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2024-03-28T14:50:02Z
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Profile: Colombo family underboss John
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/colombo-underboss-john-sonny
2023-01-31T16:00:00.000Z
2023-01-31T16:00:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p style="text-align:center;"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236972898,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9236972898?profile=original" /></p>
<p>By David Amoruso</p>
<p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-mafia-family-legend-sonny-franzese-dead-at-103-a-man-must" target="_blank"><strong>Read Franzese's obituary here.</strong></a><br /> <strong>Also read: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/in-the-company-of-saints-the-life-and-times-of-america-s-oldest-m"><strong>In the Company of Saints. The life and times of America’s oldest Mobster</strong></a><br /> <br /> John “Sonny” Franzese is an old school gangster walking around in a world that has changed significantly since when he first started committing crimes. Born in Naples, Italy on February 6, 1917, he started his criminal career during a time when Charles “Lucky” Luciano, Joseph Profaci, Vincent Mangano, Gaetano Gagliano, and Joseph Bonanno had just become bosses of the five mob families in New York.<br /> <br /> <img style="float:left;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236975295,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />Those five men are all gone now. Many of the men who became boss after them have died as well. But Sonny Franzese is still here, breathing and walking the streets, demanding his cut from mob rackets. The road to the year 2010, however, hasn’t been paved in gold. Franzese has spent over 25 years in prison.<br /> <br /> His arrest record dates back to 1938 and includes arrests for felonious assault, rape, gambling, disorderly conduct, and vagrancy. In 1967 he was hit with a 50 year sentence after being convicted of planning several bank robberies. He was paroled several times since then but was always sent back to his cell after picking up his old life of crime and violating the conditions of his parole. Leaving the criminal life behind just was not possible anymore. Franzese had become a made member of the Colombo Crime Family and had made an oath to its boss <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/profile-original-new-york-mafia-family-boss-giuseppe-profaci" target="_blank">Joseph Profaci</a>. He could only leave the Mafia if he died. And Franzese did not plan on dying anytime soon.<br /> <br /> Sonny began his criminal career as a member of the crew run by Colombo capo Sebastian “Buster” Aloi. He quickly rose through the ranks because of his toughness and willingness to engage in violence. In the book Quitting the Mob, written by Sonny’s son Michael, one such violent story is recounted.<br /> <br /> Franzese was in the back corner of a bar talking to a slim young man. It was around 2 a.m. and the bar was filled with patrons enjoying a night out. Everyone had a decent view of the back corner, but all were surprised when a shot rang out and the slim man slumped to the floor holding a gun. Standing next to the dead man was Sonny holding his own gun. The corpse was dragged out of the bar and Sonny continued his night out without a care in the world.<br /> <br /> This incident allegedly happened in the late 1940s and is one of the reasons why Sonny Franzese is so feared on the streets of New York. He is rumored to have killed over thirty people. He once told an associate: "I killed a lot of guys. ... You're not talking about four, five, six, ten." He was a favored hit man within the Colombo Family and was highly respected for his ability to switch between vicious killer and intelligent businessman with an amazing ability to earn money. He financed the classic porn movie "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068468/">Deep Throat</a>." The movie was made in 1972 for a “cheap” $22,000 and would go on to gross over $600 million dollars. Franzese was also involved in more traditional rackets such as extortion, gambling, and narcotics.<br /> <br /> With a keen eye for money-making scams and an impressive list of kills Franzese went on to become underboss of the Colombo Family. He would remain an important member even while inside prison. And when he was released on parole he would always go back to “the life”. By the 1970s both of his sons, Michael (photo left) and John Jr., had gotten involved with the mob. Michael became a captain and earned the Colombos hundreds of millions through a gasoline tax scam he had set up with Russian criminals.<br /> <br /> <img style="float:right;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236975474,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />The media right away labeled Michael Franzese a “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyLHKQoZlRw">Prince of the Mafia</a>”. His father had schooled him in the ways of the mob and apparently had done an excellent job. But it turned out there was one big difference between father and son. When authorities arrested Michael on racketeering charges, he decided to make a deal with them. He would give information about certain people and in return he would get a second chance at life. After that Sonny has been rumored to have shunned his son. In the years that followed, Michael wrote several books and became a born-again-Christian.<br /> <br /> Sonny Franzese's life continued down a different path. In the past years, he has been hit with two separate indictments.<br /> <br /> The first came in June of 2008. Franzese and eleven other <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family" target="_blank">Colombo Family</a> mobsters, including Acting Boss <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-boss-thomas-tommy" target="_blank">Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli</a>, were charged with crimes ranging from murder to the theft of fur coats. At the age of 89, it would be impossible for Franzese to ever see freedom again if he was to be convicted.<br /> <br /> To be absolutely sure the old gangster would never see freedom again authorities brought a new indictment in May of 2010. At the age of 93, Franzese was charged with shaking down the Penthouse and Hustler strip clubs in New York City. The double hit by prosecutors would have caused enough shock but the worst was yet to come: Franzese’s son John Junior would testify against his own father during the upcoming trial.<br /> <br /> The trial began in June and showed the American public a 93-year-old in a wheelchair who frequently fell asleep during the trial. Not exactly the notorious hit man and underboss of the Colombo Crime Family people expected to see. But when his son took the stand Franzese was wide awake. John Junior explained that he became an informant because he wanted to change his life. He had a heavy drug habit and was stealing money from his mother and other family members to buy dope.<br /> <br /> His mother, 75-year-old Cristina Capobianco-Franzese, was also in attendance. After seeing her son on the stand she started a heated argument with Sonny in the men’s room. When she exited she screamed at reporters and jurors that Franzese “should plead guilty and let my son live his life. Give his kid a break and plead guilty. I want my son to have a break. It's the last child I have."<br /> <br /> Sonny Franzese was having none of it. The trial ran its full course and after three weeks, on July 7, the jury returned a guilty verdict. Franzese faces a maximum of twenty years in prison and will most likely die in a cell. When asked by reporters about this prospect Franzese remained indifferent. “I die outside, I die in jail. It don't matter to me. I gotta die someplace."</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><strong>UPDATE JUNE 24, 2017:</strong></span> On Friday, June 23, 2017, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-family-underboss-john-sonny-franzese-at-100-years-america" target="_blank">Franzese walked out of prison alive</a>, a free man. At 100 years, he plans to spend his remaing time with his family. He has been welcomed home by his son Michael laying to rest any rumors about Sonny shunning his son.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><strong>UPDATE FEBRUARY 24, 2020:</strong></span> John Franzese passed away at 103. <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-mafia-family-legend-sonny-franzese-dead-at-103-a-man-must" target="_blank">Read the entire story here.</a></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family">Colombo crime family section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
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Colombo Mafia family soldier “The Mask” Difalco sentenced to 3 years in prison for racketeering
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/colombo-mafia-family-soldier-the-mask-difalco-sentenced-to-3-year
2020-08-07T10:46:01.000Z
2020-08-07T10:46:01.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-mafia-family-soldier-the-mask-difalco-sentenced-to-3-year" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237149685,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237149685?profile=original" /></a>By David Amoruso for <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family" target="_blank">Colombo Mafia family</a> soldier Vito “The Mask” Difalco (photo above) was sentenced to just over 3 years in prison for racketeering on Wednesday. The 65-year-old mobster ran <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Loansharking" target="_blank">loansharking</a> and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Gambling" target="_blank">gambling</a> operations from his <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Brooklyn" target="_blank">Brooklyn</a> bar named The Tryst Lounge.</p>
<p>Working with Joseph Maratea, who ran a pawn shop out of the same Dyker Heights building where Difalco’s bar was located, Difalco operated a loansharking business, extending loans at exorbitant interest rates and the added threat that if a debtor did not make his payments in time, he would face violent consequences. Specifically, the Colombo gangsters charged $15 in weekly interest payments on every $500 extended, which amounted to 3% weekly interest payments or 156% annual interest.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/how-a-rat-brought-down-the-colombo-mafia-family-crew-of-fat-jerry" target="_blank">How a rat brought down the Colombo Mafia family crew</a> of “Fat Jerry,” “The Mask,” and “Mumbles”</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>To ensure both that they could locate their debtors and that their debtors understood that Difalco and Maratea knew where they resided, they required debtors to provide copies of their driver’s licenses and their contact information.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>"Put the Benz on fire"</strong></span></p>
<p>On April 19, 2018, Difalco and Matera had the following conversation about a debtor’s missed payments:</p>
<p><em>DIFALCO: Alright stretch out, ‘cause we are going to take a ride in a little while.</em></p>
<p><em>MARATEA: Alright.</em></p>
<p><em>DIFALCO: I’ll be here, then we’ll take a ride up there.</em></p>
<p><em>MARATEA: Where by [John Doe #8]?</em></p>
<p><em>DIFALCO: Yeah, we’ll go by [John Doe #8].</em></p>
<p><em>MARATEA: Did you call him?</em></p>
<p><em>DIFALCO: I called him, he didn’t pick up. I figure I’ll ring the bell and flood the house.</em></p>
<p>In another recording, Difalco was taped saying: “Good things happen to me when I stay calm. See, like, I was by your house the other day. Four years ago I would have put the Benz on fire.”</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-two-sides-of-new-york-mob-boss-joe-colombo-and-how-his-murder" target="_blank">The two sides of New York mob boss Joe Colombo</a> and how his murder remains unsolved for over forty years</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Difalco also earned illegal proceeds through his gambling business, which included illegal sports-betting and video gambling machines. He used a legitimate business – a bar called Tryst which he operated – to facilitate his illicit activities and limit detection by law enforcement. At the bar he could attract new loansharking customers and use his employees to collect loansharking payments. He also used the bar to operate and promote his illegal gambling businesses.</p>
<p>Maratea pleaded guilty to racketeering and was sentenced in April 2020 to time served and 2 years’ probation with the first 4 months to be served under house arrest.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family">Colombo crime family section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
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Colombo Mafia family legend “Sonny” Franzese dead at 103 – A man must have a code
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/colombo-mafia-family-legend-sonny-franzese-dead-at-103-a-man-must
2020-02-24T16:30:00.000Z
2020-02-24T16:30:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-mafia-family-legend-sonny-franzese-dead-at-103-a-man-must" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237137491,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237137491?profile=original" /></a>By David Amoruso for <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family" target="_blank">Colombo crime family</a> underboss <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-underboss-john-sonny" target="_blank">John “Sonny” Franzese</a> passed away yesterday. He was 103 years old. Though there are many words to describe this mob legend: Hitman, gangster, hustler, extortionist, porn movie financier, father - the word that truly defined Franzese throughout his career is omerta, the Mafia’s code of silence. He lived and died by it.</p>
<p>Franzese once told an associate: “I killed a lot of guys. ... You're not talking about four, five, six, ten.” He was a feared and favored hitman within the New York Mafia’s <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family" target="_blank">Colombo crime family</a>, but was also highly respected for his ability to switch between vicious killer and intelligent businessman with an amazing ability to earn money.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237138466,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237138466?profile=original" /></a>The rackets and some porn</strong></span></p>
<p>He financed the classic porn movie “Deep Throat.” The movie was made in 1972 for a “cheap” $22,000 and would go on to gross over $600 million dollars. Franzese was also involved in more traditional rackets such as <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Robbery" target="_blank">robbery</a>, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Extortion" target="_blank">extortion</a>, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Gambling" target="_blank">gambling</a>, and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Drugs" target="_blank">narcotics</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>WATCH: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/video/michael-franzese-on-his-father-sonny-being-underboss-of-colombo-c" target="_blank">Michael Franzese on His Father Sonny</a> Being Underboss of Colombo Crime Family</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>But despite earning high grades in all these areas, he was best-known within the underworld for his willingness to do time and keep his mouth shut. He took a 50-year sentence without blinking and would eventually serve almost 40 years behind bars. At 100 years of age he was the oldest inmate in the prison system.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Mafia father and sons</strong></span></p>
<p>His reputation saw to it that his sons, Michael and John Junior, were welcomed with open arms in the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family" target="_blank">Colombo family</a>. Michael Franzese would make his father proud after becoming a capo and one of the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Mafia" target="_blank">Mafia</a>’s biggest moneymakers by earning hundreds of millions from a gasoline tax scam.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>WATCH: Michael Franzese on Quitting the Mafia,</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/video/michael-franzese-on-quitting-the-mafia-his-own-father-putting-a" target="_blank"><strong>His Own Father Sonny Putting a Hit on Him</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>However, though they inherited their father’s brawn and brain, they were lacking when it came to keeping their mouths shut. Both made statements in court and began working with law enforcement. Michael Franzese would eventually cooperate in certain cases, causing his father to disown him. John Jr. even went a step further by testifying against his own father at his 2010 racketeering trial in which “Sonny” was charged with shaking down the Penthouse and Hustler strip clubs in New York City.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237138473,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237138473?profile=original" /></a>A man must have a code</strong></span></p>
<p>For a man that put so much value in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Omerta" target="_blank">omerta</a>, seeing his two sons testifying in court must’ve caused him more pain than any bullet could have achieved. Still, as he got older, he had become more forgiving. He patched things up with Michael, who would post photos of him and his father having a good time on his social media accounts.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ:</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/always-a-gangster-racketeering-at-the-nursing-home" target="_blank"><strong>Always a gangster: Racketeering in the nursing home</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>After being <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-family-underboss-john-sonny-franzese-at-100-years-america" target="_blank">released from prison</a>, Franzese enjoyed his last few years of freedom. He had seen it all and done it all. He was walking the streets when the five families were created. Walked alongside many of the guys we only know from old, black and white photographs. Hell, he even whacked a few of those same guys. He climbed the ranks from lowly associate all the way to underboss of a family.</p>
<p>And he did it his way. By staying true to his code.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family">Colombo crime family section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/about-gangsters-inc">About Gangsters Inc.</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p></div>
Legendary New York Mafia boss Carmine Persico was the ultimate survivor, up until his death behind bars
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/legendary-new-york-mafia-boss-carmine-persico-was-the-ultimate-su
2019-03-08T11:51:04.000Z
2019-03-08T11:51:04.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/legendary-new-york-mafia-boss-carmine-persico-was-the-ultimate-su" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237110874,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237110874?profile=original" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>Colombo crime family boss Carmine Persico has passed away. He was 85. The New York Mafia boss was known for his tenacity and ruthlessness. Despite being locked up for life, he maintained an iron grip on his mob family from behind bars. He was a pure survivor. Right up until the moment he sighed his last breath.</p>
<p>Persico was serving a 139-year sentence when he died. A result of two federal racketeering trials in the 1980s. The first found him guilty of overseeing the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family" target="_blank">Colombo family</a>’s control over several unions, primarily the District Council of the Cement and Concrete Workers, through which the Colombos extorted millions of dollars from construction companies in New York. He was sentenced to 39 years in prison for that.</p>
<p>The second trial was known as the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Commission" target="_blank">Commission Trial</a> and ensnared the top leadership of New York’s five mob families, including Persico. All defendants were convicted on all charges and all leaders were sentenced to 100 years in prison.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/keeping-the-new-york-docks-in-the-mafia-family-from-the-gigantes" target="_blank">Keeping the New York docks in the (Mafia) family</a>: The Gigantes to the daughter of Donnie Brasco's “Lefty”</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Life behind bars did not bring an end to Persico’s rule over the Colombo family. Using relatives, like his brother and later his <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-boss-alphonse-persico" target="_blank">son</a>, both men are named Alphonse, and his other brother Theodore, he managed to control his clan from his prison cell.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Colombo War III</strong></span></p>
<p>Not that things went without a hitch. Colombo family capo <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Orena" target="_blank">Victor Orena</a> liked being acting boss and refused to relinquish his spot to Persico’s son <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-boss-alphonse-persico" target="_blank">Alphonse</a> in 1991. After he made his claim to the throne a war broke out between Orena’s faction and those loyal to Carmine Persico. Bodies were dropping all over New York bringing about outrage and fear among citizens. Police and the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=FBI" target="_blank">FBI</a> turned on the heat and indicted scores of Colombo gangsters, including Orena.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ:</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-fbi-s-secret-thirty-year-relationship-with-a-mafia-killer" target="_blank"><strong>The FBI's Secret Thirty-Year Relationship with Mafia Killer Greg Scarpa</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237111295,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237111295?profile=original" /></a>The ultimate survivor</strong></span></p>
<p>As the smoke cleared, Persico emerged as the winner. In the following decades he continued to dictate who would run the family and how, using his relatives and trusted individuals who by now knew the position wasn’t worth fighting a war over.</p>
<p>It was a situation befitting Persico. Growing up on the mean streets of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Brooklyn" target="_blank">Brooklyn</a>, he had always managed to come out on top despite a scrawny, small stature. His toughness was legendary. He fought his way to become the leader of the Garfield Boys, a <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Gangs" target="_blank">youth gang</a> that extorted lunch money from other students and was eventually arrested for the fatal beating of another youngster in 1951 at age 17. The charges were dropped but his reputation was now solid as a rock.</p>
<p><strong><span style="font-size:14pt;">The career of a made man</span></strong></p>
<p>He was recruited by the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Mafia" target="_blank">Mafia</a> family run by <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/profile-original-new-york-mafia-family-boss-giuseppe-profaci" target="_blank">Joseph Profaci</a> and became a made man while only in his mid-twenties. As a member of the crew led by capo Frank “Frankie Shots” Abbatemarco, he was involved in gambling, loansharking, and hijackings.</p>
<p>Persico was close to the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Gallo" target="_blank">Gallo</a> brothers, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mafia-rebel-crazy-joey-gallo" target="_blank">Joseph</a>, Larry and Albert, and would join them in their revolt against Profaci for a bigger piece of the criminal pie left in the wake of the demise of their captain Abbatemarco. It was to become known as the first Colombo war.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>“The Snake”</strong></span></p>
<p>It was here that Persico earned his second nickname. Known mostly as “Junior” he now was called “The Snake” behind his back. Not for turning on his boss <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/profile-original-new-york-mafia-family-boss-giuseppe-profaci" target="_blank">Joe Profaci</a>, mind you. But for turning on the Gallo brothers.</p>
<p>Persico switched sides back to Profaci not long after the fighting had erupted. When Persico asked to have a chat with Larry Gallo at a South Brooklyn bar called Sahara Club in August of 1961, Gallo thought it was to welcome Persico back into the fold. He thought so right up until a third man dropped a rope around Gallo’s neck and tried to strangle him. Gallo only survived because a beat cop walked in on the crime scene.</p>
<p>The attempted hit was later immortalized in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Godfather" target="_blank">The Godfather part II</a>.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Omerta and life and death in the Mafia</strong></span></p>
<p>Larry Gallo stayed true to <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Omerta" target="_blank">omerta</a>, the code of silence, and refused to identify the men who had tried to end his life. Instead, he would handle this the old-fashioned way. By biding his time for the perfect moment.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237112075,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237112075?profile=original" /></a>That moment came two years later in May of 1963 when the Gallo crew riddled a car Persico was sitting in with bullets. He was hit in the head, arm and hand, but survived. According to gangland folklore, he spat out the bullet that punctured his mouth. Then, badly wounded, he drove himself to the hospital. When a detective came by to ask him about the incident, Persico just shook his head. He had nothing to say. <em>Omerta</em> was a code he lived by.</p>
<p>After the assassination attempt on <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-two-sides-of-new-york-mob-boss-joe-colombo-and-how-his-murder" target="_blank">Joseph Colombo</a> on June 28, 1971, Persico seized control of the family. Under his watch, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mafia-rebel-crazy-joey-gallo" target="_blank">“Crazy Joe” Gallo</a> was whacked in front of Umberto’s Clam House in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Manhattan" target="_blank">Manhattan</a>’s Little Italy.</p>
<p>After serving a few years on loansharking and hijacking charges, Persico was released from prison in 1979. At age 46, he could finally begin to enjoy his position of power, influence, and wealth without worrying about any Gallo brother causing a fuss.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: Profile of</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-boss-thomas-tommy" target="_blank"><strong>Colombo family boss Thomas "Tommy Shots" Gioeli</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>By then, however, the good days were coming to an end. A combination of RICO, informants, and increased pressure from law enforcement were slowly decimating the mob. After enjoying just a few years of his hard-fought spot on top of the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family" target="_blank">Colombo family</a>, Persico went down for life.</p>
<p>Down but not out, though. As stated earlier, he remained the official boss. For Persico losing was never an option. Giving up wasn’t either. He kept his head high and soldiered on despite being shot or locked up for life. He accepted <em>the life</em> with all its ups and downs. It just so happens that death is a big part of it.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family">Colombo crime family section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
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The two sides of New York mob boss Joe Colombo and how his murder remains unsolved for over forty years
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-two-sides-of-new-york-mob-boss-joe-colombo-and-how-his-murder
2017-03-11T12:07:50.000Z
2017-03-11T12:07:50.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-two-sides-of-new-york-mob-boss-joe-colombo-and-how-his-murder" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237081270,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237081270?profile=original" width="520" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>The 1971 hit on New York Mafia boss Joseph Colombo – in public at the second Italian Unity Day rally - was one of the most infamous of its kind. Though the hitman was killed on the scene, questions remained. Four decades later, Colombo’s son Anthony reached a point where he didn’t want to keep the story in anymore. In his book <em><a href="http://amzn.to/2jArVEK" target="_blank">Colombo: The Unsolved Murder</a></em>, he and author Don Capria detail Colombo’s rise in the mob and the conspiracy that led to his death.</p>
<p>As leader of the troubled <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family" target="_blank">Colombo crime family</a> he had plenty of men gunning for his life, but no one expected the attack to go down the way it did. The shooting that brought down Colombo did not occur in some back alley or basement. When assassin Jerome Johnson fired several bullets at Colombo it happened in full view of the public and members of law enforcement.</p>
<p>Why Johnson did what he did remains unknown – he was shot to death at the scene of the crime - as is the person who ordered the murder. Though there is no shortage of conspiracy theories. Countless newspapers and books have covered the assassination, with each offering its own twist to the conspiracy story.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237081475,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237081475?profile=original" width="550" /></a><em>Joseph Colombo, on one knee, with Anthony standing ahead of him.</em></p>
<p>Most of these accounts, however, were so far off the mark that they agitated one man who was present when the whole thing went down. That man was Joseph Colombo’s son Anthony, who himself allegedly followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a captain in the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family" target="_blank">crime family</a> that bears his name, and walked next to his dad in the years leading up to his death.</p>
<p>“After 40 years, Anthony had reached a point where he didn’t want to keep the story in anymore,” Don Capria, who co-authored the <a href="http://amzn.to/2jArVEK" target="_blank">book</a> with <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/anthony-colombo-son-of-mafia-boss-dead-at-71" target="_blank">Anthony Colombo</a>, tells Gangsters Inc. When that moment arrived, Capria was there to offer a helping hand.</p>
<p>“I think Anthony had many reasons to get this story told, but the one that he was most vocal about was the false stories that came out about the shooting of his father,” Capria says. “Anthony knew information that did not match up to what the press printed.”</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Read: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/this-is-for-you-frank-profile-of-mafia-boss-frank-costello" target="_blank">Profile of Genovese family boss Frank Costello</a>, The Prime Minister of the Underworld</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>A mutual friend set up a meet on Sunday at a diner in Upstate New York. Capria: “I took the drive up and met with Anthony, his son, and a few close friends of the family. We ate breakfast and he was asking what I knew about his father and why I wanted to write the story. I think I came pretty prepared and I know I left with him interested in another meet.”</p>
<p>Besides meeting Colombo at the right time in his life, Capria also thinks he and Anthony had an immediate connection. “I think there is a level of immediate trust he had for me and as we talked more during the interviews that trust built more and more.”</p>
<p>For the next few months, Capria and Colombo would meet at the Mafia son’s house four days a week. “We began with a lot of the story from Anthony’s perspective,” Capria explains. “We would go over everything from his childhood to his father’s and ancestry. After I had the bulk of that story archived I researched dates and events in the news media and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=FBI" target="_blank">FBI</a> and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=NYPD" target="_blank">NYPD</a> files.”</p>
<p>For several years, Capria devoted most of his time and effort to this book. “It was the most difficult, interesting, satisfying and intriguing project I ever worked on,” he says. “It challenged me every day for two and a half years and still does today.”</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237082452,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237082452?profile=original" width="500" /></a><em>Author Don Capria</em></p>
<p>While researching, Capria went through each and every true crime book that covered Colombo’s shooting. He was astounded by the amount of writers who rehashed the popular belief behind the murder conspiracy. “It was like authors were writing the same passage but dressing it up with different adjectives and verbs. Once I started digging and investigating it was easy for me to see the popular belief is actually the most unlikely story,” he says.</p>
<p>The story he is referring to is the one that says Jerome Johnson was hired by <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mafia-rebel-crazy-joey-gallo" target="_blank">Joseph “Crazy Joe” Gallo</a> and his crew to whack Colombo. The Gallos had waged war on Colombo’s predecessor, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/profile-original-new-york-mafia-family-boss-giuseppe-profaci" target="_blank">Joseph Profaci</a>, and continued their fight against the established powers when “Crazy Joe” was released from prison. Inside, Gallo had allegedly made connections with black inmates, setting up what some reports called a “Sixth Mafia Family” made up out of members of all ethnicities. This, sources claimed, would explain Gallo’s use of Johnson as a hitman.</p>
<p>Capria is having none of it. And neither was Anthony Colombo.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237080065,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237080065?profile=original" width="520" /></a><em>Anthony Colombo</em></p>
<p>What makes the conspiracy behind Joseph Colombo’s murder such a difficult puzzle to solve is the fact that this man wore so many hats. He headed one of the country’s most powerful <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Mafia" target="_blank">Mafia</a> families, involved in everything from <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Gambling" target="_blank">gambling</a> to labor racketeering, while also founding and leading the Italian-American Civil Rights League, which stood up for Italian-Americans’ civil rights.</p>
<p>Colombo was not just a simple mob boss, he had become much more. He was of a different breed than most of the crime leaders of today. Capria agrees with that assessment, adding: “I think the era itself bred different men and leaders.”</p>
<p>He then continues with an anecdote that fits perfectly. Capria: “I was interviewing Al Ruddy, producer of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Godfather" target="_blank">The Godfather</a> film, and he told me a story about an FBI agent that would check in on him from time to time after they met in 1971. After Joe Colombo’s death, Ruddy spoke the agent again. When asked about his relationship with Joe, Ruddy said that he enjoyed the brief time and would have liked to have gotten to know him better. In describing the difference between these two eras of organized crime, the agent said to Ruddy, ‘You lived through the salad days of organized crime. These were business men that had certain codes they lived by. They are not like the halfwits that are out there today, murdering everyone.’ He told Ruddy ‘You saw the best of those guys.’” </p>
<p>His son Anthony showed he had inherited his father’s intelligence, Capria tells us. “His knowledge of Italian-American history surprised me. Anthony was a very smart man when it came to civil rights studies and especially those from the plight of the Italian-American immigrant.”</p>
<p>It was Joseph Colombo’s work as a civil rights leader that brought him in even greater conflict with the FBI than he already was. By the 1960, the Feds had increased their surveillance and, Colombo and other mobsters said, harassment of suspected members of the Mafia.</p>
<p>“The FBI was breaking the law to stop men from breaking the law,” Capria explains. “This is why Joe was so obsessed with bringing their wrongs to light. He felt there should be a standard that law enforcement is held to and they should not attack or harass innocent people to catch criminals.”</p>
<p>By bringing to light the FBI’s harsh – some would say illegal – tactics, Colombo placed himself on the Bureau’s list of top targets. While some might read this target list as one filled with criminal to arrest, Anthony Colombo and Don Capria read it simply as a hit list, one filled with enemies of the FBI that needed to disappear. Chief among them Joe Colombo.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Read: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-fbi-s-secret-thirty-year-relationship-with-a-mafia-killer" target="_blank">The FBI's secret 30-year relationship with a Mafia killer</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p>In their book <em><a href="http://amzn.to/2jArVEK" target="_blank">Colombo: The Unsolved Murder</a></em>, Colombo and Capria extensively detail the theories behind the murder conspiracy. While Anthony gives insight into his father’s – and grandfather’s – life in and outside the Mafia, Capria delves into the archives and details the facts that accompany the story. Still, he did not manage to produce a smoking gun, a theory to end all theories.</p>
<p>“I don’t think this project will ever be complete for me,” he says. “I think opening up this cold case file and not finding concrete evidence on who was behind Joe's shooting has left me feeling a lack of closure in my life.”</p>
<p>That is not to say he is uncertain about who was behind the hit. “I have to go with the most powerful boss and gang in the country at that time. That would be J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI,” he says.</p>
<p>What is left are the lessons we can learn from a decade-old story. The primary lesson is simple, Capria tells us. “Power to the people,” he says with a smile. “Colombo showed that organizing small and large groups and protesting a specific problem can make a great difference. He also used the power of boycott. He used Italian Unity Day as a major example of that. They told business to close down, and those that didn’t support the strike were told: ‘If you do not support the Italian-American community today, do not ask them to support you every other.’ This was a power we do not use today. Americans have no standards and communities are so far segregated they do not support each other.”</p>
<p>With the <a href="http://amzn.to/2jArVEK" target="_blank">book</a> in stores near you, Capria now has his eyes set on turning his writings into a motion picture or television series. “We hope someone in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gangsters-inc-s-showbiz" target="_blank">Hollywood</a> reads this story,” he tells. “It has all the elements of an epic crime tale. We are working on getting the documentary side of this story built first and hopefully that will lead to a major motion picture or TV series.”</p>
<p>If it does make it to the silver screen, it will do so without <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/anthony-colombo-son-of-mafia-boss-dead-at-71" target="_blank">Anthony Colombo</a>, who passed away of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/anthony-colombo-son-of-mafia-boss-dead-at-71" target="_blank">natural causes</a> at the beginning of this year. He was 71.</p>
<p>“He was a great friend,” Capria says. “We continued to speak on a weekly basis for years after the book was completed. He is on my mind daily and will be missed dearly. They don’t make men like Anthony anymore.”</p>
<p><strong>You can buy <em><a href="http://amzn.to/2jArVEK" target="_blank">Colombo: The Unsolved Murder</a></em> at <a href="http://amzn.to/2jArVEK" target="_blank">Amazon.com</a> and book stores near you.</strong></p>
<p><em>Photo credits: Photos of Don Capria and Anthony Colombo are by Estevan Oriol, cover photo is by Bob D’Alssandro, Joe on car with Anthony is by Corbis Images. Photos courtesy of Unity Press.</em></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family">Colombo crime family section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
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<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p>
<p> </p></div>
Anthony Colombo, son of Mafia boss, dead at 71
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/anthony-colombo-son-of-mafia-boss-dead-at-71
2017-01-12T15:00:00.000Z
2017-01-12T15:00:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/anthony-colombo-son-of-mafia-boss-dead-at-71"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237080065,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237080065?profile=original" width="520" /></a>By Gangsters Inc. Editors</p>
<p>Retired mobster Anthony Colombo passed away last week, <a href="http://ganglandnews.com/" target="_blank">Gangland News</a> reports. He was 71. Anthony was the eldest son of Mafia boss Joseph Colombo, who founded the Italian-American Civil Rights League and was shot by an assassin at one of his civil rights rallies in 1971. He remained paralyzed and died almost seven years later.</p>
<p>Anthony followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming an official member – or made guy – and then a capo in the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family">crime family</a> bearing his last name. His mob career earned <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Colombo">Colombo</a> time behind bars when he was busted by authorities leading a crew that ran illegal gambling operations in New York.</p>
<p>After retiring from “the life,” Colombo wrote a book about his father and family history titled <em><a href="http://amzn.to/2jArVEK" target="_blank">Colombo: The Unsolved Murder</a></em> with Don Capria. The book details his father’s rise in the Mafia and the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-colombo/did-the-fbi-kill-my-fathe_b_9190980.html" target="_blank">facts and theories</a> behind his death by the hands of a, supposed, lone assassin. </p>
<p>Colombo died of natural causes in his sleep.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237080865,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237080865?profile=original" width="500" /></a><em><strong>Joseph (left) and Anthony Colombo (right) on the Dick Cavett tv show</strong></em></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family">Colombo crime family section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
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<p> </p></div>
Don King: From street thug to street name?
