On this day in 1966, and after much publicity concerning the La Stella bust in New York, Carlos Marcello flies back to New Orleans. On his arrival at Moisant International Airport he’s surrounded by reporters and at least two FBI agents. Conflicting stories as to what happened and who provoked who, but Marcello punches Special Agent Patrick Collins twice in the face.

After much legal wrangling and delays he is eventually convicted to two years and fined $5000. He does about 6 months in a Texas prison in 1970/71.

On September 30, 1966, Carlos Marcello — the iron-fisted boss of the New Orleans crime family and one of the most powerful mob figures in American history — stepped off a plane at Moisant International Airport and into a confrontation that would make headlines across the country. Marcello had been in New York attending the infamous La Stella restaurant meeting, a high-level Mafia summit that had been raided by detectives on September 22nd. The bust had drawn enormous press attention, exposing a who's who of organised crime figures dining together, and Marcello was returning home to New Orleans already surrounded by a storm of publicity. Waiting for him on the tarmac were reporters hungry for comment and at least two FBI agents keeping a watchful eye on the man federal authorities had been pursuing for decades.

What happened next remains a matter of dispute. Accounts differ sharply on who provoked whom, and Marcello himself naturally offered his own version of events. What is not disputed is that the Mafia don struck Special Agent Patrick Collins twice in the face, delivering a very physical and very public message of contempt for the federal law enforcement that had dogged him throughout his career. Whether it was a moment of genuine rage, calculated bravado, or both, the punch was vintage Marcello — defiant, aggressive, and utterly unconcerned with consequences.

The legal aftermath dragged on in the manner typical of a man with considerable resources and well-connected lawyers. There was much wrangling, delays, and procedural manoeuvring before Marcello was ultimately convicted and handed a two-year sentence along with a five thousand dollar fine. He served approximately six months in a federal prison in Texas in 1970 and 1971 before being released — a relatively modest punishment for a man who had spent years thumbing his nose at Robert Kennedy's Justice Department and the FBI alike.

The La Stella meeting itself was significant, bringing together figures connected to several of the New York Five Families as well as bosses from other cities, underlining the national reach of organised crime at its peak. Marcello, though never formally acknowledged as a member of the official Mafia commission, operated one of the most lucrative and entrenched crime organisations in the South, with tentacles stretching into politics, gambling, and labour rackets across Louisiana and beyond.

The airport punch became a footnote emblematic of Marcello's entire career — a man who viewed federal authority not with fear, but with open, fist-swinging disdain, and who managed, time and again, to walk away with remarkably little damage done to his empire.