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Francis X. Mancuso, former general sessions judge, crisply admitted to his longtime acquaintance with Costello and Luchese. His suave self-assurance unshaken, Mancuso also admitted that he had decided not to run again for leadership of an East Harlem assembly district after two local hoodlums had "advised" him to resign.
L Daniel Neustein, another former district leader, testified that Tammanyites frequently referred to Costello as "the Boss." Neustein also said that when he expressed his ambition to become a judge, onetime Tammany Boss Clarence Neal told him: "Well, there's no reason why you can't if you pay for it like the other fellow. Your money is as good as his."
"I Wouldn't Say That." For most of the second day of its hearings, the crime commission concentrated its fire on Luchese. From Supervisor George White of the New England Division of the Bureau of Narcotics came testimony that Luchese was believed to have succeeded Costello as "coordinator of the narcotics rackets" and was, in effect, a policymaking chairman of the board of a nationwide dope ring.
Though he had attended the opening sessions as a spectator, Luchese did not show up the second day. As a substitute for Three-Finger himself, however, commission attorneys read portions of 600 pages of testimony which Luchese had given them in private hearings. He dodged direct answers to most questions. To a question on his financial affairs, Luchese would give no answer at all. "Your grounds of not answering is that it will incriminate you?" he was asked. "I wouldn't say that," replied Luchese, "because I don't like to use that expression."
Evasive though it was on many subjects, Luchese's testimony nonetheless produced some surprising revelations. By his own statement, his acquaintances, social or otherwise, included Mayor Vincent Impellitteri, the late Mayor Fiorello La Guardia ("I used to talk with him like I was his son"), ex-Congressman Vito Marcantonio (who appointed Luchese's son to West Point), Myles J. Lane, the U.S. district attorney, Federal Judge Thomas Meaney, and Federal Judge Thomas Murphy, the man who prosecuted Alger Hiss. Also brought out during the reading of Luchese's testimony:
¶ His wide acquaintance among the city's narcotics peddlers. Under questioning, Luchese replied with high indignation: "You get so disgusted you don't go any place any more. I say 'Gee, I still got to meet people like that.' "
¶ His failure to admit to four of his five arrests in his application for naturalization papers (he was granted citizenship in 1943).