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/don-king-from-street-thug-to-street-name
2016-10-26T13:33:17.000Z
2016-10-26T13:33:17.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/don-king-from-street-thug-to-street-name"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237075462,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237075462?profile=original" width="520" /></a>By Robert Sberna - <a href="http://www.robertsberna.com">www.robertsberna.com</a></p>
<p>With two killings under his belt and a long record of exploiting boxers in his employ, some might say that legendary promoter Don King exemplifies the type of character that has historically populated the fight game. At the professional level, the so-called “sweet science” is generally a grimy business. And King, perhaps more than anyone else in boxing, set the standard for dirty, low-down dealing.</p>
<p>During his career, King represented a string of boxing greats, including <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/i-shook-up-the-world-how-muhammad-ali-took-the-heavyweight-boxing">Muhammad Ali</a>, George Foreman, Mike Tyson and Larry Holmes, all of whom would file lawsuits against him. King’s early years were spent in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Cleveland">Cleveland</a>, Ohio as a feared numbers runner and loan shark with ties to the city’s <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Mob">mob</a>. While still in his teens, King gained a reputation for dealing severely with transgressors. In 1954, he shot a man in the back when he discovered him allegedly trying to rob one of his illegal <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Gambling">gambling</a> parlors. A police review ruled the shooting a justifiable homicide. In 1966, he encountered an employee, Sam Garrett, outside of the Manhattan Tap Room on Cleveland’s Cedar Avenue. Angered over an unpaid $600 gambling debt, King stomped the smaller Garrett to death on the sidewalk. King was convicted of manslaughter and served four years in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Prison">prison</a>.</p>
<p>Now, some members of Cleveland City Council are proposing to honor their native son by renaming a stretch of Cedar Avenue, near where Garrett was killed, as “Don King Way.”</p>
<p>To use King’s own catchphrase: “Only in America.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237076052,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237076052?profile=original" width="498" /></a>Born in Cleveland in 1931, King (photo above) was a numbers runner, loanshark, bookmaker, and an amateur boxer before becoming a boxing promoter and manager. While serving time for the Garrett murder, King listened to <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/i-shook-up-the-world-how-muhammad-ali-took-the-heavyweight-boxing">Muhammad Ali</a> and Joe Frazier’s “Fight of the Century” in 1971. King was inspired by the historic event and one year later, convinced Ali to come to Cleveland to participate in a charity boxing match to support a local hospital. However, an investigative report compiled years later by ESPN revealed that the hospital only received $1500 of the $85,000 collected in ticket sales. </p>
<p>King’s association with Ali would lead to him winning the rights to promote the “Rumble in the Jungle” in Zaire between Ali and then-heavyweight champ George Foreman. The next year, he promoted the "Thrilla in Manila" between Ali and Joe Frazier in the Philippines.</p>
<p>King would go on to promote many world championship bouts and represent dozens of top boxers. However, he was strongly criticized for his practice of representing both opponents in a title fight. He did this through the use of a contractual clause that required a boxer who wished to challenge a fighter belonging to King to agree to be promoted by King in the future if he won. Thus, no matter which boxer was victorious, King represented the winner. Those who balked at King’s terms would find it very difficult to obtain fights, especially title fights, with boxers who were promoted by King.</p>
<p>King’s early career was marked by his violent response to anyone who cheated him. But he didn’t seem to have any compunction against defrauding others. King would frequently deliver a one-two punch to boxers—cheating them and then, when sued, dragging out the litigation for years until agreeing to settle for a paltry amount. In 1982, he was sued by <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/i-shook-up-the-world-how-muhammad-ali-took-the-heavyweight-boxing">Muhammad Ali</a> for underpaying him $1.2 million from a fight purse years earlier. After a legal battle, he settled with Ali (who was, at that time, hospitalized and in financial straits) for $50,000 in cash.</p>
<p>Larry Holmes, Tim Witherspoon, Terry Wayne Norris, Meldrick Taylor, and many others would accuse King of shortchanging them. They would eventually settle for a fraction of the amount they were owed. He paid Witherspoon only $90,000 of a $500,000 purse, explaining that his stepson, Carl King (who was Witherspoon’s manager), was contractually owed 50 percent of the boxer’s purse, or $250,000.</p>
<p>In some cases, King would use his mob connections to threaten violence to a disgruntled fighter. In Meldrick Taylor’s case, he was warned to drop a legal action or he would be killed.</p>
<p>Former heavyweight champ Larry Holmes, who claims King cheated him out of $20-$30 million over his career, famously likened the promoter to Satan, saying, “His hair sticks up to hide his horns.” Holmes sued King after King deducted an inexplicable $300,000 ‘finder's fee’ from his fight purse against Mike Tyson. Holmes settled for $150,000 and also signed a legal agreement promising not to disclose negative information about King. When Holmes’s manager, Richie Giachetti, also a Cleveland native, wanted to report King to the FBI, Holmes declined to help, reportedly saying, “King has a lot of bad friends…I’m scared for my family. I’ve got to be careful. He can hurt me.”</p>
<p>King’s intimidation tactics didn’t always work though. In 1998, boxing champ Mike Tyson sued King, claiming the promoter bilked him out of $100 million. The case was settled out of court for $14 million. But not before Tyson tracked down King in Los Angeles and thrashed him outside of a hotel.</p>
<p>Explaining why he beat up King, Tyson told an interviewer, “[I was angry] that he refused to admit any wrongdoing. I confronted him. He basically denied it and I attacked him in front of these old decrepit white women. King is a wretched, slimy, reptilian motherfucker. This is supposed to be my ‘black brother’, right? He's just a bad man, a real bad man. He would kill his own mother for a dollar. He’s ruthless, he’s deplorable, he’s greedy...and he doesn't know how to love anybody.”</p>
<p>King’s ties to organized crime have long been suspected. During the 1980s, an FBI investigation led by agent Joe Spinelli, conducted a four-year probe into corruption in boxing. Spinelli would later write about the investigation in an issue of Sports Illustrated magazine. In the Nov. 3, 1991 New York Times, Dave Anderson wrote about Spinelli’s investigation and his revelations in the Sports Illustrated article.</p>
<p>“Acording to Spinelli,” wrote Anderson, “An undercover agent using the name Victor Quintana pretended to be a multimillionaire drug dealer who hoped to launder money as a boxing promotional partner. Quintana met with King early in 1983 after being ushered into the promoter's office by <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Franzese">Michael Franzese</a>, then a capo in the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family">Colombo crime family</a>, and the Rev. Al Sharpton, who acknowledges having been a FBI informant later but not at the time of the meeting. Shortly afterwards, Spinelli recalls, the FBI abruptly canceled its investigation. Two months earlier, South Korean lightweight Duk Koo Kim died after being knocked out by Ray Mancini in a title bout. According to Spinelli, the FBI office in Washington did not want to risk being involved in a boxing promotion that could possibly result in a boxer's death. Two months later, Quintana met <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/genovese-capo-pagano-hit-with-racketeering-charges">Danny Pagano</a>, a <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-genovese-crime-family">Genovese crime family</a> soldier. When Pagano found out that Quintana had met King through Franzese, Pagano said, ‘What did you go to Michael for? King’s with us.’”</p>
<p>King was even called before a 1992 U.S. Senate committee to discuss his connection to mob boss <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Gotti">John Gotti</a> and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/genovese-boss-matthew-matty">Matthew “Matty the Horse” Ianniello</a>. King invoked the Fifth Amendment, refusing to answer any questions. He was charged with tax evasion, but the case was dropped.</p>
<p>In 1983, Ohio Governor Jim Rhodes pardoned King’s 1966 manslaughter conviction (a move that was rumored to have been spurred by a King bribe).</p>
<p>In September of this year, when Cleveland City Council proposed the naming of Don King Way, some members noted that King, now 85, had turned his life around. Without explaining why that particular stretch was chosen, they pointed out that King, who is worth an estimated $150 million, has donated millions of dollars to various charities in his hometown.</p>
<p>But other members questioned the wisdom of the street renaming, noting the proximity to King’s murder of Garrett.</p>
<p>However, even when reminded of Garret’s brutal beating, a Cleveland council member argued in support of the renaming, saying that many street names can be considered controversial. “Some of the streets in America are named after, if you look at the history, former slave owners,” he said, according to a Cleveland Plain Dealer article.</p>
<p>A 1966 police report written by Cleveland Police detective Robert Tonne detailed Garret’s death. Tonne stated that, two cops driving past the scene saw the 6-foot-2, 230-pound King beating Garrett. In Tonne’s report, he noted that King, who had a gun in his right hand, was kicking Garrett in the face and head. When the cops ordered King to drop his gun, he threw the pistol on a nearby car and kicked Garret once more in the face.</p>
<p>The unconscious Garrett, 34, was transported to a hospital where he died. Doctors reported that he had a punctured ear drum, fractured jaw and a skull fracture.</p>
<p>Witnesses who saw Garrett being beaten told police that King pistol-whipped him and repeatedly kicked him. One witness reported that just before Garrett fell unconscious, he pleaded with King to stop, screaming, “I’ll give you the money, Don!”</p>
<p><strong><em><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Sberna">Robert Sberna</a> is a Cleveland-based journalist who contributes to several national publications. His first book, <a href="http://amzn.to/2eAhLTQ" target="_blank">House of Horrors</a>: The Shocking True Story of Anthony Sowell, was named 2012 True Crime “Book of the Year” by Foreword Reviews. His most recent book, <a href="http://amzn.to/2e3QhX4" target="_blank">Badge 387</a>: The Jim Simone Story, was released in August 2016. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.robertsberna.com" target="_blank">www.robertsberna.com</a></em></strong></p>
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Profile: Original New York Mafia family boss Giuseppe Profaci
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/profile-original-new-york-mafia-family-boss-giuseppe-profaci
2016-09-21T10:30:00.000Z
2016-09-21T10:30:00.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/profile-original-new-york-mafia-family-boss-giuseppe-profaci"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237069078,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237069078?profile=original" width="520" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>Giuseppe Profaci was one of the five original New York mob bosses, leading what would become known later as the Colombo crime family of La Cosa Nostra. His tenure spanned several decades and countless violent incidents, including a Mafia uprising within his own family.</p>
<p>Born in the Sicilian village of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Villabate">Villabate</a> on October 2, 1897, Profaci quickly took to a life of crime. According to mob historian Thomas Hunt, Profaci was sent to prison late in 1920 after he was found guilty of "forgery with intent to defraud." His family was involved with the Villabete Cosa Nostra clan.</p>
<p>Once he got out from prison, Profaci decided to try his luck in the country of endless opportunities: The United States of America. He arrived in New York City in 1921 and eventually settled in Chicago. After several years in which he ran a grocery store and bakery, he decided to return to New York. Back in the Big Apple, he began an olive oil import business.</p>
<p>He also got involved with the city’s criminal element, specifically the Sicilian gangsters in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Brooklyn">Brooklyn</a>, a borrow where relatives of the Magliocco clan were already well-established. Within a very short period of just three years since returning to New York, Profaci emerged as a leader while other powerful Mafia figures in Brooklyn were murdered.</p>
<p>His promotion as boss notwithstanding, these were violent and uncertain times for New York’s Italian mobsters as two bosses fought to control it all. In 1930, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/american-mafia-s-boss-of-bosses-whacked-at-his-office">Salvatore Maranzano</a> and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/kill-the-chinaman-1">Giuseppe Masseria</a> turned the city into a warzone in what became known as the Castellammarese War.</p>
<p>While all the smaller families had to choose sides and pick up guns, Profaci took on a different role. According to <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-bonanno-crime-family">Joseph Bonanno</a>, who was a close friend of Profaci and himself a Mafia boss, “Profaci’s sympathies were with the Castellammarese [led by Maranzano], but his Family would never take part in the war directly,” Bonanno wrote in his autobiography. “Maranzano urged Profaci to remain officially neutral and to act as an intermediary with other groups.”</p>
<p>When the big war ended, Maranzano came out on top. But only for a short time. He was considered out of touch with his troops and a faction led by <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/luckys-luck-how-charlie">Charles “Lucky” Luciano</a> organized his demise and subsequent murder. Where Maranzano had placed himself at the head of the table as boss of bosses, Luciano opted a different approach, dividing the New York underworld into five different families led by five bosses who held total control over their family and affairs.</p>
<p><strong>Read: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/american-mafia-s-boss-of-bosses-whacked-at-his-office">American Mafia's boss of bosses whacked at his office</a></strong></p>
<p>Giuseppe “Joe” Profaci was one of these five original bosses, alongside <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Luciano">Luciano</a>, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Bonanno">Bonanno</a>, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Mangano">Vincent Mangano</a>, and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Gagliano">Tommaso Gagliano</a>. These men all had a seat on the Commission, a governing body that oversaw <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/organized-crime-in">mob operations in the United States</a>, and included several crime families from other American cities.</p>
<p>The year was 1931, and life was good. These were the golden years for the mob. Profaci raked in money from illegal gambling, extortion, loansharking, and drug trafficking. He also had his legitimate businesses, including a very successful olive oil company, which earned him the nickname “The Olive Oil King” and would later serve as inspiration for Mario Puzo’s <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Godfather">The Godfather</a> in which character <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Corleone">Vito Corleone</a> runs an olive oil import business, called Genco Olive Oil, as well.</p>
<p>By the 1950s, however, times had changed. Authorities turned on the heat and Profaci was fighting the IRS over unpaid taxes and US Immigration Services who tried to revoke his citizenship. The bomb burst into the open when Profaci was among dozens of other Mafia leaders arrested in Apalachin, where he attended a meeting of mobsters from all over the country.</p>
<p><strong>Read: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mob-meeting-at-apalachin-the">Mob Meeting at Apalachin</a></strong></p>
<p>If that wasn’t enough, the sixties arrived. Depending on who you ask, those were either the best or worst years of their life. For Profaci they were the worst and his last.</p>
<p>His underlings were beginning to grumble. They were unhappy with how much money they earned, chief among them <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mafia-rebel-crazy-joey-gallo">Joseph Gallo</a>, a soldier who operated out of Red Hook, Brooklyn. In February of 1961, Gallo and his crew did something that was so ballsy, no one saw it coming.</p>
<p><strong>Read: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mafia-rebel-crazy-joey-gallo">Profile of Mafia rebel “Crazy Joe” Gallo</a></strong></p>
<p>They kidnapped several men who were very close to Profaci. Though it remains sketchy as to who exactly were kidnapped, several names pop up frequently. They were: Profaci’s right-hand man Joseph Magliocco, his brother Salvatore "Frank" Profaci, John Scimone, Sally "The Sheik" Mussachio, and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Colombo">Joseph Colombo</a>. They also tried to kidnap Profaci himself, but he managed to escape and flee to Florida, while his family was undergoing a civil war.</p>
<p>Profaci was seething. But like any Sicilian Mafioso worth his salt, he didn’t act like it. He began negotiations with the Gallo crew, promising them more money and operations. At the same time, he got one of Gallo’s crew members, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-boss-carmine-persico">Carmine Persico</a>, to switch sides. Persico then helped Profaci set up Joe Gallo’s brother Larry by luring him to a bar where he was to be strangled to death. As the rope cut tight around Larry Gallo’s throat, a cop walked by the bar and interrupted the hit attempt, saving Gallo’s life.</p>
<p>From that point on both sides were fighting each other out in the open. They “went to the mattresses,” as they say. Armed soldiers drove around the city looking for their rivals.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the war caused loss of income and stress for the other families as well. At a Commission meeting, the other bosses told Profaci about their concerns. <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gambino-boss-carlo-gambino">Carlo Gambino</a> urged Profaci to step down as boss and retire to put an end to the unrest within his family. Gambino was supported by <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/lucchese-boss-gaetano-lucchese">Gaetano Lucchese</a>.</p>
<p>Profaci, however, was angered by their proposal. As was his close ally Joseph Bonanno. Faced with an all-out mob war between four families, Gambino and Lucchese backed down and Profaci continued as boss.</p>
<p>Around this time, Profaci was already very ill. He had liver cancer and knew time was running out. While the war raged on, he died on June 6, 1962, in South Side Hospital in Bay Shore, New York. The Gallos were no longer his problem, but would continue to cause plenty of headaches for several of his successors in the years to come.</p>
<p><em>Thanks to Thomas Hunt for his help with this profile.</em></p>
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Profile: Colombo family capo Luca DiMatteo
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/profile-colombo-family-capo-luca-dimatteo
2016-09-17T11:00:00.000Z
2016-09-17T11:00:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/profile-colombo-family-capo-luca-dimatteo"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237063890,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237063890?profile=original" width="400" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>Luca DiMatteo (71) is a longtime member of New York’s <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family">Colombo crime family</a>. According to authorities, he currently holds the rank of (acting) capo. In July of 2015, DiMatteo and his nephew, Lukey DiMatteo, were charged with racketeering conspiracy, extortion, loansharking, and operating an illegal gambling business.</p>
<p>FBI agents had been tapping DiMatteo’s phone for months and had found that the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family">Colombo capo</a> had a steady drip of illegal income by allegedly extorting a local business owner for more than ten years. Now, when we say “drip” we really mean it. The business owner paid DiMatteo and his nephew a measly $100 to $200 every two weeks.</p>
<p>Though it may seem like peanuts, DiMatteo really valued the hundred bucks. According to federal prosecutors, he even picked up extortion payments in between his chemotherapy sessions – DiMatteo was diagnosed with bladder cancer. In fairness, the business was on his route when he was also picking up loansharking payments, prosecutors allege.</p>
<p>While he was receiving chemo treatments, and unable to go out, DiMatteo allegedly sent his brother or nephew Lukey to handle his illegal business for him.</p>
<p>On September 9, 2016, a Brooklyn judge sentenced DiMatteo to 33 months in prison for his criminal deeds. Upon reading his verdict, Judge Leo Glasser said, "I’m not doing it to you, Mr. DiMatteo. You’re doing it to yourself. You knew what that life is... you couldn’t rid yourself of it, you couldn’t cut yourself loose."</p>
<p>For those of you who thought a life of crime would bring you untold riches, think again. Stay in school and out of trouble. </p>
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Profile: Colombo family associate Thomas McLaughlin
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/profile-colombo-family-associate-thomas-mclaughlin
2016-02-14T08:00:00.000Z
2016-02-14T08:00:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/profile-colombo-family-associate-thomas-mclaughlin"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237057072,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237057072?profile=original" width="400" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>Colombo crime family hitman Tommy McLaughlin disappeared into the Witness Protection Program last Friday. Gangsters Inc. bids him farewell with a profile.</p>
<p>Thomas McLaughlin (photo above) began his criminal career as a member of a street gang called the Bay Parkway Boys. An innocent enough sounding name, but these boys quickly moved on to more serious acts than throwing eggs at houses. McLaughlin, especially, when he hooked up with wiseguys from the notorious <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family">Colombo crime family</a>.</p>
<p>The Colombo mob had a violent history dating back to the days when Colombo soldier <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mafia-rebel-crazy-joey-gallo">“Crazy Joe” Gallo</a> took on Colombo family boss Joseph Profaci. The war was paused when Gallo went to prison and Profaci passed away, only to be set ablaze once more when Gallo was released and butted heads with then-boss Joseph Colombo.</p>
<p>On the streets, McLaughlin had earned a reputation as a tough kid with a quick temper. He’d fit right in with the crazy Colombo bunch. He had his chance to prove it in the early 1990s, when the third <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family">Colombo family</a> war broke out between the Persicos - <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-boss-carmine-persico">father</a> and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-boss-alphonse-persico">sons</a> - and their loyalists and Victor Orena and his renegades, McLaughlin found himself in an orgy of violence that left ten mobsters and two innocent bystanders dead in the streets.</p>
<p>McLaughlin himself participated in two murders during the war as a member of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-capo-gregory-the-grim">Gregory Scarpa</a>’s crew. Scarpa was known as <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-fbi-s-secret-thirty-year-relationship-with-a-mafia-killer">The Grim Reaper</a> and was one of the deadliest mob soldiers ever to walk the streets of New York. McLaughlin would come over to his house on a regular basis and began dating Scarpa’s daughter Linda.</p>
<p>With a father-in-law like Scarpa, McLaughlin had all the connections he needed. But he had one more, his cousin, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-boss-thomas-tommy">Thomas Gioeli</a> was a fast-rising Colombo wiseguy as well. </p>
<p>Unfortunately for him though, authorities had him in their sights. In 1996, they busted his drug operation and sent him to prison for the next 14 years. While behind bars he married Linda Scarpa, but the marriage did not last.</p>
<p>Upon his release from prison in 2008, after having proven himself as a standup guy and a man capable of murdering for the organization, McLaughlin expected to be welcomed back by his mob colleagues with open arms and a cushy job or payday.</p>
<p>He was wrong.</p>
<p>Though his cousin <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-boss-thomas-tommy">Thomas Gioeli</a> was now boss of the family, their bond wasn’t tight. What made life in the new millennium even worse for McLaughlin: Many Colombo mobsters had flipped and turned government witness.</p>
<p>Including capo Dino “Big Dino” Calabro, who implicated him in the murder of Frank “Chestnut” Marasa, who was shot to death in front of his Bensonhurst home on June 12, 1991, a victim of the mob war.</p>
<p>Disappointed with the Mafia and confronted with the outlook of spending the rest of his life in prison, McLaughlin took matters into his own hands and contacted the FBI: He wanted to join Team America.</p>
<p>Starting in 2009, he wore a wire and taped scores of gangsters saying incriminating things. Because of his cooperation it was not him, but his cousin <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-boss-thomas-tommy">Thomas Gioeli</a> who went to prison for the killing of Marasa.</p>
<p>McLaughlin’s work and testimony earned him a new life in the witness protection program with his new wife and their family.</p>
<p>The judge presiding over his case called McLaughlin’s cooperation “historic” and felt confident that McLaughlin had “gone straight and is going to stay straight.”</p>
<p>46-year-old McLaughlin was short about his exploits, stating in court last Friday, “I just want to apologize for my past and look forward to the future.”</p>
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Colombo crime family mobster Giovanni Cerbone
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/colombo-mobster-giovanni-cerbone
2015-11-07T16:03:40.000Z
2015-11-07T16:03:40.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-mobster-giovanni-cerbone"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237044266,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237044266?profile=original" width="400" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>Giovanni "John" Cerbone is an alleged made member of the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family">Colombo crime family</a> in New York. According to Assistant Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Geddes, 43-year-old Cerbone is part of the crew run by Colombo captain Joseph Amato.</p>
<p>Though he has a steady job working as a plumber, authorities caught Cerbone on drug and money laundering charges in a sting operation. He eventually pleaded guilty to distribution of cocaine, marijuana, and oxycodone pills, and laundering the proceeds of his crimes.</p>
<p>On November 5, 2015, he was sentenced to 70 months in prison.</p>
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Profile: Colombo family capo Pasquale Amato
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/profile-colombo-family-capo-pasquale-amato
2015-03-17T14:55:28.000Z
2015-03-17T14:55:28.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/profile-colombo-family-capo-pasquale-amato"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237041883,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237041883?profile=original" width="520" /></a></p>
<p>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>Colombo crime family captain Pasquale Amato died Friday, March 13, at age 80. He was serving a life sentence at a federal prison in Florida when he passed away. Though Amato was by no means an innocent man, there are some who say he did not commit the murder that sent him away to prison for the rest of his life.</p>
<p>Pasquale Amato had been a capo in the Colombo mob since at least 1988, according to court documents. Operating <a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237042476,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237042476?profile=original" width="173" /></a>out of Queens, New York, he became close to acting boss Vic Orena, who represented his friend and imprisoned boss <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-boss-carmine-persico">Carmine Persico</a> (right).</p>
<p>At one point, Orena began making moves to officially replace Persico as leader of the family. Though he later vehemently denied ever wanting the boss position, many informants claimed it was Orena who tried to wrest control of the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family">Colombo mob</a> from Persico.</p>
<p>When Persico found out, despite being miles away behind steel bars, his reaction was swift and violent. In June of 1991, Orena barely escaped an attempt on his life by Persico gunmen. It was the start of the Colombo family war, the third in its history.</p>
<p>The Mafia violence would claim twelve lives, including three innocent bystanders, when it ended in 1993.</p>
<p>The war also put the two fighting factions under intense scrutiny from law enforcement and investigations eventually resulted in the arrest of more than 80 Colombo wiseguys, including Orena and Amato.</p>
<p>In April of 1992, both men were charged with the murder of Colombo soldier Thomas C. Ocera, who was an alleged member of Amato’s crew. Interestingly enough, Ocera’s murder had nothing to do with the Colombo war.</p>
<p>Tommy Ocera was a very successful made member of the Colombos. He was a smart operator who was part owner of the Manor, a restaurant and catering hall in Merrick, Long Island, owned interests in a refuse-carting business and gasoline supply company. He also had a lucrative loansharking operation and ran two gambling clubs.</p>
<p>His keen business sense was backed up by muscle. Ocera was a former prize-fighter and could handle himself well in combat. </p>
<p>On October 5, 1989, Ocera’s successful run came to an end, somewhat. That day, the Suffolk County police executed a search warrant for the Manor, and seized Ocera's record books. Among these records was a datebook containing names and numbers that were shown at trial to be accounts of loans made and “vig” owed. It was a huge blunder by Ocera and one the mob does not appreciate. Or tolerate.</p>
<p>Ocera tried to get the police to return the datebook, but failed. Testimony provided by a manager at the Manor revealed that, in the month following the search, Ocera began to drink heavily and grew despondent, talking about how he expected to be killed. He and the restaurant manager received anonymous death threats, and, in one incident, were menaced by a car driven by a Colombo family soldier.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237042657,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237042657?profile=original" width="135" /></a>Things went from bad to worse quick. A month later, Ocera vanished. Two years later, on October 3, 1991, the FBI unearthed the former prize-fighter's remains after an informant led them to his buried corpse. Six months later, FBI agents arrested Vic Orena (right) and Pasquala Amato and charged them with the murder of Ocera.</p>
<p>The evidence against the two Colombo leaders consisted primarily of testimony by four coconspirators, and court-authorized and consensual tape recordings. The four cooperating witnesses were Michael Maffatore and Harry Bonfiglio, who disposed of the body of Thomas Ocera, Maffatore subsequently pointed out the location to FBI agents; Joseph Ambrosino, a member of the Colombo family; and Alphonse D'Arco, the one-time acting boss of the Lucchese crime family.</p>
<p>Prosecutors claimed that early in November 1989, Victor Orena ordered Giachino “Jack” Leale to kill Ocera, reportedly because Ocera was skimming money from the loansharking operation. Maffatore testified that before the murder, he drove Leale to a meeting with Orena and overheard the Colombo boss say, “I want this thing taken care of.” When Leale got back in the car he told Maffatore that’d received a contract to kill Ocera. Maffatore then drove Leale to Ocera’s gambling club where he met with Amato. There, Maffatore overheard Amato telling Leale that “they didn’t want [Ocera’s] body to be found.”</p>
<p>On November 13, 1989, Leale lured Ocera to Amato's house. There, Bonfiglio testified, Amato held Ocera down while Leale garroted him in what must've been an even more horrendous scene than the strangling of Luca Brasi in The Godfather. Leale then placed the body in the trunk of Bonfiglio’s car, which he had borrowed for this occasion. Afterwards Leale, assisted by Maffatore and Bonfiglio, buried Ocera's body later that night in Forest Park, Queens.</p>
<p>According to prosecutors, Amato did not appear at the Manor for his morning meeting with Ocera the next day or ever again. The day after the murder, in accordance with crime family practice, Leale was awarded Ocera's two gambling clubs. Bonfiglio and Maffatore, however, were not compensated, and grumbled in intercepted conversations about not receiving credit from Amato for helping to bury Ocera.</p>
<p>Hell has no fury like two disgruntled employees.</p>
<p>Thanks to their testimony prosecutors were able to build a case against Orena and Amato. And against Leale too, if only he had been alive, but he wasn’t. He was shot to death in a parking lot on Long Island in November of 1991.</p>
<p>Orena and Amato were both found guilty of the murder of Tommy Ocera – and various other crimes - and would never see freedom ever again.</p>
<p>Though they did have a simmer of hope when a new witness popped up and testified that they had nothing to do with the death of Ocera.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237042666,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237042666?profile=original" width="120" /></a>Gregory Scarpa Jr. (right) is the son of Colombo family soldier <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-capo-gregory-the-grim">Gregory Scarpa Sr.</a> Known as The Grim Reaper, Scarpa Senior was one of the deadliest mobsters on the streets at that time. Besides being a stone killer, he was also an FBI informant <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-fbi-s-secret-thirty-year-relationship-with-a-mafia-killer">whose relationship with the FBI</a> led to numerous investigations into possible corruption at the Bureau. Years after his death, journalists like <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/deal-with-the-devil-q-a-with-author-peter-lance">Peter Lance</a> continue to uncover more stories about how Scarpa Sr. played the FBI.</p>
<p>According to his son, The Grim Reaper also played Orena and Amato. Scarpa Jr. testified that his father said to him that “[FBI agent] DeVecchio told him that Tommy Ocera was spreading rumors that my father was an informant and that Ocera himself may be a ‘rat.’ My father never received an order from Victor Orena to kill Tommy Ocera.”</p>
<p>If the judge and jury would have believed Scarpa Jr.’s testimony then every case made with help of FBI agent Lin DeVecchio, the FBI’s Colombo squad, or Greg Scarpa Sr.’s testimony would have been rendered obsolete resulting in the release of dozens of mobsters.</p>
<p>As one can predict, Scarpa Jr. was not found to be a credible witness.</p>
<p>Pasquale Amato was a prisoner of the Coleman Federal penitentiary, a facility outside of Orlando, and succumbed to brain cancer at age 80. A Bureau of Prisons spokesman confirmed the death to the New York Post, but declined to provide details to the tabloid newspaper.</p>
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Mafia Rebel: Profile of Colombo crime family soldier Joseph “Crazy Joey” Gallo
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/mafia-rebel-crazy-joey-gallo
2013-10-21T12:00:00.000Z
2013-10-21T12:00:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mafia-rebel-crazy-joey-gallo"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237028854,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237028854?profile=original" width="402" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>Joey Gallo’s toughness was unequaled in a period filled with tough, stone killers. But Gallo thought of himself as more than a thug. He thought of himself as an artist, a poet. He thought of himself as the boss of a multi-ethnic mafia family that ruled New York. The rest of the underworld just thought he was crazy.</p>
<p>Joseph Gallo was what you call an eccentric person. Something was a bit off with him. In 1946 he was honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy after staff at the Great Lakes Naval Hospital found him “temperamentally unsuited for further military service manifested by restlessness and a nervous disorder.”</p>
<p>His weird behavior landed him in Kings County Hospital four years later. Picked up on burglary charges and ready to go to trial in a zoot suit a magistrate found Gallo incapable of understanding the charges against him and sent him to the psych ward for evaluation. As Joey Gallo spent his twenty-first birthday there, the psychiatrists declared him presently insane.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237024658,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237024658,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237024658?profile=original" width="211" /></a>“Crazy Joe.” It’s not a bad nickname to have. They first called him Joey the Blonde, but with his hair rapidly going on the lam and his behavior only getting stranger Crazy Joe was the way to go. The nickname inspired both ridicule and fear, never at the same time though.</p>
<p>Together with his brothers Larry and Albert Joey went to work to become a powerful force in the underworld. Back then there was no greater power than the American Mafia. Five criminal families divided the New York City rackets among each other. Gambling, extortion, loansharking, drugs, labor racketeering, and any scheme they could dream up were operated by lowly soldiers under control of captains and bosses. It was American organized crime at the peak of its power and influence. And the Gallo brothers were eager to join.</p>
<p>As the oldest sibling Larry Gallo paved the way for Albert and Joey. Growing up in Red Hook, Brooklyn, the boys fell under the tutelage of Frank “Frankie Shots” Abbatemarco, a capo in the Profaci crime family. He ran the South Brooklyn numbers rackets, raking in $2.5 million a year. The brothers also started up a bogus union to extort bar owners in the area. With Frankie Shots as their mentor the Gallos started dreaming about a bright future in the mob. All they needed now was a chance to show the bosses they deserved a larger piece of the pie.</p>
<p>When Charles “Lucky” Luciano decided the mob in New York did not need a boss of bosses, he divided the Italian-American underworld in New York into five groups called families. Each family would be run by a boss who would have a seat on the Commission, a national board of mafia bosses who ran the rackets. This was done to ensure peace between the various criminal groups and a smooth way of doing business. But crime never runs smooth and peace is always getting disturbed by gunfire and murder. It wasn’t long before various bosses were “replaced” in not very peaceful ways.</p>
<p>In 1957, the Gallo crew was given the contract to hit crime boss Albert Anastasia. Anastasia was one of the most feared bosses in the United States known for his violent temper and the numerous murders he had ordered or personally committed as one of the founders of Murder Inc., the murder-for-hire and mob hit squad that operated nationwide. The Gallos knew that if they messed up this hit they would not live to see a new year.</p>
<p>Albert Anastasia had no clue that some of his fellow mob leaders had planned his demise as he entered Grasso’s Barber Shop at the Park Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan on October 25, 1957. It was to be just another relaxing visit to get a shave and trim, part of his daily routine. As he settled into the barber chair, Anastasia chatted with his nephew, Vincent Squillante, who was involved in the garbage racket, as he took a seat in the chair next to his.</p>
<p>Then, chaos.</p>
<p>Two gunmen walked up to Anastasia and fired five shots in his head and chest. The blasts dropped the notorious mob boss to the floor where he died instantly. The assassins then disappeared amongst the scared crowd never to be identified in a court of law.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237029091,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237029091,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237029091?profile=original" width="141" /></a>Still, word of who did it quickly spread in the underworld where gossip is as commonplace as at an Oprah Book Club. One informant even told his police handlers he heard it from one of the hitmen himself. The man told him, “From now on, you can just call the five of us the Barbershop Quintet!” That man was Joey Gallo (right).</p>
