Thomas Hunt: 1939: Sberna sent to The Chair

Thursday, January 5, 2017

1939: Sberna sent to The Chair

On this date in 1939: Charles Sberna was executed in Sing Sing Prison's electric chair. Though convicted of participating in the killing of an NYPD officer, many to this day insist that he was innocent.

As the son of a fugitive wanted for orchestrating a series of bloody anarchist-terrorist bombings and the in-law of a family of Mafia leaders, could Sberna possibly have received a fair trial?

'Wrongly Executed?' provides the details and historical background of the Sberna case. The story is a complex and controversial one, involving celebrity attorneys, underworld bosses, violent political radicals, media giants and ruthless establishment figures, all set in a period in which Americans sought stability and government-imposed order after years of political upheaval, economic depression and Prohibition Era lawlessness.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

'Cookies' notification: This site is hosted by Google, which uses "cookies" to deliver its services and to analyze traffic. Your IP address and user-agent are shared with Google along with performance and security metrics to ensure quality of service, generate usage statistics, and to detect and address abuse. Aside from Google's use of cookies, this site makes no effort to collect Internet data on its visitors. By continuing to use this site you are indicating your acceptance of these terms. Learn more.

Affiliate links: This site is supported in part by Amazon associate links. Commissions are earned though qualifying purchases made through Amazon links presented on this site.

Books by Thomas Hunt:

Wrongly Executed?
The Long-Forgotten Context of Charles Sberna's 1939 Electrocution
Was Charles Sberna wrongly convicted of the murder of Police Officer John H.A. Wilson? Was an innocent man sent to the electric chair in 1939? 'Wrongly Executed?' provides the details and historical background of the Sberna case. The story is a complex and controversial one, involving celebrity attorneys, Mafia bosses, violent political radicals, media giants and ruthless establishment figures.

For more information on Wrongly Executed? visit the book website.

Co-written by Thomas Hunt:

DiCarlo:
Buffalo's First Family of Crime
cowritten with Michael A. Tona, is a two-volume historical biography of Joseph DiCarlo, once known as "the Al Capone of Buffalo" and as western New York's "Public Enemy No. 1." The coauthors use DiCarlo's colorful and violent life story as a window into the history of the powerful Magaddino Crime Family and the American Mafia network. The two volumes chronicle a century of DiCarlo family history and related developments in the organized crime network.
Volume I covers the period through 1937.

Volume II focuses on the period 1938 to 1984 and includes an epilogue describing events as recent as 2012.

For more information on DiCarlo, visit the Buffalomob.com website.

Co-written by Thomas Hunt:

Deep Water:
Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia
cowritten with Martha Macheca Sheldon, explores the germination of the American Mafia in New Orleans, Louisiana. The book challenges the legends of the U.S. mob's earliest days, establishes the facts of the 1890 Hennessy assassination and the 1891 Crescent City lynchings, and examines the role played by corrupt political and commercial organizations in the development of the American Mafia. The coauthors tackle the historical misrepresentations of underworld patron Joseph P. Macheca and suggest that he was betrayed by old allies and deliberately murdered for their financial and political gain.

For more information on Deep Water, visit the website.

With contribution by Thomas Hunt:

Mafia:
The Necessary Reference to Organized Crime
edited by Frank Shanty, is an illustrated look at organized criminal entities around the world. A concise history of the American Mafia contributed by Thomas Hunt is accompanied by histories of the Sicilian Mafia, Chinese Triads, Japanese Yakuza, Russian Mafiya, South American Narcotrafficantes and more.