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Click here to listen to today’s podcast “Inside the Violent World of Joey Gallo.”
In this replay, as a tribute to Camillius “Cam” Robinson, Retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins, and co-host Cam dive deep into the wild life and violent death of one of the Mafia’s most unpredictable figures—Crazy Joey Gallo.
From Brooklyn’s Red Hook streets to the bloody wars of the Colombo crime family, Joey Gallo built a reputation as a fearless outlaw who challenged Mafia bosses, embraced celebrity culture, and became a folk hero to outsiders and artists alike. Gary and Cam explore Gallo’s transformation from street gangster to media sensation, his fascination with philosophy and existentialism, and his notorious appearances before the McClellan Committee wearing dark sunglasses and mocking authority.
The episode examines the Gallo crew’s role in the assassination of Mafia boss Albert Anastasia inside the Park Sheraton barber shop, including insider accounts from Pete “The Greek” Diapoulas and theories involving Carmine Persico and the Patriarca family. Gary and Cam break down how the Gallos evolved into a rogue faction willing to kidnap capos, challenge Joe Profaci, and wage war against the Colombo family itself.
The conversation also explores Joey Gallo’s prison years, his relationship with Harlem heroin kingpin Nicky Barnes, and the intellectual awakening that shaped his later persona. The hosts discuss Gallo’s ties to New York celebrities, including Jerry Orbach, Pete Falk, Ben Gazzara, and Neil Simon, along with the cultural impact that inspired Bob Dylan’s famous song “Joey.”
Gary and Cam revisit the unsolved shooting of Joe Colombo at the Italian-American Civil Rights League rally and examine competing theories involving Jerome Johnson, the Gambino family, and the Gallos themselves. They also unpack the dramatic final hours of Joey Gallo’s life at Umberto’s Clam House in Little Italy, where Colombo gunmen allegedly tracked him down during his birthday celebration and opened fire in one of the Mafia’s most legendary assassinations.
Using firsthand accounts, old newspaper reports, and mob insider testimony, this episode paints a vivid portrait of Joey Gallo’s rise, wars, betrayals, and enduring legend in organized crime history.
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. But let’s start out talking a little bit about Joey Gallo. Crazy Joey. Joey the blonde. He had blonde chest hair. Yeah.
[2:59] That’s uh that’s rare among us uh italian i don’t fall into that category i can tell you he must have been a northern must have some northern italian somebody from up there around florence or something or right.
[3:16] But you know he was a unique guy uh he was truly in in the mob world he was unique he He was crazy, and I believe later on he was diagnosed. I had some probably prison psychologist being mentally ill, whatever that was exactly. Do you remember what that was? Schizoid tendencies or something. You see that a lot. You see that a lot with the mob guys, though, so it’s hard to know if that was a real diagnosis or another I’m putting on. You see, I can name four or five guys who, when they were in prison. And, you know, I guess they’re all sociopaths, but you see a lot of them when they’re trying to get out of the service or trying not to go to the military. And they flunked the test with flying colors. And I’m sure most of them earned it. But it does seem to be a preponderance of guys who don’t do well on those psychiatric exams. But I think Joey earned his the natural way. Yeah. Of course, he was a young mobster. Came out of Red Hook. but a little later in his life where he got so famous and so well-known, before we go back into his early life, his last stint in the penitentiary, he had some kind of awakening, I would say.
[4:35] He had a pretty good bit to do. He did about 10 years in prison, and in 10 years, you can either go down the pits or you can improve yourself. I know a lot of guys I’ve known and a lot of people out here, former mobsters that I talked to today, have done that and they’ve tried to improve themselves and lead a different life. Now, he didn’t ever want to lead a different life other than the mobster’s life. But when he was a penitentiary, my research led me to believe that he read and read and read a lot. He even learned the Evelyn Wood speed reading technique, which a lot of you younger guys won’t know that. It was a famous speed reading technique. I don’t remember exactly how it worked, but, uh, you know, and, and we came out, he, he picked up on popular culture when he came out.
[5:31] And during the sixties and seventies, when everybody else was even in with the young guys started growing long hair and beards, he, he would, uh, he would say something and get rid of that shit. Don’t look like a hippie. Well, they almost killed one guy. Probably they did kill him. And some of the things they were saying was they didn’t trust anymore. Now that he became a fucking hippie. So, but he, when he came out, he got on the popular culture. He was dressing the part of a New York hipster in the 1950s and 60s. He was a classic movie gangster. He’d have like a dark shirt and a white tie and a pinstripe suit. And, you know, when he went before that infamous scene when he got called before the McClellan, he said, oh, this would be a good carpet to shoot dice on. He remarks in this book that they wanted a gangster, so he was going to give them a gangster. I mean, that entire thing was an act. I mean, he knew the gangster that people wanted. And in different crowds, he could mold himself to whatever the crowds wanted.
[6:35] He knew how to read a room. yeah it was and that’s the one where he wore the sunglasses inside right right that was that was like a bombshell among the conservative law enforcement people today where he didn’t have the respect for that uh commission to even take his senate sunglasses off so he was he was something else he and he got to know uh because of this he’s in new york he’s in manhattan he gets to know sophisticated New Yorkers. And, and I just heard a saying from somebody, uh, I told this guy, uh, guy, uh, Springfield, Massachusetts mobster named Chickie kitchen.
[7:13] Chickatelli, who is, he’s connected with John Gotti Jr. Right now there, there’s something coming up in the media that he’s a part of and Gotti Jr. Is going to do, I don’t know what, but, but he made a statement. He said, everybody wants the bandit to get away. And I remember smoking the bandit. We all pulled for the bandit to get away and and and he said that about mob guys and and the popularity of mob guys today and he said everybody likes the bandit to get away and i said man i’m going to use that he said well it’s not really mine he said i got it from gotty jr so i don’t know but but we all like the bandit to get away and and so that that’s what happened with joey gallo everybody likes the bandit to get away they don’t want to be the bandit and and they don’t want to have too much attention paid to him by the bandit but they want him to get away and and he got to know people like ben gazar and peter faulk uh in new york who were kind of a you know kind of a rounder kind of guys if i remember right and uh the playwright neil simon and and people like that he’s a modern reference you’ve got jerry orback who was on law and order for so long who played the uh the detective on law and order that was a jerry mara orback yeah yeah matter of fact he was in the restaurant or Bach and his wife were in the restaurant.
[8:28] Just when he got killed or did they see him oh they saw him at the copacabana just right before and invited him to come eat with him and he didn’t come which i bet orbach’s glad he didn’t go eat with with the gallo that night so you know another thing is there’s a famous book by uh if you’re of a certain age you’ll remember this book by new york columnist jimmy breslin uh the gang that couldn’t shoot straight it was about the gallows and their war their first war with the persicos, and then the Columbo family.
[9:01] And they say that Coppola used some of those situations and incidents that Breslin talked about, and that really happened during that mob war. The saying, going to the mattresses, that came out of that book, Jimmy Breslin. And then these guys, they’d rent an apartment and throw mattresses down, and they’d all hang out and hide out there until they went out to do battle with some of the opposing, killed one of the opposing uh uh family members that that they were in a war with so but cam found this uh a book it was a first person account from a greek associate of the gallo crew and his name was Peter Diapolous would you say that was a way to say that Diapolous yeah Pete the Greek Diapolous yeah Pete the Greek uh so it was uh when was that published it was published back in it was 73, 72 or 73 I mean because they put it out right after right after Gallo it would have been right after Gallo I’ve got a first edition here let me see it’s.