<p>After hitting Anastasia Gallo and his crew were on cloud 9. They felt they had finally hit the big time. They would rise up through the mob and get more power and money than ever before. Unfortunately for them, their boss <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/profile-original-new-york-mafia-family-boss-giuseppe-profaci">Joseph Profaci</a> did not quite agree with them.</p>
<p>As the supreme leader of a <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family">crime family</a>, Profaci did not feel the need to appease anyone but himself and those closest to him. It was one of the perks of being the boss of a criminal enterprise. Besides, these were the early 1960s! Back when mob bosses were respected and obeyed at all costs.</p>
<p>How could he have guessed a bunch of soldiers and associates from Brooklyn were planning to start a war just so they could get a pay raise? Who would be so crazy?!</p>
<p>On a single day in February of 1961, the Gallo crew made their move, a crazy play for more power and wealth. They kidnapped Profaci’s underboss Joseph Magliocco and four capos and sent out their demands to their boss: A larger share of the rackets.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237029466,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237029466,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237029466?profile=original" width="150" /></a>One can only imagine the face of Profaci (left) as he heard about this insubordination within his own family. Amazed, surprised, and angry as hell at such flagrant disrespect. Yet, in true Mafia fashion he hid these emotions from his enemies. Instead, he told the Gallos he would give in to their demands if they released their hostages.</p>
<p>And, crazy enough, the Gallo brothers believed him.</p>
<p>With his underboss and capos back safely, Profaci gathered his hitters and told them to go after the Gallos. It was time to go to the mattresses as it was called. Both sides armed to the teeth, holed up in barricaded safe houses sleeping on mattresses laid out on the floor, only going outside to hunt their dreaded rivals. The Gallo brothers and their crew assembled at their headquarters on President Street in Brooklyn, where they started planning their next action. There were negotiations between the Gallos and Profaci but those dragged on as the tension built.</p>
<p>The Gallo crew was heavily outnumbered by Profaci’s army. Not only that but old man Profaci also had a war chest that could finance a prolonged battle whereas the Gallos would quickly be on food stamps. Tom Folsom, author of <a href="http://amzn.to/19EeoAP" target="_blank">The Mad Ones</a>, described the situation as follows, “After the NYPD got tipped off on the coup against Profaci, eight detectives dubbed the Pizza Squad took over a vacant apartment on President Street across from Gallo headquarters. The squad kept a close watch on Larry, making it tough for him to conduct business. He was so stretched thin on cash that he couldn’t maintain the mortgage payments on his home. The repo man snatched his car.”</p>
<p>Larry Gallo was the crew’s undisputed leader, the man people looked to for relatively levelheaded thinking in these crazy and violent times. Larry also handled the negotiations with the Profaci family, which dragged on for months. Strapped for cash and numbed by spending months on high alert, Larry’s ability to sense danger had diminished. So much in fact, that he didn’t see the ambush he walked into like a lamb going to the slaughterhouse.</p>
<p>A Profaci soldier gave Larry some cash as a gesture of goodwill. All would be well soon, he made it seem. He invited Larry to join him for a drink at the Sahara Club, a known Profaci hangout. As Larry took a seat and grabbed his glass two men came up behind him and pulled a rope around his throat started to choke him. They told him that if he didn’t call his brothers and tell them to come to the bar they would kill him right then and there. For a guy like Larry that choice was easy.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237029872,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237029872,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237029872?profile=original" width="105" /></a>As the rope was pulled tighter and he began to lose consciousness, Larry hit a lucky shot. A police officer was walking his beat, noticed the noise, and decided to take a look. As he entered the bar, the Profaci men fled the scene and left Larry gasping for air. It was probably the only time in his life that Larry Gallo (right) was happy to see a cop.</p>
<p>Asked who had tried to strangle him, Larry upheld omerta, the code of silence, “Nobody would want to do a thing like that to me.” Albert and Joey couldn’t have been prouder of their big brother.</p>
<p>As the war dragged on, it started becoming a problem for the entire New York Mafia. The media attention and heat from law enforcement were causing difficulties for the other four families and the bosses let it be known to Profaci. But, being the stubborn and selfish man that he was, he refused to make peace. With the support of fellow boss Joseph Bonanno, Profaci was able to keep the Commission of his back and continue bleeding the Gallos dry, both in blood as financially.</p>
<p>It is interesting that the bosses called on Profaci to make peace as it would turn out to be a decision that was out of his hands. When he died of natural causes on June 6, 1962, his successor, underboss Joseph Magliocco, was still fighting the Gallos over the same bullshit.</p>
<p>While both sides worked hard on putting rivals underneath the ground, it was law enforcement that dealt the most devastating blows by putting the majority of the Gallo crew in jail. They got Joey on conspiracy and attempted extortion in late 1961, handing him a seven to fourteen year sentence. In 1962 a peace deal was arranged and the Gallos could wander the streets of New York without worrying about getting their heads blown off.</p>
<p>Joey Gallo spent his time in prison reading books and making new criminal connections. Imprisoned at the Green Haven Correctional Facility, he was housed with a variety of crooks. Amongst them drug traffickers like Lucchese mobster Matty Madonna and his protégé, Harlem drug czar <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/drug-boss-leroy-nicky-barnes">Leroy “Nicky” Barnes</a>.</p>
<p>Gallo wasn’t like most of the guys behind bars, Barnes <a href="http://amzn.to/Hd0UUd" target="_blank">told</a> author <a href="http://amzn.to/19EeoAP" target="_blank">Tom Folsom</a>. “Joey didn’t give a shit what you were. You’d see him walk around the yard, stopping whenever he’d want and talking to whoever he wanted to.”</p>
<p>He especially liked talking with Barnes. Gallo saw a partnership with Barnes in the near future. “He wanted to form a tight-knit cadre to stick up trucks. Joey loved hijacking,” the drug boss <a href="http://amzn.to/Hd0UUd" target="_blank">remembered</a>. But Gallo was also looking past simple crimes and teaching Barnes how the mob worked, how it was organized, and how Barnes could operate in a similar manner and how the both of them could make lots of money working together.</p>
<p>As Gallo was dreaming up new schemes and rackets, outside, his brother Larry was fighting a losing battle against cancer. In May of 1968, he died in his sleep at the age of 41. The responsibilities of the crew now fell on Joey, who had just turned 39. With all that both brothers had been through, they probably felt thirty years older.</p>
<p>Gallo was not confined by his mob environment. As <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/drug-boss-leroy-nicky-barnes">Nicky Barnes</a> described Gallo’s behavior behind bars, Joey acted the same on the other side of the fence. He went out and mixed with celebrities, poets, artists, singers, anyone he deemed interesting in one way or the other even if that person was the total opposite of himself. It gave him a folk hero image and would later earn him the song “Joey” by Bob Dylan, an ode to his life and death. As he impressed his hippy friends Gallo’s already big ego grew even more. It wasn’t long before it started another mafia war.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237030873,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237030873,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237030873?profile=original" /></a>When Joey Gallo was released from prison, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family">Joseph Colombo</a> (left) had taken over the family. Colombo was one of the captains the Gallo crew had held hostage during the war with Profaci. Now he was in charge of hundreds of men around the country, including Joey Gallo and the members of his crew. Colombo welcomed Gallo back with a gift of $1,000 dollars, seeing it as a nice gesture. Gallo, in turn, felt he should’ve killed the guy when he had him tied up and held hostage. Gallo had trouble accepting his position within the mob. He wasn’t a boss, nor a capo, he was a soldier. A soldier who successfully executed one of the most feared mob bosses in the country, but a lowly soldier nonetheless. The boss of his family owed him nothing. He was just another employee who needed to prove his worth.</p>
<p>But Crazy Joey felt he had passed that stage a long time ago. He ordered his crew to prepare for war. Joseph Colombo had to go.</p>
<p>Italian-Americans, and Italians in general, have had problems with being cast in a negative light due to the actions of a criminal minority among their society. Just because the Mafia is made up out of Italians doesn’t mean every Italian is a gangster. Mob boss Joseph Colombo felt a strong urge to send that message out into the world and to do so he set up the Italian-American Civil Rights League. The irony was lost on Colombo.</p>
<p>He organized pickets in front of FBI offices, muscled the producers of <a href="http://amzn.to/1aXVgSL" target="_blank">The Godfather</a> to leave the words “Mafia” and “Cosa Nostra” out of the film, and put together large rallies where Italians voiced their displeasure with how police and society treated them.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237030667,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237030667,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237030667?profile=original" width="273" /></a>On June 28, 1971, Colombo attended an Italian Unity Day rally at Columbus Circle in New York. As he was getting ready to speak to the crowd an African-American gunman shot him from close range. The gunman, Jerome Johnson, was disguised as a photojournalist and was shot and killed by one of Colombo’s bodyguards immediately after firing at the Mafia boss.</p>
<p>To the mob it was clear Jerome Johnson had not acted alone. And they quickly came up with a reasoning why and for whom Johnson had shot their now comatose boss (right). They figured Crazy Joey Gallo had used some of black soldiers for the job. There had been rumors he was secretly making black men into his own Mafia family, wanting to create a Sixth Family in New York. It sounded ridiculous but after Colombo got hit, no one was laughing and they felt perhaps Gallo was indeed capable of such actions. <br /> For Gallo, meanwhile, life went on.</p>
<p>On April 7, 1972, at 4:30 a.m., Gallo and his family entered Umberto's Clam House in Little Italy, Manhattan, to celebrate his 43rd birthday. The mood was light and joyous as they sat down for a hearty meal. Little did Gallo know it was to be his last supper. Gunmen entered the restaurant <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/give-a-man-a-gun-the-story-of-carmine-dibiase">guns blazing</a> and left him no other chance but to lure the assassins and their bullets away from his beloved family. Mortally wounded Crazy Joe stumbled out onto the street where he collapsed.</p>
<p>Finally, after two wars, the crazy kid had been eliminated.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237031454,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237031454,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237031454?profile=original" width="600" /></a></p>
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Genovese and Gambino Mobsters in Garbage Bust
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/genovese-and-gambino-mobsters-in-garbage-bust
2013-01-17T16:24:03.000Z
2013-01-17T16:24:03.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/genovese-and-gambino-mobsters-in-garbage-bust"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237022695,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237022695?profile=original" width="521" /></a><em>“I'm in the waste management business. Everybody immediately assumes you're mobbed up. It's a stereotype. And it's offensive. (…) There is no Mafia.”</em> - <strong>Tony Soprano</strong></p>
<p>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>Thirty-two members and associates of the Genovese, Gambino, and Lucchese crime families were hit with various racketeering charges yesterday, all related to the waste hauling business in New York and New Jersey. Showing once more the resilience of the American Mafia.</p>
<p>For decades the mob has been in a free fall. Going from an all-powerful entity that controlled organized crime across the United States to a rat infested dysfunctional group with aging members and a lack of smart new ones. With each bust prosecutors claimed the Mafia had been finished. Its control over a certain industry ended. Yet new incidents continued to prove both authorities and the media wrong.</p>
<p>Though La Cosa Nostra has been weakened, it is still up to its old tricks. They are still corrupting <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0814742734/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=gangstersinc-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0814742734" target="_blank">unions</a>, still extorting the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/genovese-mobsters-extorting-feast-of-san-gennaro">Feast of San Gennaro</a>, and still involved in waste management. Yes, garbage has remained a moneymaker for the beleaguered gangsters.</p>
<p>According to the indictment, the mobsters charged yesterday, “worked together to control various waste disposal businesses in the New York City metropolitan area and multiple counties in New Jersey.” The Waste Disposal Enterprise, as authorities call it, was a criminal organization members of which engaged in crimes including extortion, loansharking, mail and wire fraud, and stolen property offenses.</p>
<p>“The operation of the Waste Disposal Enterprise was coordinated by and among factions of the La Cosa Nostra families through the use of “sit-downs” to determine which faction would control a particular waste disposal company and established the financial terms upon which control of that company could be transferred from one faction to another in return for payment,” the indictment states.</p>
<p>The mobsters avoided any official connection to the waste disposal businesses they controlled because they were either officially banned from the waste hauling industry, or unlikely to be granted the necessary licenses required to do business because of their affiliations with organized crime. So they simply hid themselves behind waste disposal businesses that were officially owned and operated by clean front men, who were able to obtain the necessary licenses because they had no known affiliations with organized crime.</p>
<p>Now in control over these waste disposal businesses, the gangsters dictated which trash pick-up stops that a particular hauling company could use and extorted payments in exchange for protection by individuals associated with organized crime. By asserting and enforcing purported “property rights” over the trash pick-up routes, the wiseguys excluded any competitor that might offer lower prices or better service, in effect imposing a criminal tax on businesses and communities. Separately, some of the front men were also committing crimes, including stealing property of competing waste disposal businesses and defrauding businesses of their customers.</p>
<p>Mobsters involved in this Waste Disposal Enterprise were, allegedly, a <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-genovese-crime-family">Genovese Crime Family</a> crew based principally in Lodi, New Jersey, named the “Lodi Crew”, which included Genovese Family soldiers Anthony Pucciarello and Peter Leconte, as well as Genovese Family associates Anthony Cardinalle, Howard Ross, and Frank Oliver. These men took over from Genovese associate Carmine Franco and immediately demanded monthly protection payments as well as a 90 percent share of the business.</p>
<p>Another Genovese crew led by Genovese soldiers Dominick “Pepe” Pietranico and Joseph Sarcinella and a <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gambino-crime-family-overview">Gambino family</a> crew including Gambino soldier Anthony Bazzini and associate Scott Fappiano were also involved.</p>
<p>Fappiano is probably the most surprising name on the list. He was freed in 2006 after having served 22 years in prison for a rape he didn’t commit. In 2011 he was first arrested in a <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/will-historic-mob-bust-really">huge mob takedown</a> that saw 127 men in handcuffs on various racketeering charges. Fappiano, then hooked up to the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family">Colombo Crime Family</a>, got off with a slap of the wrist, reported the <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/reputed-mob-associate-scott-fappiano-served-21-years-wrongful-conviction-light-sentence-shakedown-article-1.1011987" target="_blank">New York Daily News</a>, as he was sentenced to time served, one month, in that case.</p>
<p>Now he is back behind bars after joining the Gambino Family in this latest endeavor. And he probably didn’t even need the money as he received $2 million in a settlement after having sued the state due to his wrongful conviction.</p>
<p>Prosecutors say the aforementioned mafiosi were all involved in the extortion of a waste hauling business owner who became a cooperating witness and will now be the government’s most important weapon against this latest mafia comeback.</p>
<p>Whether or not the mob’s influence over the garbage industry has been eradicated has yet to be seen, but this indictment will at least keep everyone on their toes.</p>
<p><strong>Takedown: Interested in reading more about the Mafia’s involvement in the garbage industry? Then we highly recommend the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0425192997/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=gangstersinc-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0425192997" target="_blank">Takedown</a>: The Fall of the Last Mafia Empire by Rick Cowan and Douglas Century.</strong></p>
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Give a Man a Gun: The story of Carmine DiBiase
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/give-a-man-a-gun-the-story-of-carmine-dibiase
2012-03-17T13:00:00.000Z
2012-03-17T13:00:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/give-a-man-a-gun-the-story-of-carmine-dibiase"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237016697,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237016697?profile=original" width="530" /></a>By Thom L. Jones for <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a></p>
<p>Carmine DiBiase went out on Christmas Day and got drunk. Very drunk. Very, very drunk. And then he shot and killed someone.</p>
<p>Not just any old someone, but a best friend someone. A guy who had stood by Carmine at his wedding, as his chief attendant. Been godfather to one of his children. Was his business partner.</p>
<p>A man who was also so drunk, he never even saw the bullets coming.</p>
<p>Carmine then became famous not so much for shooting dead his best friend. More for being a celebrity of sorts. The Federal Bureau of Investigation sorts.</p>
<p>They chased him and tried to nail him down for years. Even put him up on their Top Wanted List on May 28th 1956, at number ninety-eight, where he would remain for two years. He may well have been the one and only Italian-American mob guy who graduated into this eccentric catalogue of most wanted criminals (at least until the inclusion of Cleveland’s Anthony Liberatore twenty-one years later) and then stayed there longer than most of the common or garden thugs, serial killers, robbers and traditional malcontent anarchists that traditionally populated its archives.</p>
<p>He also hit it big twenty years later when he was, it seems, the shooter, or at least one of them, who sent Joey Gallo, the Hamlet of organized crime, off on his last journey into the great unknown, after scungilli marinara as appetiser, followed by a dessert of .32 and .38 caliber bullets.</p>
<p>And then, just like in the years before, after killing his best friend, Carmine did a runner. But this time, he never came back. As far as we know. Except maybe once.</p>
<p>Carmine stood five eight and weighed in at two hundred and ten. So he was big without being tall. He had wavy black hair and brown eyes, a Bodhisattva smile and a police record that dated back to 1940 when he was eighteen.</p>
<p>On October 5th, Di. Biase and a close neighborhood friend, Salvatore Granello who would grow up to be a mobbed up guy, and known throughout his life as Solly or Sally Burns, tried to rob a tailor, Mike Bakalian, at 558 Hudson Street. The attempt failed, and even this early in his life DiBiase illustrated his propensity for violence by pistol-whipping the victim eight times.</p>
<p>Carmine was arrested and convicted of attempted robbery and sentenced to a serve a term in the State Vocational Institution at Coxsackie. He came out, but didn’t get any better at his chosen profession.</p>
<p>According to police reports he was known in his neighbourhood as a thug and a bully, with a vicious temper; he hung out at the local bars around Mulberry, Elizabeth, Hester and Mott Streets, his preference as a tipple being a good Scotch whisky. A flashy dresser, he was known in the area as a ladies’ man. He had a scar on his left temple and upper lip, and above his wrist on one arm, a tattoo: Pinto 1949.</p>
<p>He dressed like a text-book hood: open-neck shirt, in silk of course, gold necklace on display over hairy chest, pointed-toe featherweight Italian shoes, highly buffed, silk socks and monogrammed underwear. A macho guy who dressed like a gay hairdresser, but who hefted a roscoe instead of a blow-dryer.</p>
<p>He may also have displayed classic psychopath tendencies - charm, narcissism, egotism and manipulation. Probably a standard set of personality traits for anyone hoping to be successful in the murky world of the New York Mafia.</p>
<p>Pete Diapolous, the bodyguard of Joey Gallo claimed:</p>
<p>He was no big earner or mover. Sober he was nothing, but drunk, he would blow your head off.</p>
<p>In February 1944, he was back inside again, this time at Elmira State Reformatory, starting another five years for the same kind of crime. He came out again, and seemed to either get somewhat improved at his job, or gave crime away, for the time being at least. The cops in New York thought of Carmine as a peanut punk, the kind of hood who would probably never amount to much. He’d been arrested eight times, including the two that sent him away. Maybe it was in prison that like Joey Gallo, a man to whom he would be forever linked, Carmine DiBiase became a voracious reader devouring books by Flaubert, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Franz Kafka , among others.</p>
<p>His parents, Gustave and Lena, were first generation immigrants from Italy, and he lived with them and his brother Gaetano, in Little Italy in Lower Manhattan.</p>
<p>He got married, had two children, and worked as a machinist, or a millwright, and then sometimes as a painter and a plumber’s helper, a salesman and once, as a shipping clerk. For a while he became of all things, a tailor. Like almost every guy in the underworld trade, he had a nickname. Many in fact. At times he called himself Carmine De or Carmine Vincent, or Ernest Pinto or just plain Sonny. But to most people in the underworld of New York, he was simply Sonny Pinto. In his early days, he had a look somewhat of the well-known movie star of the period, Victor Mature.</p>
<p>Insert here image of Carmine DiBiase as a young man 1950s.</p>
<p>Then came Christmas, 1951.</p>
<p>Carmine had taken over the lease on the first floor of a building at 167 Mulberry Street, along with Michael Mikey Evans Errichiello, his best friend. They turned it into a bar and meeting place, calling it The Mayfair Boys Civic and Social Club. Like most of these places that dotted the streets of New York, it was a den that catered to crooks, thieves, vagabonds and workers of the night. It never obtained a liquor license, but served booze to its clients until the wee small hours of the morning. It had battered tin ceilings, a bar, a pool table, and tables and chairs scattered around the scarred wood-planked floor. The Copacabana it was not.</p>
<p>Errichiello was a convicted gambler, with a string of arrests for assault, robbery and vagrancy. Peas in a pod were Carmine and Mikey. Until something went very bad in their relationship.</p>
<p>A few days before Christmas, the two friends had an argument. A big one and a bad one according to witnesses. People walking on the street past the club heard the two men shouting and yelling at each other. No one knew for sure just what it was about, but the word going around was that Mikey Evans had been cheating some of the guys playing cards in the club, and worse - had been siphoning off money collected by the club’s poker machines. More for him, less for Sonny. Everything went wrong. Hard to fix. It was like shaking a box of old watch pieces and hoping to pick out a Vacheron Constantin.</p>
<p>It never happens.</p>
<p>The events that unfolded in the early hours of December 26th are based on the testimony of a young, sixteen year old street kid called Joey Luparelli, and the evidence gathered by the police at the scene of the crime, as well as court documents.</p>
<p>Luparelli, known by his street name of Joe Pesh, would grow up to be a criminal associate of the New York Mafia Colombo Crime Family and be present, by some strange quirk of fate at another shooting, twenty-one years into the future, and a block and a half south of The Mayfair Boys, again involving Carmine DiBiase.</p>
<p>Carmine claimed he had spent Christmas day at his home, an apartment at 110 Grand Street, then he had gone to his mother-in-law’s where he stayed until late, before returning to his own place. About 1:00 am he had gone uptown to meet some friends at The Town Crest Bar and Grill. He stayed there for some time, before heading back to Little Italy and the club. There, he found his friend Michael Errichiello dead, and called the police. He claimed he was so drunk he could not remember anything about that night.</p>
<p>The cops came and did what cops do. They looked at the body, slumped in a chair, perforated three times, measured up the place, flashed the pics and took statements from any witnesses still around this time of the morning.</p>
<p>Joe Luparelli, sixteen, lived in an apartment across the street from the club with his mother and sister. His parents were first time immigrants, into New York from Sicily. There were seven kids in the family. The father died when Joe was still a boy, and he grew up wild on the streets like so many of his friends. He got to know the mob guys who infested the area like cockroaches on the hunt. Always on the hunt for something.</p>
<p>In Joe’s days they used to call them gangsters and they all lived by the same code:<br /> Mind your business. Close your eyes. See nothing. Hear nothing.</p>
<p>Joe claimed he was a good kid, as in good at cheating and stealing rather than being good-behaved. That’s what the mob guys were looking for in the street kids.</p>
<p>Christmas Eve, 1951, Joe Luparelli spent at home with his family, then went to the movies with some of his friends. Gene Kelly, the great Irish-American song and dance man in An American in Paris, pure escapism on the most diversionary night of the year. He went back to Mulberry Street about three in the morning and decided to visit the club. This early, there were only three people there. Rocky Tisi who owned a nearby tavern was playing pool with a guy known as Pretty Willie, who worked at the clubhouse, and Errichiello, who was asleep at the bar, his head resting on his folded arms.</p>
<p>Joe hung around watching the pool game and then the door opened and Sonny Pinto looked in, caught Joe’s eye and beckoned him to come outside into the street. He asked Joe to go to a nearby apartment at 13 Elizabeth Street, and wake up one of his gangster friends, a man called Alphonse Sonny Red Indelicato and get him to bring down to the club the guns Sonny Red was holding for him.</p>
<p>In due course, twenty year old Indelicato arrived at the address with a paper bag containing two revolvers, and he and Sonny Pinto went into the club. The two men playing pool, dropped their cues and ran for the door. Carmine DiBiase started shooting at his sleeping friend, hitting him three times, in the head, stomach and the heart, killing him instantly. As Rocky and Pretty Willie scrambled to get of the doorway, Indelicato fired at them, but his aim was off, and he only managed to wound Tisi in the ankle by clubbing him with the gun.</p>
<p>Luparelli (right), the young boy of the streets, Joe Fish to everyone in Little Italy, the kid who ran errands for Mickey and Sonny, found himself trapped in a vortex of necessity. Carmine DiBiase’s future would depend on Joe Luparelli’s silence, and Joe’s life would depend on the premise that Sonny would trust Joe to keep his mouth shut.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237017653,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237017653,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237017653?profile=original" width="219" /></a>When the homicide detectives started looking for DiBiase, he did a runner, and disappeared for seven years. The New York Police department listed him as their number five on the Top Ten List the city kept, and it was on May 28th 1956 that he made the F.B.I. most wanted list.</p>
<p>The newspapers were less than kind in the coverage they gave Sonny Pinto. One called him a rat-face, bowlegged thug, and another referred to him looking like a roast suckling pig.</p>
<p>Tisi eventually rolled and gave the New York police details about the two Sonnys and their involvement in the shootings at the clubhouse. The police placed Rocky into protective custody and he stayed there for seven years, a New York record which still stands to this day.</p>
<p>Indelicato was subsequently tried and convicted for his part in the murder of Mickey Evans and sentenced to twelve years, to be served in Sing Sing Prison.</p>
<p>Carmine DiBiase was indicted for the murder of Michael Errichiello in 1952, but was long gone. The F.B.I. put out a bulletin on him referring to him as a man who will kill without provocation.</p>
<p>He lived in some kind of self-imposed exile, either in New York or somewhere else for seven years, and then in August 1958, accompanied by his lawyer, the famous Maurice Edelbaum, he handed himself into the New York police. At one stage in his absence, he had allegedly lived with Rusty Rastelli, a soldier in the Bonanno Mafia family.</p>
<p>Following his surrender, Carmine DiBiase reportedly made the following statement:</p>
<p>I am getting older and accomplishing nothing having to stay away from my wife and children, mother and father. I am glad it is over. I had to come in.</p>
<p>Edelbaum, a short, fat man, always seemingly dressed in a rumpled suit, represented whole dynasties of Mafia executives including Vito Genovese, Natale Evola, John Franzese, Carmine Perisco, Joseph Bonanno and Vincent Gigante to name a few, and also played a major role in defending the hierarchy rounded up at the great Mafia gabfest at Apalachin in 1957. He was one of the best and most expensive, but even he could not save Carmine, although in a way, in the end, he did.</p>
<p>DiBiase came to trial, was convicted on May 3rd 1959, and sentenced to death in the electric chair by Judge Michael D. Schweitzer. All death penalty convictions in New York were subject to mandatory appeal and his was heard a year later, in February, 1960 and decided that April.</p>
<p>One of the judges hearing the appeal stated:</p>
<p><em>I turn to the other ground for reversal. Some years after he had been indicted, the defendant was surrendered by his lawyer to the authorities in New York County. Under our system of law and justice, an indictment must be followed by</em><br /> <em>arraignment and trial and, in the present case, it is obvious that the defendant's voluntary surrender was designed to assure him a prompt arraignment, with all of its consequent advantages. The defendant had a right to the effective aid and assistance of the attorney who represented him. The fact that his attorney surrendered him for such arraignment in court could not possibly be regarded as a consent or invitation to secret interrogation by police or prosecutor or a waiver of fundamental rights. It matters not, therefore, that the defendant did not object to being questioned or insist on the presence of his lawyer. The damaging statements made by the defendant during the course of his illegal interrogation by the police and District Attorney should not have been received in evidence.</em></p>
<p>In essence, having surrendered to the law, Carmine DiBiase should have had his lawyer present when any statement or evidence was taken from him by the arresting police officers. By being absent, Maurice Edelbaum effectively guaranteed his client grounds for appeal, which in fact is what happened. Whether by luck or cunning, the lawyer won his client’s appeal, and Carmine DiBiase was granted a new trial.</p>
<p>The records of this are archived and not obtainable, at least to this writer, but the defendant walked from court a free man on March 1st 1961. It was a remarkable about-face. A man convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death, two years later after a re-trial left the courthouse a free man, ready to go back onto the streets and do what he did best-be a criminal.</p>
<p>It was claimed that Matty Ianiello, a powerful crew boss in the Genovese family had helped Carmine DiBiase when he went on the lam after shooting Michael Errichiello, and that Ianiello had paid the attorney fees for Sonny.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237017890,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237017890,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237017890?profile=original" width="132" /></a>And for the next eleven years there is not much on record about Carmine DiBiase (right).</p>
<p>Harold Konigsberg, a Jewish, freelance hit man for the mob, claimed that DiBiase and Joe Yacovelli had staked out and killed Ali Waffa, the fearsome Arab bodyguard of mobster Joey Gallo, when Ali returned from a sea journey to the Hoboken docks, in July 1963.</p>
<p>A confidential informant notified his FBI handler that DiBiase had been involved in the murder of Michael Granello, who was the son of his boyhood crime capers partner, Solly Burns.</p>
<p>Michael was found shot dead in an auto on 86th Street and Riverside Drive, in 1968. A drug addict, he had been holding up and robbing made men, including on one occasion beating almost to death, with a baseball bat, a mobster called Caserta. Solly, who had allegedly headed up the mob’s enforcement arm overseeing their casino interests in Cuba prior to Castor’s revolution, swore vengeance against his killers. He disappeared in 1970 and was also presumed murdered.</p>
<p>Granello's body found in car 6 Oct 70 at East River Dr. & Hudson St. He was last seen on the 24th September; the FBI claimed he was killed on the 25th at an Elizabeth St. coffeehouse (between Hudson & Prince, perhaps the 8th Ward Pleasure Club, 2623-264 Elizabeth) by Vince Generoso for Thomas Eboli. Granello and Eboli, it was alleged, were at one time competing to succeed Vito Genovese, the boss of the family until his death in prison in 1969, and it was Eboli who ordered the December 1968 hit on Michael Granello for dealing in narcotics, not for his activities in robbing and beating Casserta. The FBI suspected Salvatore Granello was set up by one Jim Corallo and that the garrotted and shot body was allowed to be found because he was on bail. This information would almost certainly have been passed onto the FBI by one of their many CI’s.</p>
<p>There is an FBI report from 1969 that shows DiBiase was a suspect in running an illegal card game venue at 209 West 79th Street, in partnership with some men who were well know to the police department in New York - Victor Tramaglino, Charlie Blum, Hugh Mulligan, Stanley Ackerman and Spanish Raymond Margques - a hotchpotch of the New York underworld - Italian, Irish, Jewish and Hispanic - a mini United Nations of crime.</p>
<p>Tramaglino was listed as a close friend of Carmine Sonny Pinto DiBiase in an earlier, February 5th 1963 FBI internal memo which lists 347 suspected Mafia members operating in New York requesting individual investigations to be carried out on them.</p>
<p>There were other FBI reports that indicated Carmine DiBiase was working under Matty Ianiello and Anthony Strollo a close confident of Vito Genovese.</p>
<p>DiBiase was now a made man in the Genovese Mafia crime family and was still listed as such in a Congressional report on organized crime in 1988, although most sources claim he was part of the Colombo crime family..</p>
<p>According to Luparelli, Carmine dabble in drug trafficking, heroin being his narcotic of choice for sale. He was also involved, according to Luparelli, in the murder of Joseph Visconi, a bouncer in The Wagon Wheels Bar on Broadway who had carried out a robbery on a man called Frank Yacovelli who just happened to be the brother of Joe Joe Yack Yacovelli, a high ranking member of the family administration in the Colombo crime family. Thinking he was going to buy discounted stolen American Express cheques, he was ambushed and killed in an apartment in Little Italy, on Elizabeth Street, by a group of men that also included Sonny Indelicate, DiBiase’s co-conspirator in the killing of Mickey Evans.</p>
<p>By the end of the 1960s, DiBiase and his wife were living in an apartment in Southbridge Towers at 90 Beekman Street in the South Street Seaport District in Lower Manhattan.</p>
<p>He was also involved in a particular brutal and sordid double-murder that took place on the last night of 1970.</p>
<p>On New Year’s Eve, Joseph Fatty Russo held a party at his home on Packanack Lake, in Wayne County, New Jersey. An affluent crook, he was connected into the New York Mafia by an uncle who was a member of one of the five crime families. Fatty himself grew up around Mulberry Street and had allegedly generated his considerable wealth through drug trafficking. He had known Sonny Pinto most of his life.</p>
<p>Sometime after midnight, the party went badly wrong.</p>
<p>Russo had hired two black people to wait on his guests. One was Charles Shepard, a local man, thirty-one year old part-time musician and bar tender. The other, was his common-in-law wife, Shirley Green, who worked as a waitress, and lived in Manhattan. There were over thirty people attending, including children. The party was held in the large basement area of the property. By the end of the night, Russo was either drunk or stoned or a combination of the two, and he noticed that Shepard was drinking his booze, and even worse, dancing and trying to make out with the wife of his nephew.</p>
<p>Incensed, he stormed upstairs into his bedroom where he kept a loaded .38 calibre hand gun, came tumbling back down the stairs and in front of the entire party, emptied the gun into Shepard, killing him instantly. The chaos that erupted must have been electrifying. While some of the guests held a struggling and screaming Shirley, Russo then staggered back to his bedroom, found his ammunition box, re-loaded the gun and went back down to the basement where he shot Shirley six times in the head.</p>
<p>The guests were hustled away to their homes, and along with three of his remaining friends, Russo carried the two bodies to a car which was driven to Pine Brook Road in Montville about fifteen miles away, and the two dead bodies were dumped unceremoniously into snow drifts that lined the street. They were discovered there the first day of January, and the New Jersey police mounted an investigation.</p>
<p>By the time the detectives assigned to the enquiry had traced the shooting to Russo’s home, he had moved to Florida. As the police dug deeper, they discovered that all the guests present that night in New Jersey were also in Florida, on an expense-paid holiday, courtesy of Fatty. Also down for the sun and R & R was Sonny Pinto.</p>
<p>When Russo was finally arrested and charged with the murders of Shephard and Green, he turned to Carmine Persico, a powerful capo or crew boss in the Colombo family, who assured him that the case could be fixed through the family’s connections and control of crooked law enforcement and judicial officers.</p>
<p>Russo was in fact tried twice for the double murders, but was acquitted on both occasions. Federal Organized Crime Strike Force investigators had tapped telephone calls between Russo, Joe Yacovelli, and Carmine DiBiase, which indicated that Russo was being offered help and assistance to evade or avoid prosecution in the murders.</p>
<p>On August 8th, 1972, Federal warrants were issued against all three men on charges of conspiracy. On November the 13th, all of the men were indicted for conspiring to enable Russo to avoid prosecution for murder. In September 1973, a mistrial was declared in the case of Russo and Persico. By then, both Yacovelli and DiBiase were fugitives from justice.</p>
<p>Less than a year down the track, Sonny Pinto would find himself in another murder conspiracy. One that would echo a lot more loudly across the canyons of New York than the sordid killings in New Jersey.</p>
<p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mafia-rebel-crazy-joey-gallo">Joseph Gallo</a> was a mobster who transcended the gun and the knife and became, literally, a legend in his lifetime. An unlikely mover in the counterculture revolution of the early 1970s in New York, he went where no gangster had gone before. He fancied himself as an artist and Greenwich Village intellectual, hanging out with beatniks, show business celebrities, poets and artists, talking Existentialism and Marxism, and taking on the establishment which in his own peculiar universe was something called the Mafia. Out of Radical Chic bloomed Mafia Chic with Joey Gallo becoming something of an above-ground social entity.</p>
<p>He was Tommy Udo, the giggling psycho, writ large. The Kiss of Death morphed from a celluloid nightmare into a real life one, dark suit, white tie and all, who stalked the streets of Brooklyn and gave his brethren in the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/profile-original-new-york-mafia-family-boss-giuseppe-profaci">Joseph Profaci</a> mob crime family a big dose of heartburn.</p>
<p>As one commentator put it:</p>
<p><em>Joey had a terminal case of the twofers - too far, too fast.</em></p>
<p>Crazy Joe, sometimes called Joe the Blond was a pain up the ass of the Brooklyn based Profaci Mafia clan. Its management hated his loud mouth, louche attitude, polemical approach and egregious manners. In a word, he was their nemesis, and had to be sorted.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237017478,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237017478,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237017478?profile=original" width="131" /></a>One of his own brothers had nicknamed him Crazy Joe (right) and it stuck. A skinny little runt at five six and one forty five pounds, he went off like fireworks when the wrong kind of thing lit him up. It seemed that in order to earn a livelihood he had to be a lively hood. One of his best friends and his bodyguard, Pete Diapolous, referred to him as <em>a vicious, immoral killer possessed of a certain kind of charm when in a good mood, but undeniably dangerous.</em></p>
<p>New York Post reporter Pete Hamill saw him <em>as dressed in a zoot suit, but the eyes were ancient…eyes devoid of time or any conventional sense of pity or remorse…. He would joke with the cops and smile for the reporters, but the eyes never changed…tormented eyes.</em></p>
<p>His second wife, Sina Essary, a former nun, recalled that <em>You could see the remnants of what had been a strikingly handsome man in his youth.</em> She remembers, <em>He had beautiful features—beautiful nose, beautiful mouth and piercing blue eyes, that seemed to range from the colour of slush to the colour of fogged blue steel.</em></p>
<p>Always the eyes. Everyone noticed that about Crazy Joe. <em>They watched everything</em>, according to Hamill.</p>
<p>Jimmy Breslin the New York crime historian, reporter and novelist, wrote a book about him, called The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight, which was made into a movie that starred Broadway star Jerry Orbach, who one day would become a good friend of Joe; Bob Dylan wrote a song about him in 1976, and two years after his death, a movie called Crazy Joe came out with Peter Boyle portraying him. It seemed somehow that Joey simply overdosed on the public’s perception of his fame and reputation, alive or dead.</p>
<p>An editor at Viking Press wanted him to write a book. It would be a sensation the publisher said. Joey said, <em>There's something suicidal about publishers paying a lot of greens for the big nothing.</em> Perhaps he thought it was too much work. Perhaps while ploughing through his ten books a week while in prison, which had included Sartre and Camus and Nietzsche, he had noted what Robert Louis Stephenson had said about <em>young writers having to read like predators</em> and there was so much more to do in whatever years he had left.</p>
<p>Born in June, 1929, in Brooklyn, to Albert Gallo and Mary Nunziato, he had two sisters, and two brothers-- Larry and Albert. They grew up on East 4th Street in Brooklyn, between Ditmas Avenue and Cortelyou Road in Kensington. The brothers were to be gangsters just like Joey. They worked together and ran a street crew called The Cockroach Gang terrorizing the neighbourhood of 4th Avenue and Sackets Street.</p>
<p>Donald Goddard saw him as a circus freak dressed in gangster’s clothes.</p>
<p>In an interview with him, Joey stated that he <em>had travelled with bums from the time he was nine. At eleven, he was running a crap game, and when he was thirteen, running his gang. They were his people, and he lived on the streets. And then, they were giving him the slips and he’s running numbers, and then people were getting to hear about Joey’s floating crap game.</em></p>
<p>His first wife, Effie, thought he was too feeling, too humane. <em>He wasn’t very good at what he did….his instincts were all clouded up.</em></p>
<p>After numerous scuffles with the law, although he was only arrested once for burglary in 1950, and had never been in prison, Joey joined the navy at seventeen, but was out in six months, discharged as being emotionally immature, egocentric and demanding.</p>
<p>He became a protégé of a mobster called Frank Frankie Shots Abbatemarco, a Bensonhurst-based big league bookie and the major policy banker in the crime Mafia crime family headed by <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/profile-original-new-york-mafia-family-boss-giuseppe-profaci">Joe Profaci</a> who was based in South Brooklyn and had headed up his clan since the late 1920s.</p>
<p>Larry was already in Team Frankie Shots, and Joey and his two brothers using the clout and protection of Abbatemarco, gradually built up their own street gang of thugs and extortionists pushing their jukeboxes into bars and cafés across the teeming streets of the second biggest city in America and running extortion scams across the boroughs. It became known in the New York underworld as The International Mob, and consisted of a Greek, two Syrians, an Egyptian, a Jew, a Puerto Rican, an Irishman and by necessity, some Italians. It also at one time included a dwarf called Armando Mando Illiano, and if we believe the legend, a lion called Cleo who was kept in the cellar of Armando’s café. He was apparently a great discourager to late payers on the vig they owed the gang on their street loans.</p>
<p>Sometime in the 1950s, the elder brothers (Albert was the kid in the group) were inducted into the Profaci family; according to FBI informant Greg Scarpa, around 1956, becoming made men, their mythical buttons proudly displayed to those who understood the solipsistic rhythms of the streets of New York. A mob guy was like a paladin, an advocate of the benefits of bad over good. Their guiding philosophy may well have been, to quote Oscar Wilde: <em>The best way to overcome temptation is to succumb to it.</em></p>
<p>Scarpa claimed they were introduced into the Profaci family by Johnny Scimone, an old time mob guy. Charlie Lo Cicero, the family consigliere opposed them from day one, considering them too much trouble (and he was certainly proved right in that respect) but he was overruled as it was perceived that they were good earners, perhaps the most paramount quality in prospective mob members.</p>
<p>Joey and his gang were often used by Profaci for the dirty work that was required from time to time around the mob in Brooklyn, and it was alleged he once stabbed a man to death with an ice pick. In October, 1959, the squad was put to use in the killing of Frankie Shots himself.</p>
<p>Profaci had a reputation as a tight-fisted wad and a boss who would use you then kill you. Pete Diapolous claimed he was more feared in the ranks of the New York Mafia than even the Mad Hatter himself - Albert Anastasia.</p>
<p>Profaci demanded off all his men a share of their revenue, maybe as much as a third from his capi, and when Frankie Shots reneged on the demand, Profaci had him whacked. Frankie and his crew were raking in up to seven thousand dollars each and every day and he had no intention of sliding over 30% of the net to the boss. The Gallos used their little, fat and fearsome torpedo, Joseph Joe Jelly Gioielli for the job, and he and a partner (probably his closest friend, Vincent The Sicilian Gugliaro) shot Abbatemarco nine times, leaving the victim sprawled in careless confusion on the floor of his cousin, Anthony Cardiello’s Tavern, at 256 4th Avenue and Carrol Street, late on the day of November 4th, 1959.</p>
<p>Following the killing of Abbatermarco, Joey and his gang assumed Profaci would allow them to take over Shot’s massive policy bank as a reward for doing Joe‘s dirty work. It didn’t happen.</p>
<p>Profaci was angry that Joey had not arranged to killing of Abbatermarco’s son, Tony, who he considered a threat to the family’s stability on the basis that he would probably seek revenge for the death of his father, and as a result, by-passed the Gallos and passed the numbers business over to his underboss and brother-in-law, Joe Magliocco.</p>
<p>The Gallos decided to resolve the problem the only way they really know how to - with violence. A maverick in his strange underworld and a cowboy with attitude, Joey had no intention of kneeling in respectful supplication at the feet of the elderly Mafiosi who controlled his destiny. As John Tuohy wrote it, <em>to the Gallos, it was going to war over cash and common respect.</em></p>
<p>Although their group never numbered more than twenty to twenty-five, they went up against Joe Profaci and his Mafia family, an entity of over two hundred made men and hundreds more associates. This Mafia war raged across the streets of Brooklyn from 1960 until late in 1963.</p>
<p>The first audacious move on the part of the Gallo gang was to kidnap Joe Profaci. But as he was in Florida when they made their play, they had to settle instead for four of his senior men - Joe Magliocco, John Scimone, Profaci’s personal bodyguard, Profaci’s brother, Frank and a relatively unknown capo called Joe Colombo. The men were eventually released on the basis of promises made by Profaci, none of which materialized.</p>
<p>On August 21st 1961, Larry Gallo was ambushed and almost murdered in the Sarah Lounge on Utica Avenue, his life being saved by the timely arrival of NYPD Sergeant Meagher, patrolling the area with officer Melvin Blei. Sometime either just before or after the abortive hit on Larry Gallo, Joe Jelli the gang’s ace hit man, disappeared and was presumed killed and dumped at sea. His wife notified the police of his disappearance on August 31st. His killer may have been Salvatore Sally D D'Ambrosio, who himself was probably murdered eight years later. He disappeared from a Bensonhurst social club, although his bloodstained shirt was later found there by police investigators.</p>
<p>The war dragged on for over two years with car bombings and shootings filling the New York newspaper headlines. In January, 1962, Joey Gallo was indicted, tried and convicted on extortion charges and sentenced to up to fourteen years in prison. The judge at sentencing stated that <em>Joey Gallo has an utter contempt for the law and is a menace to society.</em></p>
<p>Later in the same month, seven members of the gang, leaving a restaurant, saw smoke coming out of a window at 72 President Street. Rushing into the building, the group which consisted of Albert and Larry Gallo, Frank Punchy Illiano, Anthony Abbatermarco, Alfonso Peanuts Serantonio, Leonard Dello and John Commarato, found six children in a smoke filled apartment on the top floor and rescued them. No one was injured and for a few brief days, the Gallo gang were front page news and local heroes. They even made it into Life magazine. When interviewed by the press, Albert Gallo said:</p>
<p><em>We only did what any red-blooded American boys would do.</em></p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237019280,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237019280,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237019280?profile=original" width="750" /></a>Tony Abbatermarco. Albert Gallo and Frank Illiano with children rescued from President Street fire in January 1962</p>
<p>Five months later, Joe Profaci died of cancer and in due course his crime family was taken over by Joseph Colombo, the obscure capo who had been one of the group kidnapped by the Gallo’s early in 1961.</p>
<p>In March, 1971, Joey came out of prison, divorced his wife Jeffe, met another woman called Sina Essary, a dental technician, who was an ex novice nun, married her, moved from Brooklyn to Greenwich Village, immersed himself in the counter culture revolution, socialized with actors and writers and artists and on April 6th 1972 celebrated his last birthday, his 43rd in the process becoming an entry on a New York Police blotter: Homicide GUN at 5:20.</p>
<p>While imprisoned in Attica, Joey had been diagnosed as suffering from pseudo psychopathic schizophrenia. His response to the doctors report was typical Joey:</p>
<p><em>Fuck You.</em></p>
<p><em>Things are not right or wrong anymore. Just smart or stupid. You don’t judge an act by its nature. You judge it by results. We’re all criminals now…..Things exist when I feel they should exist, okay? Me, I am the world!</em></p>
<p>Joey Gallo may well have suffered from what the German’s referred to as machbarkeitswahn: fantasies of omnipotence.</p>
<p>Wayne Christeson of Tennessee, wrote in an article on Sinna Essary:</p>
<p>……<em>While Joey was still languishing in prison, his old enemy Joe Profaci died. Control of the Profaci mob passed to Joe Colombo, one of the “new” Mafia dons who knew something about politics and public relations. He formed an organization he called the Italian American Civil Rights League and used it to rally support against the FBI’s claim that he was a mobster. With the league as his mouthpiece, Colombo maintained that there was no such thing as “the Mafia” and that he was “just an honest businessman.” The league was hugely successful and so powerful that Colombo was able to win concessions from the producers of The Godfather about the way Italian Americans were portrayed in the film.</em></p>
<p><em>The Profaci organization’s racketeering remained profitable too, but many of Colombo’s subordinates were bridling at the way he ran the business and divided the spoils. To his hardened street enforcers, Colombo was a lightweight and a publicity seeker. Dissension in his family was building.</em></p>
<p><em>Into this unsettled world, Joey arrived fresh from prison, bearing a ten year grudge against the Profaci family. Joey might have been flashing his new cleaned-up image in public, but in secret he was re-energising the Gallo gang. He planned to dispose Colombo. Less than six weeks after his release from prison, Joey demanded a $100,000 tribute payment from Colombo as a condition for staying away from his business. Colombo refused to pay. Instead, he placed a contract on Joey’s life.</em></p>
<p><em>On June 28th, 1971, just four months after Joey’s release from prison, Colombo held a rally of his Italian American Civil Rights League in Columbus Circle, just off Central Park. Thousands of people attended the noon time affair. But as Colombo began making his way to the dais to speak he was shot and severely wounded by a black man identified as Jerome Johnson.</em></p>
<p><em>No one ever discovered who Johnson was working for. As fate would have it, he was immediately shot and killed by yet another never-identified gunman. Colombo was left in a near-vegetative state and was off the board as far as the rackets were concerned. The event made the cover of Time magazine the following week.</em></p>
<p><em>Joey claimed that the FBI was behind the Colombo attack, but most reasonable minds concluded that Joey had engineered it himself. He had a clear motive, and he was certainly capable of pulling it off. While the police and FBI looked for clues, the heirs to Colombo’s power renewed the contract on Joey’s life…</em></p>
<p>Something that has not been widely investigated in the shooting of Colombo is the link between Charles Shephard shot dead by Joseph Fatty Russo just six months previously. Jerome Johnson and Shephard had both lived close to each other in the same area in northern New Jersey and may well have been connected by friendship or some other link. It’s quite possible that Johnson was driven by a desire to avenge his black brother and knew of the link between Russo and the Colombo family members and how they had helped him avoid prosecution for the double killings.</p>
<p>Joey had become friendly while in prison with Harlem dope dealer Nicky Barnes, and it was widely rumoured that through his prison connections into the black criminal fraternity he was intending to recruit black gangsters into his own organization. This never eventuated and may well have been simply street gossip, but the Mafia family under Colombo, seemed certain that Gallo was behind the shooting of their boss. He was a target for them from that day at Columbus Circle according to some crime researchers, although it was not that obvious to police observers who were tracking the activities of the Mafia underworld. They believed that having done his time in prison, the feeling was to leave him alone to get on with his life.</p>
<p>The Gallo gang themselves did their own research into the shooting of Colombo and decided the man behind Johnson was probably Tony Abbatermarco, son of the late Frankie Shots.</p>
<p>He was the biggest numbers guy in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a black ghetto in Brooklyn and tight with a lot of black criminals. He’d held a grudge against the Profaci family since the killing of his father, was mad at Joe Colombo for squeezing money from him and had hated Joey Gallo who he knew had been behind the hit on his father.</p>
<p>He had guessed, quite rightly that the shooting of Colombo would automatically be construed as an act by Joey Gallo.</p>
<p>Joey had left prison deeply disturbed by the way time had left him by. He was a train wreck in waiting, searching for a displaced point on the lines of his life. He was returning to streets that were very different from when he prowled them. Following the death of Joe Profaci and the installation of Joe Colombo as the family boss in 1963, there had been some changes in the family’s structure of command.</p>
<p>Joe Yack Yacovelli, Carmine Persico and Larry Gallo had been promoted to capo status. But Joey, languishing in his prison cell, stayed a soldier and this burned away at him like an ululating cancer.</p>
<p>On his release, he had demanded a cash testimonial from Colombo to guarantee the boss his fealty. He also wanted all his old rackets back-- the policy banks, the loan shark operations and vending machine companies-- and demanded that a least ten of his crew be made into the family.</p>
<p>On May 22nd he had tried again to kidnap the boss of the family, this time Joe Combo,<br /> But the attempt was botched, dissolving into no more than a street brawl. But the message was loud and clear. The Gallo-Profaci war was on again.</p>
<p>None of Joey’s demand were ever going to happen. The Colombo family at a meeting on December 20th 1971, officially rejected all of his demands.</p>
<p>Joe Yacovelli, who would become a major player in the administration of the Colombo crime family, wanted to kill him where he stood, but this was vetoed by the Commission, the Mafia’s board of arbitration. They did not want another Gallo war on their hands.</p>
<p>According to Donald Frankos, a Greek-American criminal who had served time in prison with Joey, Gallo owned several night clubs on 8th Avenue, and two or more sweatshops in the garment district. He also ran dice and card games and was into extortion rackets and trafficking cocaine and heroin, and through black criminal associates was running criminal enterprises in Gary, Indiana and Steubenville, Ohio.</p>
<p>Just three weeks before Joey’s final birthday party, he and two of his men had gone to the San Susan nightclub in Mineola, Long Island, threatened the manager and told him they were taking the place over. A place that just happened to have John Franzese as a silent partner. John Sonny Franzese was one of the more terrifying dangerous mob bosses in New York and had been part of the Profaci/Colombo crime family for most of his working life. A psychopath in his own right, a stone-killer, whose father Carmine The Lion had allegedly disposed of his victims in his bakery ovens. Franzese was not a man to trifle with.</p>
<p>Then on Easter week-end 1972, Ferrara’s Pastry Shop on Grand Street in Lower Manhattan, was broken into and it was reputed over $50000 was stolen from the safe. Ferrara’s was not just any old café, although it was old, dating back to 1892, it was also a venerable landmark and meeting place of many of the senior mob figures in New York, including Carlo Gambino, allegedly the biggest Mafia boss in America.</p>
<p>It was an egregious move, an insult to the old Don who would have given his guarantee to the owners that their place of business was safe and protected by the strength of his reputation. To compound matters, Ferrara’s was a place often used by Vincent Aloi, who may have taken over the management of the Colombo Mafia family after boss Joe was gunned down at Columbus Circle.</p>
<p>The word went around that Joey had given his approval to two of his men--Gennaro Ciprio and Richie Grossman--to do the job. Both men were subsequently murdered, Ciprio, who was Sonny Pinto’s godson, was blasted to death in a hail of bullets in front of his sister, as he left the restaurant he owned in Brooklyn, on 86th Street.</p>
<p>Five days after the break-in at Ferrara’s Joey Gallo was dead.</p>
<p>In the end, it didn’t matter what the trigger was--the shooting of Colombo, the muscle attempt on Long Island, the theft from a mob sanctuary, the disrespect he had shown the men of the Colombo Mafia family--he was a victim of the system, and the politics of cosa nostra.</p>
<p>In essence, since the day he left prison he was a dead man walking.</p>
<p>Joey had moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan on his release and rented Apartment 8A in a bland, twenty-one story apartment building at Seven West 14th Street, a block away from Union Square. Sina, the woman he was to marry, lived with her young daughter in a penthouse apartment in the same building, paying almost twice the rent that Joey did. When he queried this apparent show of wealth by a dental technician, one of his friends shrugged and mentioned something about the dentist she worked for.</p>
<p>After a classic whirlwind courtship, Joey and Sina married, and three weeks later they would celebrate his 43rd birthday.</p>
<p>On the evening of April 6th, Pete Diapolous, driving a black Cadillac, arrived at the apartment building with his gummare, Edith Russo, and along with Joey’s sister Carmella Fiorello, Sina, her ten-year old daughter Lisa, and Joey spruced up and sharp in a pinstripe suit, headed off for a night at the Copacabana at 10 East 60th Street, just across from Central Park. They arrived about eleven, in time for the second show which starred <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/insulting-mobsters-with-don-rickles">Don Rickles</a>.</p>
<p>Sometime after four the next morning, they left the club and drove south into Little Italy. Although they had wined and dined, Joey insisted they needed more sustenance, and he was determined to find a favourite Chinese restaurant, Su Lings, in Chinatown. When they arrived, it was closed. Trolling the rain-washed streets, they found themselves crawling up Mulberry. There, on the corner of Hester, they saw arches and square windows all lit up, a new place on the block, called Umberto’s Clam House.</p>
<p>It had been opened in February by Umberto Ianiello, the thirty-five year old brother of Matty The Horse Ianiello, a capo in the Genovese Mafia family. There was a group of men standing talking on the corner, including Matty, who was acting as the manager this night, as Diapolous pulled the Cadillac to halt. The windows wound down, and Pete and Joey chatted to the men, one of whom was Joe Luparelli.</p>
<p>Joe Pesh Luparelli had led a less than auspicious life as a gopher and associate for the Colombo and Genovese crime families in the years since the killing of Mickey Evans. Using a luncheonette on 11th Avenue between 60th and 61st Street as a business base, he worked under Dick Fusco and Joe Gentile and was at one time a drive for Joe Yacovelli, a job he had been instructed to do by Sonny Pinto. Up to this point his mob career had revolved around the Westside, the term by which the underworld referred to the Genovese Mafia family. He’d been in prison on two occasions, and made his money by being a safe man, strong-arm goon, fence, loan shark and in the numbers business.</p>
<p>Encouraged by their comments, Joey Gallo decided they would eat here, and as Pete parked the car, the small party moved into the restaurant.</p>
<p>Fishing nets and plastic life preservers bedecked the walls, and the floor was tiled white. The tables scattered around were butcher-block design and there was a serving counter-type bar at the back of the seating area, running the length of the restaurant from the Hester Street end to near the kitchen.</p>
<p>There are conflicting accounts as to whether or not there were other customers in the place. Some sources say it was empty, others that four men in work clothes were sitting around a table; that there was an Asian couple in the corner, two college-type girls sitting together and a few night people scatted about at tables and at the bar.</p>
<p>There are only two recorded eyewitness accounts of the events which happened in the early hours of that morning, April 7th: the one reported by Joe Luparelli who was outside, and by Pete Diapolous who was inside. Sinna Essary, almost forty years later, did pass on her very brief recollection of the shooting, but it was blurred by time and no doubt distorted by the sclerotic panic she found herself in.</p>
<p>Luparelli recounted his involvement approximately two weeks after the shooting went down, and Diapolous his presence at the killing of Joey Gallo in a book he co-authored about four years later, so their memories would have been fresh and their recollections much clearer.</p>
<p>The Gallo party ordered and enjoyed a fish and pasta meal and were so impressed, they ordered up seconds. In the meantime, Luparelli had left Umberto’s and hurried down Mulberry, crossing over Grand and into the King Wah Chinese restaurant at number ninety-one. Although closed to the public this time in the morning, it was open to the mob. It had in fact at one time been a Mafia social club and was currently owned by Dominick Dickie Pallatto who ran it with his Chinese wife, Mona. Pallato would be found dead in mysterious circumstances in 1977--drowned in three feet of water in his swimming pool on the island of Grenada. It was deemed he had drowned due to cramp!</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237019466,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237019466,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237019466?profile=original" width="223" /></a>Sitting at the bar were Sonny Pinto and a soldier in the Colombo crime family called Philip <em>Fat Funghi</em> Gambino (right), a distant cousin of the don, Carlo Gambino. Luparelli told them that Joey Gallo was eating up at Umberto’s and Sonny decided this was the time to hit him. There were also two other men who were brothers, at the bar. Luparelli only ever knew them as Cisco and Benny. Sonny went to a telephone in the restaurant and rang Joe Yacovelli, who gave his immediate approval to clip Joey. The brothers went out to fit-up and returned with two .38 and one.32 calibre revolvers.</p>
<p>Because Luparelli was walking with the aid of a cane as he had damaged his knee some weeks earlier, his job would be to drive one of the two cars the hit squad would use. As Fat Funghi was on parole, he would drive the other. Sonny, Benny and Cisco would go into Umberto’s.</p>
<p>The two cars headed north up the narrow, one-way street and sometime after 5:00 AM parked either side of Hester Street. Armed up, the three gunmen went into the restaurant.</p>
<p>Over the years the story of the killing of Joey Gallo has been retold endless times. . The stories say he died on Mulberry Street when in fact he was actually declared dead in the Beekman Hospital after he was driven there by police officer Felix Agosta who stopped his patrol car outside Umberto‘s just after the shooting.</p>
<p>That everyone under the sun did the hit, the latest disclosure being that of Frank Sheeran, a mid-west killer who claimed on his death-bed that he went into Umberto’s and did the shooting. Frank must have been the only three-handed man on the planet because the New York Police Engineering Unit carried out an evidence survey of the crime scene and found the remains of at least twelve shots that had been fired--three .32 calibre, five .38 calibre from two different guns, three of unidentified calibre and one .25 calibre and this did not include the three that actually connected with their target. A total of fifteen rounds fired in all.</p>
<p>The other factor that makes his involvement in the shooting impalpable is just how did he know where to go to do the job? The Gallo party themselves had no idea where they were heading when they left the Copacabana. The hit on Joey was the result of coincidence or fate or simply sheer bad luck. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was a Titanic looking for the iceberg in the dark, inhospitable sea of the mean streets of Manhattan.</p>
<p>Henry Miller said <em>We create our fate every day we live</em>. If he was right, Joey Gallo was going in the wrong direction from the day he was born.</p>
<p>On December 13th, 1972, a Manhattan Grand Jury identified one Carmine DiBiase in an indictment handed up on the killing of Joey Gallo. There was no mention made of one Frank Sheeran.</p>
<p>Pete Diapolous, a man who had spent most of his working life on the streets of New York, states categorically in his book The Sixth Family;</p>
<p><em>I saw Sonny Pinto wide and dark coming in……I made Sonny Pinto and two other guys.</em></p>
<p>Diapolous had met Sheeran a few hours earlier at the Copacabana so knew exactly what he looked like. There was no way Pete the Greek would have mistaken Sheeran for Carmine DiBiase.</p>
<p>Insert here image of Pete Diapolous</p>
<p>Joey and his group had been enjoying their food (no drink as Umberto’s was so new it was not yet licensed) when, to coin the hackneyed expression enjoyed by writers of thrillers, <em>All Hell broke loose</em>. At approximately 5:10 AM Pinto and his crew burst into the restaurant guns blazing, slugs going all over the place. Pushing over tables to protect the women, Joey then ran away from their area, drawing the fire of the gunmen who pinged away as he raced towards the corner door at Mulberry and Hester. Diapolous, struggling to clear his .25 Titan semi-automatic, took a round in his backside as he tumbled over the tables.</p>
<p>Chasing the gunmen out of the restaurant he fired repeatedly at their cars as they drove off.</p>
<p>Joey Gallo shot in the elbow, the buttocks and the back collapsed onto the sidewalk, and lay motionless until Pete Diapolous and the police officer bundled him into the patrol car and screamed off to the hospital a five minute journey to the south.</p>
<p>And that was that. With his death, the Gallo war drew to a close.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237019694,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237019694,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237019694?profile=original" width="622" /></a>There was one final incident which in a tragic way epitomized The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight reputation that the Gallo gang had acquired over the years..</p>
<p>The Neapolitan Noodle was a restaurant located at 320 East 79th Street in Manhattan. In August 1972, it was the scene of one of the worst mistakes in Cosa Nostra history. Albert Gallo was determined to avenge his brother Joey’s death and laid down a hit to be carried out on some of the Colombo family’s top administration.</p>
<p>On Friday, August 11th, the Gallos found out that Yacovelli, Allie Persico, brother of Carmine, Jerry Langella and Charlie Panarella would be at the bar of the Neapolitan Noodle. Robert Bongiovi aka Bobby Darrow a long time member of the Gallo gang was earmarked to spot the targets for the killers. A few minutes before their hit man arrived however, the mobsters had moved to a different table. In their place were five meat traders with their wives celebrating the engagement of one of their daughters to the restaurant’s manager. As the party moved to their table, the shooter, dressed in a loud Hawaiian shirt and wearing dark glasses and a long, black wig, opened up with two guns, firing nine shots, killing Sheldon Epstein and Max Teklech and wounding two of the other men. The killer, allegedly brought into New York from Las Vegas, escaped and was never found.</p>
<p>No one was ever prosecuted for the killing of Joey Gallo which Pete Hamill referred to as <em>A classic New York moment full of tradition, an endorsement of certain eternal verities, one that brought immense joy to the life of newspaper editors.</em></p>
<p>The only one who did time was Pete the Greek. He got a year in Rikers for illegal possession of an empty firearm.</p>
<p>Joey was buried in a half-ton $5000 casket in Green-Wood Cemetery, in Brooklyn, in Lot 40314 alongside his brother, Larry who had died of cancer in 1968. He shares the cemetery space with luminaries such as Boss Tweed, Leonard Bernstein, Lola Montez, William S. Hart and George Catlin, a lawyer who changed professions and became a painter of the Indians in the wilderness of America. He had died only a hundred years before Joey, although in terms of the way America had changed, it could well have been a million.</p>
<p>His funeral was a circus, with hundreds of people crowding the sidewalks to try and catch a glimpse of the coffin, and police and FBI agents mingling with the crowds to prevent any potential acts of gangland retribution that might erupt.</p>
<p>Sina Essary remembered the procession would have appealed to Joey’s sense of show business. Tommy Udo was dead, and as she remarked, “<em>You would have thought the Pope was passing by</em>.”</p>
<p>As a former nun, she would have known better than most.</p>
<p>Joey Gallo was a complex, confounding figure whose brief life seemed to have been overshadowed by an almost pathological desire to prove to everyone how much smarter he was than they. As Charles McCarry commented, he <em>“saw things with the joyful clarity of the incurably insane.”</em> It’s easy to picture him pleading with Sina not to rob him of the credit for destroying himself.</p>
<p>Like Othello, he would play the swan and die in music.</p>
<p>Three weeks before he was shot dead in a restaurant, The Godfather, believed to be the seminal Mafia movie of all time, previewed in New York. It featured a scene of a Mafia man being shot dead in a restaurant. The coincidence no doubt helped cement fable and reality in the public‘s consciousness. Maybe Mafia gunmen as well.</p>
<p>Following the shooting at Umberto’s, Joe Luparelli, Carmine DiBiase, the two brothers and Philip Gambino went back to the Chinese restaurant down the street and had a few more drinks. Benny and Cisco eventually left to dispose of the guns, then Joe, Carmine and Gambino travelled out of New York and stayed for a number of days at an apartment provided for them by Joe Yacovelli in Nyack twenty miles north of the Manhattan boundary.</p>
<p>In due course, Luparelli afraid for his life, fearing that Yackovelli was going to have him killed to silence him as a witness, fled New York and travelled to Los Angeles. He subsequently surrendered to the government and became an informant.</p>
<p>Philip Gambino disappeared from New York and was arrested by authorities near his home in Palm Beach, Florida, in May 1972, and charged with violation of his parole condition by consorting with known felons.</p>
<p>Benny and Cisco, whoever they were, merged back into the crepuscular landscape that hid them as though they had never existed.</p>
<p>Joe Yacovelli also went on the lam, and eventually, on February 27th, 1974, accompanied by his lawyer, David Markowitz, surrendered to the police in a radio station in New York. He was charged as a material witness in the killing of Joey Gallo.</p>
<p>On April 9th, two days after the murder of Joey Gallo, Carmine DiBiase met up with a man called Charlie in a lot in Engelwood Cliffs, New Jersey and left with him by car, heading somewhere.</p>
<p>And so, Carmine DiBiase (right) disappeared from New York, again.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237020671,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237020671,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237020671?profile=original" width="232" /></a>It would be the last time that he and the police or the Federal Bureau of Investigation would cross paths. Sonny fought the law, and the law won, insofar as his actions that night on the corner of Mulberry and Hester sent him straight past go and back into oblivion. Away from his beloved streets where the action was. Away from the excitement and lure of the clubs, and the broads and the endless scamming and deal-doing that had filled his days.</p>
<p>Joe Luparelli claims that Carmine did however come back to New York one last time, in the summer of 1975.</p>
<p>On June 30th, there was an altercation on the corner of Prince and Elizabeth Streets in Little Italy. A card sharp had set up a Monte game and suckered in three passing men who lost a considerable amount of money before they realized they were being fleeced. One of these men was Gaetano, the 26-year-old son of Carmine DiBiase.<br /> When they remonstrated with the dealer he ran off, jumped into a car and sped off. Gaetano and another man chased him in their car, stopping the dealer’s car a block away on the corner of Houston Street.</p>
<p>Gaetano DiBiase, dressed in a white suit, pulled his car over and ran up to the dealer, pointing a gun and shouting:</p>
<p><em>“Give me the money.”</em></p>
<p>An off-duty police officer at a gas station across the street saw what was going down and ran over, drawing his handgun. He shouted at Gaetano that he was a police officer, and then a fire-fight erupted. The police officer shot DiBiase twice, who staggered over to his car, which then drove off at high speed. The car travelled as far as 11th Street and 7th Avenue in Greenwich Village, stopping in front of St. Vincent’s Hospital. Gaetano rolled out of his car and collapsed on the sidewalk. The car disappeared. Rushed into emergency, surgeons operated but were unable to save him. He died three days later.</p>
<p>The police staked out the wake and the funeral hoping to apprehend Carmine DiBiase, but he never showed up. At least during the day. Luparelli claimed Sonny Pinto visited the funeral parlour late one night to pay his last respects to his son. It was also alleged that he put out a contract on the officer who had shot his son. Senior officials of the New York Police Department visited the heads of each of the five families and promised a massive retaliation against the mob if anyone tried to fill it. The contract was eventually withdrawn.</p>
<p>Carmine DiBiase was in the wind again. His life deracinated by actions he embraced with almost a libidinal enthusiasm, was corkscrewing him away once more from<br /> his home and family and the life he knew.</p>
<p>It was rumoured he had moved to Hartford, the state capital, a small, relatively nondescript city in the bucolic reaches of Connecticut, nicknamed The Insurance Capital of the World.</p>
<p>And here, is where the trail runs cold.</p>
<p><em>If this is</em> where he landed, his final years are not unlike the man himself: an enigma, maybe wrapped in a riddle and even possibly shrouded by mystery, to paraphrase Winston Churchill.</p>
<p>Did he start again? Form new relationships? Get married, albeit bigamously? Heaven forbid, get a job? He obviously kept deeply under the radar, as his name never crops up again in any police report or judicial system north, south or west of New York.</p>
<p>It was as though he had simply vanished off the face of the earth.</p>
<p>Maybe in the twilight of his life he would wander down to the south side, the Little Italy of Hartford, where he could find the food and drinks that perhaps reminded him of the Lower Manhattan version of the mythical neighbourhood, the place the amici nostra would gather on street corners to talk and smoke and reflect on their day’s endeavours. As Stefan Kanfer recalled it “<em>with its gritty avenues and rude wit, its hard-nosed gin joints and occasional grace notes.</em>”</p>
<p>The teeming, crowded alleys and tenements where the Mafia had begun sometime towards the end of the nineteenth century. The Mustache Petes of the old Honoured Society - Giuseppe Morello and Giouse Galluci and Ignazio Lupo and Joe Fontana and even for a brief period, none other than Vito Cascioferro, the big boss from Sicily - had all played their part in putting down roots and helped grow the biggest most far-reaching criminal conspiracy America would ever experience.</p>
<p>And he had been part of it.</p>
<p>One of the thousands of unknown mobsters who had made up this criminal enterprise. A phenomenon born of the hopes and aspirations of the poor, uneducated working stiffs born out of the years of Italian Diaspora into the biggest city in America. Men whose lack of education, and cultural background, branded them as misfits in the brave new world and whose only chance for survival and progress was under the umbrella of a secret society that held the city and country to ransom for generations.</p>
<p>Perhaps as he sat drinking a coffee, watching the world go by, he remembered images of his life; a montage of memories filled with Grand Street, and the Mayfair Boys and card games and fenced jewellery and shylock loans and deeds done darkly for the boss man and most of all, a bleak, wet early morning in April, the arches and square windows of Umberto’s reflecting the cold yellow light, shaking to the echo of gunfire, people shouting and screaming as he like some Jedi Knight, brought order back onto the streets in a wild and lawless city in a universe far, far away.</p>
<p><em>And, of course, that is what all of this is - all of this: the one song, ever changing, ever reincarnated, that speaks somehow from and to and for that which is ineffable within us and without us, that is both prayer and deliverance, folly and wisdom, that inspires us to dance or smile or simply to go on, senselessly, incomprehensibly, beatifically, in the face of mortality and the truth that our lives are more ill-writ, ill-rhymed and fleeting than any song, except perhaps those songs - that song, endlessly reincarnated - born of that truth, be it the moon and June of that truth, or the wordless blue moan, or the rotgut or the elegant poetry of it. That nameless black-hulled ship of Ulysses, that long black train, that Terraplane, that mystery train, that Rocket '88', that Buick 6 - same journey, same miracle, same end and endlessness.</em></p>
<p>- Nick Tosches: Where Dead Voices Gather</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><em>I would like to thank Jim Ruffalo for passing on information I had missed in my research.</em></span></p>
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Profile of Colombo family boss Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/colombo-boss-thomas-tommy
2011-05-16T12:30:00.000Z
2011-05-16T12:30:00.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-boss-thomas-tommy"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236994287,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9236994287?profile=original" width="451" /></a>By David Amoruso<br /> <br /> “I’m going to hell!” <br /> <br /> The above is a quote attributed to Colombo Crime Family leader Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli. According to the FBI, Gioeli uttered the <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/05/12/2011-05-12_thomas_gioeli_aka_tommy_shots_feared_going_to_hell_after_killing_exnun_according.html" target="_blank">words</a> to a fellow mobster when they were discussing a 1982 mob hit gone wild. So wild that a former nun ended up dead in the ensuing carnage. Though all mobsters break every law in the book, or both books, most have been raised with strict Catholic values. Gioeli is no different, and the dead nun was apparently eating away at his conscience. <br /> <br /> The conversation about the murdered nun came out in court twenty-nine years after the hit took place. A lot can happen in twenty-nine years. A free man in 1982, Gioeli was a young enforcer for the Colombos. Today, in 2011, he sits in prison awaiting trial on a long list of racketeering and murder charges. An older man now, Gioeli also has outgrown his career as muscle, becoming acting boss of the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family">Colombo Family</a> in 2004. His life so far has been a bumpy ride filled with gang violence worthy of a Scorsese movie.<br /> <br /> Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli began his rise to Mafia stardom in the 1970s. In 1980 he got his big break when he stood up and did his time after being jailed on a robbery conviction. After being released from prison he became an initiated, or ‘made’, member of the Colombo Family led by Carmine Persico. <br /> <br /> As an official member, Gioeli was the go-to-guy for mob hits. Mob author Jerry Capeci once quoted a police source who told him: “He’s got a crew of shooters who haven’t really gotten touched.” But Gioeli had no problem getting his own hands dirty either. <br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9236995070,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236995070,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9236995070?profile=original" width="260" /></a>Something that he allegedly made clear to trusted fellow mobster Dino Calabro (right), when he said he was going to hell for a mob hit that ended up accidentally claiming the life of a former nun. But defense attorney Adam Perlmutter thinks Calabro is telling false stories. “If one of the government's cooperators said Gioeli killed 'Cock Robin' from the children's fairytale, the government would believe that, too. The government believes anything its rats tell them,” Perlmutter said. <br /> <br /> He may be correct. Another mob turncoat, Salvatore Miciotta, had already told authorities all about this infamous mob hit years ago. Miciotta was a captain in the Colombo Family when he ‘flipped’ and joined Team America. He told the FBI that the Colombos planned to murder Joseph Peraino Sr. and his son Joseph Jr. because there was a dispute about the profits of the porn movie Deep Throat, which had been produced with mob investments. A hit team went to their house and in the confusion the nun ended up dead. Boss Carmine Persico approved the hit on the Perainos and Miciotta said that other participants in the murder plot included Joseph "Jo Jo" Russo, John Minerva, Vincent Angellino, Frank Sparaco, and Anthony Russo. No mention of Thomas Gioeli. And until this recent turncoat, Gioeli had never been linked to this mob hit. <br /> <br /> Whether there is any truth to Calabro’s claims will have to be seen when Gioeli’s racketeering trial starts and prosecutors will put up all their proof and the defense can cross-examine the government’s witnesses. Gioeli and several other mobsters had been indicted in June of 2008 on charges ranging from murder, extortion, and racketeering. Regardless of Gioeli’s alleged involvement in this particular hit, though, the government will not charge him with it, yet. But the government does believe it can link him to six other mob murders, most of them committed during the bloody Colombo Family war of the early 1990s. <br /> <br /> The Colombo war of the 1990s lasted two years and is one of the most infamous happenings in recent mob history. When boss Carmine Persico was sent to prison for life he made Victor “Little Vic” Orena his acting boss. Orena liked the position and tried to oust Persico as official boss. This move created a split within the family, with Persico loyalists facing the rebellious faction led by Orena. Between 1991 and 1993, the two groups fought a tit for tat battle that saw ten mobsters and two bystanders killed. <br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9236995459,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236995459,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9236995459?profile=original" width="260" /></a>During that bloody war, Gioeli (left) proved his worth once more. On June 12, 1991, Orena-faction member Frank Marasa was shot multiple times outside his home in Brooklyn in retaliation for his perceived involvement in the murder of a Colombo family associate. Authorities have charged that Gioeli committed the murder together with Dino Calabro and Joseph “Joey Caves” Competiello. Both Calabro and Competiello are now testifying for the government. <br /> <br /> Gioeli and Calabro were a close duo before their arrest in 2008. On March 25, 1992, they also committed the double murder of Colombo family soldier John Minerva and Minerva’s friend, Michael Imbergamo. Imbergamo was not a target of the murder, but was killed because he was with Minerva, a member of the Orena faction, at the time of the attack.<br /> <br /> It is clear Gioeli had no problem firing shots, but how would he react to being on the receiving end of some well aimed bullets? Well, on March 27, 1992, he found out when he was wounded in a wild car chase/shootout in Brooklyn. He was hit multiple times during the incident, but survived and his stature among his fellow gangsters had risen substantially after that day. <br /> <br /> After the FBI arrested Vic Orena and several other Colombo mobsters, things soon returned to normal. Persico’s son <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-boss-alphonse-persico">Alphonse</a> was firmly in place as acting boss for his imprisoned father and the two warring factions had begun to make peace and ‘fuggedabout’ all the violence that had occurred between them. Orena loyalist <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-underboss-william-wild">William “Wild Bill” Cutolo</a> was made underboss and everyone was happy. <br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9236995654,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236995654,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9236995654?profile=original" width="251" /></a>Of course, this isn’t a fairytale. This is a world filled with men who cheat, rob, hurt, and kill in the blink of an eye. No wonder then that “Wild Bill” Cutolo soon went missing and Colombo mobsters Dino Calabro and Thomas Gioeli all received a promotion shortly thereafter; Calabro became a made member, while Gioeli became a captain. Prosecutors have added the Cutolo murder to the long list of murder charges against Gioeli. <br /> <br /> Wild Bill’s remains were discovered in October of 2008, “in a wooded area around an industrial complex near Frank Ave. in Farmingdale where acting Colombo crime boss Thomas Gioeli lives,” the <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/10/06/2008-10-06_what_a_way_to_get_the_boot_corpse_found_-2.html" target="_blank">New York Daily News</a> reported. Colombo turncoat Joseph Competiello pointed authorities to the burial ground. <br /> <br /> Sitting in his jail cell, thinking about freedom and life behind bars. That’s the situation Gioeli is in right now. If he is convicted he will spend the remainder of his life in prison. Two of his most trusted fellow mobsters are lining up to testify against him. While he sits in a small cell, he knows his former friends will get out of prison eventually. It is part of the sweet deal the government offers to all turncoat mobsters. <br /> <br /> One wonders if Gioeli ever thinks about making such a deal himself. There wouldn’t be many gangsters left to testify against, but who knows. Then again, it is more likely Gioeli’s belief in that core mafia value of Omerta is still very strong. He would rather be in prison for life than become a turncoat, a rat. Perhaps Gioeli really has just one fear. Namely, the answer to the question: “What happens when I die?”<br /> </p>
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Mob Meeting at Apalachin: The Big Barbeque
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/mob-meeting-at-apalachin-the
2010-11-24T09:30:00.000Z
2010-11-24T09:30:00.000Z
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<div><p style="text-align:center;"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236988455,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" /></p>
<p><br /> By Thom L. Jones for <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a></p>
<p>November 1957<br /> <br /> The question, to my mind, has to be why?<br /> <br /> Why was this meeting held? <br /> <br /> There are a number of other interesting questions as well of course, and none of them have ever been answered satisfactorily.<br /> <br /> Who actually arranged it?<br /> <br /> Who first thought of the idea?<br /> <br /> Who in fact brought the whole thing together?<br /> <br /> Long before the days of rapid technological communications, how did the nuts and bolts get assembled? <br /> <br /> Gangsters and hoodlums even in the 1950s were aware of the dangers of telephone taps. Communicating with dozens of men, all over the continental United States couldn’t have been that easy. Arranging itineraries and accommodation for mob bosses from Los Angeles and Cleveland and Boston and New York and Tampa and Denver and wherever else, must have been a logistical nightmare for the party planner, whoever he was.<br /> <br /> Logic infers that the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Mob">Mafia</a>’s ruling body, the Commission, made up of the five New families, plus Buffalo, Chicago, perhaps Philadelphia and Detroit, gathered somewhere and laid down the ground rules and agreed in principle on the date and the venue.<br /> <br /> Imagine this guy sitting somewhere, maybe New York, or maybe Kingston, Pennsylvania, at a desk, covered in pieces of paper and perhaps maps and airline schedules and mountains of other bumf trying desperately to co-ordinate everything. No cell phone with built in address book. No lap top to search out timetables and book airline tickets, no Excel to draw up schedules. How on earth did they get everyone together from all over the country, at the same time? <br /> <br /> Some sources believe the meeting had originally been scheduled to take place in Chicago, but a number of the dons, thought this was unwise as the Windy City was feeling the heat that particular November because of a highly publicized IRS investigation into the finances of Chicago boss Tony "The Big Tuna" Accardo. <br /> <br /> Stefano Magaddino, the Buffalo boss, suggested the Apalachin location, owned by Joe Barbara, who Magaddino may have used as a middleman in shipping heroin along the old bootlegger's route from Canada to New York City. <br /> <br /> The FBN claimed that all the arrangements were made by Joseph Mario Barbara, Jr. the elder son of Joe Barbara, who hosted the meet, although he would have been only twenty-one at the time, making it highly unlikely he would have been given that kind of responsibility. He would have been after all, organizing stuff on behalf of some heavy underworld characters. More likely, Rusell Bufalino, Joe Barbara’s right hand man, who would one day assume control of the crime family, lead at this time by Barbara, could have been the organiser, or one of them.<br /> <br /> These men were seriously bad criminals, each running their own little empire, controlling graft and corruption and drug trafficking and political manipulation, and sometimes when the moon was full, killing people. Evil stuff needs lot’s of attention and input. Not that easy to just drop everything and swan off across hundreds, maybe thousands of miles to some farmhouse in the boondocks of New York state. It would have needed precise planning for them all to arrive at around the same time, certainly within a twenty-four hour time frame.<br /> <br /> Whatever it was they were going to discuss, there’s no doubt it hit the spot, so to speak, in garnering their attention. Because many heads of mob families across the country, and their personal assistants, chauffeurs, and bodyguards, made the trek to this rural back block which lay closer to Canada than New York City.<br /> <br /> It was possibly the biggest convention in mob history. Certainly the biggest that law enforcement knew about. Bigger than Cleveland. Bigger than Atlantic City and Havana, Cuba. It was in fact the Mr. Big of hoodlum jamborees. No doubt on that.<br /> <br /> And it was not the first time Barbara’s home had been used for a mob meeting. The year before Apalachin, the mob commission had met here to officially bring Philadelphia's boss Angelo Bruno onto its board.<br /> <br /> However, this one would turn out to be probably the most significant major embarrassment in terms of public relations that the Mafia ever suffered in its long history. In social clubs, and bars and restaurants across the nation, the foot soldiers of organized crime in America at this time, no doubt sat around and talked about the debacle at Apalachin, as the last days of fall drifted into the start of winter 1957, delighted at the sheer unbridled stupidity of the chiefs turning out to be no better than the Indians. <br /> <br /> Joe Valachi, the mob informant from the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Genovese">Genovese family</a>, remembered.<br /> ‘I’ll tell you the reaction of all us soldiers,’ he told author Peter Maas, ‘ when we heard about the raid. If soldiers got arrested in a meet like that, you can imagine what the bosses would have done. There they are, running through the woods like rabbits, throwing away money so they won’t be caught with a lot of cash, and some of them throwing away guns. So who are they kidding when they say we got to respect them?’<br /> <br /> It would defy belief that these top hoodlums, dressed in their flash city suits, and shiny winkle-picker shoes, wearing snappy fedoras and driving in state in their huge, garish automobiles, would not attract attention in a small, rural township, two hundred miles north-west of New York City, tucked away in the rolling, green hills of Tioga County, where the shops closed on Sundays, girls still went to school in dresses, and all the boys had crew-cuts.<br /> <br /> A criminal organization of national scope, composed of thousands, which had hidden itself from public view for almost thirty years, out of the blue, became headline news across America, and did it overnight. Now, the country realized it had a mob in its midst, a mob of men with strange sounding names, all ending in vowels, who looked to be as big a threat to the country as the ‘commies’ that the FBI had been chasing down since the end of World War Two.<br /> <br /> Estes Kefauver had gotten close to the subject matter with his senate investigation into organized crime which was officially known as the Senate Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce, formed in 1950. The first hearing of its type to be broadcast on television, it had introduced middle America to something called the Mafia. The year long hearings created something of a blip on the mob’s radar, but nothing really developed from them, except the resignation of a number of corrupt politicians. It generated splash back that may have contributed to the death of Willie Moretti, the New Jersey tough guy, and helped along the deportation of New York hoodlum Joe Adonis, but it hardly caused much of a ripple in the Italian-American underworld.<br /> <br /> Apalachin however, became head line news because the meeting was discovered and the participants, at least probably 60% of them, were arrested and processed by the local law. All of sudden, there were names and faces being published, and details of criminals who were apparently big time operators in most of the major cities across America. This was not some individual gangster or coruscate bookie, being interviewed on television, not even, as in the case of Frank Costello, mob boss from New York, a pair of performing hands. No, here were many, many big-time criminals, all together in one spot at one time, for some earnestly important reason, and it had to be bad. The face of Mob America had been exposed for the first time since its institution, back in 1931. <br /> <br /> Organized crime in America would never quite be the same again.<br /> <br /> The man who kick-started the whole thing was Edgar Croswell, a detective sergeant in the New York State Police. He had been closely watching this man called Joe Barbara, who lived in Apalachin, for almost thirteen years. Croswell worked as an investigator for the Criminal Investigation Bureau, attached to the Vestal sub station, near Binghamton. These three places lie on State Highway 17, approximately twenty miles apart, with the village of Apalachin the furthest west.<br /> <br /> <img style="float:right;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236988662,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />Croswell (right) had first encountered Barbara in 1944, a meeting that had been more than acrimonious, and had made a point of carrying out extensive checks on Barbara’s background. <br /> <br /> He had been born in 1905 in Castellammarese del Golfo, in western Sicily and immigrated to America in 1921, along with an older brother called Carlo, settling in with relatives in Endicott, a small town to the east of Binghampton, and getting a job in one of the numerous shoe factories scattered across the region.<br /> <br /> On the corner of Washington Avenue and North Street in Endicott was a corner cigar shop. Above that shop, according to some sources, Joe began his criminal career by setting up a house of prostitution. <br /> <br /> He became a naturalized citizen in 1927, and by the age of 31, had developed into a formidable figure in the criminal fraternity of Wilkes-Barr-Scranton-Pittson district, south of Binghampton, in northern Pennsylvania. At this time he was living at Old Forge.<br /> <br /> He was a suspect in the 1931 murder of Calomare Calogaro, who was shot dead in Wyoming, Pennsylvania. A few months later, police found a Thompson sub machine gun in Joe’s car, which had apparently been used in a recent gangland shooting in New York City. In 1933, he was again arrested and investigated in a double underworld killing. One of the victims, before he died, actually named Barbara as the man who had shot him. In 1933, he was yet again a suspect, this time in the brutal, torture murder of Albert Wichner, a Scranton bootlegger.<br /> <br /> Miraculously, Joe Barbara walked away from all of these murders. Every case against him collapsed for a number of reasons. He was most definitely an untouchable.<br /> <br /> No doubt feeling under a lot of surveillance, and getting pressured by the local police, Joe Barbara left Pennsylvania and moved back into New York State, first to Endicott and then buying a house on McFall Road, in Apalachin, a picturesque, ‘sleepy hollow’ type of small town America. There was only about two hundred and eighty people living in the township and less than a thousand in the catchments’ area at this point. <br /> <br /> <img style="float:right;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236988498,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />By the time Barbara (right) had fully developed the hilltop property (parts of which dated back to 1867,) he had bought, towards the end of the 1940s, it had eleven rooms and five auxiliary buildings, and fifty-three acres of land surrounding it.<br /> <br /> Sometime in 1940, Barbara had taken control of a small group of mobsters in Wilkes-Barre, who had operated under the command of Santo Volpe since the early 1930s and then briefly, John Sciandra, until he was murdered. There were maybe as many as fifty in this group which became known as the Bufalino Family in the early 1960’s. Joe also established a legitimate business running a soft drink bottling plant, and somehow, through some kind of political pressure at Albany, received a district beer distribution license and was also awarded a franchise by the Canada Dry Company to bottle and distribute their products. <br /> <br /> This is how things stood, when somebody wrote a dud cheque.<br /> <br /> On November 13th 1957, Croswell’s office received a telephone call from the Parkway Motel at 900 Vestal Pkwy East, in Vestal. Someone had presented a bad cheque. Along with his partner, Trooper Vincent Vasisko, the sergeant stopped by at the motel late in the afternoon. While they were talking to the owner’s wife, Helen Schroeder, Croswell noticed Joe Barbara Junior, a cocky and pompous 21 year old, pull up outside in his Cadillac. The sergeant and the trooper stepped into a small lounge off the office area, and listened while Barbara made a reservation for three double rooms, for two nights. He mentioned that his father was hosting a convention for people involved in the soft drinks industry. However, he couldn’t tell the manager the names of the guests or when they were arriving, simply asking for the keys to the rooms on payment of a deposit. Croswell smelt the proverbial rat. Something was not just kosher about this, is how I imagine he thought.<br /> <br /> So, he and the trooper went off to check Barbara’s bottling plant to see if anything suspicious was going on there. That was a dead end. Then, they drove down Main Street, taking a left on McFall Road, heading south about half a mile until they reached the Barbara property. Here, they sighted four automobiles.<br /> <br /> One they knew belonged to Patsy Turrigiano, a man they had been watching as part of their surveillance on Barbara. Also born in Catellammarese in Sicily, the sixty-one year old resident of Endicott, had a police record dating back to 1928 for boot-legging, larceny and assault, to name a few violations. He ran a grocery store on Watson’s Boulevard in Endicott, and was a close associate of Joe Barbara. The other three cars carried New Jersey, Ohio and New York plates. Croswell noted these and the two officers went back to their office in Vestal to start checking registrations details on these cars. At some stage later in the day, Sergeant Croswell then drove back to the Parkway Motel and saw the car with the Ohio plates parked there. The two men from the car-John DeMarco and Giovanni Scalise -were already in their room. Later that night on another swing-by, they spotted a Lincoln that they subsequently identified as belonging to one James La Duca. <br /> <br /> For Joe Barbara, the next day, Thursday November 14th 1957, would prove to be a nightmare, at the hands of his nemesis. For Sergeant Edgar Croswell, the game was in play! <br /> <br /> Back at his office, Sergeant Croswell, working on an assumption that Barbara may have been involved in some kind of bootlegging operation, rang two of his contacts, treasury agents, Arthur Rustin and Kenneth Brown, based in Binghampton, a thirty minute drive away, explained his situation, and they agreed to come across and help. Croswell also rang his boss, Inspector Robert Denman, who was based in Sidney, about fourty miles north-east of Binghampton, and up dated him on the events that had taken place. Denman confirmed that the surveillance of Barbara’s property should continue the following day.<br /> <br /> Late the next morning, Croswell, Vasisko and the two treasury agents drove up to McFall Road. It was overcast with a light rain forecast. A strong smell of meat cooking over an open flame drifted up from the extended barbeque area at the back of the property. The dozens of men standing around the barbecue were preparing to enjoy lunch. A week before, their host had ordered $432 worth of fancy steaks, veal chops, and hams from Armour & Company in Binghamton. The 220-pound shipment had to be sent in specially from Chicago. Mel Blossom, the property caretaker, tall and saturnine, was keeping busy trundling wheelbarrows of prime-cuts from the kitchen down to the barbeque pit.<br /> <br /> The area in front of Joe Barbara’s garage was filled to capacity with parked autos, and an adjoining field was also being used as an overflow area. Dozens of vehicles were scattered around the property-Cadillacs, Imperials, Lincolns and Chryslers. As the officers wandered around jotting down plate numbers, a group of men appeared walking around the garage, talking in animated conversation. They stopped, looking stunned at the sight of the police officers, then started yelling, retreating back towards the house (below).</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236988885,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" /></p>
<p><br /> <br /> Croswell and his men dropped back down McCall Road, and at exactly 12.50 p.m. according to his later testimony, he ordered a road-block set up. The sergeant then used his car radio to call his superior officer, asking for back-up. Soon, some twenty state police officers were peeling out of barracks, at Binghampton, Whitney Point, Waverly and Horseheads, in their Plymouth sedans cruisers, lights flashing and sirens blaring. <br /> <br /> As Croswell and his men stood watching the house back up the hill, they made out a stream of men fleeing the property, rushing across fields and into an adjoining wood and west towards the Apalachin Creek. The sergeant was under pressure. He had to make some kind of tactical decision about what was going on.<br /> <br /> At this point, a small truck came down the hill. It was driven by Bartolo Guccia, a fish merchant from Endicott, who had apparently been making a delivery at Barbara’s house. He stopped at the road block, reversed his van, and then drove back up the hill. Shortly after he returnd and the police waived him through. Guccia has always been regarded as merely a spectator in the great scheme of things at Apalachin, but in fact he was no doubt part and parcel of the Barbara crime family. A sixty-six year old produce merchant, born in Sicily, in that same small seaside town as Joe, he was well- known to the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and had an arrest record that dated back to 1916 for just about everything, including murder. Bart the fishmonger was more than just a smelly delivery man. He was part of team Barbara, and it seemed to be his lucky day. The fish man slipped through the net, so to speak. His freedom was short- lived however, as a patrol car stopped him down the road, and he was then detained.<br /> <br /> The next car that came rumbling down the hill stopped as Sergeant Croswell waved it down. There were three passengers in the back. The driver identified himself as Russel Bufalino and his front seat passenger as Vito Genovese. Croswell checked their driving licenses. The men sitting in the back of the Chrysler Imperial were Joseph Ida, Gerardo Catena and Dominic Oliveto. They claimed they had simply dropped by to visit their friend Joe, who had been feeling ill. As Croswell was talking to these men, the first of the state troopers were arriving, pulling their cars onto the side of the road.<br /> <br /> Sergeant Croswell made his decision. Organizing the troopers intro groups, he sent some to round up the men charging about the countryside and the rest were used to marshal the ever growing number of cars driving down the hill, into groups and to escort them to Vestal and the state trooper’s building at 217 Vestal Parkway East.<br /> <br /> Just a few hundred yards up the road was the motel where the investigation had begun the previous day.<br /> <br /> By late afternoon, just past five o’clock, the 1500 square feet, two story building, was packed with the men who had been transferred down from Barbara’s house or rounded up and herded across the fields and out of the woods. There were almost 60 of them, standing around in groups or sitting on chairs and benches, most of them smoking up a fug, and talking to each other in whispered tones. One by one, they were ushered into Sergeant Croswell’s office, where they emptied their pockets and gave out their names and addresses, as he checked their identity against their driving licenses. Between them, in cash, rolled into tight wads, the group had over $300,000. <br /> <br /> Simon Scozzari, a fifty-seven year old Sicilian, from Palermo, who owned and operated the Venetian Club in Los Angeles, had only a modest $602 in bills, but was also carrying a cashier’s cheque for $8445. He was in fact the under boss of the Los Angeles mafia family, working with Frank DeSimone, a lawyer and hoodlum who ran the group there, and who was also detained at the Vestal Station. <br /> <br /> Almost every man interviewed, subsequently turned out to have a criminal record, of some sort. One of them however-Charles Chiri- had an unblemished background. The sixty-nine year old Sicilian lived in Palisades, New Jersey. He was close to many top ranking hoods, including Tony Accardo of Chicago and some really seriously front line mobsters from New York, like Tommy Luchese, Tony Bender, Joe Biondo, Charles Dongarra and Sal Caneba, a major Sicilian drug trafficker who had been deported from America in 1954. Chiri was, according to informants, attending the meeting as a representative of deported top boss, Joe Adonis, who was at this time living in Milan. <br /> <br /> Keeping ‘Doto’ in the loop so to speak.<br /> <br /> There was an unusual level of blood relatives present at Apalachin-four pairs of brothers, two sets of cousins and a mixture of uncles, nephews and in-laws.<br /> Joe Profaci and Joe Magliocco were second cousins. John Montana’s nephew, Charles was married to one of Stefano Magaddino’s daughters. Another daughter was the wife of James La Duca. The son of Joe Zerilli of Detroit was married to a daughter of Joe Profaci.<br /> <br /> Clanship through birthplace was represented by Joe Barbara, Joe Bonanno, Emanuel Zicari, Frank Garofalo, John Bonventre, Ignaius Cannone, the Magaddino family members and Bartolo Guccia, who were all immigrants from Castellammarese del Golfo.<br /> <br /> Although all of these mobsters would have egg on their faces for a long time over the debacle in upstate New York, the man who really felt the heat was John Montana.<br /> <br /> A business man from Buffalo, influential in state politics, a city council member, recently nominated ‘business man of the year’ by the Erie Club, and operator of the biggest taxi-cab business in the city, he just happened to also be a capo in the Buffalo Mafia family run by Stefano Magaddino. One of the state troopers had found him lost and wandering in the woods adjoining the Barbara property.<br /> <br /> His excuse for being in the neighbourhood was typical of the stories Croswell would have to sit through that afternoon and evening. Montana claimed he was driving from Buffalo to New York- on business of course- when the brakes on his Cadillac started to play up. He thought he would stop at his friend Joe’s house, and get one of his mechanics to look them over. He was sitting having a quiet cup of tea with Joe’s wife, Josephine Vivona, when all the commotion started. He decided to just go for a quite walk in the woods until everything calmed down, but somehow, got himself lost!<br /> <br /> Some of the other fancy stories came from men like Vincent Rao of Manhattan, who said he thought he had been invited to a buffet luncheon. Carmine Lombardozzi, a Brooklyn based hoodlum, confirmed he was going hunting. Asked why he had no gun or hunting gear, he said he was planning to buy it there! Jimmy La Duca, a capo in the Magaddino organization, was apprehended in the woods, where he said he was chasing a deer. Joe Filardo of Kansas City said he was a businessman, but refused to say what kind of business. Most everyone said they were paying a sick call on Mr. Barbara and had all coincidentally arrived at the same time. The most original excuse came from James Osticco. He said he had come to the house ‘to fix a pump.’<br /> <br /> You could imagine these guys turning on their host:<br /> <br /> “Another fine mess you’ve got me into Ollie!” <br /> <br /> New York City Police Lieut. Thomas Mooney gave out an interesting explanation about why the meeting had been called, or at least one of the reasons. The meeting, he said, was a drum head court-martial for Lombardozzi, who had committed unexplained indiscretions in his business/personal life. Some sources claimed this involved skimming from jukebox machines, monies due to his mob family. Other sources say it revolved around Lombardozzi raping a young woman. He had a long criminal record dating back to 1929 which included alongside homicide and obstruction of justice, a charge of rape, so the precedent was there. Lombardozzi, before the cops arrived, was found guilty, and fined $10,000 so the claim goes. He was lucky. The alternative was two behind the ear in some dark corner of his world.<br /> <br /> Montana never lived down the disgrace of being outed at Apalachin, and all his years of secrecy and his effort at embedding himself into the social world of Buffalo went down the tube. Although a power in Buffalo city and New York state politics, and a respected businessman, his Mafia connection ruined him and he died a broken man a few years later.<br /> <br /> The count wasn’t finished until early the next morning, an hour after the last of those who had run for the woods was brought in from the rain. “One by one we rounded them up,” Croswell said: “bedraggled, soaking wet, and tired.” He added, “There are no sidewalks in the woods.”<br /> <br /> All the police cars had to do was patrol the roads," said Vasisko. "They had to come out sooner or later. You see a guy in a silk suit and a white fedora, you say, 'He doesn't belong in the woods!'"<br /> <br /> Barbara’s house was never searched; any of the mobsters who did not flee could have waited out the raid inside. Probably many of them did. Tommy Luchese was never found, or Carmine Galante or Stefano Magaddino or Sam Giancana. Surely these men and others were at this conclave. About the reaction of those caught, Croswell said: “These guys are never indignant.” All of them answered questions politely and left the station quietly. No fuss or bother.<br /> <br /> By the time Croswell processed the last of the men, the station was being swamped by calls from reporters. The following day headlines filled newspapers across America. Here at last, was proof of what Kefauver had warned about. Here, was the “Great Congress” of the Mafia, the nerve centre of crime in America. It had finally been flushed into the open.<br /> <br /> “Royal Clambake for Underworld Cooled by Police” and “Police Ponder NY Mob Meeting; All Claim They Were Visiting Sick Friend.” were just some of the glaring headlines that greeted Americans for the next nine days.<br /> <br /> The police were immediately excoriated for releasing the biggest catch of mobsters in history. Croswell’s critics disregarded the fact that the men, none of whom was a wanted fugitive, were peacefully assembled on private property. The police action was itself of questionable legality since there was no legitimate cause for suspicion about any of these men. They were not breaking any law by gathering at Joe's place.<br /> <br /> However, all of a sudden as 1957 was a drawing to a close, organized crime was suddenly news. Each of the Apalachin visitors became the centre of media publicity and possible official action on his home turf. Attendance at the meeting was taken as proof of involvement in a malignant conspiracy. The public demanded to know why this “second government,” now no longer invisible, was allowed to exist. The authorities were anxious for answers.<br /> <br /> The Apalachin meet triggered off numerous investigation and in the months that followed, public hearings were conducted by the State Joint Legislative Committee, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labour or Management Field, headed by Senator John L. McClellan and the New York State Commission of Investigation.<br /> <br /> The New York legislature assigned a watchdog committee to look into the matter.<br /> On December 12th 1957, the New York State government opened a Joint Legislative Committee on Government Operations, serving subpoenas on the thirty four Apalachin delegates who came within their jurisdiction. Sergeant Croswell attended and gave evidence as did John T. Cusack, an agent of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. He read to the committee a 15000 word report on the operations of the Mafia which had the assembly spellbound. He recalled the mob meetings that the bureau were aware of- Cleveland 1928, Florida in 1952 and 1953, Chicago in 1954, Binghampton the previous year, and now this one at Apalachin.<br /> <br /> A number of men sworn to give testimony attended the hearings and all took the 5th. <br /> <br /> John Ormento, Luchese family drug king. Joe Profaci mob boss of his own family in Brooklyn. Antonio Magaddino, brother of the Buffalo Mafia boss. Guarnieri, Falcone, Carlisi, d'Agostino, Evola, Castellano, Miranda, Valenti, Bufalino, Riccobono, Rao, the endless list of stern faces, impassive faces, the men all shaking their heads and saying nothing.<br /> <br /> Following the days of testimony and evidence giving, the Watchdog Committee issued a report which stated:<br /> <br /> 'The Apalachin meeting of November 14. 1957, is strong evidence that there exists in this country an active association or organization of criminals whose operations are nationwide and international...........' <br /> <br /> Grand juries probed for wrongdoing. Paul Castellano, the chauffeur, brother-in-law, and eventual successor to Carlo Gambino, served seven months for his silence before a New York City panel. Liquor and immigration authorities began to examine participants. <br /> <br /> Joe Barbara, plagued by health problems, never testified about the meeting, but he lost his pistol permit and his beer license and soon after sold his property in May 1959 to a builder and developer and moved back to Endicott where it all started for him all those years before. He died of a heart attack one month later, in June, 1959. Only four of the hordes of his “concerned visitors” from two years earlier found time to make it to his funeral.<br /> <br /> At the federal level, Apalachin came under the magnifying glass of a Senate committee chaired by John McClellan of Arkansas. The Senate Rackets Committee, as it was known had been digging up dirt on mob infiltration of labour unions for nine months before Apalachin. Twenty two of the delegates to Apalachin had union or labour-management ties. The hearings were driven by the group’s chief counsel, Robert Kennedy. Vito Genovese appeared before the panel wearing amber-shaded glasses and his usual smirk, and took the Fifth Amendment more than 150 times. McClellan’s investigation proved to be an early important step toward cleaning up mob-dominated unions.<br /> <br /> In early December, 1959, in Manhattan's U.S. District Court, a jury found 20 of Barbara's racketeer-guests guilty of conspiring to obstruct justice by lying to grand juries about their reasons for coming to Apalachin. These men faced maximum sentences of five years and/or $10,000 fines. In what U.S. Attorney General William P. Rogers hailed as a "landmark" verdict, the Government in an ingeniously based prosecution won its biggest courtroom victory against organized crime since the conviction of Al Capone. For without proving that the defendants had assembled for a "crime convention," Special U.S. Prosecutor Milton Wessel convinced the jury of the mobsters' "togetherness in crime, partnership in lying." <br /> <br /> Milton Wessel may well have sown the seeds, laid down originally in 1934 legislation, which thirteen years later, harvested the RICO bill, used so successfully since 1985 to decimate mob families.<br /> <br /> The key to the Government's successful long-shot prosecution was Federal Judge Irving R. Kaufman's ruling that the police, in halting and questioning the defendants, had not encroached upon the constitutional guarantee against illegal search and seizure. Judge Kaufman, held that the police had "reasonable grounds" for believing that "a crime might have been committed"; that "the circumstances were such that an immediate stoppage and investigation was rendered absolutely necessary." Those questioned, said the court, were merely getting an opportunity to convince police that no crime had been committed. They did so and were released. <br /> <br /> In December 1960, the U.S. Court of Appeals kicked the Government's case out. The court, reversing the convictions of the 20 hoods, ordered the charges dismissed. The main point of the unanimous decision by the three judges stated: <br /> <br /> “Since the Government had not tried to prove that the meeting, in and of itself, violated any state or federal law, how could it prove that the defendants had conspired to lie about their presence there? The Government's ‘bootstrap‘ handling of the case, wrote Chief Judge J. Edward Lumbard, was wholly unwarranted. "Bad as many of these alleged conspirators may be, their conviction for a crime which the Government could not prove . . . and on evidence which a jury could not properly assess, cannot be permitted to stand." <br /> <br /> J. Edgar Hoover embarrassed that Apalachin made a mockery of his long-held position that no Mafia existed in America as an organized business, set up a “Top Hoodlum Program,” shortly after the mob fest, using the bureau to consolidate information on leading gangsters across the country.<br /> <br /> By the 1960s, many sources were trying to explain the tremendous blunder made by Hoover in denying the existence of a nationwide crime confederation, and it is still debated to this day, without resolution. There are various theories.<br /> <br /> These include Hoover's hatred of Federal Bureau of Narcotics chief Harry Anslinger, who really did believe in the Mafia threat; Hoover's fear that organized crime investigations could be messy affairs that provoked backlashes from crooked politicians; and his awareness that his own social circle featured prominent businessmen with possible mob links. There is no definitive proof for any of these.<br /> <br /> Curt Gentry in his book on J. Edgar Hoover, offered another possibility: that Hoover was gay and being blackmailed by the Mafia.<br /> <br /> In 1958, the Director also ordered the preparation of two Mafia monographs, one on the Mafia-U.S.A. the other on Mafia-Sicily. It was perhaps his first attempt to try to come to terms with a criminal organization that had been in existence longer than his own beloved bureau. These can be viewed to-day at the FBI web site: <a href="http://www.fbi.gov/">http://www.fbi.gov/</a><br /> <br /> Toward the end of 1962, Director Hoover asked that all information on the Italian criminal organization in the United States be summarized in a report, to be compiled by the New York field office. Responsibility was given to a New York special agent. All field offices were to submit their information to New York. The report was issued January 4, 1963, under the title of "The Criminal Commission Etal." It described the positions, hierarchy and lines of authority within La Cosa Nostra families.<br /> <br /> Hoover came to the party late, but once there, set in place the not inconsiderable resources of the bureau to harass the mob for the next fifty years.<br /> <br /> So, just who organized this mob conference in the first place and for why?<br /> <br /> According to Joe Valachi, the Mafia informant, who testified in 1963 before yet another committee, the whole thing was Vito Genovese’s idea. Valachi claimed that Genovese wanted the meeting to be held in Chicago, but was talked out of that by Stefano Magaddino, and when this was settled, Joe Barbara’s son made all the arrangements. Hardly likely as I’ve already speculated.<br /> <br /> <img style="float:left;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236978491,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />First up on the agenda was confirmation of Vito (left) as the boss of his family, which if true, would confirm that at this point in time, he wasn’t. Then, a resolving of the attempted hit on Frank Costello, who probably was the family boss, earlier in the year, and confirmation that the hit on Albert Anastasia, (boss of another mob family in New York,) the previous month had been justified. Another important matter was the sale of membership into Cosa Nostra that had apparently taken place within Anastasia’s family, and the stabilization of mob families by having ‘the books’ closed and no new hopefuls inducted. <br /> <br /> The securing of Anastasia’s family was of prime importance since men in the Anastasia Family still loyal to the Anastasia regime, such as the powerful capi Aniello Dellacroce and Armand Rava were possibly gearing up to go to war against Vito Genovese and his allies. It hadn't been just the Genovese-Luchese-Gambino alliance that wanted to see Anastasia dead. Some of the most powerful Cosa Nostra Bosses throughout the country, such as Tampa Family boss Santo Trafficante, Jr., Northeastern Family Underboss Rosario "Russell" Bufalino, New Orleans Family Boss Carlos "Little Man" Marcello and even Jewish Boss and mafia financier, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/how-meyer-lansky-laundered-the-american-mafia-s-dirty-cash-and-ma">Meyer Lansky</a>, worried about Anastasia's attempts to muscle in on their Havana casino operations before the Commission perhaps sanctioned his assassination.<br /> <br /> Gambling policy needed to be thrashed out, in particular the opportunities to be mined in places like Cuba. The New York Garment Industry and control of garment centre trucking may have been other important topics on the Apalachin agenda. The outcome of these discussions would certainly have a direct and in some cases, an indirect effect on the business interests of some of the other Bosses around the country, mainly those involved in the garment manufacturing business, trucking, labour and unions, all of which were major cash cows for the crime families involved. <br /> <br /> It's also possible that on the agenda was what, if anything, to do about Bobby Kennedy. He was the lead counsel in the McClellan hearings that had begun its investigations in February. Joe Kennedy was a business associate of the mob, with a history dating back to Prohibition. It may have seemed to the Mafia that it was dishonourable for him or his family to bite the hand that had helped to feed them. The mob knew that Kennedy was planning to launch Jack, his eldest son, as a political star in the making, and the chances were above-average that he would gain the Presidency. Perhaps Joe had already approached the Mafia for help in electing his son. Years later, Sam Giancana told Judith Campbell, one of Jack Kennedy's numerous girlfriends, 'Listen, honey, if it weren't for me, your boyfriend wouldn't even be in the White House.' Would it better suit the Mafia to give Bobby Kennedy a free rein for the time being? Jack's election, and a possible mob tie-in to the Presidency might help in smoothing relations between the Mafia and Joe Kennedy. <br /> <br /> Last but not least, and probably the most important item, was what do about the U.S. Congress draconian Narcotics Control Act passed in 1956, and already bringing grief to members of the Mafia who could not keep their sticky fingers out of the drug trade. Would the mob outlaw, on pain of death, narcotic trafficking?<br /> <br /> It’s therefore quite possible that the state of the American Mafia was to be covered on an extensive scale at this meeting, leading perhaps to maybe even deciding who would now be heading any new changes, controlling and enforcing its national rules and policies. A realignment of power. Perhaps the re-creating of the mythical boss of bosses position, which had been discontinued in 1931. Improbable, but always possible.<br /> <br /> Joe Valachi of course was simply an Indian in the tribe of the Genovese. It’s highly unlikely that he had firsthand knowledge of Don Vito’s intention. Whatever he knew, would have filtered down through the system, from Tony Bender, or Vince Mauro, or one of the other men more senior than he was. For the last forty-seven years, writers have repeated his assertions as though they are gospel, but of course they are not.<br /> <br /> This is what Valachi claimed, but there is no independent proof that confirms what he said. He made mistakes and got things wrong in his testimony and recollections, so who is to say this information is accurate?<br /> <br /> However, the turmoil that had been generated in the Manhattan underworld during the year was surely worthy of serious consideration as items on any mob agenda.<br /> <br /> The shooting of Frank Scalice, Frank Costello and Albert Anastasia were part of a perfect, well almost perfect, mob trifecta that fascinated New Yorkers throughout 1957.<br /> <br /> The first up on May 2nd was the attack on Frank Costello, who at this time was possibly still the head of the crime family formerly run by Charley Luciano, now living in exile in Naples, Italy. Vito Genovese had returned to New York in 1946 from his own self-imposed exile in Italy and for the next ten years he and Costello uneasily co-inhabited within the family. Genovese had taken over the rains when Luciano had gone to prison in 1936, but then a year later had fled New York when under investigation for the murder of a minor gangland figure called <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/being-ernest-the-life-and-hard">Ferdinand Boccia</a>.<br /> <br /> Costello had successfully managed the large, 450 strong and diverse family, for twenty years when Genovese finally made his play. Frank was a man who used political connections rather than brute force to achieve his objectives. For many years, Costello held the allegiance of at least four of the six family crews that made up the critical mass of the criminal clan, and so seemed to hold the position of power.<br /> Frank Costello was popular with the white collar crews in the family, those involved in the garment centre, garbage hauling, construction, labour and union rackets, along with legitimate businesses. <br /> <br /> Vito Genovese worked away at the edges, nibbling inwards bit by bit at the men Costello trusted. Men like Gerry Catena and Tommy Eboli, Augie Pisano and Vinnie Mauro. Setting seeds of distrust, laying Frank open to criticism about how much time he spent on his own private businesses at the expense of the family’s interests. His lock into Frank Erickson the top level gambler; his slot machine operation in Louisiana controlled by his wife, Bobbie’s brother, Dudley Geigerman; his part ownership of the famous Manhattan nightclub, The Copacabana; his share of Irving Haim’s Alliance liquor distribution, and the many real estate investments he had- the thirteen story office block at 79 Wall Street, another at 87 Wall Street and another at 144 Water Street. So many pies, so few fingers to employ. <br /> <br /> Genovese kept whittling away. In October 1951, Willie Moretti, a New Jersey based capo in the family and a strong ally of Frank was gunned down in a café in Cliffside Park, New Jersey. The circle getting smaller. For the next three years Frank was under enormous pressure as the Federal government built a case against him for tax evasion, and as his time and efforts became more and more focused on this, the nibbling kept increasing.<br /> <br /> Frank went on trial in April of 1954, and was found guilty. For two years, he kept a battery of lawyers fighting against the execution of his sentence, but finally, in May 1956, he surrendered himself to the U.S. Marshalls in New York, and was sent to the Atlanta Penitentiary. However, after only eleven months, his lawyers found a loophole, and Frank was released, pending an appeal. Two months after his release, he went for dinner.<br /> <br /> <img style="float:left;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236980300,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />It’s a fact Frank Costello (left) was shot in the head on the evening of May 2nd 1957, as he returned to his apartment building on Central Park West, opposite Central Park. He survived with a mere head wound, a graze across the scalp. We think we know who shot him-Vincent Gigante- although there has been speculation it may have been someone else. There has also been considerable discussion as to whether the shooter was simply trying to scare Frank off, and the fact that he was hit at all, was a mere fluke of bad judgement on the part of the gunman and Costello himself. But I've always wondered who actually set up the hit on Frank? Vito Genovese most certainly ordered it, but who was the executor?<br /> <br /> At approximately five that evening, Frank had a meeting with Tony Bender, the right hand man of Vito Genovese, at Chandler's Restaurant, on E49 Street. The place was owned by Joe 'Joe the Wop' Cataldo, a family member, so privacy was guaranteed. A third man made up the meeting-Vincent Mauro, aka Vinnie Morrow- a protégé of Bender's. In 1957 he was 41 years old, a seasoned veteran, and apparent hit man for the mob; he'd grown up in Greenwich Village and was close to many men well know to dabble in drugs-Big John Ormento of the Luchese Family, Tony Mirra of the Bonanno's, Sally Santoro of the Gambino's, Patsy 'Patty Mush' Moccio and Joe Valachi of the Genovese Family (who in fact sponsored Mauro) to name just a few. A man with a fearsome temper, Mauro had once beaten up the famous singer Billy Daniels at a club called “The Golden Key” in Manhattan. Mauro was also a lot closer to Bender than he was to Frank.<br /> <br /> What Costello didn't know that night, according to Valachi's testimony, is that exactly one week earlier, Vito Genovese had called his own meeting with Bender and Mauro, to tell them that Frank had “turned,” become an informer for the law, and had to be hit. Joe Valachi claimed Mauro told him that he was to carry out the shooting, but Valachi turned it down. Hard to believe, I know, and this is probably an example of the way Valachi twisted things to suit himself. <br /> <br /> Valachi stated, he suggested Gigante as a possible shooter, (and we know how history proved that to be a bad decision,) and that he along with Tommy Eboli and “Dom the Sailor” DeQuatro made up the hit-team. But who dropped the dime to let these guys know when Frank left the restaurant to go back to the Majestic?<br /> <br /> Mauro apparently rang the L'Aiglon restaurant on East 55th Street where Costello was dining with friends and his wife, at least three times during the evening, apologizing for not turning up, (he'd been invited,) the last time to double check that Frank had left and was on his way home. In fact, the dinner party left the restaurant together and then went on to another place, a nightclub down the street, and again Mauro found them there by telephone, again checking when Frank was to leave. <br /> <br /> At about eleven, Frank Costello strolled into the lobby of his apartment building, the shooter shot and missed, and the rest is history. Jack “Panels” Santoli a soldier in one of the family’s New Jersey crews run by Richie Boiardi, has also been suggested as the man who took a pot shot at Frank that night. <br /> <br /> The odds have to be that Vincent Mauro sat and drunk with Frank at five, and almost got him killed six hours later, which of course would be par for the course in mob hits, but I've only ever seen one source for the information on Mauro making those calls, and that was in Leonard Katz's book “Uncle Frank.” <br /> <br /> Whoever was behind it, the shooting of Frank Costello was a pivotal moment in Mafia history, as Vito Genovese attempted to take over the leadership of the “West Side Mob.”<br /> <br /> <img style="float:right;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236988695,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />Number two on the hit list of 1957, New York Mob Style, was Francisco Scalice (right) who lived in the Bronx. It existed as his domain. Nothing went down here of any consequence unless he sanctioned it. At least as far as it concerned the Anastasia crime family. He held a job as Vice President in a plastering company called Mario and De Bono, and had a lock on the construction industries so tight, even bags of cement couldn't be moved unless he okayed it. Frank who was also called “Don Cheech” had once been the boss of the crime family, in which he was now just a capo, but also sat on the family‘s administration as the under boss. He answered to Albert Anastasia who had taken over the family after murdering Vincenzo Mangano, the sitting head, in 1951. Albert called Frank “Whacky” not an inappropriate name in view of what was to happen.<br /> <br /> Frank may also have consummated the very first intercontinental drug operation in Cosa Nostra history, when in September, 1945, he made a deal with Tony Accardo, boss of the Chicago syndicate.<br /> <br /> Every Monday, Frank lunched with his younger brother Giacomo, who ran Jack’s Candy Store on Crescent Avenue near Arthur. The FBN claimed he was involved in Frank’s drug trafficking business and used his store as a front for gambling and other criminal enterprises. Jack was fifty-five and married to Josephine LaPorte. The brothers would go to Anne and Tony’s on the corner of 187th Street and stuff themselves with mozzarella and roast peppers and baked clams. After lunch, Frank often wandered down the street, talking to people, stopping to chat to women pushing prams, and old men sitting in the sun, filling in time before they died. The kids playing Ringoleavo or stick-ball or flies-are-up; perhaps just standing in line at the Good Humour Man’s van to buy an ice cream or popsicles. The start of the week always a hectic time. Mothers out shopping, stocking up on groceries, suppliers delivering fresh produce; the side walks crowded and busy with pedestrian traffic. One of Frank’s favourite stops always had to be at Enrico Mazzarano’s fruit and vegetable shop, further down the avenue from the place where he ate with his brother.<br /> <br /> On Monday, June 17th at one-thirty, Frank came strolling down the street.<br /> <br /> He had not long returned from a visit to Italy. He and his wife, Joan had taken a cruise ship there. Bit of business. Bit of pleasure. The business bit involved Charley Luciano, now living in exile in Naples. He and Frank were in the drug business, along with a lot of other traffickers on both sides of the Atlantic. Business was booming.<br /> <br /> Wearing light tan slacks and a yellow sports-shirt, he looked like an older man, maybe someone’s grandfather, just out for an afternoon stroll. Stinking hot, the sun’s rays shimmering across the street, the passing traffic kicking up dust as a dark, old model sedan pulled up and double-parked outside the fruit shop.<br /> <br /> Scalice walked in and started talking to the owner. He stood laughing, joshing the little fat, genial storekeeper; then he walked across to a stand and set about choosing a selection of fruit. As he started to pay for it, 90 cents for some peaches and a lettuce, two young killers walked into the store. Dressed identically, in dark slacks and white, short-sleeved shirts, both wearing sunglasses. About the same height and build, wearing the same kind of clothes, designed to confuse witnesses. The two walked up to Frank, who stopped and stared at them in surprise.<br /> <br /> Each of the men pulled out a .38 calibre revolver and started to shoot, firing five times. Two of the bullets ripping into Frank’s throat, one blowing a hole in his cheek, one shot going wide and the last one banging into his shoulder, spinning him around and tossing him in a heap on the floor. The two men stepped around the body, walked past the astonished shop owner, and climbed into the black car, which pulled away, turning down 187th Street, disappearing into the afternoon traffic. All accomplished in seconds.<br /> <br /> People ran around in circles shouting and yelling at each other. In a few minutes, a police patrol car came screaming down the street, followed shortly afterwards by an ambulance, and then other police cars, and soon, the block filled up, crowded with cops and detectives. The body of Frank lay inside the shop, sprawled out on its back, leaking blood, flanked by crates of oranges on one side and heads of spinach on the other. <br /> <br /> Frank was clipped for one of two reasons. The previous autumn he’d been an organizer in a significant drug shipment that was supposed to arrive in New York aboard a cruise liner called the SS Excambion. Things went badly wrong and the shipment was confiscated while the ship was still in European waters. There was a lot of money, other people’s money, involved and the theory was that Frank’s head rolled as a result. The more probable reason for the killing also involved money, but with a more Machiavellian twist to it. <br /> <br /> Underworld rumour had it that Frank had been selling membership into Cosa Nostra at $50k a pop, an unpardonable sin to the men of honour. This kind of transgression called for the maximum punishment. Albert Anastasia would have had to approve the killing of his assistant. It’s also highly probable he organized it himself, as he was almost certainly taking a cut from this membership fee charge, and it would have looked bad for him if that ever came out.<br /> <br /> Number three on the hit parade was undoubtedly the most dramatic, some think the most theatrical and spectacular mob killing in the history of New York‘s underworld. It went down on Friday, October 25th.<br /> <br /> Seven o’clock in the morning, Anthony Coppola drives from his home in Fair Law, in the 1957 Oldsmobile, to number 75 Bluff Road, in Fort Lee, New Jersey. He was here, to pick up his boss, Albert Anastasia who was the boss of what is now known as the Gambino Crime Family, and take him across the Hudson into Manhattan. Albert had people to see and an appointment with his hairdresser. The house sat back behind a ten-foot iron fence. Manicured gardens rolled up to the huge, Spanish style mansion with tiled, concrete roofs. There were surveillance cameras to watch the street, and Doberman’s to eat anyone stupid enough to try and break in. Fifty-five year old Anastasia had lived a life full of violence and death. He knew prevention to be the best form of defence.<br /> <br /> When they arrived in the city, Coppola, Anastasia’s driver and bodyguard, parked the auto in the Corvan Garage on West Fifty-Fourth Street., and then went off somewhere.<br /> <br /> <img style="float:right;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236989678,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />At approximately ten-fifteen, Albert (right) strolled into the Park-Sheraton Hotel, standing on the corner of Seventh and Fifty-sixth Street. He walked down the stairs into the barber shop, situated in the basement, greeting the manager, and briefly spoke to two men, who were subsequently identified as Peter Lo Cascio, aka Johnny Russo, and Andy Alberti, a known narcotic dealer, and then moved to his favourite hairdresser, settling into the soft, leather barber-chair, and nodding a greeting to Jean Wineberger, the manicurist.<br /> <br /> Outside on the crowded sidewalk, two men pushed their way into the hotel. They were both dressed in nondescript suits, each man wearing a fedora and dark sunglasses, with a scarf draped around the neck. One was about 40, 5’ 8”, 180 lb. He wore a grey suit and hat. The other man was shorter about 5’5,” 150lbs, brown suit and hat. Each man wore aviator-type sunglasses with yellow metal rims. The short one sported a thin, black pencil moustache. They had dark, olive-coloured skins. Each man wore a black glove on his right hand.<br /> <br /> The men walked into the lobby, moving through the people who were congregated there, and under the sign that read: “Barber Shop” down into the long, narrow room. As they walked, they pulled up the scarves to cover the lower parts of their faces, and pulled out hand guns. Arthur Grasso, the owner, was standing by the cash register. He looked up when he saw the two men, his eyes widening in shock and fear. A barber was working on a client in chair number one, and a man called Daniel Oberman was sitting across from him, reading a newspaper, a customer, waiting his turn. The lady manicurist, Wineberger, was at the far end of the room with a young man who was probably the shoeshine boy. A radio was playing softly, it sounded like Benny Goodman and his orchestra.<br /> <br /> The two men walked up to chair four, pushing the barber Arbissi away, and down the room. The men stood behind the chair. Albert was lying back, relaxed, his eyes closed, his hands folded over his stomach, his right leg crossed over, totally relaxed. One of the shooters stood slightly to the right of the chair, and the other stood directly behind it, his back to the glass doors that led out on 55th Street.<br /> <br /> They started to fire simultaneously, double action, banging off round after round into the reclining figure. At the first impact, Albert leapt out of the chair, his foot crashing down on the pedestal with such force, it snapped off. His natural instinct was to go for his attackers. Instead he went forward into the images reflecting in the mirrors on the wall above the chair, sweeping bottles off the shelving. Bullets ricocheted off the steel beading on the back of the chair and the headrest, striking him in the left hand, and slapping off the back of his neck. Another burrowed into his right hip. Bullets were going wild, as one killer managed to pin one into Anastasia’s back on the left-hand side, which spun Albert, tumbling him to the floor. The man leaned over, placing the Colt against the left side of the dying man’s head, and fired, the slug, burning into the brain, bouncing the skull off the linoleum floor. The last thing Albert saw was the face of the man who killed him.<br /> <br /> The shorter man turned and tried the door out into the street. It was locked. The other man nodded back up into the lobby, and they ran up the few steps, and then walked across and out into the street. On the way, one of the shooters dropped his revolver in a corner of the hotel’s lobby. Out on the street, they walked up to the intersection of 56th Street, and parted, one crossing over and heading for the BMT station, where he would dump his revolver, the other heading north towards Central Park.<br /> <br /> Just like in the other shootings, earlier in the year, no one was ever arrested and convicted for the killing of Albert Anastasia. Over the years, gunmen from Ralph Manfrici, Joe Giorelli, Joey Gallo, Tony Cazzeroni, Frank Illiano, ‘Jiggs’ Forlano, Carmine Persico, the titular head of the Colombo family, and two imported hit men from Sicily, have emerged as potential suspects. Joe Valachi, the mob informant, fingered Anthony Zangogila, aka ‘Tee Zee’ as one of the gunmen.<br /> <br /> A thirty-two year old bartender, with close links into the Luchese crime family, and a close association with ‘Big John’ Ormento, the ambitious and formidable drug czar of the family, Zangoglia, known more as a narcotics trafficker than a hit man, seemed an odd choice as assassin of the month.<br /> <br /> Jerry Capeci, the New York based mob specialist, claimed he’d figured out who the killers were, and named them in one of his online columns as Stephen Armone and Stephen "Steve Coogan" Grammauta. Whoever they were, they did the job. <br /> <br /> This eruption of violence in the New York underworld must have created concern among the rest of the mob leaders, especially in the tri-state area. It may well have been the catalyst that brought Apalachin into play. Important figures in the Mafia being shot down in public places, is not a good image for a secret society to promulgate. A meeting of heads of states may have seemed a good way to resolve the turmoil in New York and sort out the other problems as well. With Anastasia dead, the thorny problem of “sold” memberships in fact resolved itself. It was almost impossible now, to prove that this had actually happened, with both of the key players implicated now dead. <br /> <br /> And so it came to pass.<br /> <br /> For Vito Genovese who was referred to within the mob not by name, but by the cognomen ‘The Right Man,‘ bad would only turn to worse in the next twelve months.<br /> <br /> On July 9th 1958, he was indicted along with sixteen co-defendants for masterminding an international narcotics syndicate smuggling heroin and cocaine into the United States from Cuba, Puerto Rico and Mexico.<br /> <br /> On April 17th 1959, he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison and fined $20,000.<br /> <br /> He was sent to the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, and died of a hear attack in the Federal Medical Centre for Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, on February 14th 1969.<br /> <br /> The conclave at Apalachin was a watershed in the relationship between the Mafia and the rest of American society. The Italian-American gangsters who had been operating for so many years under the radar, suddenly became major targets for law enforcement and the media.<br /> <br /> People in big cities like New York who had wondered why their garbage removal, and their laundry, and their fish and meat and fruit and vegetables, and the clothes they bought, and their dining out was so expensive, came to understand, in the years that followed 1957, just why this was so. It was a thing called a “Mob Tax.“ And everybody, from the governor down, had to pay it.<br /> <br /> The Mafia, was an entity without a communal name. No one who belonged to the Mafia ever referred to it as such: it was usually Cosa Nostra, or "Our Thing." Regional names also differed. In Chicago the local organization was the outfit, sometimes the syndicate, in Buffalo the arm. In Cleveland it was the combination (because Jews and Greeks were allowed in). In Kansas City, it was the combination or the syndicate. In New England, the office. In Philadelphia, the big boys or the Italian club.<br /> <br /> It exercised a subtle form of social control over the lives of every citizen it came into contact with. Not just the unlawful ones. It was an equal opportunity society when it came to fleecing the public and the underworld sub culture it fed off. Like a parasite, it lived in concord with the organ it fed from, dependent on its host as a source of sustenance, sucking out the money, the holy grail of the mob, from every available source.<br /> <br /> Apalachin was to law enforcement what stem cells research is to modern medicine- a kind of a biological exclamation point- drawing attention to something that had always been there, but continually lost in translation. For the next fifty years, city and state police forces across the country, along with federal enforcement agencies would devote more and more of their time and resources to nullifying the disease that had<br /> so insidiously invaded the fabric of American life.<br /> <br /> The Mob would never quite be the same again.<br /> <br /> Edgar D. Croswell died of emphysema on Saturday 17 November, 1990 at his home in Johnson City, N.Y. He was 77 years old. <br /> <br /> All of the attendees, bar one, are now dead and just memories. The only one maybe still left is Joe Barbara Junior.<br /> <br /> Joe Junior and his mother and his brother, moved to Detroit after the father died in June 1959.<br /> <br /> In 1962 Junior was inducted into the Detroit Family, sponsored by one of his father’s former colleagues. He married, Josephine, daughter of Peter Vitale, a well-known Detroit mob member, who served as the under boss to Joe Zerilli.<br /> <br /> Along with his father-in-law Vitale, and his brother Paul, formed 'Tri-State County Sanitation' waste collection business.<br /> <br /> He was convicted of extortion in 1970 and received a seven year sentence. He was nailed again in 1979 on income tax fraud. For this, he did five years.<br /> <br /> Apparently, “left” the mob and retired into the quiet life.<br /> <br /> If still alive, he would be about 72.</p>
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<p><br /> <br /> This is a list of those who attended the meeting, and who were subsequently interviewed in the state police building in Vestal the evening of November 14th and early morning November 15th 1957. This list is based on the one produced by the New York State Executive Department, Office of the Commission of Investigation Apalachin Report. Some of the men listed have their legitimate means of earnings tabulated.<br /> Two of these men, identified by * attended both the Apalachin meeting and the mob meeting held on December 5th 1928, at Cleveland's Hotel Statler. It was hosted by Joe Porrello and his lieutenant and bodyguard Sam Tilocco, and was the first known major meeting of the Mafia in America. Many major leaders from Chicago, New York and Florida were invited. The meeting was raided before it actually began. <br /> <br /> Just like Apalachin!<br /> <br /> 1. Dominick Alaimo - member of the Barbara family. Interests included chemicals, coal companies, the garment industry and union labour. Mob enforcer, into gambling and racketeering along with his brother Sam. Arrest record dating to 1932 included robbery, federal labour laws and liquor laws<br /> 2. Joseph Barbara - boss of his own family. Presently, called the Bufalino family, but it's just about extinct. Long police record dating back to the 1930s for prostitution, grand larceny, liquor laws, suspect in a number of murders.<br /> 3. Joeseph Barbara Junior-no record except contempt of court regarding the meeting. On death of his father, moved to Detroit.<br /> 4. Joseph Bonanno - boss of his own New York family, deposed in 1964. Involved in funeral homes, the garment industry, olive oil and cheese, linen and laundries. Record dating back to 1930 included grand larceny, possession of gun, transportation of machine guns and obstruction of justice.<br /> 5. John Bonventre -uncle of Bonanno, former underboss to Bonanno. Retired to Italy prior to Apalachin and probably couldn't resist meeting old friends. Interests included real estate and the garment industry. Arrest record back to 1943 included kidnapping and burglary, endangering health of a child.<br /> 6. Russell Bufalino - underboss to Barbara. Became boss when Barbara died A suspect in the Hoffa disappearance in 1975. Operated Penn Drape and Curtain Co. and had interests in coal companies, jewellery and furs and labour unions. Arrests dating back to 1927 including vagrancy, petty larceny, criminally receiving stolen property.<br /> 7. Ignatius Cannone - member of the Barbara family. Owned bars and The Plaza Lounge, Endwell, N.Y. Recording going back to 1946 including disorderly conduct, resisting arrest.<br /> 8. Roy Carlisi - member of the Magaddino family from Buffalo. Involved in produce and markets, real estate and labour unions. Arrested on federal liquor laws, gambling and contempt of court.<br /> 9. Paul Castellano - capo in the Gambino family. Took over as boss when Gambino died in 1976. Killed by John Gotti in 1985. Made money from produce and markets, waterfront scams and union labour. Owned Emcee Meat Markets, and president of Allied Retail Butchers Association. Record dating back to 1934 for robbery with violence, civil contempt. <br /> 10. Gerardo Catena - under boss to Vito Genovese. Later helped run the family when Genovese went off to prison. Alleged to be the most wealthy mobster ever. Renowned as ‘having more money than God.’ Came from coin machines, entertainment, oil and gas leases, real estate, trucking, union labour. Arrests included robbery, hijacking, suspicion of murder.<br /> 11. Charles Chiri - member of the Genovese family. Interests in Automotive Conveying Co. Partner in I&C Dress Co. New York. No criminal record<br /> 12. Joseph Civello - boss of Dallas family. Money came from import-export, olive oil and cheese, produce and markets. Convicted on Federal Narcotic Law<br /> 13. James Colletti - boss of the Colorado family. Partner of Joe Bonanno in the cheese business. Also, ran bars and restaurants, real estate and import-export.<br /> Arrest record dating back to 1925, including murder.<br /> 14. Dominick D'Agostino - member of the Magaddino family. At one time managed the Hilltop Restaurant at Niagara Falls. Long criminal record, mainly involving drugs<br /> 15. John De Marco - capo or perhaps under boss in the Cleveland family then run by John Scalish. Long criminal record-robbery, extortion, blackmail, bombing and murder.<br /> 16. Frank De Simmone - boss of the Los Angeles family, he was a lawyer.<br /> 17. Natale Evola - capo in the Bonanno family, later became boss of the family about 1970. Owned Belmont Garment Delivery Co and Amity Delivery Co. Record back to 1930. Coercion, drug conviction, unlawful possession of weapon, conspiracy to obstruct.<br /> 18. Joseph Falcone - member of Barbara or Magaddino family. Money came from coin machines, produce and markets and real estate.<br /> 19. Salvatore Falcone - member of Barbara or Magaddino family. Revenue from horses and tracks, real estate and labour unions. Arrest for violation of Federal Liquor Laws.<br /> 20. Carlo Gambino - had just ascended to the head of the family after <br /> Albert Anastasia was murdered in October 1957. Earned from the garment industry, waste removal, produce and markets, union labour. Record back to 1930 included larceny, federal liquor laws and violation of I&NS laws.<br /> 21. Michael James Genovese - probably under boss of the Pittsburgh family. Owned and operated Archie’s Car Wash. Record back to 1936 included assault, carrying concealed weapon and robbery.<br /> 22. Vito Genovese - had just recently ascended to the head of the family <br /> after previous boss Frank Costello had been wounded in a murder attempt and then retired. Money came from horses and tracks, import-export, paper and wastepaper, real estate, steel strapping, union labour and waterfront. Extensive arrest record dating back to 1917, including burglary, concealed weapons, auto homicide and murder.<br /> 23. Anthony Guarnieri - capo in the Barbara family. Business interests included Tr-City Dresses and Oswego Textile Co. Record for gambling, felonious assault.<br /> 24. Bartolo Guccia, - probable member of the Barbara family or at the least an <br /> associate of the family. Operated a fish business in Endicott, N.Y. Arrest record back to 1916 including possession of a revolver, breaking and entering, bootlegging and murder.<br /> 25. Joseph Ida - boss of Philly. Salesman for DeAngelis Buick Agency, New Brunswick. Minor criminal record. He retired shortly after the mess of Apalachin.<br /> 26. James La Duca - capo in the Magaddino family, related by marriage to Magaddino. Earnings from hotels, entertainment, soft drink distribution, taxicabs and labour unions. One arrest for conspiracy to obstruct justice.<br /> 27. Samuel Laguttuta - member of the Magaddino family. Arrest record back to 1933 for arson, concealed weapon possession and murder. Painting contractor.<br /> 28. Louis Larasso - capo in the New Jersey family then lead by Phil Amari. Became under boss to Nick Delmore when he took over for Amari in 1957. Operated Sinclair Service Station, Elizabeth, N.J. Other money came from construction and labour unions. One charge on criminal record for obstruction of justice. He was killed in the 1990s. <br /> 29. Carmine Lombardozzi - capo in the Gambino family. Earned from coin machines, construction and real estate, stocks and securities, trucking, waterfront and labour unions. Owned Monte Marine Co. Brooklyn and Carbal Trading Co. Criminal record dating back to 1929-homicide, rape, unlawful entry and conspiracy to obstruct justice.<br /> 30. Antonio Magaddino - capo in the Magaddino family and brother of boss Stefano Magaddino. Arrest record in Sicily from 1916 to 1929 including murder, robbery and rape. Vice President of Magaddino Memorial Chapel, Niagra Falls.<br /> 31. * Joseph Magliocco - under boss of the Joseph Profaci family which is now the Colombo family. Money came from beverage distribution, import-export, laundries, olive oil and cheese and labour unions. Record back to 1928 included carrying concealed weapon..<br /> 32. Frank Majuri - under boss in the New Jersey family of Phil Amari. Demoted down to capo when Amari retired later in 1957 and was replaced by Nick Delmore. Promoted back up later to under boss in the regime of Sam DeCavalcante in the 60s after Delmore died. Money came from construction and union labour. Record back to 1935, bookmaking, conspiracy to obstruct justice, parole violation.<br /> 33. Rosario Mancuso - member of Barbara or Magaddino family. Earned from prize fighting, construction, restaurants and bars, labour unions. President Nuform Concrete Co. Utica. Criminal record dating to 1920 for burglary, robbery, assault with intent to kill.<br /> 34. Patsy Mancuso. Brother of Rosario<br /> 35. Gabriel Mannarino - capo in the Barbara family. Recording back to 1933 for gambling, liquor laws, obstruction of justice. Operated Ken Iron and Steel Company in New Kensington. Interests in night clubs in Miami Beach and New Kensington.<br /> 36. Michael Miranda - capo in the Genovese family. Earned from auto agencies, coin machines, horses and tracks, jewellery and furs and union labour. Record dating back to 1915 for murder, disorderly conduct, vagrancy and conspiring to obstruct justice.<br /> 37. Patsy Monachino - member of Barbara or Magaddino family. No criminal record held in the U.S.A. Interest in Super Beverage Co. Auburn, N.Y.<br /> 38. Sam Monachino- member of Barbara or Magaddino family. No criminal record in U.S.A. Commercial interests same as brother above.<br /> 39. John Montana - under boss in the Magaddino family, demoted after Apalachin.<br /> Owned Van Dyke Taxi Co and Frontier Liquor Co. in Buffalo. No criminal record prior to Apalachin.<br /> 40. Dominick Olivetto – a member of the New Jersey family. Business interests included Forrest Products Co. Runnemede, N.J. Vogue Manufacturing Co. Vineland, N.J. and Quality Liquor Co. Camden, N.J. Record back to 1937 included larceny, gambling and bootlegging.<br /> 41. John Ormento - capo in the Luchese family. Not too long after Apalachin, he got yet another narcotics conviction and spent the rest of his life in prison. Legitimate business included chemicals, garment industry, trucking and labour unions. Arrest record back to 1937-drugs.<br /> 42. James Osticco - capo in the Barbara family. Would take over leadership in 1980. Real name Vincenzo Sticco. Transportation manager Wm. Medico Industries, Pittson. Owner Ann Lee Frocks & Connie Frocks, Pittson. Pa. Record dating back to 1931 for prohibition violations.<br /> 43. * Joseph Profaci - long time boss of his own family until his death in 1962. Family is now called the Colombo family. Very wealthy. Money came from olive oil imports, construction, import-export, and union labour. Record dating back to 1928 for murder, tax evasion. Also, had a criminal record in Sicily.<br /> 44. Vincent Rao - consigliere in the Luchese family. Earned from construction, garment industry, real estate, bars and labour unions. Owned RAO Realty. Rao Parking Lot E116th St. N.Y. Vin-Sons Paints, the Bronx. Record back to 1919 for grand larceny, homicide, possession of firearm.<br /> 45. Armand Rava - member of the Gambino family. Was murdered not too long after Apalachin because he was an ally of the slain Albert Anastasia. Owned New Corners Restaurant, Brooklyn. Record going back to 1929 for extortion, policy, boot-legging, vagrancy and narcotics.