The persistent online confusion labeling Lauretta Giegerman as a mistress stems from Costello’s complex personal life and historical spelling discrepancies. Born in New York around 1897, Lauretta was the sister of one of Costello’s close childhood friends. When the young street hustler then known as Francesco Castiglia decided to marry in 1914, taking a Jewish bride broke the unspoken insular codes of early Italian-American street gangs.
Costello’s relationship history, however, was far from monastic. As his power consolidated across the 1930s and 1940s, his circles expanded into Broadway nightspots, political clubs, and Wall Street backrooms. He frequented Manhattan hotspots like the Copacabana and the Stork Club, often accompanied by showgirls, socialites, and public figures while Giegerman stayed home. Federal wiretaps and surveillance reports from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics routinely noted Costello’s flings and social companions. Yet, whenever investigators audited his legal assets or searched his personal properties, the legal papers, bank accounts, and primary estates pointed back to Lauretta.
She was his legitimate anchor. today mob leaders routinely discarded pre-prohibition alliances, Costello never abandoned his marriage. Giegerman managed their private domestic sphere with ironclad confidentiality, refusing press interviews and rejecting the glamorous, volatile lifestyle that seduced other mob figures into public destruction.
