Judith Moore spent ten years digging up information about the mafia in San Diego. Finally she had a break when Mary Ann, the daughter of Frank Bompensiero, agreed to spend time with her telling her of the private side of Southern California’s most brutal mafia killer.
Although nothing here was organized previous to World War II, “back East and up North” various crime figures began to realize that San Diego would “be a very lucrative area. Because we had one thing going for us that no one else really thought of. You’ve got a lot of guys on steady payroll here — it may only be about $25 or $30 a month, but they got free room and board and hospital.”
By Judith Moore, Dec. 5, 1996 | Read full article
“During World War II, the hoods, at least, they made plenty of money. The reason they made more money than anyone else was because they could get liquor where a square couldn’t. I recall a $200,000 deal, a liquor truck hijacked in Del Mar, coming into San Diego. A straight person couldn’t pick up a phone and call Cleveland and Chicago and say, ‘How about we do each other a favor?’ These guys had the connections.”…