<br /> 46. Joseph Riccobono - consigliere in the Gambino family. Generated wealth from the garment industry and jewellery and furs. Owned Christine Dresses and Toni-Bell Dresses, Brooklyn. Record back to 1930 for concealed weapon, conspiracy and extortion.<br /> 47. Anthony Riela - capo in the Bonanno family, active into the 1980s. Owned Airport and Newmarker Motels in Newark. Record from 1955 conspiracy, permitting prostitution and obstruction of justice. Suspect in 2 murders in Rockford, Illinois in 1944.<br /> 48. Joseph Rosato - member of the Luchese family. Money came from S&R trucking co. Record dating back to 1928 included homicide, disorderly conduct. Married to Thomas Luchese’s sister, Rosalie, and apparently representing him at the meeting. <br /> 49. Louis Santos (Santos Trafficante) - boss of the Tampa family. Interests in Columbia Restaurant, Nebraska, bars in Tampa and gambling interests in San Souci Hotel, Havana, Cuba during Batista regime. Criminal record dating back to 1946 included briber, bolita running, and conspiracy. <br /> 50. Giovanni Scalish - boss of the Cleveland family. Wealth came from coin machines and labour unions. Owned Buck-eye Cigarette Vending Co. Also, interest in nightclubs in Las Vegas and Newport Kentucky. Record back to 1930 for burglary, robbery and conspiracy to obstruct justice.<br /> 51. Angelo Sciandra - capo in the Barbara family. Earned from coal companies, entertainment, garment industry and trucking. Co-owned Ann-Lee Frocks in Pittson and various apparel factories in Pennsylvania and New York. No criminal record at this time in the U.S.A.<br /> 52. Patsy Sciortino - member of Barbara or Magaddino family. Minor criminal record. Operated Diana Bleach Co. Auburn, N.Y.<br /> 53. Simone Scozzari - under boss in the LA family. Operated the Venetian Club in Los Angeles. Large real estate holdings. Arrest record included bookmaking.<br /> 54. Salvatore Tornabe - member of the Profaci (now Colombo) family, died December 30, 1957.<br /> 55. Patsy Turrigiano - member of Barbara or Magaddino family. Record dating back to 1928 included larceny, assault, prohibition laws, conspiracy to obstruct justice. Owned a grocery store in Endicott.<br /> 56. Costenza Valente - probable boss of the Rochester family. It’s debatable whether Rochester was an independent family or simply a part of the larger Buffalo family. Money came from produce and markets, restaurants and bars. Owned Valenti Bros Wholesale Produce, Rochester, N.Y. No criminal history in U.S.A.<br /> 57. Frank Valente - probable member of the Pittsburgh family. Capo under John La Rocca. Brother of Costenza. Owned Valenti’s Restaurant in Rochester, N.Y. Record back to 1933 including counterfeiting, extortion, assault and battery and murder. Considered a hit man for the mob.<br /> 58. Emanuel Zicari - member of the Barbara family. One arrest in 1930 for counterfeiting. Employed by Endicott-Johnson Shoe Co, Endicott, N.Y.<br /> 59. Frank Zito - Boss of the Springfield, Illinois family. Earned from coin machines and olive oil and cheese, also taverns. Record dating back to 1931 for murder and Federal Liquor Law violations.<br /> <br /> Probable attendees included:<br /> <br /> 60. Some clothes of Buffalo boss Stefano Magaddino were found in a car "stashed" in a barn at Barbara's a day or two after November 14th, 1957.<br /> 61. Detroit boss Joe Zerilli used his license to rent a car in Binghamton shortly after the fiasco.<br /> 62. Pittsburgh boss John La Rocca was registered at the Arlington Hotel in Binghampton, but he was never caught.<br /> 63. San Francisco boss James Lanza was registered in a motel in the area, but he was not caught.<br /> 64. Kansas City boss Nick Civella and…<br /> 65. …soldier Joe Filardo were tentatively identified as the two men who placed a phone call in a local business to call a cab after the police bust. In fact, it’s more than likely that the soldier, Filardo, was actually the boss at this time. FBI files revealed years later that Joe was representing Kansas City and had taken Civella along to introduce him to the other mob chiefs.<br /> 66. Neil Migliore, then a soldier in the Luchese family, was allegedly involved in a traffic accident in Binghamton the day after the fiasco. The speculation was that he came to pick up…<br /> 67. …Tommy Luchese, the boss, who was never caught (logic says he would have attended).<br /> 68. One of Barbara's housekeepers tentatively identified Carmine Galante, Bonanno's new under boss, as being one of several men who were still at Barbara's a day after the blow out.<br /> 69. Carmine Tramunti’s business card was found in the woods. Tramunti was part of the Luchese crime family.<br /> 70. William Medico- Pittson based member of Barbara’s crime family.<br /> 71. Louis Pagnotti -Member of the Pittsburgh Family.<br /> 72. Joseph Xavier Cerrito. Los Gatos CA. recorded attending meeting with James J. Lanza representing organization from San Francisco area. Operated Lincoln-Mercury dealership in Los Gatos, California.<br /> 73. Joseph ‘Sox‘ Lanza, the man who controlled the Fulton Fish Market in New York for the Genovese family, had booked a room at the Hotel Casey, in Scranton, 50 miles south of Apalachin.<br /> <br /> Many other mobsters, including the Chicago delegation, were on their way to Barbara's and were lucky by arriving late and were able to avoid the fiasco. Estimates on the total number who may have actually been at the farmhouse, range up to at least 100. In this other group were most likely:<br /> <br /> 74. John Vitale representing the St. Louis Family<br /> 75. Louis Fratto. Capo from Chicago in charge of the Des Moines faction.<br /> 76. Frank Garofalo. Joe Bonanno’s underboss<br /> 77. Gaspare Di Gregorio. A capo in Joe Bonanno’s family.<br /> 78. Joe Biondo. Anastasia/Gambino family under boss.<br /> 79. Salvatore Giancana. Boss of Chicago<br /> 80. Frank Ferraro. Capo in Chicago Syndicate.<br /> 81. Joe Zerilli. Boss of Detroit.<br /> 82. Anthony Giacalone. Capo in this family.<br /> 83. Frank Balistrieri. Under boss of Milwaukee.<br /> 84. Joe Zammuto. Rockford, Illinois under boss.<br /> 85. Charles Montano. Under boss of Cleveland.<br /> 86. Joe Campisis. Under boss of Dallas family.<br /> 87. Vincenzo Colleti. Underboss of Denver family.<br /> 88. Luigi Greco. Underboss of Montreal family.<br /> 89. Giuseppe Cotroni. Capo in Montreal family.<br /> 90. Joe Marcello. Brother of Carlos, representing the Louisiana/New Orleans family.<br /> 91. Giuseppe Settacase. Capo of Agrigento family, Sicily. Representing the Sicilian Mafia. Don Settacase was mentor to the most powerful and wealthy Sicilian Clans in the Agrigento province and Sicilian La Cosa Nostra, the Siculiana-Caruana-Cuntrera Family and the Cattolica Eraclea-Rizzuto Family, who would become superpowers in the global narcotics and money laundering trade and rule mafia empires. After the Apalachin Summit, both the Canadian and Sicilian La Cosa Nostra were heard talking on R.C.M.P. and FBI wiretaps about how embarrassed the American La Cosa Nostra looked to their peers for the screw up at Apalachin.<br /> 92. Alfred Angelicola - New Jersey area La Cosa Nostra member was registered at a local motel with other known Mafiosi. <br /> 93.Philip Buccola - Former New England Family Boss based in Boston, Mass. from the mid 1920s until he retired and returned to Sicily in 1954. Buccola was regarded as a senior mafioso and counsellor who continued to make frequent trips to the United States to confer with various bosses. According to the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (F.B.N.) Buccola was directly involved with American and Sicilian mafiosi regarding joint narcotics operations between Italy and North America and was observed arriving in Boston approximately two weeks prior to the Apalachin meeting. He was not one of the bosses detained in Apalachin, but the F.B.N. speculate that Buccola's reason for travelling to the United States at this time was to confer with the various American mafia bosses attending the Apalachin meeting. According to their files, two weeks before the mob meeting took place, the FBN, while bugging his phone, discovered about Apalachin, and agents of the bureau tipped off Sergeant Crosswel about what was about to take place. This was never confirmed by the state police officer.<br /> 94. <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/how-meyer-lansky-laundered-the-american-mafia-s-dirty-cash-and-ma">Meyer Lansky</a> was not present at Apalachin. It is believed that he and Joseph Stacher declined to go, but were invited to discuss the state of casino operations in Las Vegas and Cuba, since they were two of the operation's investors and overseers.<br /> <br /> Since the most important and powerful Jewish National Syndicate Bosses such as <br /> Abner Zwillman, Philip Kastel and Morris Dalitz, along with Lansky and Stacher (who were all present at the 1946 "Havana Conference" in Cuba) were not present for this summit, it seems reasonable to assume that the Apalachin Summit was strictly a Cosa Nostra meeting, of no importance to the other National Crime Syndicate Bosses, concerning national rules, policies or joint operations.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236989687,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" /></p>
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<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">Joe Biondo, Paul Castellano and Carmine Lombardozzi at the time of the meeting.</span></div>
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Being Ernest: The Life and Hard Times of Ernie 'The Hawk' Rupolo
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/being-ernest-the-life-and-hard
2010-11-17T14:00:00.000Z
2010-11-17T14:00:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p>By Thom L. Jones for <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a><br /> <br /> I think he is one of my favourite mobsters of all time. The one-eyed killer who couldn't shoot straight.<br /> <br /> Most people have never heard of him. He never achieved any immortal status as a big player in the Mafia crime families of New York, although he longed for and lusted after it. He was probably the rule rather than the exception when it came to setting the standard for the street hoodlums that made up the rank and file of organized crime. A grifter, struggling through the interminable days that made up a year in a journeyman crook's life, constantly looking for the perfect score and never finding it. Doing the dirty jobs for a pittance and getting screwed from every angle by whoever was higher up the rank in the mob hierarchy than he was, which was basically everybody. He had a reputation for being a tough guy, but Ernest Rupolo was basically an idiot looking for justification for his very existence. Alan Block in his book East Side, West Side, calls him a dope and a criminal incompetent; Peter Mass, in The Valachi Papers, says, ' Rupolo apparently carried around his own built-in banana peel.' <br /> <br /> I mean he had dreams of being the head of the Mafia, at least according to his de facto wife, Eleanor. She'd said to him how could he tell anybody what to do, he couldn't even tell her what to do. Talk about a ram butting a dam. High hopes indeed. Still, there was something about him that makes me feel he deserved better than the multiple gunshot holes and knife cavities all over the place, and a concrete block to go skateboarding on in Jamaica Bay.<br /> <br /> Whatever you say about 'The Hawk,' he did achieve a certain kind of fame in a way. Because of him, one of the toughest mob bosses in New York, who ran away, with his tail between his legs, and then came back, almost went to prison, which would have dramatically changed the future of organized crime in New York; and in death, he almost got even with a mobster, a guy he really hated, who ultimately spent more time in jail than Willie Sutton. And at the end, he was centre stage in a courtroom drama that was unique for its rareness. So perhaps his life was not completely a wasteland of opportunities lost. Fourty years plus after the event, I'm probably looking at it all with the eyes of a weary cynic, who has searched too long and too hard to find some kind of redemption in a class of unredeemable people.<br /> <br /> The real mob. The Godfather it ain't.<br /> <br /> Being one of the underworld's least charismatic people, or spectacular successes, there is little information about the man, except, a beautifully written section, in a book by an associate editor of Life magazine, called James Mills. That, and an article in the same magazine, plus there's also a bit in Dom Frasca's book about Vito Genovese, the odd, old newspaper report, and that seems to be the best there is to search out the painful history of a man who seemed destined to always be the guy to get the sand kicked into his face, down on the beach.<br /> <br /> It began for the law on a hot, sultry day-- August 24th., 1964-- off Breezy Point, the terminus of the Rockaway peninsular, at the entrance into Jamaica Bay, in Queens, New York. A body was found, floating in the shallow waters by two men, Nicky Caputo and Butch Spyliopolous, and dragged ashore. There is a photograph of this misshapen, bleached white, bloated heap that was once a human being. It lies face down in the sand, washed by the ebb-tide. The hands are lashed together with rope or plastic line, a dirt stained shirt is clinging to the torso. The lower limbs are nude, although it looks as though his trousers have collapsed around the ankles, and there is a large, concrete building block at his feet. The head is bald: presumably the action of the water along with the decomposition of the body, has leached the hair from his head because in life, he had a full head of hair, dark, though greying at the temples. His right eye socket is open, glaring up at the world in indignation at being exposed like this. 'Go away, and leave me alone,' he seems to be saying, 'I'm just having a break between scams.' According to the pathologist's report, the body had probably been water bound for at least three weeks.<br /> </p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236988853,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" /></p>
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<div style="text-align:center;font-weight:bold;">Ernie's dead body</div>
<p><br /> The corpse was taken to the 100 Precinct of the Queens, NYPD, on Rockaway Beach Boulevard. There was enough in the way of identity items to make the police believe it was the body of a known criminal, Ernest Rupolo, and his brother Willie was contacted and brought in to try and confirm this. Willie, a mob groupie, and part-time bookie found it hard to be sure.<br /> <br /> 'It was just-like a skeleton with some stuff on it,' he said.<br /> <br /> But he told the cops to check on a mesh in the stomach, a relic from a hernia operation his brother had when young, and that also, when he was just a kid, a punk had shot out his right eye, and the bullet was still in there, somewhere. Willie also identified the clothes on the body as his own. His brother had been so broke, he had loaned him a shirt, pair of pants even some shoes. Being semi-destitute was par for the course for Ernie, the big-time gangster.<br /> <br /> An autopsy carried out by Medical Examiner Milton Helpern, revealed that Ernie had gone down hard. He had been shot in the head and upper chest four times, and stabbed another eighteen. Digging in among the macerated and putrid flesh, the doctor found five misshapen slugs: four .38 calibre and one, a .45. The big one had in fact been inside Ernie's head for at least forty years since the day he had got into an argument with another young tough, who had settled their dispute by clocking him with a .45 automatic. Somehow, Ernie survived that one, although he lost his right eye, and for the rest of his life had to go around with a patch stuck over the empty socket. True to the underworld code, Ernie would not identify his assailant, but promised to even the score in due course. This proved a lot harder said than done, as whenever Ernie was out on the streets, the punk was in jail and vice-versa. Somehow, the dispute never seemed to get resolved. It was Ernie's first encounter with the fickle finger of fate that would dog him for the rest of his life.<br /> <br /> He was born in New York, in Borough Park, in 1908, and grew up in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. There is little concrete evidence about his early life. Dates and places are vague. He claimed he left school at twelve, fudging his birth certificate, making out that he was in fact fifteen. He got his release from school, and started to do what he always wanted to do, a career of crime.<br /> <br /> His first foray, was to organize a gang, and they racked up perhaps as many as 100 burglaries, before he got arrested at thirteen, receiving a three year suspended sentence. He kept going, and eventually was caught and sentenced to 1-3 years in the New York Reformatory. He was out in ten months, and the first thing he did was buy himself a gun.<br /> <br /> Seemingly, it didn’t help, because the law caught up with again, this time allocating him eight months detention. Sometime during this period, he acquired the nickname, 'The Hawk' because when out robbing, he never missed anything of value to steal. Before he turned twenty, he had a record of six juvenile arrests, and had served two terms in the reformatory.<br /> <br /> By the time he was sixteen, he was a well-seasoned street criminal. At some point during this period, he found himself in a west side Manhattan hotel having a barney with a group of his associates that somehow involved a young girl. According to the way Ernie recalled it, when he told this guy to stop bothering the girl, the response was: 'Shut up. Mind your own business or I'll let you have it.' And Ernie says, 'You punk I wouldn’t' care what you did.'<br /> <br /> So the guy, who was called Eddy Green, pulls open a drawer in a desk, takes out a .45 and wham, locks one onto Ernie. As he goes down, he remembers, the radio in the room is playing 'My Blue Heaven.' Somehow, he survives the shooting, but looses the eye. A reasonable trade I guess, under the circumstances. According to brother Willie, after Ernie was shot, and his face was disfigured, he didn't really care anymore, about anything. That's when he went on the mob's payroll and from the age of seventeen, became a hit man.<br /> <br /> By his late teens, he acquired a reputation as a wild cannon, forming a gang of four that specialized in robbing members of the mob, holding up their bookies and terrorizing their numbers runners. Just why the bosses allowed him to get away with this is a bit of a mystery. Ernie claimed he was often called on the carpet and warned by the top men, but somehow, always avoided the obvious fatal consequences of such acts. Brother Willie, claimed that the bosses were afraid of his brother, the kid was good at his job, and if they missed him the first time there would be no second chance, and he did good work for them after all. But he knew it couldn't go on forever. When he got drunk ( which apparently was often,) he would say to his brother, 'You know, Willie, I'm living on borrowed time. How much more do you think I can go around takin' people?'<img style="float:right;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236988497,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" /><br /> <br /> The events that gave Ernie (right) his moment of fame began sometime in 1932. The huge, underground earthquake that came to be known as 'The Castellammarese War,' was over by then, and the New York Mafia had settled down into five well-defined groups: criminal enterprises that would go on, developing for the next seventy years. <br /> <br /> One of the bigger mobs was led by Charlie Luciano, and his alleged underboss, Vito Genovese. Vito had a good friend, fellow gang member, Anthony Strollo, also known as 'Tony Bender.' He was robbed one day, while attending one of his bootleg liquor stashes at a garage he leased. Two men, Ferdinand 'The Shadow' Boccia and Willie Gallo, relieved Tony of $5800. This was an act of madness by the men, who were basically taking on what could well have been the most powerful organized crime group in America. Genovese decided Ferdinand and Willie had to go, and Ernie Rupolo was approached to handle the hit. 'The Shadow' was apparently brassed off with Genovese, because a scam he had created and which brought in $116,000 was shared by everyone and his dog, except him. The strike on Bender was something in the way of compensation in lieu. <br /> <br /> Underworld hits are often convoluted, complicated exercises that can drag on for months, and this one was no exception. There was, however, an added ingredient here, and that was the ineptitude of the principal assassin. Numerous meetings held in bars, coffee shops, and dance halls across Brooklyn, all led, finally to a rendezvous in a restaurant on the corner of Mulberry and Kenmare Streets, in Manhattan's Little Italy district. This was in early spring, 1934. The program was delayed by 90 days, when Rupolo was arrested on a vagrancy charge and locked up in jail. While there, he bumped into an old pal, Rosario Palmieri, known also as 'Solly Young,' and offered him time shares in the killing. For $1000, Solly was happy to be in on the hit.<br /> <br /> At the meeting on Mulberry Street, Ernie was promised $5000 for the killing of Gallo, but only received a down payment of $175 from Michele Miranda, an associate of Vito Genovese, and also one of the major beneficiaries of the Boccia scam. It was unfortunately, all he would ever see in the way of a reward. Fortunately for the organizers of the hits, the Shadows' contract was hired out to other killers who turned out to be seriously good at their job.<br /> <br /> It was decided to set up the murder of Boccia at a card game, and that would be orchestrated by one Peter LaTempa also known as Petie Spatz. The killing would go down on September 19th., 1934. At least two, possibly three shooters had been allocated that one. Gallo was to be hit simultaneously by Ernie and his pal, Solly. <br /> <br /> On the day before, Peter DeFeo, apparently the mob's armourer, later to be a powerful capo, or crew chief in the Genovese crime family, and indelibly linked in through a relative to the infamous 'Amityville Horror' case of the 1970s, supplied Ernie with two .32 automatic pistols. He also delivered two guns to George 'Blah Blah' Smurra and Cosmo 'Gus' Frasca who had been earmarked as the killers of Boccia, who was to be hit at his uncle's coffee shop at 533, Metropolitan Avenue, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.<br /> <br /> Ernie stashed his two guns in the cellar of a friend, Louis 'Chip' Greco, who lived on 65th. Street, in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Later, he met up with Solly who was chaperoning Gallo, and the three men spent the next twenty four hours eating, drinking and partying from Bensonhurst to Coney Island and back to Williamsburg. Gallo decided he wanted to visit the sister of Boccia, and there, something occurred, something so Kafkaesque in its conception, as to almost defy believe.<br /> <br /> They arrived at the house about seven in the evening, and mixed with the people who were partying there. At some time that night, Gallo, for some reason, decided to try on a suit of Boccia's that was hanging in a closet. Ernie claimed it didn't look right on him, and suggested that he himself try it on. So Ernie takes off his own suit and gives it to Gallo, and then puts on the suit of 'The Shadow.' When Ernie testified some years later in a King's County court, Judge Samuel Leibowitz asked:<br /> <br /> 'You gave Willie Gallo, the man you were going to kill, your suit?'<br /> <br /> 'Yes.'<br /> <br /> 'Was he wearing your suit when he was found on the street full of lead?'<br /> <br /> 'Yes, sir.'<br /> <br /> 'And you were wearing 'The Shadows' suit, the other man who was killed that night?'<br /> <br /> 'Yes, sir.' <br /> <br /> No one ever bothered to find out who was the final recipient of Gallo's original suit.<br /> <br /> Following this grotesque charade party, Rupolo, Gallo and 'Solly Young' and a couple of young ladies, headed off to the movies. Half way through the program, Ernie, the consummate hit-man, suddenly remembers that he has forgotten to bring along the pieces. He slipped out of the theatre, called a cab, raced to 65th. Street, retrieved the guns, and raced back to the cinema.<br /> <br /> Now you can see why I love this guy?<br /> <br /> Dropping off the girls, the three men then began another interminable migration around New York, first across the East River to Hester Street in Manhattan, then back to Coney Island, and then finally, by subway up to 71st. Street in Bensonhurst, the place Ernie had chosen as the killing field. On the way into Little Italy by subway, he slipped his pal, Solly, one of the automatics.<br /> <br /> It was now, about 2 a.m. on the morning of September 20th., 1934. 'The Shadow' was already dead; he had been dispatched with maximum efficiency by Gus Frasca and George Smurra over in Williamsburg, hours before. Although there were eleven witnesses to the shooting, nobody, as usual in a mob hit, knew anything. <br /> <br /> Walking north from the subway station, Ernie’s group reached the corner of Sixty-eight Street and Fourteenth Avenue. At this point, Ernie pulls out his gun, shoves into Gallo's ear and pulls the trigger. Nothing happens. Again, zilch. Third time, nada. Gallo, even though drunk, wonders what is going on. 'What the hell you doing?' he asks Ernie. 'Nothing,' says 'The Hawk,' I'm only kidding you, the gun ain't loaded.' It was of course, it just wasn't co-operating. <br /> <br /> Now even drunk, and having a gun stuck in his face, Gallo shows consideration for his friend, telling Ernie with his record, he shouldn't be wandering around with a gat in his belt, what if the cops stop him? So Ernie promises to get rid of it and walks away a few blocks. In fact, he went back to his friend 'Chip' Greco's home, banging on the door, getting his bleary-eyed friend out of bed, and demanding some oil to grease up his weapon.<br /> <br /> 'Hello,' Ernie says, ' get me some gun oil quick, I'm in need of a fix.' Greco obliges, and Ernie douses the weapon, checks the slide and mechanism, and off he goes for try number two.<br /> <br /> He meets up with Solly, and says, 'We'll get the bastard this time, and just don't forget, this is a double-banger.' They walk Greco down to Sixty-sixth street and on the corner of Thirteenth Avenue, out come the pistols, and bang, bang, bang.<br /> <br /> When Judge Leibowitz asked Ernie:<br /> <br /> 'How many times did you fire at Gallo?' Ernie replied ' Oh, about nine times, but we had some misses.'<br /> <br /> Picture the scene: A street corner in Brooklyn, maybe the moonlight reflecting off shop windows, street lamps dimly lighting the shadows, two men shooting vainly at a standing target, weaving in a drunken stupor, from perhaps only inches away, and still they manage to miss with some of the shots. Talk about the gang that couldn't shoot straight!<br /> <br /> Gallo goes down at last, according to Ernie, gasping out the immortal words all good New York hoods part from this mortal coil with, ' Oh, Ma!' just like Jimmy Cagney in the movies. Solly and Ernie drift off, and go and get a few hours well deserved sleep at the home of poor old 'Chip' Greco. The next day, Ernie goes over to Manhattan to collect his reward for a job well-done, and receives the bad news from an understandably irate Miranda. After all that time and energy expended, Gallo is still alive. Genovese arranged for Ernie and Solly to go into hiding, and they were sent up to Springfield, Massachusetts. After a few days, Solly cuts loose and returns to the city. A couple of weeks later, Ernie follows suit. As he gets off the train at Canal Street, the cops are waiting there to pick him up. Gallo has identified him and Solly as the men who shot him.<br /> <br /> Ernie was taken to Gallo's bedside in the King's County Hospital, where he is literally fingered by the wounded man.<br /> <br /> Gallo says to Ernie, ' Why did you shoot me?'<br /> <br /> Ernie's response is, 'Why did you tell on me?'<br /> <br /> Gallo remonstrates, 'But that ain't the question I am asking you?'<br /> <br /> To which Rupolo replies, 'What's the difference what I shot you for? You could get revenge later on, instead of talking, saying I shot you.'<br /> <br /> In gangland, you can do anything but be a rat informer. You can rape and pillage and loot and murder and double-cross, but woe betide anyone who has the temerity to tell the truth to the law, especially about another member of the fraternity. And so, Ernie goes away to prison for eight years and six months. When he comes out in 1942, he is twenty-seven years old. <br /> <br /> In 1944, operating a luncheonette in Borough Park, Brooklyn, which he had somehow found the funds to purchase, he gets involved in another situation this time with a target he later described as 'a real-good looking guy, one of my best friends.' He was Carl Sparacino, and he had got on the wrong side of the mob, holding up and robbing their organized dice games. He led a group of two-bit mobsters, including Louie and Al Leffredo and Dominick Carlucci, who had hit a number of games including one operated by Andy Ercolino, at his home in Borough Park, Brooklyn, on March 28th., 1943. So Ernie gets the contract, which pays him $500, and he and the target go off one night in Sparacino's car, and Ernie shoots him four times. But as usual, in Ernie's case, the heart was willing, but the aim was weak. The victim survived long enough to finger Rupolo, and he is arrested, tried, convicted and it looks like he is going off for another long prison spell again And this is when it gets really interesting. <br /> <br /> In prison, on his second botched shooting, Ernie Rupolo decided to reveal his role in the Gallo shooting and the details behind the killing of Boccia, in the hopes it might work towards mitigating his sentence. Here he was back in jail yet again, leaving his wife behind at their home at 1947 65th. Street, in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. No doubt he was broke as usual. As in the Gallo shooting, the mob bosses had assured Ernie that he would only serve short time for the Sparacino hit, and as usual they were wrong. Facing another long session of jail time, forty to eighty years as a second offender, lacking any confidence in the promises of the guys who always seemed to promise but not deliver, Ernie probably thought, what did he have to lose?<br /> <br /> Since in the absence of physical proof, New York State laws required corroborating witnesses in the planning and carrying out of crime, Ernie's statement in itself was not enough, but he came up with the name of Peter LaTempa, who under pressure, reluctantly confirmed Rupolo's story.<br /> <br /> One of the reasons both men may have agreed to testify, was that the prime target of the murder inquiry, Vito Genovese, was no longer in America, and the authorities had no idea where he was.<br /> <br /> In fact, where he was, was Naples, Italy. He had gone there in 1937, hefting a suitcase packed with $750,000, at least according to his wife, Anna. He had decided to disappear when District Attorney Thomas Dewey had started a probe into the murder of Boccia on December 1st., 1937, as part of an intensive investigation into Genovese and his associates. Dewey had successfully prosecuted Luciano, who had been sent to prison for 30 odd years, and the DA's office was now after the second tier management of the crime family. Vito takes a powder until things cool down. The family business is left in the capable hands of Frank Costello, a.k.a. 'The Prime Minister,' and things are cool until 'The Hawk' starts stirring up the pond with his tales of death and deceit.<br /> <br /> Among the various titbits of information that emanated from Ernie, was one concerning the mob itself. According to Turkus and Feder in their book Murder Inc., Rupolo confirmed that Genovese was a national power in what he referred to as the Unione Siciliano, an organization, Ernie claimed that was the self-appointed successor to the Mafia. Ernie had been involved with the crime family of Genovese for at least twelve or thirteen years, so it is interesting to speculate on what he had to say. He also confirmed the legend of the Night of the Italian Vespers, the so-called mass killings of the old moustached Petes of the American Mafia, across America, following the murder of Salvatore Maranzano in 1931, but that one has, I think, been firmly put to bed as an old-wives tale. The other myth about the Unione, continues to be debated to this day, but it seems safe to assume that it's fiction based on fantasy as well. Like most of the guys at his level in gangland, Ernie heard gossip, but rarely the true facts about anything. <br /> <br /> Ernie started talking to the DA's office, initially with A.D.A. Edward A. Hefferman, on June 13th., 1944. He first gave up the three men involved in the dice game stick-up, the Leffredo brothers and Dominick Carlucci, then started verbalizing about the Boccia case. The man who would be largely responsible for trying to put together a case against Genovese and his accomplices in the Boccia killing, was Assistant District Attorney Julius Helfand, the city lawyer who would gain notoriety as one of the leaders in the investigation into the New York Police Department corruption probe involving bookmaker Harry Gross, in 1950.<br /> <br /> It was Helfand's probing that finally surfaced LaTempa as another independent witness to the events that night in the coffee shop on Metropolitan Avenue. It is interesting that the DA's office thought he was a suitable candidate for this role. Under New York Law, in order to obtain a conviction, it is necessary to secure a second witness who had nothing to do with the commission of the crime. Clearly, Petie Spatz did not fall within that category; he was in fact an accessory or accomplice to the crime. There were however, eleven other witness to the murder, but none were ever called to fill that role. Nevertheless, with Ernie's testimony identifying Genovese as the man behind the hits on Gallo and Boccia, and Petie Spatz to back it up, Helfand seemed sure he had a way to go. Subsequently, a Brooklyn Grand Jury indicted Genovese, Miranda and four others, De Feo, Smurra, Frasca and Sal Zappola for the killing of 'The Shadow.' <br /> <br /> The problem was Vito was still incommunicado, and then, wham, like a miracle, two months later, who should come out of the woodwork, but the man himself. On August 22nd ., he was arrested in Naples, Italy, on charges of running a black market ring. It was another nine months before the maze of official red tape could be untangled enough for extradition proceedings to begin, and he was escorted back to New York to face trial. But by then, the case against him had gone out of the window. LaTempa had been taking pain-killers to relieve his distress from gallstone problems. On January 15th., 1945, in his cell at the Brooklyn Civil Prison, he had his usual dose, and dropped dead. An autopsy disclosed he had taken enough poison to kill eight horses. Vito Genovese docked in New York aboard the S.S. James Lykes, on June 1st.<br /> <br /> For him, summer had indeed arrived early.<br /> <br /> When he finally came to trial on Thursday, June 5th. 1946, in the King's County Courthouse, in Brooklyn, it was almost a foregone conclusion he would beat the rap. Four days after the trial opened, a bullet riddled body was found in underbrush off Highway 303, about fifteen miles north of the George Washington bridge. It was identified as Jerry Esposito, a thirty-five year old criminal, recently paroled from Elmira Reformatory, 200 miles north-west of New York City. He was scheduled to appear as a witness in the case against Genovese. For the Mafia boss, it was another loose end safely disposed of. On June 11th., Judge Leibowitz, after having studied the evidence and law governing the area of corroborating testimony, dismissed the case against Genovese. <br /> <br /> In his closing comments, the judge said:<br /> <br /> 'I cannot speak for the jury, but I believe if there were even a shred of corroborating evidence, you would have been condemned to the electric chair. By devious means, among which were the terrorizing of witnesses, kidnapping them, yes, even murdering those who would give evidence against you, you have thwarted justice time and time again.'<br /> <br /> Genovese smirked, and walked out of the courtroom. He must have felt immune from the law by now.<br /> <br /> Earlier, during trial proceedings, Judge Leibowitz questioned Ernie at one time:<br /> <br /> 'What was your occupation?' he asked.<br /> <br /> 'I was a gambler,' Ernie said.<br /> <br /> 'And a killer?' queried the judge.<br /> <br /> 'Oh, sure,' 'The Hawk' confirmed.<br /> <br /> On September 23rd., 1949, Rupolo because of his testimony and cooperation, was released from Dannemora Prison in accordance with the promises made by the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office, and went back into the jungle. And for some strange reason, Ernie was allowed to live. One account says that the bosses sat down and agreed that he had given up plenty of years, and for that he got a reprieve, or as they call it in the mob, a pass. Willie Rupoli claimed in later years that Michele Miranda, now a very powerful member of the Genovese family administration, had said to his brother, 'Take care of yourself, kid. Don't worry about nothin. If you need anything, come to me.'<br /> <br /> There is another scenario as reported by newspaper reporter Ed Newman of the New York Journal-American. He claimed that while having a drink with Ernie in a Borough Park tavern one day, he questioned why Ernie was still alive and well. 'Whatta you mean? Ernie asked, 'you mean when I testified against Vito. He beat the rap didn’t he? The other guys got off the hook too, didn’t they?' He looked slyly at the reporter out of his good eye and added: 'Don't you know I did Vito a big favour. A man can't be tried twice for the same murder.'<br /> <br /> And so, Ernie Rupolo, big time gangster who couldn’t shoot straight, faded into the obscurity of the naked city, with its eight million stories. He operated as a shylock and a bookmaker, and made up his income by muscling in on bars and whatever other opportunities presented themselves. Sometime by 1957, he had left his wife and moved in with another woman, a big, brassy, loud-mouthed babe with a hair-trigger temper called Eleanor. His pet name for her, was 'My Heaven.' Maybe she reminded him of the Popsicle he was with the night he became one-eyed Ernie, all those years ago.<br /> <br /> They had a baby girl they called Ellen, and according to Eleanor's later testimony, seemed to spend an awful lot of time moving from one apartment to another across Brooklyn. His relationship with Eleanor was less than placid, and six, seven times a year she would kick him out. Perhaps during this period, Ernie was still carrying out work for the Genovese family, if so he must have either improved his marksmanship, or developed a much more circumspect profile, because as best as I can figure, he did not appear again in any major police investigations, until the final one.<br /> <br /> <img style="float:right;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236989083,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />He was last seen alive early in August, 1964 (photo right). Six months before he disappeared he had told his de facto wife that he knew he was going to get killed. 'Honey,' he said, 'there gonna kill me. Eleanor recounted a strange tale about Ernie having papers that another woman was holding in her safe. '<br /> <br /> ‘They will never do anything to me because I've got these papers,' he would say. 'Then all of a sudden, the stuff she's holding for about eight years is gone. And two weeks later, so was Ernie.'<br /> <br /> At the time he was killed, having been kicked out yet again by Eleanor, he was living in an apartment that belonged to his best friend, Roy Roy, on Berkley Place, just off the Grand Army Plaza, west of Prospect Park, Brooklyn. He made his last visit to Eleanor on Friday, the last day in July. He spoke to her by telephone on the Sunday night, and that was the last time she ever heard from him. Both she and Ernie's brother Willie, were convinced that Ernie was set up by his best friend Roy Roy. 'That's what they do,' Willie said, ' they take your best friend, and he has to do what they say, even if he is your best friend. Roy Roy had to be the one.'<br /> <br /> The murder of Ernie 'The Hawk' Rupolo would probably have been just another unsolved gangland killing, one of the hundreds that have littered the New York crime scene since the turn of the twentieth century, except for four men who got themselves arrested in October, 1965 for bank robbery. They would be the focus of a murder inquiry that would take almost two years before it came to trial. The man they would finger as the force behind the hit on Ernie Rupolo, the man they claimed was their boss, was a top echelon mobster in one of the five Mafia crime families that dominated New York's underworld. This group was led by Joseph Colombo, and his right-hand and obvious successor, was one of the toughest gangsters ever, John 'Sonny' Franzese.<br /> <br /> <img style="float:left;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236988694,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />Born in Naples in 1919, he was one of eighteen children, and grew up in Brooklyn, working as a youth for his father, who owned and operated a bakery. ’Carmine the Lion’ Franzese was a feared member of the mob, and legend has it that he disposed of his victims by converting them to dust in his bakery oven. By the time he was thirty, John Franzese (left) was a soldier in the Mafia family, then run by Joseph Profaci. He was sponsored into it by a capo, Sebastian Aloi, and quickly rose to a position of power following the promotion to the boss position of Joe Colombo at the death of Profaci. One of the bank robbers who would later finger Franzese, claimed he was so powerful that an FBI agent had let slip that 'J. Edgar Hoover would give his left nut for Sonny Franzese.'