[10:04] 76 so yeah it was right after he let a little bit of time die out and he wrote it this Steve Linakis who wrote it with him is also a Greek who wrote for the New York Times and they while they were writing it they spoke a lot of Greek together their Diapolous would only write it with a greek uh writer now what’s interesting is the title is the sixth family and you know is that you think that’s because the gallo brothers they had such a big and they did have a big crew.
[10:34] I looked it up and I found like 10 or 15 names of the Gallo crew. You never know exactly who’s part of the crew and who isn’t, but did they want to become the sixth family, make the Gallo family? Is that why it’s called that the sixth family? I think so. I think, I think if you look at, you could compare them to the Spheros in a way. I think they thought that they had in their minds, they could take over. I mean, you got during the first Persico war. I mean, you’ve got the Gallos kidnapping all the leadership of, of, of the persico family and and old man persico checked himself into a hospital in uh florida to avoid anything happening to him down there but they got the underboss and a couple of high-ranking capos a consulary i mean it was these guys meant business and they’re just they’re just some kids so uh they were they were all they were a lot of them made guys because they killed uh Anastasia uh gallo uh joey and his brother larry were both made guys the younger brother albert was not but you know i think that they they had it in their minds that because they had a large crew yeah they could they could legitimize themselves and have the uh the gallo family they they ran their street they like you said a lot of guys under them so interesting now his parents umberto and mary gallo were from Italy, I believe. And his father was a Prohibition era bootlegger like many other immigrants.
[11:59] Here’s one story I heard about Joey Gallo, which has kind of resonated with me, those of us of a certain age. There’s a movie that came out in 1949 called The Kiss of Death. And I’ve seen these clips. Richard Widmark plays a gangster character that was the, he was the epitome of a gangster in the 50s. His name was Tommy Udo, U-D-O. And he had this accent, the way he would talk, and it said that Gallo liked to talk like this. He kind of mimicked that guy. So check this clip out of Tommy Udo talking. Double-crossing squealers, buddy. What’s the matter? I don’t know nothing. So the yellow squirt beat it, huh? Took apart it, huh? That rat. Where is Where’d he go? I’m asking you Where’s that squealing son of yours?
[13:03] You think a squealer can get away from me? You know what I do to squeeze? I let him have it in the belly. So that sounds like a real gangster, doesn’t it? That is what you think of. I remember that movie from years ago. And yeah, that’s what you think of when you think of gangster talk.
[13:28] So, oh, I see now. I look back at my notes. It was when Gallo had a charge pending around this time, 4950, He was diagnosed with mental illness in the Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn. They thought he had schizophrenia and claimed that the cops first started calling him Crazy Joy, which makes sense. A lot of cops would maybe have access to that report.
[13:54] This guy that wrote this book, Peter Diapolis, remember how he first met Crazy Joy? He grew up with them on the street, if I recall correctly. The Greek was one of the few non-Italians at Red Hook, if I’m remembering correctly. And he knew them from the time they were kids. A lot of people didn’t realize that he was, like you said, he was with Gallo when he was assassinated. But people didn’t realize that the Greek was with them going way on back when they went to the mattresses with the Persicos and everything. And he references that a lot in his book. But the Greek had been with them for years back when Larry Gallo, the oldest brother, was running the crew. He was loyal to Larry Gallo. And then when when Larry, Larry died of cancer while Joey was doing his his bit in prison, Joey comes out of prison and takes over the crew from the youngest brother, Albert Kidblast. And Joey runs the crew until he dies. But the Greek was a steady figure for years, grew up more or less with them.
[15:02] So pete degree talks about the murder of albert anastasia and kind of gives an insider view of that now there’s always you know there’s there’s a couple of different stories about who actually killed albert anastasia and if you don’t know that murder this is the murder albert anastasia had his own family he was called the the mad hatter uh or the what was the other nickname he had uh the executioner the executioner he he was one bad dude one crazy dude and uh he was uh he was really uh what i remember about the situation he was exerting his muscle trying to push around some of the other mobsters trying to move in on some lansky stuff down in cuba trying to expand his.
[15:51] Uh domain shall we say and uh joe Profaci didn’t like that and profaci was an old school mobster and he got together with vito Genovese is is the story and uh gambino was his under what, scalise was was uh Anastasia’s underboss he was murdered and then Carlo Gambino became anastasia’s uh second underboss so this is really the development of the Manhattan shall we say new york city mafia families in the 50s so uh Profaci had he had taken the gallo brothers and as a crew under his crime family he was immensely successful but he was also notoriously tight and he wouldn’t pay anybody anything and wouldn’t get and try to get everything for himself but gallo was trying to you know he was trying to rise in that world and uh beat the Greek claim that they took on the contract to kill Albert Anastasia, which was a pretty bold move on anybody’s part. He was a boss of one of the five families at the time, and they had Profaci and Genovese behind them. I don’t know if they knew exactly who all of the other bosses were behind them at the time.
[17:12] It’s always a dicey deal. You get caught, and then those bosses that had you do it will give you up. Right. We didn’t know anything about this. We’ve got to kill them.
[17:24] But Pete the Greek, he claimed that, you know, he laid it out pretty good. I don’t know. You remember how he laid it out, Cam? Uh, you, uh, go into it. It’s, uh, I got some notes here on that. It’s hard to remember some of this stuff off the top of your head, but so, uh.
[17:45] Larry Gallo, according to Pete degree conducted surveillance on admin Anastasia and found that he went to this barbershop with a pattern. You know, you never want to get a pattern when you’re in that life. But he went to this barbershop like every a certain day, every week. And I don’t remember the day, but it was a certain day every week. So after a while, they like, OK, we could get him in the barbershop because it seemed like he relaxed in the barbershop. Even his his bodyguard that was always be with him would drift off while he was in the barbers in the barbers chair. So they tooled up uh the the gallow brothers and and what pete the greek claims is a guy named joseph gianelli and carmine persico uh which will who will turn on the gallows in the end.
[18:32] And there was another guy all together and it was it was a classic mob hit and they had uh they came up with a car uh the wheel man waited at the curb with a getaway car another guy stood in the as a look out there on the street and another guy inside of the hotel lobby. And then finally two men and there’s another classic is they dress identically and just wear scarves around their mouths where he wouldn’t really look with sunglasses on. So people wouldn’t really, you know, I wouldn’t think too much about it. And it’s really hard when people, two guys or three guys dress identically in a deal like that, everything, all the details kind of blend in together. That’s a really smart. If you guys want to go out and do a hit or do some kind of a robbery, all of you dress identically because it makes it a lot harder for people to identify. And that’s what they did with Gotti. Yeah. Or those Russian hats. Right. That’s a good point. Barbara will relate that. They came in, just started shooting, just walked in while he’s in a chair, pushed the barber aside, just started shooting. Anastasia lunges out of the chair. They said towards his reflection in the mirror, probably the only thing he could see and and then collapses immediately. And he’ll die on the floor really before the emergency crew arrive.
