Biography
Donato Carrillo, born in Sant'Agata di Puglia, Foggia, Italy (his Italian political-police file names his parents as Michele Carrillo and Saveria Soldo), was an Italian-American anti-fascist and one of the two defendants in the celebrated Greco–Carrillo case. He was arrested in Brooklyn on July 11, 1927 — one Italian political-police summary gives July 12 — and held with fellow anti-fascist Calogero Greco in the Bronx County Jail as a material witness in the investigation of the May 30, 1927 Memorial Day killing of two Italian Fascists, Giuseppe Carisi and Michele Amoroso, in the Bronx. On July 26, 1927 the two were formally indicted for premeditated murder, with bail set at fifty thousand dollars each; unable to furnish it, they remained jailed throughout the pretrial period. Their trial opened in Bronx County Court on December 9, 1927, with Clarence Darrow leading the defense in a celebrated International Labor Defense campaign that showed the prosecution to be a frame-up built on fascist testimony. After nearly eight hours of deliberation the jury acquitted both men on December 23, 1927, ending about five and a half months of detention, and a victory celebration was held that same day. His surname appears in sources as both Carrillo and Carillo. He died of a heart attack on August 26, 1965 in Los Angeles, California, while visiting a hospitalized comrade; his obituary appeared in L'Adunata dei Refrattari.