<br /> <br /> But why would a senior member of the Colombo family get himself involved in the killing of an insignificant artisan like Ernie Rupolo? Surely there were plenty of killers in the Genovese family that could have eliminated 'The Hawk' if that was the wish of Vito Genovese, as he languished in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, serving out a sentence for drug trafficking. Searching for the truth in matters of the mob is often like trying to eat spaghetti with chopsticks, possible, but most times, too exhausting to contemplate. In the case of Ernie's whack-out, perhaps the truth was a lot more simple. Brother Willie probably put the finger on it.<br /> <br /> 'I don't think Genovese had a thing to do with killing my brother,' he said. 'You see, Ernie knew Sonny from when they were kids. And he hated him. The reason, he said, "While I was away doing sixteen years that bastard was out making money." Sonny never did a day, so Ernie figured Sonny was reaping the harvest while he was away doing time. They hated each other. They really, really did. Also, I think Ernie was stepping on Sonny's feet. Ernie couldn’t make money in Brooklyn anymore and he needed money and he figured he'd go out into Queens and start in Queens in whatever Sonny was doing-bookmaking, muscling in on bars, whatever. And Sonny didn’t want that.' <br /> <br /> So rather than an act of revenge on a man who had the temerity to expose a mob boss for what he was, the hit on Ernie Rupolo was simply an act of housekeeping, clearing the streets of an inconvenience. <br /> <br /> On November 2nd., 1967, the trial to determine the guilt or innocence of the men accused of the murder of Ernest Rupolo, began in the Queens County courthouse. It was the first time in twenty years that a murder trial involving the Mafia had come before the courts in New York. The defendants were, John Franzese, Joseph 'Whitey' Florio, William 'Red' Crabbe and Thomas Matteo. There was a fifth defendant, the chauffeur and bodyguard of Franzese, a man called John Matera, but he was not in court, as he was serving time in a Florida jail, for armed robbery.<br /> <br /> The main witnesses for the prosecution were, Charlie Zaher, Richie Parks, Jimmy Smith and John Cordero, all members of a robbery team that specialized in hitting banks in Queens and Brooklyn. Cordero, was now the live-in boyfriend of Eleanor, the ex-de facto wife of Rupolo. It was her hair-trigger temper and rumbustious nature that triggered off the events that led to all these people being gathered in the courtroom on this day in the first place. <br /> <br /> In July 1965, Eleanor went drinking with her new boyfriend, John Cordero, in a bar in Queens called the Kew Motor Inn, frequented by the mob. She started bad-mouthing Joe Florio, who was a soldier in the crew led by Franzese, accusing him of being the murderer of Ernie. Cordero hustled her out, and in the car park, an altercation developed and shots were fired, Florio disappeared, and Eleanor and Cordero were picked up by Charlie Zaher, a friend of Cordero, who drove them away. <br /> <br /> The next night, 'Sony' Franzese called a 'sit-down' at another mob hangout, the Aqueduct Motel. He called into the meeting, Cordero, Zaher and Florio, who testified as to what had happened at the bar. Cordero and Zaher were allegedly part of the gang that Sonny supervised, who specialized in robbing banks. Apparently, during this rendezvous, Franzese made a number of incriminating remarks linking himself to the murder of Rupolo. And that became the heart of the case that the Assistant District Attorney for Queens, James Mosley, began to build, to indict Franzese and his gang of four for the murder of Ernest Rupolo. When Cordero and his group were arrested in connection with the bank robberies, they had not only implicated Franzese in that one, they also dragged him into the killing of 'The Hawk.''<br /> <br /> The four bank robbers had originally offered up as the sacrificial lamb for their cause, one Tony Polisi, who was arrested, tried and convicted. However, that didn't get them quite the reduction in sentence they were looking for, so their next gambit was Franzese. On the basis of their evidence, he was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit bank robbery. Although every man and his dog was adamant Franzese would never be mixed up in something like this, the government tried the case, the robbers testified and Franzese was found guilty and sentenced by Judge Jacob Mishler to fifty years in prison. Sonny was out on bail, pending an appeal when he was arrested and charged with ordering the hit on Rupolo.<br /> <br /> According to evidence presented at trial, from the chief witness, Ritchie Parks, the four defendants, John Florio et al. arrived at a car park behind the Skyway Motel, in Queens, at about 2 a.m. in a car. They pulled Ernie's body out of the trunk, and as they were transferring it into the rear of another car, this one previously stolen by Parks, Ernie apparently came back to life, screaming 'No!' 'No!'<br /> <br /> Red Crabbe snatched a knife from Florio's hand, knelt over the body and repeatedly stabbed it in the chest. Finally dead, The Hawk was bundled into the stolen car and three of the men, Matera, Crabbe and Thomas Matteo drove off into the night, to dispose of the body.<br /> <br /> The way Willie Ruppoli, Ernie's brother, saw it, the killing was set up by Roy Roy, Ernie's best friend. Roy Roy may have been at this time, part of the Joey Gallo crew, over in Red Hook, along with Kid Blast, Bobby Boriello, Tony Bernardo and Louis Hubela, among others. Ernie had hung around with these guys, off and on for years, and had in fact at one time been arrested along with them. Roy Roy had a cafe on President Street, which was the ‘hang-out‘ spot for Joey Gallo and his crew .<br /> <br /> Willie said his brother was conned into the killing zone. 'That's what they do,' he claimed. 'They take your best friend....and they make him walk you into something.....wine and dine you first, then walk you into it. Roy Roy had to be the one."<br /> <br /> Maybe Willie wasn't such a mob groupie after all. <br /> <br /> More than likely, Roy Roy had driven Ernie to the Aqueduct Motor Inn, in Queens, owned by Polisi, another member of Franzese's crew, and the hit had gone down there, before Ernie's body was transferred to the getaway car. Franzese used this motel for meetings with his men, so it's logical to assume that is where they would take him.<br /> <br /> To paraphrase a saying of a famous New York cop, 'When you live in the sewers, you don't mix with bishops.' Franzese was less than fortunate, not only operating in the sewers, but cohabiting with some of the worse kind of low lives imaginable. Although he would go down on the robbery conviction, entering a federal prison in 1970, he and his co-defendants were acquitted on the Rupolo charge after a four week trial. Sonny would be back with his wife and family in their Long Island home for Christmas. With the best will in the world, D.A. Mosley was pushing it up a hill, trying to convince the jury on the evidence of a bunch of shiftless drug addicts and scum bags that made up the thrust of his case. He was also badly handicapped by a judge who bent over backwards to help the defence.<br /> <br /> I have no idea what became of three of the principal witnesses for the prosecution. On the basis of their backgrounds, they are probably dead or serving time in prison.<br /> <br /> Crabbe, Florio and Matteo have disappeared into oblivion. Johnny Matera was listed as a soldier in the Colombo Family as recently as 1988. However, some sources indicate that Johnny 'Irish' stayed on in Florida following his robbery case, and based himself in Fort Lauderdale. He subsequently became a capo in the Colombo Family, following the death of Nicholas 'Jiggs' Forlano, of a heart attack at a racecourse, in 1977.<br /> <br /> A few years later, goes another scenario, Johnny was possibly killed by the Colombos for a major breach of mob protocol. He had flown up to New York to attend a meeting with the family boss, Carmine Persico, at a house on Long Island, and failed to notice he was being tailed by FBI agents. As a result, Persico was arrested for violation of probation conditions, and imprisoned. Matera disappeared in June 1980, and is presumed dead. The Broward Sheriff's Office claims his body was cut up and buried at sea by Bert Christie, a Jewish bodybuilder and gym owner.<br /> <br /> So as so often in the convoluted world of the hoodlum, there's always money to be paid, and choices to be made.<br /> <br /> John 'Sonny' Franzese is now over ninety, not only still active in mob affairs, but back in prison yet again on another parole violation. He has been in and out of jail a half a dozen times since 1970, but is apparently still fit, and tough and just as dangerous as he was all those years ago.<br /> <br /> If she is still alive, Eleanor Rupolo/Cordero will now be well into her seventies. Perhaps she is holding on to her memories, somewhere in Queens or Brooklyn, of the one-eyed gunman who couldn't shoot straight, or maybe waiting for her latest paramour to return from the lock-up.<br /> <br /> And Ernie, The Hawk?<br /> <br /> In 1931, Ernie was a good looking kid, and the world was his oyster. Then, it all changed with that shot to his eye. From then on, he stumbled through life like a blind roofer. When he died, he was burnt-out, old before his time, and, as usual, so broke, he had to clothe himself in someone else's threads. Maybe he is wandering around in the gangster's afterlife, searching desperately for someone with a roscoe that works, and a target that will just accept the slugs and then lie down like all good victims are supposed to, so Ernie can spend the rest of eternity dreaming of being the boss of the Mafia.<br /> </p>
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Profile of Colombo crime family associate John Pappa
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/colombo-associate-john-pappa
2010-11-03T16:37:57.000Z
2010-11-03T16:37:57.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<p><br /> By David Amoruso<br /> Posted in 2001<br /> <br /> Most of you probably never heard of John Pappa and probably for good reasons. Pappa wasn't a made member, he didn't belong to a big mafia family and his criminal career didn't even last that long. Still, I think that the story of this very young <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-colombo-crime-family">Colombo crime family</a> associate will interest you. In some ways he's sort of a failed Christopher Moltisante (from The Sopranos), and if it wasn't for him the Colombo family war probably would have had a very different ending.<br /> <br /> John Pappa was born on July 19, 1974. You could say John Pappa grew up with the Mafia, his father, Gerard Pappa, was a feared Genovese Family soldier who was known to kill for fun and profit untill he himself was whacked for breaking mob rules. John Pappa was 5 years old when his father was murdered has idolised his father ever since then. He also wanted to become a made member of the Mafia. On his dresser, Pappa had a picture of his dad. On his arm was a simple tattoo tribute, "Pappa Bear." <br /> <br /> <img style="float:left;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236981300,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />John Pappa didn't become a crazy killer right away, in fact it looked like Pappa wouldn't go the same route his father had taken. After her gangster husband had been whacked John Pappa's mother moved to Holmdel, N.J.. There everything seemed to go just like she had wanted. Pappa did well in school and became a high school soccer star. But little Pappa secretly had different aspirations, he still wanted to become a made Mafia member. "He could not stay out of Brooklyn and Staten Island," said a source close to the Pappa family. "He was straddling two worlds." Pappa was so entranced by the mob, authorities said, that he had the credo "morte prima di disonore" (=death before dishonor) tattooed across his back. Pappa believed it applied to him and his father. Pappa started selling drugs and pretty soon tried to hook up with a crew run by James "Froggy" Galione a Lucchese mobster. John Pappa seemed to fit right in but Galione wouldn't take him in, Galione knew that back in 1975 Gerard Pappa, then a Genovese soldier, had fired the fatal shots that killed his father, a Gambino associate.<br /> <br /> But the rejection didn't stop Pappa. Pretty soon thereafter he became close with the Colombo Crime Family. The Colombo Crime Family is one of the most troublesome Families in New York, having had several internal Family wars. In the early 90s the Colombo Family was caught up in a new internal war. This time it was the Persico faction led by official boss <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-boss-carmine-persico">Carmine Persico</a> against the faction led by acting boss Vic Orena, Orena started the war by wanting to be the official boss. John Pappa became an associate of a Mafia Family in serious problems and pretty soon his Family faction asked him to perform his duty as an Family associate: He had to go out and kill. The Persico faction was so weakened that they actually called upon the young associates to perform the hits. John Pappa however was willing and able and saw this as a good way to become a made member and so he went out to do his job and do it good.<br /> <br /> <img style="float:right;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236982254,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />The first official hit of John Pappa during his time as a Colombo Family associate was Colombo Family Capo Joseph Scopo. Scopo was a close friend of acting boss Vic Orena and had aligned himself with Orena against the Persico faction. On October 20, 1993 Pappa and two other Colombo Family associates, John Sparacino and Eric Curcio, went out to Scopo's house to whack him. When the three arrived at Scopo's house in Ozone Park, Queens they found the rival Capo in his car. Sparacino threw open the door and sprayed Scopo's car with a machine gun missing Scopo with every shot. After seeing Scopo was still alive Sparacino ran off. Pappa hid behind a tree waiting to see if Scopo had a gun. Scopo yelled at him: "You got balls, come on. Come on, you need to kill me, kill me you little punk." Scopo then threw his cellular phone at Pappa. Pappa now knew enough and walked over to Scopo with a .380 automatic and shot him eight times from close range. The murder of Capo Joseph Scopo would be the end of the Colombo war, after this hit the Orena faction gave up and the Persico faction emerged as the winner.<br /> <br /> With the Colombo Family war at an end John Pappa had made his bones and was almost surely gonna get made. After this successful hit, Pappa got a taste for more. Pappa supposedly had a beef with Anthony "Tigger" Dellavecchia, who was reputedly aligned with James "Jimmy Frogs" Galione, member of the Luchese crime family and the guy who didn't want Pappa in his crew. Pappa believed Dellavecchia had something to do with the murder of his best friend. Because Dellavecchia was allegedly protected by the Luchese family, he was untouchable without approval from Mafia bosses. Determined to extract revenge any way he could, Pappa then allegedly told his cohorts, "If I can't kill Tigger, I'll kill Carmine." (Carmine Gargano jr was Tiggers nephew). <br /> <br /> Then, in early July 1994 Gargano got into a brawl with Luchese associate Michael "Mikey Flattop" DeRosa at T-Birds, a Bay Ridge bar. As DeRosa was carried out of the club bleeding from a head injury that night, he snarled to Gargano: "I'm going to kill you." Pappa saw the fight in more practical terms, according to informants: He could kill Carmine Gargano Jr. and everyone would blame Mikey DeRosa. "John Pappa told me, 'It's done. Carmine's gone,'" Luchese mobster Ronald "Messy Marvin" Moran later said, "And they'll never find his body."<br /> <br /> In the meantime the bragging about the Scopo hit didn't stop and the three involved started telling their own versions about what had happened. One night Pappa, Sparacino, Curcio and another young hoodlum named Basciano were partying in Basciano's social club. As Pappa and Curcio left, Sparacino told Basciano about his role in the murder and threw a disgusted look at them and sneered: "They think they're a bunch of tough guys. They ain't shit. They're a bunch of punks. Remember the Scopo murder. I'm the one, I did the shooting and those two punks left me there." <br /> <br /> After the club emptied out, Basciano, found Pappa and Curcio and told them what Sparacino had said. Pappa and Curcio then told their version: Sparacino had driven off, and that after killing Scopo they had to run three long blocks from the crime scene in front of Scopo's Ozone Park home to a backup getaway car. "Eric looked shocked. Pappa's face turned beet red. He turned around and said: "That mother fucker, I'm going to rip his heart out." "Pappa was going nuts, and I just got in the truck and left," said Basciano. Pappa and Curcio got another young thug named Hennigar to lure Sparacino to a house on Aug. 13, 1994, Hennigar killed him before Curcio and Pappa could get there. Hennigar had shot Sparacino in the back of the head. With Sparacino now dead you'd think Pappa and Curcio didn't need to come over anymore, but for Pappa the fun didn't stop at the killing. When Pappa came over they cut his face and tried to pull it off. Two days later they dumped the body in a car and set it on fire.<br /> <br /> After this murder Pappa seemed to go crazy. He now told his friend Joseph Iborti that he was mad at Curcio because Curcio was taking all the credit for the Scopo hit, and that he was going to kill Curcio because of that. "I killed Joe Scopo, I did all the work,", Pappa promised to walk into Curcio's auto body shop in Red Hook and kill him, which he did on October 4, 1994. The next day Pappa telephoned Iborti. A laughing and giggling Pappa described how he had killed Curcio. "He started making the sounds of gunshots on the phone," said Iborti, imitating the sounds of machine gun fire as he placed his right hand next to his ear in the shape of a telephone." 'Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom,' then he'd stop for a second, start laughing and do it all over again, 'boom boom boom boom boom boom,' " Iborti said. Asked to decribe what went through his mind at the time, Iborti said: "This guy's nuts.". And who would argue with that?<br /> <br /> John Pappa's campaign to become a made Mafia member ended on the steps of St. Ann's Church on Staten Island on September 26, 1997. Pappa, arriving for a wedding rehearsal for his pal Salvatore Sparacino (the brother of Pappa's third victim), was intercepted by NYPD detectives and FBI agents. "Police, John," Detective Tommy Dades yelled as Pappa walked up the marble stairs of the church with his girlfriend. "Stop! Police!" Pappa spun and scowled. He bent over clutching his stomach and stood straight, pointing a fully loaded 9-mm. pistol. "Put the gun down, John!" FBI agent Matt Tormey said. Pappa ran into the church amid the stunned wedding party. He hurled his gun to the floor and kept running, weaving in and out of the pews with cops in pursuit. "Hey, you guys are unbelievable," the infuriated groom growled. "Show some respect." "Respect?" answered a detective. "This mutt killed your brother." Pappa was arrested just a few feet from the altar. No shots were fired.<br /> <br /> Pappa had proven that he was a capable man and fit for Mafia membership during the Colombo war of 1991-93. Pappa was an efficient and bloodthirsty hit man who roamed south Brooklyn armed with an arsenal, prosecutors said. He was convicted of four murders and is suspected in six others including the June 1994 killing of another associate, Rolando Rivera and the thrill-killing of a stranger on a dare. "This prosecution brings the terrible legacy of the Colombo war to a close with the conviction of one of the most dangerous young hitman in the Colombo family," said assistant U.S. attorney Stephen Kelly. Pappa is currently serving four life-without-parole terms plus 45 years for drug dealing and other miscellaneous charges. </p>
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Profile of Colombo crime family boss Alphonse Persico
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/colombo-boss-alphonse-persico
2010-11-03T13:00:00.000Z
2010-11-03T13:00:00.000Z
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<p><br /> By David Amoruso<br /> Posted on March 19, 2009<br /><br /> Alphonse Persico is the son of legendary Colombo Family boss Carmine Persico. Alphonse decided to join his father’s business and become a member of the Mafia. His decision would cost him dearly as he would follow his father all the way to a federal prison.<br /> <br /> <img style="float:left;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236977283,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />From an early age, Alphonse followed in his father’s footsteps. Carmine Persico (left) was a neighborhood hero and bona fide tough guy. It is no wonder that young Alphonse looked up to his father. But the mob wasn’t his only option in life, he actually was a very good student. The mob, however, was slowly pulling him in. With a powerful mobster as his father, people treated Alphonse with respect as well. And it is no doubt that he liked the perks that ‘the life’ brought with it. After his sophomore year at St. John’s University he dropped out and started working for the mob full time.<br /> <br /> With his father at the top of the pyramid, Alphonse quickly rose through the ranks, becoming a Colombo Family capo while he was still in his mid-twenties. In 1983 he was arrested for the first time. But the heroin trafficking charges ended in a dismissal. Three years later, in 1986, Alphonse went to trial together with his father in a big RICO case directed at the Colombo Family. Both men were found guilty and upon sentencing Carmine pleaded to the judge that his son be given a lenient sentence. Alphonse was sentenced to 12 years in prison.<br /> <br /> While the two Persico’s were in prison, a fight for control of the Colombo Family broke out on the streets of New York. Carmine Persico had made it clear he wanted to remain in control of the family and that his son would take over as boss upon his release in 1993. But a faction led by Vic Orena (photo right) disagreed and began fighting a bloody war against the Persico loyalists.<img style="float:right;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236976874,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" /><br /> <br /> The war left many men dead and wounded and caused law enforcement to up its pressure. Dozens of Colombo mobsters were arrested and sentenced to lengthy prison terms because of acts stemming from the war. Alphonse Persico was charged with authorizing plans to murder seven men who were loyal to Orena. During a 1994 trial he was acquitted of the racketeering charges. In 1995 he was released from prison and finally took over as boss of the Colombos.<br /> <br /> As a boss Alphonse started spending more and more time in Florida to avoid law enforcement scrutiny. But for a man like Allie Persico the heat does not end by simply moving to a different state. During Labor Day Weekend in 1999, he was enjoying cruising around the Florida Keys on his 50-foot speed boat named “Lookin’ Good” when the US Coast Guard stopped him. While they searched his boat they found two loaded weapons; a Browning .380 semi-automatic pistol and a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun. Alphonse was not allowed to carry any weapons because of his 1986 RICO conviction. The gun charges would eventually sent him back to prison for 18 months.<br /> <br /> <img style="float:right;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236977489,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />Allie Boy’s legal problems weren’t over though. In order to strengthen his position as boss of the Colombo Family he had ordered the execution of his underboss William “Wild Bill” Cutolo. Cutolo went missing on May 26, 1999 and was never seen again. To those involved in the Colombo Family business it was clear that Alphonse had just erased a serious threat. Cutolo’s son, William Junior, knew this too, and contacted the FBI several weeks after his father’s disappearance. Cutolo Jr. agreed to wear a wire and give information about the criminal business of Colombo mobsters.<br /> <br /> With the information Cutolo Junior supplied, federal agents managed to obtain a search warrant for Alphonse Persico’s daughter’s Park Slope, Brooklyn apartment. They found $25,000 cash and $1 million in alleged loansharking records. They also found false identification papers. Alphonse (photo right) pleaded guilty, agreed to forfeit $1 million, and was sentenced to 13 years in prison.<br /> <br /> But the murder of “Wild Bill” Cutolo still loomed in the background. All the FBI needed was a body and some witnesses. In 2004 prosecutors felt they had enough evidence to indict Persico and bring him down in court. In September 2006 Alphonse Persico and underboss John “Jackie” DeRoss stood trial for ordering the murder of William Cutolo. While the first trial ended in a hung jury, the second trial saw Persico and DeRoss being found guilty of ordering and plotting the murder of Cutolo.<br /> <br /> On February 27, 2009 Alphonse Persico, aged 55, was sentenced to life in prison without parole. He will now live the same life as his father. A life behind bars and away from his loved ones.</p>
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Profile of Colombo crime family boss Joel "Joe Waverly" Cacace
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/colombo-boss-joel-joe-waverly
2010-11-03T12:53:02.000Z
2010-11-03T12:53:02.000Z
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<p><br /> <br /> By David Amoruso<br /> Posted on April 1, 2007<br /> <br /> Joel “Joe Waverly” Cacace was born on April 9, 1941. His career in the Mafia didn’t go without some bumps in the road. There were several attempts on his life. The first in 1976, when he was working as a florist in Brooklyn. Three holdup men tried to force Cacace in his car at gunpoint. He was shot in the chest but managed to fight back, and grab a gun from one of the men. Now in possession of a gun he fired at the man, killing him right there. The two other holdup men fled from the car, leaving Cacace and their dead partner behind. The critically wounded Cacace then drove to the 61st Precinct station with a dead body in the backseat. These incidents gave Cacace a huge reputation on the street. As a Colombo mobster his story showed similarities with the story of the crime family’s imprisoned boss Carmine Persico. Persico was once shot in the face during the Profaci-Gallo war, he spat out the bullet and drove himself and his wounded friend to the hospital.<br /> <br /> Cacace became a feared Colombo mobster. When Colombo boss Carmine Persico was sent to prison for life after the Commission Case trial, he ordered Cacace to get a hit team together to kill U.S. attorney Rudolph Giuliani and William Aronwald. In March 1987 Cacace assembled a team comprised of brothers Enrico and Vincent Carini, and Frank Smith. Prosecutors believe Cacace wrote "Aronwald" on a slip of paper and showed it to the hit men, and they went to work. But the three men mistakenly killed Aronwald's 78-year-old father, an administrative law judge who ruled on city parking tickets. For doing such a bad job the Carini brothers were murdered and found in separate cars on a Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, block. Frank Smith was spared, and, fearing he could still be killed, would later become a government witness.<br /> <br /> <img style="float:left;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236976874,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />While Persico was in prison he maintained control of his crime family. At one point he appointed Victor Orena (picture on the left) acting boss. Orena would keep the position until Persico’s son Alphonse would be released from prison. But Orena liked being boss, and started looking for allies on the Commission to make it official. What came next was a full blown war. The Colombo Family was divided in two factions: those loyal to Carmine Persico, and those backing Orena. Initially Cacace sided with Orena, but later he switched sides and joined the Persico faction. During the war Cacace was ambushed by a gunman and shot in the chest and testicles. Cacace returned fire, first dropping his dry cleaning. When the war was <img style="float:right;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236976476,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />over twelve people were killed, and the Persicos had won. In the years following the war around 57 mobsters were convicted in several trials (according to <a href="http://www.ganglandnews.com">www.ganglandnews.com</a>)<br /> <br /> Joel Cacace emerged as one of the leaders of the troubled Colombo Crime Family. He was labeled acting boss by the FBI, and as such had a huge bull’s eye on his back. With information from government witnesses such as Frank Smith, Cacace was indicted. On August 13, 2004 he pleaded guilty to racketeering charges, admitting his role in the Aronwald murder, and received a sentence of 20 years in prison. </p>
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Profile of Colombo crime family capo Gregory "The Grim Reaper" Scarpa
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/colombo-capo-gregory-the-grim
2010-11-03T12:47:53.000Z
2010-11-03T12:47:53.000Z
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<p><br /> <br /> By David Amoruso<br /> Posted on June 18, 2009<br /> <br /> Gregory Scarpa Sr. was known first and foremost as a ruthless mob hitman. He took pleasure in killing. While discussing a man he had murdered, he would say “I’d like to dig him up and shoot him again.” But, though it may seem unbelievable, while committing murder and mayhem at the behest of the Colombo Crime Family, Scarpa was also working as informant for the FBI.<br /> <br /> <img style="float:right;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236976255,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />Scarpa Sr. (photo right) was born in 1928 in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up during those years, a young Italian kid would look up to the well dressed Italian men who handed out cash like it was nothing. After doing a few errands, they are brought into the fold, and “schooled” in the ways of mob life.<br /> <br /> Eventually he became a member of the Colombo Crime Family. This was a troublesome mob family during the 1960s. Joseph Profaci was the boss, but a faction led by “Crazy Joey” Gallo decided they deserved more power and started a war to grab the crown. Joseph Gallo would remain a problem for the Colombo family until he was shot and died outside Umberto’s Clam House in New York’s Little Italy. With death around the corner and the cops always watching your every move, Scarpa was soon had an important decision to make.<br /> <br /> In March 1962, Scarpa was arrested by FBI agents as a suspect of an armed robbery. The agents gave him a choice: go to prison or become an FBI informant and feed us information in return for a get-out-of-jail-free-card. Scarpa didn’t need a lot of time to make his decision and would eventually become, what was then called, a top echelon informant. But Scarpa was a very manipulative man and it wasn’t long before he was using the FBI more than they were using him. As an informant he continued and expanded his criminal operations. He would also commit numerous murders while a registered informant. When Scarpa was again released after criminal charges had evaporated his mobster colleagues would worry. Some would wonder if their fellow member might be a rat. But how could he be a rat when he is such a violent and successful murderer?<br /> <br /> And there was no doubt that Scarpa was a “stone killer”. When Colombo soldier Dominick Somma put in a “beef”, or complaint, about Greg Scarpa Jr. to Colombo capo Anthony Scarpati Scarpa Sr. became so enraged it would only be a matter of time before Somma would end up dead. Months passed, but then Carmine Persico gave the order to kill Somma. He apparently had been involved in a drug deal with members of the Gambino Family without telling his Colombo Family higher ups. This crime would now cost him his life. Scarpa Sr. eagerly accepted the murder contract.<br /> <br /> Somma was asked to come by Scarpa’s Wimpy Boys Social Club to discuss a possible bank job the crew could pull. Several crew members were present. Including capable killers like Carmine Sessa and Joseph DeDomenico. Everybody sat down at a table. Somma sat right across from Scarpa Sr. As small talk ensued, he casually pulled out a hand gun and shot Somma in the head. Then he walked over to his victim and fired one more bullet in the man’s head. Was this man an FBI informant? No way.<br /> <br /> The FBI might not have had an interest in bringing their prized informant down. Faith had a way of punishing Scarpa. Throughout his life he had several medical problems. In 1986 he experienced bleeding ulcers and doctors told him he would need several blood transfusions. Scarpa vehemently refused any blood by a person he did not know. As a result Scarpa’s relatives and crew members lined up to donate blood. Though Scarpa might know these people, he didn’t know each person as well as he thought. One crew member was a bodybuilder who frequently used steroids. He would even share a needle with his gym buddies. At one point he was infected with HIV Aids. When he donated his blood to Scarpa he subsequently infected him with the virus as well.<br /> <br /> After being diagnosed with HIV, Scarpa was obviously devastated. But he decided to keep it a secret and simply carry on with life. And his life, including the lives of other Colombo Family wiseguys, was about to take a dramatic turn.<br /> <br /> While Carmine Persico and his son Alphonse were in prison, Vic Orena was running the crime family on their behalf. But he enjoyed being boss and refused to relinquish his power. Pretty soon Persico loyalists took on the Orena faction in a fight for control of the family. Greg Scarpa sided with Carmine Persico and was soon cruising the streets of New York in search for members of the Orena faction.<br /> <br /> But Orena hitmen already had Scarpa in their sights. On November 18, 1991 three Scarpa crew members came to his home to pick him up and drive him to the Wimpy Boys Social Club. Scarpa’s girlfriend Linda and their child were also leaving the house. Seconds later several men wearing ski masks fired multiple shots at Scarpa and those standing nearby. Miraculously no one was hurt. But if it was up to Scarpa several people soon would be. In December 1991 Scarpa and his crew were out hunting Orena loyalists. They spotted Vincent Fusaro in front of the home of his girlfriend. He was on a ladder hanging up Christmas decorations. Scarpa rolled down the window of his car and fired three shots at Fusaro. All shots hit their target, and Fusaro died on the spot.<br /> <br /> <img style="float:left;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236976270,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />Thirsty for blood Scarpa continued his hunt. In January 1992 he and crew member Larry Mazza murdered Orena capo Nicholas Grancio. Realizing that Scarpa was a serious threat the Orena faction started plotting a new hit attempt. Joel Cacace was involved in two shoot outs with Scarpa. In one both men fired shots at each other while they were both seated in their car. In February Scarpa shot Cacace in the stomach, causing him a serious, though not lethal, wound. The war would rage on and leave scores of mobsters dead or wounded. All in all Scarpa had killed four men and wounded two others.<br /> <br /> During the summer of 1992 federal agents arrested Orena. This arrest effectively ended the war. Carmine Persico and his son Alphonse would remain in charge. However after the war, not many members were around for very much longer. The FBI arrested dozens of Colombo gangsters on charges related to the war.<br /> <br /> The Colombo war would also bring an end to Scarpa’s FBI protection. He was arrested and due to his deteriorating health put under house arrest while awaiting trial. By now he was a mere shadow of his former self. But he still was a killer. When his son Joey told him about how he had been disrespected by a couple of drug dealers, Scarpa picked up a gun, took his son and Joseph Randazzo, and went looking for them. Upon seeing the two men, a shootout erupted. Scarpa shot one of the dealers. His friend reacted immediately and fired several shots at Scarpa and Randazzo. Randazzo was seriously wounded, while a bullet had hit Scarpa in his face. Scarpa’s son had fled the scene.<br /> <br /> In typical tough guy fashion Scarpa drove home. There he made himself a drink. As he was drinking his scotch the phone rang. Scarpa’s probation officer called because his ankle monitor had been triggered. After coming up with a good excuse, Scarpa hung up the phone. When his girlfriend came into the room she was horrified at what she saw. Scarpa’s left eye had been shot out and blood was gushing from the wound. It didn’t seem to matter to the murderous mobster. He knew his time was running out.<br /> <br /> On May 6, 1993 he pleaded guilty to three counts of murder and conspiracy to murder several others. In December 1993 he was sentenced to ten years in prison. On June 4, 1994 the real grim reaper came to take Scarpa away. </p>
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Profile of Colombo crime family underboss William "Wild Bill" Cutolo
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/colombo-underboss-william-wild
2010-11-03T11:00:00.000Z
2010-11-03T11:00:00.000Z
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<p>By David Amoruso<br /> Posted on September 28, 2008<br /> Updated on October 24, 2008<br /> <br /> William "Wild Bill" Cutolo was one of the most charismatic and feared mobsters of the Colombo Crime Family. Born on June 6, 1949 he had risen to become an underboss to <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-boss-alphonse-persico">Alphonse Persico</a>, the son of imprisoned boss <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/colombo-boss-carmine-persico">Carmine Persico</a>. But the Colombo Family was a dysfunctional family, in the 1990s two factions had fought a war over who would be boss. One faction was loyal to Carmine Persico and his son. The other supported acting boss Vic Orena. Things heated up fast between the two factions creating fireworks on the streets of New York.<br /> <br /> Wild Bill Cutolo was a very respected Colombo Family capo. He was known as a man capable of murder, and a great earner. He had money out on the streets as a loanshark and was heavily involved in union corruption. Using the unions he controlled to hand out no-show jobs to fellow mobsters and steer jobs and money to vendors and resorts operated by men who were connected to the Colombos.<br /> <br /> But Cutolo also knew how to maintain a clean front. He was known as a devoted churchgoer at Our Lady Help of Christians on Staten Island. And raised millions for charity, he even dressed up as Santa during christmas parties. But behind that front was a stone cold gangster.<br /> <br /> When the Colombo war kicked off Cutolo's crew was on the front line murdering two Persico loyalists. He allegedly pulled the trigger in three hits during the war. There were several attempts on Cutolo's life during those years, but he managed to survive them all. When the smoke cleared twelve people were killed, including two innocent bystanders. Fifteen other people were injured in the war.<br /> <br /> The Colombo Family now posed a direct threat to public safety and authorities started hitting scores of mobsters with indictments. Cutolo and six members of his crew were among those charged with various crimes. The mobsters were held without bail in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. According to Jerry Capeci: "They quickly took over their wing, and until the following September, terrorized the inmates as well as the guards. They stole and hoarded food and turned the television room into their private club, hanging up a sign that read: 'Italians Only.'"<br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9236975284,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236975284,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9236975284?profile=original" /></a>In December of 1994 Cutolo and his crew were acquitted of federal murder and racketeering charges. Back on the streets Cutolo was stripped of his capo rank and demoted to soldier status. The Persico faction had 'won' the war and still called the shots. But Cutolo was such a charismatic leader that he was eventually made a capo again. He commanded enormous respect from his men. He had fought beside them during the war. Shown his ability to kill and earn millions. This man had "boss" written all over him. And Alphonse Persico knew it.<br /> <br /> In 1999 Persico (right) made Cutolo his underboss. It was a belated peace gesture, a sign of respect to Wild Bill. Or so it seemed. On May 26, 1999 Cutolo was summoned to a meeting with Persico. He would never be seen again. It became clear very soon that Persico had eliminated a threat to his position. Within 24 hours he and newly appointed underboss John "Jackie" DeRoss were looking for Cutolo's millions. DeRoss later paid a visit to Cutolo's mistress and told her that her married lover may have run off "to get away from everything and everybody."<br /> <br /> On December 29, 2007 Alphonse Persico and John DeRoss were both found guilty of organizing the murder of Cutolo. Both men thought they were off the hook when their first murder trial ended in a hung jury, but the second time wasn't so sweet. In her closing argument prosecutor Deborah Mayer said "Cutolo was coming on like a freight train, acting like he had his own mob. Alphonse Persico had to act." Persico will now spend the rest of his life behind bars, just like his father. On October 6, 2008 authorities found the remains of William Cutolo. His body was buried in a wooded area of Long Island near a stretch of railroad tracks, manufacturing plants and warehouses. The information about Cutolo's burying place is said to have come from an informant.</p>
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