The First and Second Colombo Family Wars Mafia Documentary HT
The First and Second Colombo Wars August 18, 1956; a wedding is held in New York City with over 3000 guests that would later inspire the beginning of the Godfather novel and movie. It was an event of mafia royalty with Salvatore Bonanno, son of Joe, the head of one of New York’s five families and Rosalie Profaci, niece of the leader of another borgata.
And that man was the one paying for the event, assuming the role of the bride’s father after her real one passed away two years earlier. The marriage would not only create a biological family for the couple but it would also solidify the ties between the two factions for the next eight years to make them a powerful force. But just a few years later the good times would come to an end and events would be set into motion that would lead to the near downfall of Joe Profaci and his organization.
Giuseppe Profaci The family that we now call the Colombos originally bore the name of its founder Joe Profaci and it shares the distinction of being New York’s newest and smallest faction. Born as Giuseppe Profaci on October 2, 1897 on the island of Sicily, not very much is definitively known about his early life in the old country but it is suspected that he had family connections to the mafia there and he also did time in prison as well.
In 1921, almost immediately after his release, he stepped on a boat and immigrated to the United States. He first arrived in Chicago where he opened a grocery store and didn’t have a criminal record. But the business failed, causing him to relocate to Brooklyn in 1925 where he stayed for the rest of his life.
He would later become an original member of the Mafia’s ruling commission but unlike his contemporaries who joined existing gangs and moved up through the ranks, he built his own family from scratch as its founding member. In addition to becoming a criminal mastermind, Profaci was also a very successful legitimate businessman.
His Mama Mia Importing Company brought Italian pasta sauces and olive oil into the United States where it then distributed the products across the country. But some claim that the business was just a front to mask his preexisting criminal activities. And others believe that his foray into the world of bootlegging happened after Mama Mia began because he saw the massive amounts of money that could be made illegally.
By 1925 it’s believed that he was firmly involved in bootlegging and over the next three years he began to build a crew while avoiding conflicts with law enforcement and the other families. It must have been difficult for him to grow his empire in a crowded field but he had somehow managed to make it work.
And during the 1928 mafia conference in Cleveland, the Profaci Family became officially recognized by the other Cosa Nostra factions. One major item for that meeting’s agenda was to peacefully distribute the territory that belonged to the recently murdered Frankie Yale. Profaci benefitted the most from this and Bensonhurst, Carroll Gardens, Bay Ridge, and parts of Red Hook became exclusively his, while the rest went to Joe the Boss Masseria.
During this time, Masseria was trying to consolidate control of the entire Italian mafia across the United States to become the Boss of Bosses and the places he did not directly rule, he usually controlled through puppet leaders that he installed. Perhaps he felt that the quiet man with glasses operating in his backyard would be just another pawn that he could manipulate.
The reality was that Profaci found more in common with his neighbors, the Castellamaresse Family. When Maranzano ascended that group’s leadership and went to war with Joe the Boss, Profaci tried his best to stay neutral during the conflict, though he most likely provided some indirect support to the war’s eventual winner.
As Maranzano reorganized the five families following his victory, Profaci was allowed to keep his family and remain its head. And when Luciano had the new Boss of Bosses murdered in September of 1931, Joe Profaci was given a seat on the newly formed mafia commission that was created to replace the capo di tu cappi title that caused so much conflict. The 1930s and 40s were a great time for Profaci.
Although prohibition ended, he successfully branched out into other illegal ventures like gambling, loan sharking, drug trafficking, labor racketeering, and much more. Plus, his legitimate businesses exploded in the aftermath of World War Two so in addition to running a family of 110 made members, he also was legitimately employing hundreds of people across the New York City area in his different companies.
By the time the 1950s rolled around, Profaci had been the boss of his borgota for over twenty-five years and it’s estimated that the Profaci family had 11 crews, each headed by a capo. The upper management of the family was largely unchanged since the 1920s with Profaci on top, his brother-in-law Joe Magliocco as the underboss, and his brother Salvatore as the consigliere. His other brother, Frank, was also a powerful capo regime in the family as well.
