Crime History: Police break up historic mob meeting

On this day, Nov. 14, 1957, law enforcement officials discovered a national convention of gangsters at the home of Joseph “Joe the Barber” Barbara in upstate Apalachin, N.Y. State trooper Sgt. Edgar Croswell was taking a report for a bad check at a hotel when he overheard Barbara’s eldest son reserve rooms for “soft-drink people.” Suspicious, Croswell checked with a butcher, who said the mobster had ordered 200 pounds of meat.