[19:51] And if you they left his body there, because there’s a ton of photographs out there of him on the floor and people standing around. Back in those days, the police didn’t lock down the scene so much as they do today. A good photographer, especially one that was already in with the cops, would have bought them a lunch or a cup of coffee or slipped them a few bucks every time they hit a crime scene. That photographer could get in close and get the money shot, as we say. You know, the hit team, after they murdered him, they just walked out of the lounge, out of the lobby, out into the lobby, disappear.
[20:29] Disappear out in the street because they got a car already waiting and they don’t run. They don’t make any extra moves. And I could be willing to bet that they threw those guns away. They drove pretty close to the river, the East River or the Bay or whatever body of water was close and pitched those guns as soon as they got away. Uh now diopolis will claim that uh the gallo brothers were all made as a result of that i think persico may have already been a made guy at that time i’m not sure, but that’s that’s a story about who killed albert anastasia and that was really from a what we would almost call a primary source yeah that would have been in the 50s you know they closed the books and uh uh i want to say this is what after appleaken right right at the end of the fifties when the fbi caught on so that would have been in the uh in the fifties the books were pretty open it from from what we know so yeah the uh the gallows and persco would have been some of the last guys last guys made and uh so yeah that that does that does tie up now there is another story out there that a guy named joseph riccobono.
[21:37] And a couple other guys did this murder, but I don’t know.
[21:42] I couldn’t find that much about that. It’s certainly not somebody that was that close to them telling the story. What do you think about that other story? You know, the only other thing that I’ve heard that makes much sense is there’s a there’s a patriarcha guy who supposedly came up. I can’t remember his name offhand. He’s not Italian, who supposedly came up under patriarcha’s orders to assist with the murder. And then he drove back down there’s a uh vinnie theresa talks about this guy coming up and driving back now the reason that might make sense is because uh nikki bianco who was a a member of the patriarca family was originally tied in with the gallows and then when the gallows had their fallen out with uh profachi the patriarca family helped to mediate henry tamaleo the underboss patriarchs helped to mediate the dispute. So there were close ties between the patriarchs and the gallows and also between Genovese. So that’s the only thing that I’ve heard that makes sense as far as placing anybody else with the Anastasias. It was Kazarian or somebody who was at the scene was a patriarchal guy who came up to assist. But that’s the only one that really has any sort of ring of truth to it. But that’s, you know, as far as anything else I’ve heard, the gallows with Persico is really the only one that makes sense.
[23:09] And Pete the Greek’s account really is the one that makes sense.
[23:14] Really lays it out makes sense and and he was real close to these guys he didn’t go on it he wouldn’t go he wasn’t italian he right would not take him on that more than likely right i suppose he could but they had plenty of people like like you know the three brothers you know the brothers aren’t gonna rat each other out so that’s the safest way to do anything you got the right the blood blood uh connection you got the mob blood connection so i i don’t know i i’ll have to go with that you know it seemed like that meeting at the la stella restaurant that the cops stumbled into supposedly or kind of a setup deal santo traficante was up from florida at the time and he they said that he was staying in that hotel that sherdan hotel he checked out the next day and went back to florida so you know who knows john uh john nazarian was i just i just i just found him john john nazarian was a patriarchal guy that’s the only one and i i don’t know but that’s the only addition to that story whether he drove or was lookout that has made any sense uh the patriarchs might have might have played a role but uh i can’t say but you’re right uh that i was always pretty curious about uh about uh tampa being having breakfast with uh with Anastasia and then flying out that morning.
[24:39] So, uh, Diaopolis describes the Gallo crew as an outlaw crew, which makes sense. You know, you get those kinds of little things that really ring true, and that makes sense. And when you look at the makeup of it, uh, he had, uh, according to, uh, Diapolis, he had, they had a Greek, him, two Syrians, an Egyptian, a Puerto Rican, a Jew, an Irishman, about 14 or 15 Italians. Vic Amuso was in that crew, and Carmine Persico was in the Gallo crew when they were early.
[25:12] Uh, this Nick Bianco, uh, was there and then he ended up going to the patriarca family, as you mentioned, uh, Michael Rizzatello was part of that crew and he moved out to Los Angeles. So this was, this was kind of a training ground for a lot of bosses over the next few years.
[25:32] That’s a good way to put it. that’s an interesting way to put it now they had this meeting place on president street in the lower east side the uh east village mafia shall we say i just interviewed an author about their book about the east village mafia uh but uh you know they had to do this anastasia head they had to have they had to have the bosses behind them that was too big a deal because he was an old time old school ally of frank costello and and we know vito genovese and frank costello were were not exactly bosom buddies and it’s right and costello just been shot right so uh i don’t know man it’s uh you know sometimes you can’t explain things or you know it’s business as usual people wanted anastasia out of the way uh maybe uh profaci was easier to deal with now he didn’t live much longer after that uh can’t remember who took over his uh gambino and gambino that’s right carlo gambino took over the profetia family took over the uh the uh anastasia family or i mean anastasia family uh there’s many vowels gary too many vowels who took over from profetia he didn’t live that much joe maglioco okay all right so um.
[26:51] You know, and here’s a story that Pete the Greek told that I thought was, it was indicative of what I mentioned about Profaci. Profaci, in the late 50s, he was mad at a bookmaker and a loan shop. A guy named Frank Abbatemarco. And in reality, he probably just wanted to take the business away from the guy and get it for himself. but he was mad at him for whatever reason. He ordered a Gallo crew who worked underAbbatemarco to kill him. Profaci claimed the guy owed him $50,000 and was withholding it just to protest, you know, said, you know, I’m not giving in to you anymore. And somebody did shoot and kill Abbatemarco in a tavern over in Brooklyn. And most people believe that Gallo brothers did this. Other people, Joey Gallo would claim that he didn’t do it, but this event became the catalyst for the Gallo move against Joe Profaci, which started one of the early wars between the established crime families and the Gallo brothers. He didn’t pay them.
[28:05] He didn’t pay him hard on anything. He promised that he would do more for him, and then he didn’t do anything. Give him part of Abbatemarco’s policy rackets.
[28:18] So he was notoriously tight-fisted, and he pissed off the wrong people there. So shortly after that, they made a crazy play against Profaci, just to let you know a little bit about Crazy Joey Gallo, and his brothers true uh they this is just before profachi died they kidnapped his underboss who became the bosses as uh cam mentioned joseph magliocco and four capos profachi capos and one of them was joe colombo which will come back into the story later on won’t it uh they sent a message to profachi that they wanted this bigger piece of the action and they didn’t want to pay so much tribute so they they uh bargained back and forth uh gallows brought the clan plan to their crew who were all involved and and carmine persico was involved and with the crew and what they wanted to do and what one of the gallow brothers did was to just go ahead and give the uh profaci people back and then start negotiating. Uh, you know, it’s like a message. We’re sending a message. Now you better negotiate with us. You know what I mean? Larry, the oldest brother who was, who was running the gallo crew at the time. I think he, uh, right. He was into Joe and Joe, it’s the whole time is chomping at the bit. Let’s kill one of them. Yeah.