And crime had paid for Profaci but it did hurt his reputation and after all these decades as a boss in the shadows, the government knew who he was and they tried to get him on tax evasion but failed. They attempted to also have his citizenship revoked since he was naturalized in 1928 and lied about his prison record but that didn’t get any traction either.
In 1959 oranges he imported from Sicily were inspected by US customs and found to be hollowed out and filled with heroin. However, he denied knowing that those were there and the government had no direct proof to tie him. He was also arrested at the Apalachin Conference in 1957. By this time, Profaci’s nickname among his guys was “the old man” and while he was a millionaire many times over, the men on the streets who were making the money that was kicked up to him were not and they were becoming resentful of their boss. The Gallo Crew As Joe Profaci was celebrating twenty-five years as the boss, the demographics of his family were changing from Italian members to the next generation of their American born children. The Gallo Brothers were an example of this,
and like the changing times of the 1950s and 60s, these younger guys wanted a bigger piece of the pie from the older generation whom they believed to be hoarding it. The family’s patriarch was Umberto Gallo, an Italian immigrant who was a bootlegger during prohibition and later went on to become a loan shark.
There is no credible evidence that he ever became a made member of the Profaci family, but his sons definitely were. Larry Gallo, born in 1927, and his brother Joe, born in 1929, both became official members of the Profaci clan during the 1950s. They worked as enforcers and hitmen for the Old Man in addition to having a diverse portfolio of criminal rackets that were financially lucrative.
The Gallos had their own crew with headquarters at 51 President Street in Brooklyn at a building they referred to as the dormitory. Larry was said to be the leader and younger brother Albert, born in 1930, was also part of the group, though at the time he was just a mob associate rather than an official member.
All three men were vicious killers, but the one who is most well-known to the public imagination is Joe, who the press sometimes referred to as Crazy Joe Gallo. He had been diagnosed with schizophrenia as a child and when he was an adolescent he was involved in a car crash that gave him a permanent nervous tick.
He was also later known for being bold and reckless which only enhanced the use of his nickname. There’s a rumor that the Gallo Brothers, along with future family boss Carmine Persico, were the gunmen who murdered Albert Anastasia in October 1957 under orders from the Commission, however there has never been definitive proof of this.
But one thing for sure about the crew is that they were effective with dispensing violence and had little to no hesitation to use it if they thought it could create results to their advantage. The Profaci Family Splinters What we now call the First Colombo War began when Profaci family caporegime Frank Abbatemarco cut off all tribute to boss Joe Profaci as a way to protest the financial strain many family members found themselves under. On November 4, 1959, he was shot to death outside of a bar in Brooklyn.
It’s believed that the Gallo Brothers were the shooters on orders from Profaci and that they believed they would be cut in on the dead Capo’s rackets as a reward. That didn’t happen. Instead Profaci directly took over Abbatemarco’s business interests and he then distributed them to those closest to him.
Outraged at what they viewed as a betrayal, they then took up the cause of the man they murdered and stirred up discontent in the family against the boss’s greed. Since Profaci’s policy was to murder those he viewed as subversive, the Gallo Brothers tried a strategy that would put the boss in a position where he couldn’t refuse them. They made a bold move to kidnap the family’s top management.
On February 27, 1961, the Gallos successfully abducted underboss Joe MAggliocco, Profaci’s brother Frank, loyal capo regime Salvatore Musacchia, and soldier John Scimone. They also tried to capture Profaci outside of his estate in New Jersey, but he evaded them and fled to a mansion in Florida to lay low. After a few weeks of negotiations, Profaci and his consigliere Charlie LoCicero, who had been in the position for five years, reached a deal with the Gallo brothers.
In addition to not wanting to get his people killed, part of Profaci’s motivation to settle this was that he realized most of his capos leaned towards the Gallo camp with their grievances. If he directly went to war, he would lose his top people and the rest of the troops would probably rally to the other side.
So he made a deal, everyone was released, and with the new revenue arrangement, this incident could now be written off as water under the bridge. But Joe Profaci, now in his sixties, refused to let this go. Instead he silently met with his capos in one-on-one meetings and won them back into his camp. His plan was to make the Gallos pay for their insubordination and to do that, he needed to split his opposition while also planning to make bold moves in a surprise that would cripple the men he viewed to be his enemies.
The first murder of what was then called the Profaci-Gallo War happened in August of that year when the Gallo crew’s top enforcer, Joe Gioelli, went on a deep-sea fishing trip and never returned. Later, his coat was placed outside the door of 51 President Street with fish wrapped up inside it to symbolize who he now sleeps with. This event would later be replicated in the Godfather movie.
Knowing that a war was about to break out, Larry Gallo went to the Sahara Club in Brooklyn on the morning of August 20 to attend a sit down. His ally Carmine Persico and Salvatore D’Ambrosio were there and they attempted to strangle him to death. A police officer on patrol overheard the struggle and entered the building which allowed Larry to survive.
Because of his defection to the Profaci family, the Gallo Brothers began to call Persico “the snake” and the name stuck with him until his death. Using a sit down as a cover for murder is a violation of the mafia’s code and for the Gallo brothers, Profaci had crossed a line where their only response was to go to war. The Fighting Gets Hot The official tally for the First Colombo War is nine dead and three disappearances.
But this figure does not include all of the woundings, failed attempted murders, and the fighting that was done with fists instead of guns. And there is not a definitive history of the war that’s been told by a high-ranking member turned informant who could provide a birds eye view of the conflict.
But here is a rough idea of what we can piece together from individual events that have been documented. The Gallos’ first target for retaliation against Profaci was the man they dubbed as The Snake. In September 1961, Persico went out to his car and started it when a bomb placed by Gallo forces detonated.
In a stroke of luck for the future boss, the explosive was placed upside down, so instead of being vaporized, the vehicle was blasted into the air while a crater was left below it. In October, Gallo Soldier Joe Mags Mangnasco became a casualty after he got into an argument with his former capo and Profaci loyalist Harry Fontana on the street.
The conflict got physical and after he hit Fontana, another member pulled out a gun and killed Joe Mags. Also that month, capo regime Nicholas Forlano, who ran a lucrative loan shark operation for the family, was stalked by Gallo gun men. As he pulled up to his apartment in Astoria, gun men appeared and shot into his car multiple times. They emptied their weapons and ran off.
Miraculously, Forlano managed to avoid being hit as he constantly climbed from his front to back seats in a vain attempt to dodge the bullets and that somehow actually worked. This botched hit would later inspire the media to give the Gallo crew the nickname of “the gang that couldn’t shoot straight”.
The month before, the Gallos had tried to abduct Forlano’s business partner and financier of the capo’s loan shark operations, Ruby Stein, off a midtown street but he managed to get away. In November Profaci soldier John Guarglia and an associate are shot and killed in a Brooklyn Bar by Gallo shooters.
Police suspected the killers to be Mike Rizzitello and Sal Mangiamelli although they were never charged. It’s believed that they were also the shooters on the unsuccessful Forlano hit. The Gallos had went to the mattresses to carry out their war but they didn’t go into hiding. Instead they fortified their President Street headquarters with armed guards on the roof tops and screens on the windows to prevent grenades from being tossed in.
And while the fighting and emotions were tense at times, not every captain in the family was active during the civil war. Sonny Franzese was about as neutral as one could be. As a result the Gallos did not attack him or his people and Profaci did not order him to fight, probably out of concern that if he forced the man to pick a side, it could backfire with him turning against the boss.
While the Gallos might have taken the initiative in the Fall of 1961, they were dealt a serious blow when a number of their soldiers defected back to the Profaci camp. But even with this setback, the brothers had no intention to back down and Profaci was not going to compromise. In December, Larry Gallo avoided being blown away from a shotgun as he sat at a red light by pure luck and two Persico soldiers caught a beat down from Gallo soldiers at a night club when they ran into each other. A few days later Gallo member Larry Carna was shot in the leg twice while standing outside of his candy shop. He survived and is seen in this photo of Gallo headquarters standing on crutches. The only way for this civil war to end would be for the leadership in both factions to change. That began in December of that year when Joe Gallo was sentenced to between seven and fourteen years
in prison. He had held a knife to a businessman’s throat and was convicted of extortion. It’s unclear but possible that Profaci’s connection to corrupt cops and judges might have secured this. But even if they didn’t, Crazy Joe Gallo was now out for the rest of this conflict. But Joe Profaci did not have long to celebrate.
