to deport him but were unsuccessful. Antonio was paroled ten days prior. The next month, Nick Sigismondo was sent back to prison after a burglary in Los Angeles. Behind bars, Antonino was force-fed after refusing to eat or drink. He also formed a habit of attacking guards, which landed him in a padded cell. He was deported in September 1923. By 1926, Antonio had moved to the Pittsburgh area of Pennsylvania, under the alias Samuel Piazza. A few years later, he was arrested for assaulting his wife. Also in Pittsburgh at this time was Tony Liga, who was finally located in early 1931, using the name Antonio Pedone.
Joe Pedone was paroled in September, while Pete had been working as a rancher in San Jose. Joe also found work as a rancher in the area. On Thanksgiving 1932, Pete and his son met with Nick Sigismondo and William Bellomo at a San Carlos Street gas station operated by Bellomo. The men had reportedly been in the bootlegging business together. As the Pedones stood in the doorway, a car drove by and fired several rounds from the window. Sigismondo and Bellomo took cover behind oil drums. The Pedones were both hit three times. Pete was killed instantly, but his son survived. He was guarded at the hospital out of fear he would be assassinated in his bed. Charged with Pedone’s murder were Joseph Amato aka Joseph Dinolfo and a man identified only as “Red Ink Joe.”
Amato was a former employee of the International Fish Co. and opened the Concord Fish Market in 1923. He also worked as an agent for a broker in Napa. In December 1924, he was arrested for embezzlement when he sold a carload of grapes for a client and was accused of keeping the money. Amato was later identified as a member of the San Francisco family. Red Ink Joe was said to be a writer of anonymous letters. Neither could be found.
In August 1933, the body of Nick Sigismondo was found near Gilroy in the Santa Cruz Mountains. He had been shot multiple times and thrown from a speeding vehicle. Reports stated he was a suspected mafia member, and that his death was likely either the result of a vendetta or a liquor hijacking gone wrong. There were no leads until the next month, when San Jose Police raided a hotel room of suspected counterfeiters that had been passing bogus money through local businesses and banks. Arrested were Antonio Tavolacci, Antonio “Barcelona” Vitetta, Rudolph Perri, and the alleged ringleader, Salvatore Ricotta.
They were caught with $1,000 in fake bills after a shopkeeper provided Ricotta’s license plate number to police. Tavolacci was sentenced to five years, Vitetta to three, and Ricotta to ten. Rudy Perri pled guilty and turned government witness. In defiance of death threats, he testified that Sam Ricotta had a hand in at least four murders, including that of Nick Sigismondo. Ricotta, a bar owner, fruit merchant, and associate of the San Francisco family, would get involved in the 1940s olive oil racket upon his release.
By mid-1934, Sarah Pedone, Pete’s widow, had received a series of death threats and demands for money. Police believed Amato was hiding in Oakland and reinstated the search for him and Leonardo, which continued for the next few years. In 1937, the Secret Service sent an Italian-speaking east coast agent to infiltrate the counterfeiting ring that had continued its operation around the South Bay. In December, agents arrested Joseph Ferraro, John Arquilla, and William Anderson. Arquilla and Anderson received sentences of 18 months, and Ferraro was granted probation for three years.
Information gathered from that arrest led them to Felice Saia the following month. Agents had his San Jose home under surveillance for 48 hours before it was raided. They found $100,000 in rolls of counterfeit money stashed in jars hidden inside the basement walls. Saia was arrested along with Salvatore Bongiorno, Joseph Merino, and Joseph “Red Ink Joe” Leonardo. Sam Bongiorno turned government witness and was sentenced to ten years. The three others were each sentenced to 15. Joe Amato was never apprehended for Pete Pedone’s murder.
Antonio Pedone divorced from his wife in April 1940. Joe was pardoned in May and moved in with Sarah Pedone. They filed for a marriage license in November 1941. Two years later, a San Jose woman was found semi-conscious with a fractured skull in a roadside ditch near Morgan Hill. She had been beaten, thrown from a car, and buried under a pile of brush that was set on fire. She identified Joe Pedone as her assailant. He was arrested for the last time in December 1943. Antonio was naturalized in Pittsburgh, PA that year and worked for a news agency until his death on July 10th, 1944. Joe died in Santa Clara on November 25th, 1959.