[29:47] I don’t, I don’t send a message. Won’t it?
[29:52] So Larry prevailed and they released the hostages and, uh, And when they released the hostages, Profaci just declared war. And they started, first they stuck a guy, they killed a guy named Joe Jelly, G-O-L-E. What a hell of a name that is. That was the Gallo brothers. And this was where the fish wrapped in the newspaper story came from. After they killed him and they dumped him in the ocean, they sent a fish wrapped in newspaper to Joe Jelly’s wife. Then Profaci tried to pull a little trick on him. He had Carmine Persico in his pocket by then, and Gallo still thought he was part of their crew. Profaci offered to meet with Larry Gallo or send his driver, John Ciamone, to meet with Larry and talk about some peace terms and maybe we can negotiate this out. Carmine Persico and another guy knew where this joint was and they got in there early and laid down in the booth. Then when Sciamoni and Gallo got there, he directed Gallo to the next booth over and as soon as they sat down, Persico jumped up over the top of the seat, put a piece of rope over Gallo’s head and started strangling him, grotting him, I think is the term. Yeah.
[31:17] And as he was dying, a bee cop, opens the door and steps in right out of the godfather you know right and uh steps in says what the fuck’s going on at that time persico and and scamoni they run out the door they have a little gun battle with the police officer and uh in in in the melee persico gets up and gets away and uh gallo of course lives well that’s where carmine persico got the nickname the snake is my understanding is that your understanding on that yeah that’s uh that was he was the snake he was the double cross he was yeah.
[31:57] Shifty guy that’s that’s two double crosses you figure he turned on profachi and then he turned on the uh the gallows really gallows hated him after that joey goes to joey goes to the penitentiary after that he’s uh he’s trying to extort some money on him from a guy named teddy moss who was wired up and uh profachi sends word out to moss that hey i’ll protect you if you’ll to go ahead and testify against Gallo and he did and he got I don’t know eight or nine years in the penitentiary 10 years that’s that’s dirty in that world I mean uh you know I I got in the mob world for a mob boss to offer to protect somebody to testify I mean you know Gary that’s that’s not something you hear about in the mob world I mean I’m I’m you know if somebody wants to protect themselves I’m I’m I’m fine I’m not saying people shouldn’t shouldn’t shouldn’t testify.
[32:50] But for a mob boss to set somebody else up to testify, that seems to break some of their rules, I would think. Yeah, well, but anyhow, Crazy Joy goes to the tenitentiary in this period of time, and that’s when he starts improving himself, as I talked about before, but he also makes some connections, and this is when he makes connections with black gangsters. There was a real well-known Harlem heroin dealer named Nicky Barnes who became famous as the, you know, almost like the guy before him was the godfather of Harlem, I believe. But Nicky Barnes was a really big-time heroin dealer in Harlem.
[33:30] If you’ve seen the movie American Gangster, about Frank Lucas, Cuba Gooding Jr. Plays Leroy Nicky Barnes. Okay. okay and so bumpy johnson ran uh harlem before the two right right that’s the that’s the godfather harlem series with forrest whitaker that was that he was the first one uh that kind of threw in with um you know what was the prostitute’s name there um queenie um queenie something but they they really ran all the rackets in harlem and dealt with the italians and then it was uh bumpy johnson I mean, then it was, um, uh, Frank Lucas and this Nicky Barnes. Yeah. But he connected with Nicky Barnes there, Barnes, there were people trying to, uh, to kill Gallo and beat him up. And, and once he connected with Nicky Barnes, well, the, the large black contingency of men in the penitentiary, Nicky Barnes controlled. And from then on the, uh, nobody went after Joey Gallo in the penitentiary, as long as he was close to Nicky Barnes. Yeah. It was, it was dangerous for him because the, the, uh, the Persicos could still get him in prison. So he was, he was in as much danger in as he was out.
[34:49] Now, Barnes would later say that he called him Crazy Joey, said Crazy Joey loved hijacking trucks. He wanted to do some business with me and my people to hijack trucks. He said Gallo mentored him in mafia business practices and how it needs to be more organized. Kind of like John Gotti did with the Aryan Brotherhood, it always appeared to me. And that one guard I knew that, that was in there that watched Gotti meet with Aryan Brotherhood people every day, always sat at the table with them. And he said, it seemed to me like to the guard that the Aryan Brotherhood calmed down, became more businesslike in their illegal activities. They were still doing all, you know, controlled all the dope in the penitentiaries and had a big operation outside the penitentiaries, you know, nationwide. And he just felt like that they listened to Gotti and modeled themselves along Gotti and Mafia, more businesslike lines.
[35:49] Nicky Barnes did create a commission himself and several other guys, five-man commission. Yeah, interesting. Well, during this time, actually, during this time, Diopolis did tell us one story about how he and Larry Gallo and Nicky Bianco tried to kill Carmine Persico. They said a remote control underneath the hood of his car, a bomb, sat back and watched. And they had noticed that every time he’d go get in his car, he’d raise the hood and check for bombs. So he figured that would be the time that they would throw the switch when he raised that hood. The guy that was supposed to throw the switch didn’t throw it when he raised the hood. And then Persico didn’t see the bomb, but he got inside the car and they set off the bomb then. But it wasn’t set in a place where it would kill anybody, kind of like Lefty Rosenthal out in Las Vegas. The bomb wasn’t in a good place and it wasn’t big enough. Yeah that’s the sparrows could help them with that putting 23 sticks under his.
[36:57] Really you’re holding kansas city don’t play with that yeah and that and and when that last sparrow got killed they put so much dynamite under that little uh used car office that he was in that it blew him and his wheelchair clear out through the roof and out into the parking lot that’s the If you’re going to kill somebody with a bomb, you’ve got to have enough to kill them. But in New York City, you’ve got people walking down the street, and you do not want any collateral. The mob does not like collateral damage. I’ll say that. And I think like that Sylvester Spiro deal here in Kansas City, they knew they were sitting and watching, and they knew he was in that building by himself, and they could see the whole lot, and you couldn’t see anybody else around. And so, you know, they had it underneath the office. So I would imagine if there’d been anybody came in with him, they just wouldn’t have hit the switch until some other time as wish they could catch him in there. Just wait till he got in there by himself. Hell, they might have tried two or three other times and catch him by himself because we have never had any collateral damage from bombings in Kansas City. And I don’t know about other cities. I can’t think of any. There may be maybe in Cleveland. I don’t know. they did a lot of bombing in Cleveland. What?
[38:19] I hadn’t heard of anything, but, uh, I, like you said, they’re pretty careful. I mean, bombs are usually either send a message or to, uh, you know, they are very careful with, with, with bombing. So let’s talk a little more about Diapolis. He talks about how Joe Colombo kind of like started moving up. He ends up being the boss of the old Procacci family and it becomes a Colombo family. Colombo knew that Carlo Gambino was, had, was ambitious, shall we say. He thought maybe Gambino wanted to be the Capo de Tutti de Capo and the boss of all bosses. And he kind of modeled himself after that. He exposed the plot to kill Gambino. And Gambino then made sure that Joe Colombo was the boss of the Proposi family as Maglioco went away. Yeah. Joe Bonanno and Joe Magliocco, the new boss of the Profachis, came up with a plan to kill Carlo Gambino, Tommy Lucchese, and Frank DeSimone in L.A. Bonanno wanted to take over Los Angeles.
[39:40] Gambino and Lucchese were considered the liberal members of the commission and so they wanted to take over the commission and there’s some people who say they were going to kill.
[39:51] Magadino up in Buffalo but they figured they could take control of the commission and Bonanno placed himself as Capo di Tutti Capi, and Colombo who had a long history of doing heavy work was supposed to be the guy who was in charge of it all. And instead he went to Gambino, like you said, cause he knew that Gambino was a, was a sharp guy who was, uh, a dangerous guy. And he told Gambino and Lucchese about the plan. And that was a good move on his part. Um, cause Gambino did rise and, and Colombo became the boss and, and, uh, Larry and Albert Gallo brokered a piece with Joe Colombo, uh, Here’s kind of an interesting little story that Pete the Greek tells is that the commission appointed this Nick Bianco, who had been a Gallo member of the crew, to represent the Gallo crew and to sit down with the Colombo family to try to get over this Colombo war. That they brought in Raymond Patriarca from New England to negotiate, and they agreed on peace. And what’s really interesting is then Nick Bianco ends up transferring up to New England under Patriarca and spent the rest of his mom career as a member of the Patriarca family. It’s kind of like if you watch somebody in another unit at work or another division or whatever, say, Hey, I like the way that guy works. It’s pretty good. Can I get him? Let’s see if I can get him to transfer to my unit or my division.
[41:19] Mom works the same way i guess right i first read that and i thought what the hell you know he ended up a pretty pretty high-ranking guy bianco i guess he he must not have been made in the profanches but yeah once he transferred to the patriarcha he got uh he made his way way on up yeah well um he may have been i’m trying to remember if he was boss in the 90s i think that when they had that huge bust of the uh patriarchal family bianca who bianca kept himself pretty low uh yeah he i think he became the boss in the in the 90s once they wiped everybody out i didn’t really remember that it’s like we were saying earlier it’s kind of hard to keep up on all the details and all the different families but back to joy gallo all this is going on while he’s in the penitentiary and he’s like, you know, he’s educating himself and he’s developing this persona. Reading a lot of existentialism, a lot of that Jean-Paul Sartre, a lot of Albert Camus and yeah, changing his way he looks at life and what means what and what’s important and what, what isn’t. And yeah, he, uh, I’ve read some of that myself and it’s like life, you know, to them in life is meaningless. So you just make whatever meaning you want out of it. Right. And so Gallo, you know, he if life’s meaningless, meaningless.
[42:45] Don’t try to take on somebody else’s meaning. Just, you know, make your own meaning out of life. Do what you want. And when he came out, he was like a different guy. I think it seemed that’s when he started obnoxious with celebrities and becoming this celebrity gangster. I wonder if he had, you know, and this is this is kind of an odd way, but he had just come out of a war. And a lot of that existentialism came out of of world war one and you wonder if somebody who had been day-to-day living with the idea that they might be dead at any minute and people shooting at them you know have some some little bit of ptsd and that sort of uh understanding that that all things are you know it you accept that that that that, Life and death is what it is. You know, that sort of shaded his view that living so close to death and as he did for so long in that war, you know, kind of a PTSD almost with with Gallo. Bless the penitentiary. That’s right. You’re living next to death every day. That’s right. Now, you can get comfortable. You can get protection from some people, but still, you’re vulnerable as hell in a penitentiary. Yeah, that’s a good point.
[43:56] It’s a tough world. That’s a good point. So Pete the Greek tells a few stories. Once he decides he’s out, his brother, who Larry, is dead of cancer. Joey’s now the boss. He’s the strongest personality of this crew. And the boss, he’s back out. Joe Colombo tries to meet with him and offer him some money as a peace gesture. Well, the story Pete the Greek tells, he only offered him a thousand bucks. I don’t know what the deal is with that, but, uh, uh, that could be like a, it could be like an insult and Gallo didn’t, wouldn’t even attend the meeting. And for immediately what he starts doing is planning on killing Joe Colombo, uh, cause he thought he ought to be the boss of the old profassi family. So Pete, the Greek started telling stories about some of the many plots to kill Joe Colombo before he actually gets killed, which is, you know, one of those stories to this day is argued about on, on who did that. And how that went down, which it is. It’s one of the strangest stories to me and mobbed them. Absolutely. It’s just like, what the hell? I mean, I remember at the time reading it in the newspapers, like what the hell? I kind of wonder if Frank Sheeran did it. Really? And then killed Jerome Johnson.
[45:19] Gave him up as a scapegoat, kind of like this, kind of like the JFK killing. Lee Harvey Oswald. You know they just they just shoved the black guy in there and reached around him and and shot and killed joe clumbo and then said hey look what this guy did let’s kill him and they did, so anyhow they uh they got a van this is pretty complicated that’s why one thing good thing about this book is he’s got all these great details yeah they cover the inside walls with mattresses and fiberglass to insulate any sound, And it’s like something the cops would do in a way if you want a van in close, really close to whoever you’re watching. If you’re down by the Ravenite Social Club, you want to sit right across the street or right next to it, why you might insulate to make sure there’s no sound comes out. Put a one-way glass in the back door and the side panels and a plywood partition between the driver and the rear compartment. I sat in all minivans that were tricked out like that. One thing ours had a periscope in it we could raise up, looked like a vent on the top, but it was a periscope that you could raise up. You could even attach a camera to it and shoot pictures through it.
[46:35] There’s not a lot of guys that can bring stories like that here. They also drilled some holes. This is reminiscent of the Washington, D.C. Beltway killers. Remember that father and son? That’s right. The father had the son drive and he had a big Chevy full-size car and he got in the trunk and drilled a hole in the trunk and then pull up to a gas station or wherever people were stopped and with their cars and standing around for a little bit and they’d shoot and kill people. So they drilled a couple of holes big enough, stick the rifle barrel out and got a scoped rifle. And, um, first thing, the worst one they tried, Clumbo, I guess had a funeral parlor. I didn’t really remember that, but it’s right out of your watch a movie. The seven ups. I think Roy Snyder was in it. Maybe it’s about this, like the intelligence unit watching mobsters. And so their, their surveillance, I think it’s early on in the movie. They started out there watching a funeral parlor and they’ve got a guy undercover inside with the funeral parlor. Now the story about this, the seven ups was a squad that, that only arrested people that they got convicted of felonies with seven years or more come stupid title, but it was a pretty good mob movie, actually a little known mob movie.
[47:51] So anyhow, they’re staked out this funeral parlor in this, uh, van. So I can watch some people come and go and, and some kids had gone in and came back down to walk right toward the van and then start checking the door handles, looking inside. And boy, that happens to you all the time. And you’re out there in a van, And kids would come along and just wonder if it’s open, see if there’s anything they get in there, steal and then go on. So but they figured they were burnt. So they gave up on that plan and moved to his house.