He had been ill for some time and in early 1962 was diagnosed with liver cancer. There was no chance of survival and he only had months left to live. He was approached by fellow commission members Carlo Gambino and Tommy Lucchesse to make peace with the Gallo faction. But the Old Man, believing that these two bosses had plans to annex his family, refused to do so and threatened that he would attack anyone trying to get involved with his business.
And so, the fighting continued. In January of that year, Gallo soldiers Michael and Philip Albergo came out to their car and found a flat tire. As they changed it, Profaci gunmen drove by and shot at them. Both brothers were wounded but survived. A month later, gunmen shoot at Profaci’s brother, Frank, while he is walking on the street but they miss.
They also tried to shoot Profaci’s other son, John, who is not believed to have ever been involved in his father’s business. They missed him as well. In May, a Profaci drive by crew shot at two Gallo members as they walked back to the headquarters on President Street. One is wounded in the ankle from a ricochet bullet. Both men survive.
On June 6, 1962, Family boss and founder Joe Profaci lost his battle with cancer and passed away peacefully at the southside hospital in Bayshore, New York. His underboss Joe Maggliocco claimed the title as the new head of the family. While the Profaci loyalists accept this, the mafia commission refuses to give their approval.
This causes resentment between him and the other bosses which is later exploited by Joe Bonanno and becomes a major cause for that family’s own civil war two years later. However, despite the change of leadership, the war was not over.
In October of that year Gallo soldiers Marco Morelli and Anthony DeCola suddenly disappear without a trace. Following losses from murders and defections, the Gallos begin to aggressively recruit new associates into their crew to replenish the ranks. In February of 1963, Gallo associate John Rayola is gunned down and severely wounded. After this, things cooled down a little but two months later the hostilities heated up again when a Gallo member was shot at when walking down a Brooklyn Street.
The following month The Gallo Brothers took revenge against Profaci loyalists Alfonse D’Ambrosio and Carmine Persico as they drove in their car. The two men were cut off by a truck and when its back opened, men with rifles appeared. Bullets ripped both men apart but they survived the attack. On May 10, the Gallos shot at captain Johnny Oddo as he drove his car.
The vehicle was damaged but the man walked away unharmed. A month later, Profaci hitmen killed a Brooklyn businessman as he left his apartment because he was a Gallo associate who provided cash loans to the brothers. On June 12, shots were fired at Gallo soldier Frank Illiano but they missed him. The next day Profaci member Vincent DiTucci was found murdered and the police suspect the Gallo crew.
Soldier Gennaro Basciano was arrested for the crime but was later released for lack of evidence. On June 19th, unemployed longshoreman Alfred Mandella was shot to death as he sat outside of his apartment building in a beach chair. While not a member of either crew, it’s believed that he sold guns to the Gallos and was killed by the Profaci faction to cut off their rival’s support.
Two weeks later on July 4th, Gallo gunmen attempt to ambush Profaci captain Joe Colombo as he drove home from a game of golf. However, Colombo took a different route from the one they anticipated and therefore avoided the danger. Later that month Gallo associate Ali Hassan Waffa was shot to death as he stepped off a cruise ship in Hoboken.
The next day on July 25, a Gallo solider was shot at while driving Larry Gallo’s car in a case of mistaken identity. The bullets only grazed him and he deliberately crashed the vehicle to make the shooting appear successful to his would-be murderers. He survived. On August 9, Profaci soldier Joseph Cardiello was shot to death as he drove his car on a Brooklyn street.
It was his bar that Frank Abbatemarco was shot outside of in 1959 and it’s possible that he had helped set up that hit in 1959. Given that Abbatemarco’s death was what set the conflict into motion, it is fitting that Cardiello would be one of the last deaths. That same day, Profaci loyalists Tony Regina and John Battista spotted a car carrying Gallo members on Long Island.
At Route 347 in the town of Port Jefferson, they pulled next to the car and sprayed it will a volley of bullets. They killed Louis Mariani and wounded Francis Getch. Both shooters were arrested, convicted for the murder, and sentenced to life in state prison. The war found itself coming to an abrupt ending in September 1963 when Joe Maggliocco summoned his captains for a meeting where he suddenly announced that he was stepping aside.
In his bitterness about being denied the boss position of the family by the commission, he entered into a conspiracy with Joe Bonanno to murder the heads of several families. The plan backfired when the captain he assigned the murders to, Joe Colombo, saw the plan as being a very bad one. Perhaps the two years of fighting made Joe Colombo realize that these killings would cause an even greater war that had the potential to destroy Cosa Nostra so he went behind his boss’s back and informed his targets of what was being planned. When summoned to answer for this, Maggliocco confessed. Rather than be killed, the commission forced him into retirement and in December of that year, two months later, he passed away from natural causes. During Magliocco’s brief reign, his underboss John Misuraca was a long-time
member that was also at retirement age. When offered the top spot in the family, he declined it saying that he was too old and wished to step aside. Charles LoCicero, the consigliere also declined the promotion for the same reasons. As a result, Joe Colombo was proposed for the role and accepted it.
After an election by the family’s captains and approval from the commission, the promotion was permanent. Colombo was in his early forties and was the first American born boss of the five families. He knew that he could be easily leading the family into the 1990s and possibly even into the new millennium if his health lasted. His first order of business was to reshuffle the family’s leadership so that the administration was more politically attuned to the current politics of the borgata rather than being a relic of how it was when Old Man Profaci founded it almost forty years earlier. Next, his emissaries reached out to Larry Gallo and a peace settlement was arranged. With the fighting now at an end after two bitter years, the newly renamed Colombo Family was looking forward to better days. But they never really came.
The Colombo Era Larry Gallo died in 1968 from cancer and while his younger brother Albert was his right-hand man during this decade, he remained a mafia associate and was never inducted into the Colombo Family. Partially because the books were closed after Appalachia which locked him out while his older brothers got in before that event but also because he made so many enemies during the civil war.
While Joe Colombo was now the officially recognized boss of the family and the war was now considered over, there was still some dissidenting in the ranks. One possible rival was the elder consigliere he removed from power, Calogero “Charlie” LoCiero. LoCiero was an original member of the Profaci family and he had a criminal record that stretched back into the 1920s. In 1925 he was arrested for murder but the charges were dropped.
This case was most likely part of the now forgotten story about how Giuseppe Profaci was able to create a 5th family in a city that was crowded with bootlegging gangsters. For almost twenty years the Profaci Crime Family’s management was composed of the boss’s actual family.
Then when his brother, consigliere Salvatore Profaci, passed away in 1954; LoCiero was promoted into the position. But following the fall out, of the Profaci-Gallo War and Colombo’s ascent to the boss position, a leadership shake up was necessary and LoCiero was removed. Five years later in 1968, he was murdered in a Brooklyn malt shop. A masked gunman came in at nine in the morning as the old man sat at the counter and emptied a gun into him.
Wither this was a hit sanctioned by the Colombo Family to remove a disgruntled member sowing subversion or if it was related to a different criminal racket the old man was running, the result was the same: Joe Colombo felt more comfortable about his grip on power. He was so confident that he decided to step out of the shadows and become a public figure. An act that horrified the other bosses.
The catalyst for this began in 1970 when his son Joe Junior was arrested for melting down US coins for their raw metal value during the days when money was minted using silver. His father felt that the investigation and prosecution was selective and unfair to his boy. In a warped game of mental gymnastics, the boss of the Colombo Family reasoned that his son was being targeted because he was Italian-American and this was due to a stereotype in American culture that all Italians are somehow unfairly linked to organized crime. To combat this stereotype, the head of one of organized crime’s five families formed the Italian-American Civil Rights league and he became its prominent spokesman. Needless to say, Joe Colombo’s public persona made the commission and his own captains very nervous
as he was putting the spotlight on himself and that had the risk of exposing them too. Colombo’s son was acquitted of the charges the following year in 1971 after the chief witness against him was arrested for perjury. But this victory did not stop Colombo’s activism and he became more intense.
Joe Gallo’s Release While Colombo enjoyed a period of peace starting in 1968, unresolved business from the Profaci-Gallo War reared its head in 1971 when Joe Gallo was released from prison. Immediately, Crazy Joe, also called Joe the Blonde, began to create problems for the family.
His main grievance was that he wanted to be recognized as a captain and given a crew plus he wanted a large chunk of the family’s profits. Gallo was technically a made member of the family but despite his stature and prominence, Colombo refused to meet with him. Instead he sent an emissary who offered Gallo $1,000 to essentially leave the family and New York.
This is a little less than ten grand in 2025 dollars. It was an insult. Gallo countered by demanding one hundred thousand dollars. He also threatened that it was his brother Larry who agreed to the peace terms while he was in prison and, thus since he himself did not agree, he was not bound by them. Gallo’s threats were rightfully not taken lightly.
There were still more than a few members of the family who were part of his faction during the early 1960s and they might flock back to him if push came to shove. Furthermore, Gallo was now going around saying that he shouldn’t just settle for being a capo, instead he should be the new boss. Deciding that this problem could not be settled with a sit down or satisfactory compromise, Colombo assigned Vincenzo Aloi the contract to kill Joe Gallo.
The second Colombo Family War was now officially declared. On March 11, 1971, Joe Colombo was dealt a legal setback when he was convicted of perjury for lying on his application to become a real estate broker. This was his legal job to explain his income and shield him from tax evasion charges.
He was sentenced to two and a half years in prison but was out free while the case was being appealed. He spent his time giving rallies and claiming that the prosecution was unfair and that he was just a regular guy trying to earn a living. After a few months, despite the contract on his life, Joe Gallo was still operating and making problems.
He was muscling in on other mobsters territories and shaking down people who were paying dues to other members. He was a disruptor and yet the family’s enforcers were never able to locate him after tips were reported. The Second Colombo War Finally, on June 28, 1971, the opening shots of the war were fired, but they weren’t directed at Gallo.
Instead Joe Colombo was shot three times while giving a speech at Colombus Circle for his Civil Rights league. Although he survived the shooting, he was left paralyzed and died from the wounds almost seven years later in 1978. Needless to say, when it was clear to the family members that he was not going to recover, he lost his status as the boss. His reign that was supposed to last into the 1990s ended after less than a decade.
Colombo’s murderer was 24-year-old Jerome A. Johnson. An African American whose motive for the shooting will never be known because Colombo’s bodyguards immediately killed him. For the police and Colombo Family, it seemed most likely that he had been sent to do the shooting at the behest of Joe Gallo.
During his time in prison, Gallo is said to have been closer to the black inmates than his fellow Italians so to them it looked like he could have had an alliance with a gang from that ethnic group. Gallo was picked up by the police and interrogated over the shooting. After a few hours he was released and detectives were convinced that he was not behind the hit.
But the Colombo Family did not agree and with Joe Colombo’s death, the upper management was thrown into chaos once again. The administration had to deal with a new Gallo War, a potential civil war, and the uncertainty of who was actually in charge now. Part of Colombo’s strategy for bringing peace to the family was to promote old timers to top leadership positions who had no desire to become the boss.
His underboss was Salvatore Mineo and while he was willing to stay in his position for the sake of keeping things stable, he really wanted to step aside and retire. Colombo’s consigliere in 1963 was Benedetto D’Alessandro but he stepped down in 1969 and capo Joseph Yacoveli took his place. Mineo did not want to be the acting boss so Joey Yack took on the role.
He decided that with Colombo’s death being so high profile and with the police keeping an eye on Joe Gallo, it would be unwise to retaliate right away. The new management felt that if they hit back so quickly they would give law enforcement the perception that a new gang war was underway and it would bring down extra heat.
At the same time, Gallo had a police detail watching him because the police knew that the mob would come for vengeance. But by the time 1972 rolled around, the shooting of Joe Colombo became old news and started to fade from the public consciousness. And with no attempts being made on his life, the police removed the Joe Gallo detail.
Yacoveli now felt that it was the right time to strike back and the contract on Gallo was opened again. Meanwhile Gallo continued to live up to his reputation as a disrupter and he became a celebrity on the New York night scene. On April 7, 1972, while celebrating his 43rd birthday with his wife, daughter, sister, and bodyguard Pete the Greek plus his girlfriend; the group decided to have a very late-night dinner at 430 in the morning.
The place they chose to go to after a long night at the Copacabana was Umberto’s Clam House in Little Italy. This neighborhood was a mafia hot spot and Gallo was immediately noticed as soon as he arrived by Colombo family associate Joseph Luparelli who was sitting at the bar and was unnoticed by the group. He claimed that he immediately left and went to a Colombo hang out two blocks away.
Joey Yak was contacted and he okayed the hit. Luparelli and four other individuals then returned to the clam house. Luparelli stayed in a getaway car while the four men entered the restaurant through a back door. The gunmen emerged in the dining room and when Gallo saw them, he cursed and tried to draw his own weapon. But before he could get it out he was pumped full of lead.
He staggered to the front door, in what witnesses say was an attempt to draw the gunfire away from his family, and collapsed in the street. He was brought to the Beekman Downtown hospital where he was pronounced dead. Police investigators dispute Luparelli’s story and believe that it was a lone assassin that took down Joe Gallo.
They also say that many claims in his story cannot be verified or they come off as unbelievable. In 2003, mafia associate and hitman Frank Sheeran claimed that he was the lone killer shortly before his death from natural causes. He said that he committed the murder on orders from Pennsylvania crime boss Russel Buffalino. Investigators believe that it’s very possible that his account is true but others believe that his story is also full of holes, no pun intended. Either way, the case is officially unsolved.
Joe Gallo’s death did not pacify his supporters and his brother Albert took control of what remained of the crew. Shortly after his brother’s murder, Albert received a tip that Joesph “Joey Yak” Yacoveli, Carmine Persico’s brother Alphonse, and Gennaro Langella were eating lunch together in a midtown Manhattan restaurant.
A hit team was assembled and they quickly traveled to the restaurant where they sprayed bullets into four innocent diners that they mistook for their targets. This close brush with death caused Joey Yak to leave New York and go into hiding. The family was now officially leaderless but the captains were leaning to support Carmine Persico to take on the top job.
Persico was ambitious and eager to do it but the only problem was that in early 1972 he was sentenced to federal prison for hijacking charges. Instead, captain Vincent Aloi was made acting boss. But he was convicted of perjury on June 26, 1973 and stepped aside as he could not execute the management of the day-to-day operations. Joey Brancato, the acting captain for Sonny Franzese’s crew while he was in prison, took on the acting boss role.
His priority, directed by Carmine Persico with pressure from the commission, was to end the conflict with the remaining Gallo crew. By this point, the Gallo crew was more focused on fighting between themselves than they were with the rest of the Colombo Family. And even though the violence was contained, murder was still bad for business.
A settlement was negotiated and Albert Gallo, along with his loyalists were transferred to the Genovese Family. Albert would later become a made member of that Cosa Nostra faction when the books reopened a few years later. After this successful end, Brancato stepped aside and cleared the path of Carmine Persico to consolidate his power from his prison cell.
His brother Alphonse was made the underboss while Thomas DiBella was promoted to acting boss. Antony Abbatemarco, the son of the slain captain in 1959 whose death planted the seeds for the first war was bumped up to the consigliere role. Persico would be released in 1979 and enjoyed two years of freedom before going back to prison in 1981. He was released in March 1984.
He would find himself to be in serious trouble a year later when he was caught up in the Mafia Commission case which resulted in him spending the rest of his life behind bars.