Ian Frazier's "The Maraschino Mogul"

Illustration by Janne Iivonen, from Ian Frazier's "The Maraschino Mogul"

Reading the section of John McPhee’s “Tabula Rasa 6” called “Maraschino,” in last week’s issue, I was reminded of another great “maraschino” piece – Ian Frazier’s “The Maraschino Mogul.” It first appeared eight years ago in the April 23, 2018, New Yorker, and is included in Frazier’s recently published collection The Snakes That Ate Florida. Last night, I re-read it. 

It’s quite a story, beginning with red bees and ending in tragedy. It centers on a man named Arthur Mondella – the “maraschino mogul” of the title. Mondella owned Dell’s Maraschino Cherries, a factory in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn that makes maraschino cherries. It was a successful business. But it contained a secret. Mondella was using the basement of his cherry factory to grow marijuana hydroponically. The Brooklyn District Attorney’s office became suspicious. On February 24, 2015, officers raided the factory. Frazier tells what happened next: 

While examining some shelves, they found what appeared to be a false wall. They told him they were going to send for a warrant to search behind it. As they waited for the warrant, Mondella excused himself to use the bathroom. Once inside, he locked the door and would not come out.

The police tried to persuade him to unlock the door. He refused, and asked them to bring his sister, Joanne. They did. Through the door, he said to her, “Take care of my kids.” Then he shot himself in the head with a .357 Magnum pistol he had been carrying in an ankle holster.

Frazier continues:

Behind the false wall the officers discovered a ladder leading down to a large basement, twenty-five hundred square feet, and space for about a hundred marijuana plants in a well-set-up system of hydroponic cultivation under L.E.D. grow lights. They also found about a hundred pounds of harvested marijuana, a hundred and thirty thousand dollars in cash, and a small office containing a desk with books on plant husbandry and a copy of “The World Encyclopedia of Organized Crime.” In a garage area they came upon a collection of vintage cars, a Bentley and a Rolls-Royce among them, which suggested that Mondella led a flashier life when not at the factory. Later reports mentioned his use of cocaine, his boat, his lavish spending in restaurants, and his fiancée, a former Penthouse model.

What’s this got to do with bees? Well, as Frazier shows, the unravelling of Mondella’s secret life began five years earlier, in 2010, when beekeepers in Red Hook noticed that bees returning to their hives were glowing an incandescent red. They noticed that their honey was turning red, too. The cause was eventually traced to Mondella’s cherry factory. Bees were observed flying in its direction and visiting puddles of red juice around it on the sidewalk. A beekeeper had his red honey analyzed. It tested positive for F.D.&C. Red No. 40, a food-safe dye, which is an ingredient of the maraschino syrup used by Mondella’s factory. 

The phenomenon of the red bees attracted considerable media attention and caught the eye of the authorities. As Frazier says, “The heightened attention caused by the bee episode had increased the factory’s visibility. In 2013, Brooklyn elected a new D.A., Kenneth Thompson, who set out to clean up pollution in the borough. His office decided to take a look at some stalled environmental cases.” 

My summary doesn’t do this great piece justice. Read it. It’s a fascinating story! Frazier tells it perfectly.