Harold Giuliani a.k.a. Joseph Starrett

Great article about Rudy's father, such an honest hard working individual inspired his son to achieve great things. It's plain to see where he gets the courage to face each day. Here's some excerpts.

The crime occurred on April 2, 1934, at 12:05 p.m. in the unlit first-floor corridor of a 10-family residential building at 130 East 96th Street in Manhattan. Shortly before noon, Harold Giuliani and an accomplice positioned themselves in shadowy recesses near the stairwell. Within 10 or 15 minutes Harold Hall, a milkman for Borden's Farms, entered the building to make routine payment collections. As he began to make his way up the stairs, Giuliani emerged from the shadows and, according to the indictment, pressed the muzzle of a pistol against Hall's stomach. "You know what it is," he reportedly said. He forced the man into a nook behind the stairwell, where his counterpart was waiting. The other man plunged his hand into Hall's pants pocket and fished out $128.82 in cash.

As Giuliani's accomplice frantically stuffed the money into his own pockets, either he or Giuliani—or both—commanded Hall to "pull down your pants."

Hall refused.

Giuliani grabbed Hall's pants and yanked them down to his ankles. He told Hall to sit down. He grabbed the man's hands, pulled them behind his back and bound them with cord. Squatting, his back to the wall, Giuliani leaned over his victim and began tying his feet together. Before he was finished, a police officer, Edward Schmitt, burst in the front door of the building.

"Throw them up!" yelled Schmitt. Giuliani obeyed.

His accomplice, who, at this point, had the gun and the money, fled down the stairs to the basement and escaped onto the street.

So not only did he get pinched, his partner got away with the loot. Classic!

Two weeks before he was committed to Sing Sing, Giuliani underwent a psychiatric exam. Benjamin Apfelberg, a psychiatrist with the city's Department of Hospitals, sent his report to Judge Bohan on May 18. Although Apfelberg found that Giuliani was "not mentally defective" and displayed "no psychotic symptoms at the present time," the report painted a troubling mental portrait.

"A study of this individual's makeup," wrote Apfelberg, "reveals that he is a personality deviate of the aggressive, egocentric type. This aggressivity is pathological in nature and has shown itself from time to time even as far back as his childhood. He is egocentric to an extent where he has failed to consider the feelings and rights of others."

Noting Harold's "nearsightedness," Apfelberg continued: "As a result of this physical handicap, especially because of taunts in his boyhood years, he has developed a sense of inferiority which, in recent years, has become accentuated on account of his prolonged idleness and dependence on his parents. . . . His school life was marked by retardation on account of the mischievous and unruly conduct. Due to his aggressive traits and through his excessive aimless idleness, he has been attracted to haphazard associations which apparently were the direct precipitating factors in bringing about the present offense. He is anxious about his predicament on account of a feeling of guilt. He rationalizes the motives of his offense in a self-pitying way in order to obtain sympathy."

Apfelberg concluded his report with this recommendation and caveat: "From a purely and strictly psychiatric standpoint, without considering the social, environmental and other factors in this case, the findings indicate that the social rehabilitation possibilities are favorable for eventual readjustment but are rather dubious as to the prognosis in regard to improvement in personality."

So the man was, according to the opinion of a professional, a violent sociopath with little hope of reform. Hmm.. What traits do you think young Rudi picked up from his papa? Oh, wait it gets better.

But bar tabs weren't the only debts Harold collected. He had come a long way since the spring day more than 14 years ago when he mugged a milkman. Now the crimes he committed were part of an organized criminal enterprise. Known as the "muscle" behind the loan-sharking operation, Harold was Leo's collection agent, recouping money that had been loaned out and was now overdue.

Most debtors would pay at the bar, slipping an envelope to Harold across the counter. In the mid to late '50s, Harold collected as much as $15,000 a week, tapping dozens of debtors. The "vig" usually began at a stifling 150 percent and rose with the passing of each week. Many people borrowed money to pay rent or foot a business expense and would pay back four or five times the amount they borrowed. There were no excuses for being late.

One afternoon, a man reluctantly entered the bar to apologize to Harold, saying that he didn't have the money—could he have just one more week? Frowning, Harold reached under the bar, out of sight, and gripped his baseball bat. As the man before him continued pleading for an extension, Harold swung the bat, cracking him flat across the face, sending him back a few feet. "Don't be late again," Harold said, according to an eyewitness.

That was the gist of Harold's job: enforce Leo's law through threats or violence. He shoved people against walls, broke legs, smashed kneecaps, crunched noses. He gave nearby Kings County Hospital a lot of business.

"People in the neighborhood were terrified of him," said a frequent customer at Vincent's, who was one of Leo's son Lewis's best friends and whose family borrowed money from Leo.*

Read the whole article here.