[48:24] And one night they thought they saw him leave. He started to leave. And then some other guys came out, jumped in a Lincoln and drove straight at the van, but then went right on by. They were jumpy as hell. They think it’s like typical cops. You always think you’re burnt. People always think they’re burnt immediately. And all you got to do is just be quiet and calm and don’t jump. Don’t do anything until it’s obvious, because if you’re burnt, they let you know you’re burnt. But there you guys were jumping and they thought they were burnt already. And then it looked like Columbo came out. Then a police car arrived and said Pete DeGreek, he noticed that the guy that they thought Columbo was really a lookalike and wasn’t really Columbo. And so they ended up giving up there. is too much effort thought they were burnt and uh it just became too hard to do that i kept thinking about the words reading this of of of cork savella talking about you’ve got a you’ve got to lay on a guy you’ve got to lay on him you’ve got to lay on him uh and it seems like a lot of the guys in the gallo crew uh with the exception of pete the greek just didn’t want to lay on him they just wanted to show up and and fire the gun and just take off and go get a drink they didn’t.
[49:38] They didn’t want to put in the work a lot of them as he said you got to go where they go that’s right you got to be a block away less than a block away you got to you got to sit on them you got to lay on them and i remember that term lay on i remember frank calabrese jr was first one i heard talking about that he said you know we we lay on a guy i never really heard that before but we lay on a guy he said sometimes you get like a refrigerator box well in a big city say you don’t you know like you can’t get a car on the street sometimes you can’t get in a good position maybe you can’t get an it’s best to get an apartment right across the street and look out the window but you could take a refrigerator box and set it out there a couple cut a couple of holes in it and and sit there for a long time before anybody’s going to mess with you uh so uh you know that’s a way to kill somebody like that it’s a tough way to do it because you got to have patience uh we had the same problem with other policemen you know and they they want to go out and drive by and if there’s nothing right there, they just drive on and go look somewhere else. They just want to keep moving. The guys that did better were the guys who just sat and watched and waited. And then you make those connections, see people show up and see what’s really going on. You can’t just do it just by driving by. Mm-hmm.
[50:52] So they continue on. And during this time, Joe Colombo, and I don’t really know, remember, a lot about this. There’s a lot of discussion about this Italian-American rights organization that Joe Colombo formed. I remember when The Godfather first came out, all the Italian people in Kansas City bought out the tickets. It wasn’t a mob-connected deal. It was, what’s the name of it? Columbus something because columbus park was the area where italians first moved into but they had an organization that bought out all the tickets refused to go so joe colombo had started this organization to support italian american civil rights league right and uh and you know one thing they were against was all this media attention on the mafia it was a it was a big damn scam but you notice in the godfather they never say cosa nostra and they never say the word mafia That was because Columbo said they couldn’t say it. He had the unions, he had the film unions, and he said they couldn’t say those two terms. They do say him in Godfather 2 because Columbo was dead, but they don’t say him in Part 1. Interesting. I hadn’t picked up on that.
[52:04] So he’s done this. I understand he was making money out of this thing. A lot of jealousy. A lot of money. Also, among other of my bosses, to see him do this for whatever reason. And he’s there’s they like have a demonstration at Columbus Circle of all places there. And I think it’s on the west side of Manhattan.
[52:25] I can’t remember how far up it is. Like, I don’t know, 60, 70 some street right off of if you go up Broadway, I believe, while you come to Columbus Circle right next to Central Park. So he’s got he’s had a big demonstration and getting a lot of press attention, a lot of press people there and news news photographers are there. And there’s a black dude there that got a camera and he pushes up close and, and he pulls a gun or he’s got a gun and he shoots and kills Joe Columbo. And then when a Columbo’s bodyguards shoots and kills him, guy’s name was Jerome Johnson. And they were never able to solve this murder. Uh, the official theory is he was a lone gunman. I don’t know. Uh, what, what do you think about that? You know uh i think that the the the easy answer is that that joe gallo made connections with uh with black guys and that and that he got this guy to to kill uh to kill uh colombo but after reading this book.
[53:29] This casts quite a bit of doubt on that. Do you remember what Pete the Greek claimed? Pete the Greek says he had a bunch of different theories, but he said they didn’t really have any connection to Jerome Johnson and that none of the guys that they knew had connection.
[53:45] He says that Abby Schatz about Marco’s son might have done it because he had a bunch of policy, and he might have done it because he was mad at the gallows for his father. He said that the the columbos uh themselves might have done it uh because they i don’t know he said that carlo gambino might have done it and used a black guy because he wanted to put uh he wanted to direct the suspicion at gallo but he had a bunch of different theories um all of them were designed to point the attention at the gallows what’s interesting about this though is even in 1976.
[54:26] Pete, the Greek is saying he, you know, it wasn’t us. And, and we knew that they were coming after us and that everybody thought it was us. He talks about, you know, Pete, the Greek, I guess he did not have another thing to keep in mind is he didn’t have immunity at the time this was written. So if he had planned a murder, you know, he talks about several times they were, they were going to, to commit murders, but i don’t remember any time where he talks about actually he talks about shooting people who shot at him yeah so i don’t know if he would be as free with information that he had shot go but he’s he’s pretty insistent that they did not kill colombo you know and it’s hard to say i found some other information indicated this jerome johnson had placed a bomb at the italian american civil rights league office a few months before yeah so you know i don’t know i mean he and he could be a lone gunman he could be just a guy that you know joe colombo was in the news all the time.
[55:26] You know people people get fixated on people like that i mean that happens and they they go out and try to kill them for whatever reason but it was in the middle of the mob war between the gallows and the columbos yeah and joey gallow did have pretty well-known connections in the black gangster community now but they didn’t really connect this drone johnson And particularly with one of the heroin gangs or something. So I don’t know. I guess Frank Sheeran must have done it. It’s the only thing I can say.
[55:59] It’s right. It’s interesting, though, when Diapoulas begins talking about it, because you really see how…
[56:07] How these street guys minds have to work i mean he starts weaving together this huge web of intrigue and he comes up with a bunch of different theories and you realize how these guys have to look at it from 17 different angles because if you don’t you’re dead if you don’t see 17 different possibilities and 17 different people to be you know to be suspicious of and x amount of people who are all trying to kill you one time that’s how you end up dead i mean that’s that’s you really don’t have too many friends because any any of them could kill you and it once that’s one of the things i really appreciate about this book is it just shows the the thought process of a street guy yeah it does that so now we’re we’re on up into the 1972 and the death of joy gallo uh everybody knows he’s died so there’s no big reveal here at the end of this but pete the greek was there that night which is uh there’s like a couple of different stories about that the one he told and there’s one that other people told uh under oath that uh cam found a uh new york times newspaper article that yeah he discusses that article in the book too pete the greek and and his girlfriend is gumari i guess and join his wife and joy sister and what i thought was interesting his 10 year old daughter was out with them they were out celebrating his birthday and they went to the coca cabana and we’re drinking champagne now i got to do a.
[57:37] Story on the coca cabana and the mob and music business and all that so that you can be a long one coming uh like that coca cabana copa cabana goes way back with the mob i think to costello and and uh.
[57:53] Back into the 30s 40s and 50s but anyhow on that particular night pete the greek said don rickles was a floor show it happened exactly like honestly this is the scene the scene in the irishman yeah comes from this book where he bumps where he bumps into buffalino and says what’s used to that bullshit league you know everything in that movie whoever wrote that scene had access to that book just just for for the audience so you know whoever’s that scene in the irishman comes directly word for word from the sixth family by by pete diapolis it it’s it’s interesting because in reading it i thought you know you can really see that whoever wrote that scene did have access to this book yeah and and did frank sharon read this book in order to put himself into the well what we know is based on based on reading the epilogue we know that charles brant read this book because he he.
[58:52] Comments on it two or three times so charles brant okay talks about he talks about this book so we we know that that he read it before he wrote i heard you paint houses yeah okay interesting but uh don rickles insults everybody pete the greek says and even some battalions as usual but he was always pretty careful with certain people even like looked up there there’s like an upper terrace where the gallo party was made some comments and joey stood up and acted like he was going to throw a champagne down rickles kind of did a little play like that.
[59:25] Another interesting little inside baseball if you will peter creek claims that.
[59:31] His 10 year old daughter gallo’s 10 year old daughter is smoking a cigarette she asked her dad for a light now i don’t know that’s like you wouldn’t make something like that up i know think of it i mean uh who knows i remember times have changed a bit i was 10 year old 10 years old there were some little some of the little tough guys that that did smoke cigarettes so yeah my father says he started picking up butts when he was eight yeah that’s what he said of course he’s no longer with us and that was more like because his cigarettes so probably the gallo daughter and still with us either that’d be interesting to find her in her side in this story but uh so yeah that’s and as cam said he uh meet the greek says you know russell buffalino’s there and uh joy gallum buffalino talk and and uh he knows joy knows that buffalino is supporting joe colombo and the uh colombo’s italian american civil rights group and and you know he makes some derogatory comment that night. Do you really believe in that bullshit league? Yeah.
[1:00:36] Pete creek says buffalino didn’t smile said he just looked away and didn’t smile at all they didn’t think it was funny and and it was so tense that another mobster at the table stood up and took joy by the arm and kind of that was frank that was frank oh was it a frank yeah and yeah and pete in diapolis book he said frank the the the goon who was with uh oh with uh yeah he said that that was those friends like oh come on joey we don’t you know let’s let’s just have a drink You know, you can’t talk to him. He’s a boss, you know. I think Pete said, oh, I see now in my notes. Pete said, so he’s a boss. I’m a boss, you know. And it was like, you know, he was like throwing up into his face. And he was already, you know, in this war with Columbo’s. And they already were plotting and plotting to kill him. This was the night, as we mentioned earlier, that Jerry Orbach was there. And he and Joey, according to Pete, invited Orbach and his wife to go out for food. But they declined.
[1:01:33] There weren’t, they didn’t know it wasn’t a real insider. It wasn’t Pete, the Greek that then had told them and then steered them to the Umberto’s clam house that night. For example, they had, nobody knew where they were going because what Pete, the Greek said, Joey wanted to eat Chinese and drove to Chinatown and the place they wanted to go place called Sue Lings was closed. And so then they’re just driving around and Chinatown just blends right into little Italy and the mulberry street. If you’ve ever been there, I didn’t really realize it until I went there once and realized they’re like cheek by jowl, as we say, like right next to each other. Yeah. They saw a big sign from Berto’s clam house. So they pulled over and, uh, uh, actually the brother to the guy that known as a guy named Matthew Ionello, Maddie, the horse, Maddie, the horse, who was big in, uh.
[1:02:25] The genovese guy and and ran a lot of the porn and and all the the rackets down around 42nd street he was a a pretty well-known mobster at the time another mob associate uh called joe pesh uh or no wait a minute yeah there was a guy called joe pesh but there was a guy named joseph luperrelli and he was he becomes important he claims that they hollered out to matty the horse and said, how’s the food? And he said, well, my brother owns a place. The food’s good. So they went into Humberto’s Clam House to celebrate much Joey Gallo’s 43rd birthday. Lupare would help write a book afterwards. And he also was testified to this. And Cam found the newspaper article about that testimony. Can you tell us about that, Cam, what he said went down that night? So what Luparelli said is that he was a hanger-on. He wanted to be a made guy and he had sort of done some work for for maddie the horse and he was trying to get tight with the columbos he sees joey gallo pull in and he uh he runs down the street to where he knows some of his uh colombo guys are uh uh kind of uh and a couple brothers and uh uh.
[1:03:42] They make a call to Joe Iacovelli, who’s the consigliere for the Colombos. He says, go ahead. He makes a phone call to the Genovese. He says, okay, go ahead and take him out.
[1:03:54] So they gather up a bunch of guns. These Sonny Pinto, it’s DiBiase, and a couple of brothers, and four or five of them run down there, and they see the Gallo brothers, and they shoot it up. They kill them, and they all run out. Pete the Greek fires after them. He unloads his pistol after them, hits the back of the car. Yeah, he got shot. He got shot in the rear end, and then I think he shot out the tire. Was it the tire that he hit? But he shot the car. They parked the car at one of the guy’s mother’s houses, and they were all hiding out. Lu Pirelli, DiBiase, Joe Pesce, these guys were all hiding out at a safe house. So Luparelli starts going stir crazy. He starts thinking that the Columbo’s are trying to poison it. So he’s going crazy. And this whole time, the police are listening in on a wiretap. Now, did I’m trying to remember, did Luparelli gave up the apartment? And so the police start listening in on a wiretap. So they’re listening to every call, every call that goes in.
[1:05:12] Luparelli is working with the police. And at the same time, he’s worried that these guys are poisoning him. So every call that goes in and out of this apartment for the next couple of weeks about this murder and about killing Joe Gallo and the Columbo’s plans and how they’re going to get these guys safe and how they’re going to get them out of New York. The cops record. So there’s no… There’s no question that, you know, the cops have recordings of these guys on record talking about, we just shot Joe Gallo, and here’s what we’re going to do to get out of the city. And then Lou Pirelli goes into protective custody, and he testifies.
[1:05:53] He gives up a lot of Colombo information. They’ve got these recordings. I don’t know that anybody went down because i think that uh yeah i think that people disappeared and they didn’t they didn’t have enough uh evidence because i think they were it might have been illegal wiretap i can’t remember it probably was at that point in time i think they were just i think that yes 70 yeah i think they were just trying to get the information but uh luparelli gave up a bunch of information this is back when when they would get guys just to get the information on the mob, especially in the 70s, and they didn’t get any of the guys, so officially nobody was charged, but they did record all the information, listened in on it while these guys described all the details of the murder. Those details were then given to the New York Times, who wrote an article about it. When that article came out, Pete the Greek was still in the hospital. I mean, this article came out within a couple weeks of Gallo’s murder. Pete the greek was still recuperating he was being pete the greek was charged he got a handgun charge yeah he’s a felon i think that’s right and then they had him with a handgun so yeah he read that article and he started putting things together in his mind and running through and he had a pretty good idea who it who was responsible but that article finally said itified everything so he named um.
[1:07:16] What was that guy’s name? DiBlasi. DiBlasi. Yeah. DiBlasi, Sonny Pinto, and Lu Pirelli, and Joe Pett. That’s another thing about this book is how everybody knows everybody, how small the criminal world is. Everybody knows Greek, and everybody knows this one and that one. And he recognized all the guys right off, even if he’s a guy that he only knew just a little bit. But it’s incredible how he recognized all these guys just by sight. And I guess that’s, you have to, uh, in that, in the life, but, uh, he didn’t testify against any, nobody does. And that’s why there was no charges brought against anybody except, except, uh, Pete to Greek because they had him with a gun. You know, they didn’t need another mobster to testify about that. They had the cops and, and other square Johns that were sitting in the, uh, tavern. Plus they probably could uh forensically uh tie that gun to uh to diapolis so he ends up doing some time he’s the only one that did any time out of it was yeah that’s right uh yeah the guy who got shot up and shot back was the guy who carmine di biasi sonny pinto the guy who he says and who the article says and who the uh who the cops recorded saying shot up the place uh did no time He was eventually murdered.
[1:08:40] I forget what the details were of that, but Carmine DiBiase, Sonny Pinto, he owned a social club. He was killed for something. I can’t remember the details. Oh yeah. I didn’t, I didn’t look at, but yeah, he was, he was murdered. Um.
[1:08:54] But yeah he was he was the primary shooter carmine sonny.
[1:08:58] Pinto uh dibiase and uh oddly enough nobody on those recordings mentions frank sheeran and uh and gallo’s widow said that there were multiple men all of us were short and appeared to be italian right right she did not mention any six foot two Irishman right now the war kind of like continues on but uh you know uh it eventually blows up uh Albert is a kid is he kid kid blast kid blast gallo he’s he strikes back he sends a gunman and he imports from out of town supposedly from Las Vegas to a restaurant where he thought some uh some of these colombo men were eating they were at they were at the bar that jose neapolitan noodle oh yeah joseph yacobelli and alley boy persico and genaro langella were he thought they were responsible they were all you know in and around this thing they may not have been exact shooters but uh yacobelli certainly was a guy that sent him over there as well was yeah was my understanding from that other uh what was that guy’s name all of a sudden i lost his name again but the one that gave the testimony about uh luparelli luparelli what he’s he named jacobelli is a guy that kind of orchestrated everything that night yeah so anyhow um they uh uh.
[1:10:26] He sent this guy over there, and the Yacobili party was sitting at the bar. You know, somebody told him about it there at the bar. He sends his gunman in, and they get seated. The hostess comes by and says, your table’s ready. And four Jewish kosher meat salesmen sat at the bar, and their wives went off to the bathroom, as often will happen. This killer enters, and he starts shooting at the four men seated at the bar, killed Stu and wounded the other two, but they’re the wrong guys. The story is that the Greeks said there was a big uproar, and he claims that the mayor at the time, John Lindsay, sent a Jewish rabbi over to the President Street Social Club of the Gallows and talked to Larry Gallo and said, you know.
[1:11:17] We’ve got to stop this stuff and, you know, trying to mediate things, and the authorities never identified the gunman and no informant ever came forward and then jacovelli left new york and persico became the new boss of the colombo family so yeah that was a that was a big you know when you read about mob blunders the neapolitan noodle is always really it’s always one of the first comes up that was uh that was a big damn deal talk about the gang that couldn’t shoot straight i mean they killing those killing those uh those kosher meat salesmen because the uh the guys they were actually trying to shoot had been seated in the restaurant was uh yeah and not good and another then the story that came out of that eventually was the commission steps in and says okay this is done you guys are done unless you’re gonna you’re gonna incur everybody else’s wrath this is done persico allows albert gallo and his crew which got left uh to be part of the genovese family and and he’s in uh i know yeah under vincent and and so his he ends his days as kind of a respected captain of a crew back in his old neighborhood of red book red hook as uh uh of course i could tell he was still alive at age 90 in 2019 so i’m not yeah albert gallo i want to say he just died i think he just died okay.
[1:12:42] So the last of the gallo crew so it’s uh i tell you what this is a heck of a book by pete de creep diapolis yeah if you can if you can find it it really goes through it shows their rackets and how they they rip off regular people and how they think and how they act and how they work uh it really the sixth family along with my life from the mafia by uh benny theresa i mean they really show those rackets and how they you know kind of odious these guys are with just going after normal people, But Pete DeGreet, he did a little bit of time, not a lot, came back out, and he was just done. I think he was somehow, he and Joey Gallo had a connection. You know what I mean? Now, you just have a connection with somebody. I think they had some kind of a connection. And he did not have that same connection with Albert. And Albert was the only one left that had a crew. And he just, what he still writes in his book is he just laid back. He kind of hung around the edges. He went to Greece for a while, I believe, and slowly but surely just extracted himself out of that lifestyle.
[1:13:51] He collected some money from some old kind of interesting. He said he collected some money from another mob guy who had collected. They had settled a strike for a small manufacturer. You know, when you call the mob in to settle your strikes, you know what that means. Then you pay them money to settle your strike. Like peaceful negotiations, right?
[1:14:15] So as far as I could tell, Pete, the Greek, theapolis was never involved in any criminal behavior again. I’m not even sure if he came back from Greece. I think he did, but I’m not sure. What’s funny is he was really riding Joe throughout this, this book. They Joe Gallo talks about writing his book and Joey Gallo wants to write, write Joey Gallo’s book and how careful he’s going to have to be. And then Joey Gallo is dead for a couple of years and Pete, the Greek is all you can’t write a book. You can’t write a book. You can’t write a book. And soon as Gallo is dead, the first thing Pete, the Greek does is write a book.
[1:14:54] Well, that in this ends, the story of crazy Joey Gallo. It was kind of a folk hero. Bob Dylan wrote a song about him titled Joey. He kind of cultivated that image As I said of this Gangster folk hero The bandit that everybody wants to see Get away Associated with the art scene in New York Which had never been done before Phew, Dylan said, I got a quote from his, I never really considered him a gangster. I always considered him some sort of a hero, an underdog fighting against the elements. And he was, he was, and you know, we always like an underdog and he was like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, but he had this little crew was pretty good sized crew, but he always fought against the bosses. Yep. Always fought against the bosses, no matter what, he just would not give up that fight against the bosses.
[1:15:46] He just had that tenacity. And, and I do, I do kind of liken him to the, to the Sparrows, you know, just that, that, that’s sort of not going down whether it, and there’s no, I don’t think there was any way. I mean, Joey had the street smarts, but I don’t think he was going to be able to run his own family or anything. I, but you know, he’s, he wasn’t going to go down, you know, those brothers, those Gallo brothers weren’t going to go down. No, they didn’t. Well, I got the last one, the last one did. Yeah. He didn’t go down. He, he, he didn’t win either. He, uh, he was willing to, uh, finally willing to compromise and, and, uh, got all five families after you really. Yeah, really. Joey would never compromise. There was no compromise at Joey Gallo. So, uh, but he is one of the most famous colorful figures of the mafia in the 1950s, I would say. And next to the murder of Albert Anastasia, this is the other most famous murder mob murder ever.
[1:16:47] Was a night in umberto’s clam house i even remember this before i got two inch i was working the organized crime unit so i’d read some of the books but but somehow that whole uh murder in umberto’s clam house the way that whole thing went down who joey gallo was that always resonated with me and it always it i always remember that absolutely all right kim i think we’ve done joey gallo i appreciate you helping me with this and