Gangsters

Anthony Pinelli obtained a permit to build a 2-story apartment house at 5920 Hollywood Boulevard located within the Bronson Tract #2 on the south side of the street just west of Bronson in April 1951. It opened as the Movie Town Motel (not to be confused with the Hollywood Town Motel just down the street).

The property had a brush with notoriety when it was barely a year old. On November 19, 1952, a man was arrested in Hollywood for petty theft after making a phone call from a booth at 1269 N. Vine Street using “slugs” instead of real coins. Two telephone company employees who had been staking out the booth, as a number of expensive calls to Las Vegas had been made to it in recent days using slugs, nabbed the man as he was about to step into his new Caddy. He tried to bribe them but they turned him over to police. The man,”John Baker,” was booked for petty theft and released on bond. But before he had breathed the clean, fresh, Los Angeles air for more than a few paces, police rearrested him.

Hollywood Citizen News 11/20/1952.

The slug user was identified through his fingerprints as a Midwestern gangster, Leonardo “Lips” Moceri. Thought to be a hired killer for a gang run by Thomas “Yonnie” Licacoli (then doing time in Ohio State Prison), Moceri was long wanted in Toledo as a suspect in the October 1931 murders of bootleggers Abe Lubitsky and Norman Blatt and the July 1932 slaying of gangster Jack Kennedy and Kennedy’s girlfriend Louise Bell in November 1932. Locally, police questioned him about the June 1947 murder of Bugsy Siegel, the suspected 1949 murders of Mickey Cohen henchman Dave Ogult and Frank Nicoli, the December 1950 murder of mob lawyer Sam Rummel, August 1951 double murder of the “two Tonys” Trombino and Brancato, in front of a Hollywood apartment building at 1648 N. Ogden, and the December 1951 disappearance of former moonshine king Frank Borgia. He was also wanted by the FBI for draft dodging.

Leo Moceri after his Los Angeles arrest, 11/19/1952. UCS photo.

In Moceri’s wallet contained $1800 cash, a bank deposit slip for $10,000 made out to Charles Battaglia, and a business card for Salvatore Pinelli, identified as the operator of the Movie Town Motel.

Pinnelli was picked up for questioning along with Tom Dragna, ex-Cohen henchman Mike Rizzo, and Jimmy “the Weasel” Fratiano. All but Fratiano were released without charge after questioning.

Whatever information Moceri may have had about local crimes came to nothing. He remained jailed here until being extradited to Ohio in December 1952 and charged with four counts of murder but the charges were dropped due to the deaths of key witnesses. In March 1953 he was convicted of blackmail. He went on to become underboss of the Cleveland crime family. In August 1976 he went missing. His car, with a bloodstained trunk, was found in a motel parking lot (in Fairlawn Ohio- not the Movie Town Motel).