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He and his wife moved to Pittsburgh in 1933, where he set up a beer equipment and concrete block business in Oakland. In the next decade, he gained control of the numbers rackets in Homewood and elsewhere. He was arrested and convicted several times for larceny, receiving stolen property and operating a lottery.Citing his criminal record, the Immigration and Naturalization Service tried to deport him in 1953 as an undesirable alien.The effort led to scandal. During the deportation hearings, several prominent figures testified on his behalf. One of them, Allegheny County Judge Premo J. Columbus, LaRoccas former attorney, said there is no human being I would respect more than John LaRocca.Outgoing Gov. John S. Fine stymied the deportation when he granted LaRocca an unprecedented backdated pardon for a 1939 larceny conviction. That decision caused an uproar, but Fine dismissed it as a tempest in a teapot.

 

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