Was Carlos Marcello Behind the JFK Assassination?

Who Was Carlos Marcello?

Was Carlos Marcello Behind the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy?

Connection to David Ferrie

Connection to Jack Ruby

• Ruby made phone calls to a number of Marcello's associates in the months of October and November leading up to the assassination.

• Ferrie was an investigator for Marcello's attorney, G. Wray Gill.
• Ferrie helped Gill prepare Marcello’s defense against government conspiracy and perjury charges in 1963 and the three of them met regularly at Marcello’s Town & Country office.
• Marcello admitted that he knew Ferrie when testifying before the HSCA, but claimed they never talked about Kennedy's assassination. He even admitted to meeting with Ferrie at Churchill Farms in 1963.
• Ferrie and Marcello met at Churchill Farms the two weekends before the assassination. Ferrie claimed he was helping Marcello with strategy for his trial, but that seems unlikely to have occurred without the attorneys.
• Ferrie connection to Oswald is contested. We know of at least the Civil Air Patrol photograph. Some claim there were many other sightings of them together regularly in New Olreans. If Oswald was involved with Marcello's enterprise then Marecllo may be the other connection between Ferrie and Oswald.
• Ferrie's suspicious trip to Houston after the assassination of JFK.

• Head of the Mafia family in New Orleans.
• "By the early 1960's Carlos Marcello was widely recognized as one of the 10 most powerful Mafia leaders in the United States" - HSCA Report
• In 1964, the New Orleans crime boss was estimated to have raked in $1,114,000,000 annually (HSCA Report)
• Claimed to be just a tomato salesman
• Also had control over Texas, which did not have its own Mafia family
• He was just over 5 feet tall, but everyone says he commanded power in a room
• Died in 1993

• Background:
• Who was Carlos Marcello?
• Did Marcello have motive to assassinate President Kennedy?
• Warren Commission says nothing about Carlos Marcello
• HSCA says Marcello had the motive, means, and opportunity for the assassination, but could not conclude that he was behind it
• Fact Investigation & Examination:
• Marcello's alleged statements
• Possible connections to David Ferrie
• Possible connections to Lee Harvey Oswald
• Possible connections to Jack Ruby
• What does all of this tell us?

1910-1993

Copyright Christpher R. Harris; photo downloaded from http://www.american-buddha.com/ordertokillmlk.20.jpg

Connection to Lee Harvey Oswald

• Oswald's Uncle Charles "Dutz" Murret

Conclusion

Marcello's Possible Motive

• Robert Kennedy became Attorney General and made it his mission to go after the Mafia.
• Robert Kennedy particularly targeted Marcello.
• Deportation attempts
• So-called kidnap deportation on April 4, 1961 to Guatemala. He got back into the country two months later and Kennedy ordered that the FBI step up its investigation of Marcello, but it seems the New Olreans FBI did not do much with this directive.
• Deportation attempts continued throughout Marcello's life, but becoming particularly strong leading up to the President's Assassination.
• Investigations and charges
• Any CIA-Mafia coup plan to get rid of Castro left the government vulnerable.

Carlos Marcello's Alleged Threat at

Churchill Farms, Sept. 1962

Is Edward Becker Reliable?

Ed Becker, who claimed to be there at the time, said Robert Kennedy came up and Marcello stated the following:

"Livarsi na petra di la scarpa!" Translation: Take the stone out of my shoe! Reportedly a Mafia "cry of revenge" "Don't worry about that little Bobby, son of a bitch," "He's going to be taken care of!"

Marcello allegedly then went on to explain (video). Becker also claimed that Marcello clearly indiciated that he would need to use someone other than his own lieutenants for the job, that way it would not be traced back to him.

• The only evidence of Marcello's threat is Edward Becker's claim, first reported in Edward Reid's book "The Grim Reapers" (1969).
• The FBI clearly did nothing to investigate Becker's claim and even worked to discredit Becker, at least in part to get Reid to delete the threat from his book (HSCA).
• Sidney Kroshak came forward the day after the FBI learned of Becker's claim to discredit Becker. Kroshak had known ties to organized crime; information the FBI memo regarding his statements about Becker conveniently left out.
• Becker testified before HSCA, saying his original claim was truthful, he remembers it, he took Marcello seriously when he said it.
• Told HSCA that the only inaccurate part of Reid's claim in his book was that he never told the FBI about Marcello's threat because he was afraid.
• Becker admitted to the HSCA that he has hung around shady characters.

FBI Informant & Marcello Cellmate

Reported in "Legacy of Secrecy" by Lamar Waldron & Thom Hartmann (2009)

Jack Van Laningham

http://www.discoveryuk.com/the-loop/jfk-assassin-murdered/

Is it reliable?

• Most important statements Marcello allegededly made were not recorded because they supposedly were made out in the yard, not in the cell next to the bugged radio
• Marcello developing alzhiemers?
• Possibility that Van Laningham was trying to pelase the government to get out of jail early
• The statements are really, really specific and cover a lot of information about Marcello. How else would he have known this information?

Was Carlos Marcello Behind the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy?