Kidnapping the Mob: How "Crazy Joe" Gallo and His Brothers Abducted Their Bosses
Kidnapping the Mob: How "Crazy Joe" Gallo and His Brothers Abducted Their Bosses
In early 1961, Colombo family mobsters "Crazy Joe" Gallo and his two brothers did the unthinkable. Dissatisfied with the family's leadership, the brothers kidnapped several of their bosses
On June 28, 1971, Joe Colombo, namesake of the Colombo crime family, one of New York City’s five mafia families, was shot several times while he was addressing a crowd during the Italian Unity Day rally in New York’s Columbus Circle.
The shooter, who was identified as Jerome Johnson, a black man from Newark, New Jersey, was immediately shot and killed by Colombo’s bodyguards.
Colombo would survive the shooting. However, he was paralyzed and ostensibly brain-dead. He would languish until his death in May 1978.
Though a police investigation would conclude that Johnson acted alone and independently, many within the insular world of organized crime believed that Johnson had acted at the behest of one of Colombo’s disgruntled mafia soldiers.
Crazy Joe
Joseph Gallo, known to many as “Crazy Joe,” was a New York based mobster who was born in 1929 in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood. He would later be joined in the mafia by his brothers Larry and Albert “Kid Blast” Gallo.
Like many future mafia heavyweights of that era, Gallo began his criminal career as a member of a Brooklyn street gang.
For the Gallo brothers, crime was a way of life. Their father, Umberto, was a former bootlegger during prohibition and used his earnings to become a loan shark. Joe would eventually help his father run his loansharking business as well as his brother Larry’s vending and jukebox operations.
The brothers strong armed local businesses into doing business with them and purchasing their machines. Most people readily complied. Extortion was also a major money maker for the Gallo brothers.
It was during the 1950s when Joe and his brothers became associated with the Profaci crime family. (Which would later be named the Colombo family) Joe Gallo was an enforcer and killer for the family, which was headed by old-school mafioso Joe Profaci.
Though it has never been definitively proven, it is widely speculated that Joe Gallo and possibly his brothers took part in the infamous October 1957 murder of feared Gambino family boss Albert Anastasia.
By the time of Anastasia’s murder, Joe Gallo had already earned a fearsome reputation. He was known to be unpredictable and had even been diagnosed with Schizophrenia in his early twenties.
Greed
Though the Gallos were a somewhat self-contained crew consisting of Joe, Larry, Albert, and more than two dozen other members, they were still a unit within the larger Profaci family and, as such, were subject to the will of the boss.
Unfortunately for the Gallo crew, their boss, Joe Profaci, was exceptionally greedy, even by mafia standards. He was known to put a heavy tax on his men as well as demanding a tithe, which was a custom brought from Sicily, however it was not common in America.
Profaci’s stingy nature towards his men was contrasted by his charitable donations to Catholic charities and other causes. Many saw this as an attempt at creating a positive public image.
Many within the family’s ranks were discontent but fearful to act or say anything that could potentially make its way back to Profaci. He had a zero-tolerance policy for any dissension in his ranks.
Kidnapping of Profaci’s Men
The Gallos, however, refused to abide by Profaci’s demands and openly balked at paying the excessive taxes. They were also angry about promises made to them by Profaci, which were not kept.
As open hostilities erupted between Profaci and the Gallos, Joe Gallo came up with an audacious plan.
He and his brothers would kidnap the boss and members of his administration.
In early March 1961, the brothers put their plan into action and abducted family underboss Joseph Magliocco, Profaci’s brother Frank, capo Salvatore Musacchia, and family soldier John Scimone.
Profaci himself barely escaped being abducted and fled to Florida.
Joe Gallo went to California to wait out the negotiations without being an open target, as he would have been back in New York.
Gallo wanted to make sure that Profaci knew he was serious and proposed that they kill one of the hostages. He also wanted $100,000 to begin the negotiations. However, his brother Larry talked him out of it, and the negotiations began.
They lasted for several weeks as Albert and Larry Gallo kept watch over the hostages from their fortified building on President Street in Brooklyn.
After weeks of tense negotiations between the Gallos and family consigliere Charles LoCicero, the hostages were peacefully released. As a condition of their release, the Gollos were promised a bigger cut of the family’s profits, as well as an assurance that there would be no reprisal for the kidnappings.
Double Cross
In truth, Profaci had not intention of honoring his promises, and as soon as the hostages were released, he began to plot his revenge.
In August 1961, Gallo crew member Joseph Gioielli was murdered by Profaci gunmen. The Profaci’s then attempted to murder Larry Gallo by luring him to a meeting at a club in East Flatbush, Brooklyn.
Larry felt comfortable attending the meeting because he was accompanied by fellow crew member Carmine Persico. However, Larry was unaware that Persico had secretly switched allegiance to Profaci, as he had been promised a more prominent role in the family.
At the meeting, Persico and another Profaci soldier, Salvatore D’Ambrosio, attempted to garrote Larry with a rope. Thankfully for him, a police officer happened to walk into the club right as Larry was being strangled, and a shootout erupted.
Elements of this incident were recreated in the film The Godfather 2, where the character Frank Pentangeli was nearly strangled to death after being called to a meeting in a darkened bar.
Larry Gallo survived the attempted hit, and for the rest of their lives, the Gallos referred to Persico as “The Snake.” Though Persico was indicted for the attempted murder, the charges were dismissed when Larry, sticking to the mafia’s code of omertà, refused to testify against him.
These events kicked off what is commonly referred to as the first Colombo War. Both sides suffered casualties, and as a result, nine men were killed, and three went missing and were presumed killed.
Prison
Ironically, it was a stint in prison that likely saved Joe Gallo’s life. During the height of the war against Profaci, Gallo was found guilty of extortion and conspiracy charges and was sentenced in December 1961 to seven to fourteen years.
While Gallo made the most of his time in prison by reading and studying the arts, he also made strong connections with prominent black gangsters like Harlem heroin kingpin Leroy “Nicky” Barnes.
Back on the streets of Brooklyn, the war continued to rage. Then, in June 1962, Joe Profaci died of cancer. In the interim, his underboss, Joe Magliocco, one of the men who had been kidnapped by the Gallo brothers, took over as boss of the Profaci family.
Unsurprisingly, the war against the Gallos continued under Magliocco’s leadership. In May 1963, Carmine Persico was nearly killed when he was shot multiple times by members of the Gallo crew while driving in Brooklyn.
Though he was shot in the face, shoulder, and hand, Persico survived the shooting.
Then, in the fall of 1963, Persico was sent to prison on extortion charges. Around the same time, a “peace agreement” was brokered by New England mafia boss Raymond Patriarca.
The hostilities cooled off, and then in late 1963, Magliocco was exposed for conspiring with fellow mob boss Joe Bonanno to assassinate several members of The Commission, the mafia’s ruling body.
Colombo Becomes Boss
Magliocco confided his plans to family captain Joe Colombo. Magliocco was looking to recruit Colombo to participate in the coup.
Instead, the wily Colombo revealed the plot to the members of The Commission. When the plan was exposed, Bonnano fled to Montreal, while Magliocco was summoned before The Commission to explain himself.
Magliocco confessed to the plot, and admitted his role in the conspiracy. Surprisingly, The Commission chose to spare Magliocco’s life. Instead, they “put him on the shelf” by forcing him into retirement.
As a reward for his loyalty to The Commission, Joe Colombo was placed as the new boss of the Profaci family.
Though he was respected by his men, Colombo raised some eyebrows when he publicly fought back against FBI “profiling” of him and his men as members of organized crime.
In response, Colombo organized pickets in front of the FBI’s New York headquarters and organized the first Italian Unity Day rally on June 29, 1970, in Columbus Circle. The event drew more than 50,000 people.
To many old-school mobsters, this sort of public attention was antithetical to the ways of Cosa Nostra. Their desire was to operate in the shadows without the public knowing they existed.
Joe Gallo Released
Meanwhile, about the same time that Joe Colombo was holding his first Italian Unity Day rally, Joe Gallo was nearing the end of his prison term.
Gallo was released in April 1971. Though the war with Profaci and Magliocco had ended in the early 1960s, Gallo was still bitter about the betrayal and false promises of Profaci.
Upon his release, Colombo offered Gallo what appeared to be an olive branch. He offered Joe a gift of $1,000. However, after nearly ten years in prison, the amount seemed paltry, and was taken by Gallo as an insult.
Gallo then countered with a demand of $100,000. Clearly the two sides were far apart regarding equitable compensation.
Everything changed on June 28, 1971, during the second Italian Unity Day rally, when Colombo was shot and paralyzed by a lone gunman.
Though it was never proven, many felt that Joe Gallo was behind the assassination attempt.
Death of Crazy Joe
Though he had only been out of prison for less than a year, Joe Gallo was making up for lost time. He was newly married and had become somewhat bohemian.
Having taken up painting and classical literature while in prison, Gallo was spending a lot of time hobnobbing in New York City’s artsy Greenwich Village neighborhood and had made some unlikely social acquaintances, including singer Bob Dylan, who penned a song about the unusual gangster.
Some within New York’s art and culture scene found it a thrill to chat and dine with a bonafide gangster and tough guy like Gallo.
Unfortunately, Gallo’s past caught up with him on the night of April 7, 1972.
Gallo, along with family and friends, including his wife, sister, and bodyguard, were all having a night on the town in celebration of Joe’s 43rd birthday. They had been out all night when the group arrived at Umbertos Clam House in Manhattan’s Little Italy.
It was close to 5 a.m. when a gunman (or gunmen depending on the source) rushed into the restaurant and fired a barrage of shots at Gallo’s table.
Witnesses recall that Gallo rushed from the table, attempting to draw the gunfire towards him and away from his family.
Hit several times, Gallo staggered out the front door and collapsed on the sidewalk. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after 5:30 a.m.
Aftermath
Following the murder of Joe Gallo, the Colombo family fell into disarray, with Carmine Persico becoming boss of the family.
However, Persico’s reign was a bloody one, and the family would be plunged into two more civil wars during his reign as boss. The first came in the mid-1970s, and the second during the early 1990s.
Persico himself would spend the majority of his reign as boss in prison. His insistence on maintaining power while incarcerated is a big reason for the two wars that occurred under his leadership.
Carmine Persico died in prison in 2019 at age 85.
Joe Gallo’s brother Larry, who had survived an attempt on his life by Persico in the early days of the first Colombo war, died of cancer in 1968 while Joe was still in prison.
Joe’s other brother, Albert, was allowed to leave the Colombo family in 1974 and join the Genovese family.
Though he is still listed as an acting Genovese captain, the 95-year-old gangster is considered retired.
Sources:
“Gallo, Joseph (1929-1972)” The American Mafia. https://mob-who.blogspot.com/2011/04/gallo-joseph-1929-1972.html
walterherbst. “The Gallo Brothers Take On Joe Profaci.” r/Mafia, Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/Mafia/comments/11pised/the_gallo_brothers_take_on_joe_profaci/
Folsom, Tom. “The Mad Ones.” Weinstein Books, 2008, https://www.amazon.com/Mad-Ones-Crazy-Revolution-Underworld/dp/