Racketeer Snapshot: Bonanno Family Associate Camillo (Carl) Sardegna

Camillo (Carl) Sardegna was an associate of the Bonanno Family active in bookmaking and was loyal to boss Joe Bonanno during the tumultuous Bonanno War years of the late 1960s. *Newly Revised*

Camillo (Carl) Sardegna Sr. was born in 1925 in New York City.

Although not much was ever learned about Sardegna’s early background and criminal history, we do know that Camillo came from a large family of eight children. He had seven siblings: four sisters named Josephine, Connie, Anna, and Lillian, and three brothers, Joseph, Salvatore, and Henry.

As a young man, he married a girl named Corrine Berk, and during their years together, they had two sons whom they named Carl Jr., after his father, and Jeffrey.

Authorities later reported that Sardegna was the owner and operator of a trucking company that did business on the New York City docks. His company held contracts to haul and warehouse various types of merchandise to and from the waterfront piers in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Local law enforcement authorities say he was also a known associate of the Joseph Bonanno Family and a convicted gambler who operated as a horse and sports bookmaker.

One thing’s for sure, whatever activities Carl was involved in — legal or otherwise — must have been profitable for him, because by 1965, he was doing well enough, and felt financially secure enough, that he and his wife decided to leave New York City and move to a beautiful home in the suburbs.

Carl and Corrine chose a new development then being built in Dix Hills, an upscale community located in Suffolk County, Long Island.

They purchased a brand new ranch-style home at 10 White Birch Drive. Set on a spacious one-acre property, they selected a 10-room ranch-style design that boasted four bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a formal living room and dining room among the home’s many other amenities.

10 White Birch Drive, Dix Hills

Located in Huntington Township, Dix Hills was long-considered to be one of the most expensive and sought-after communities Long Island had to offer, a prestigious and wealthy community filled with doctors and lawyers and top business executives…and, obviously, a few mafiosi quietly sprinkled into the mix as well.

Throughout the years, several other Bonanno Family mobsters also chose the community of Dix Hills for their family home, including future capodecina Philip (Philly Lucky) Giaccone and future underboss/acting boss Salvatore (Good-Looking Sal) Vitale.

The "Banana War"

By the early 1960s, a deadly turmoil would start to brew within the ranks of several New York Cosa Nostra families — especially within Brooklyn’s Joseph Profaci and Joseph Bonanno Families.

Before long, both borgatas would be engulfed in vicious shooting wars.

Turmoil within Joe Profaci’s crew was the first to go to war and by 1962, Profaci and his loyalists were locked in a deadly “fight to the finish” with an insurgent faction led by the wayward Gallo Brothers , who were attempting to wrest control of the Family away from Profaci and his allies. Over the course of several years, dozens of men were either killed or wounded during the struggle.

Trouble within the Bonanno Family would start to develop a few years later. But by 1966 — less than a year after Carl and Corrine moved to Long Island — the trouble started in earnest.

This is when the first salvo in what was to become a veritable “shooting gallery” on the streets of New York City started between boss Joe Bonanno and several dissident factions of his family who rebelled and wanted Bonanno deposed from his throne as leader.

Giuseppe Bonanno

The so-called “Bonanno War” became another tense gangland struggle for power that littered the city’s landscape with blood and bodies.

All the wild mayhem and carnage quickly captured the attention of the authorities and news media, and quickly led to a crackdown of the local underworld by New York’s law enforcement community. Subsequently, several grand juries were empaneled in Brooklyn and on Long Island to investigate.

Scores of Bonanno Family members and associates were called in to testify about whatever knowledge they had regarding the Bonanno War.

Carl Sardegna was one of those who was subpoenaed and ordered to testify. We do not have specific details about what prosecutors may have asked him, but we do know that he appeared before both a Suffolk grand jury and a Brooklyn grand jury on numerous occasions.

These incidents and the public exposure he received from it was the most police pressure and media coverage Sardegna had ever faced in his life, up to that point in time.

This unwanted exposure finally culminated in 1969 when he was publicly named in several newspapers as a Mafia associate and in a series of articles published about underworld figures living and operating in New York City and on the Island.

Police sources identified Carl as a mob “associate” whose loyalties lay within Family boss Joe Bonanno’s camp, as opposed to the rebel factions headed by capos Gaspare DiGregorio and Paul Sicacca, who were fighting Bonanno for control of the Family.

The authorities stated that Sardegna was active in bookmaking. They also listed his criminal record with the New York Police Department, which consisted of four arrests on charges of bookmaking, forgery, bigamy, and violations of NYS wage laws.

They said that he had been convicted on three occasions, for bigamy, wage-law violations, and bookmaking. They also stated he had never been jailed.

A Quiet End

Despite the negative publicity and exposure, it doesn’t appear that Carl was ever arrested or indicted in connection with the gangland war or his grand jury appearances. To our knowledge, he was never again charged in any other criminal cases.

He seems to have faded back into the woodwork to avoid further exposure and arrest. And either through guile or fear — or a bit of both — after 1970, up until his death, Carl appears to have just disappeared into thin air. He was never publicly heard from again. Not a single peep.

Camillo (Carl) Sardegna died suddenly on October 7, 1972. He was waked at the Frederick Funeral Home, 2075 New York Avenue, Huntington, L.I., and then interred at a local cemetery.

His obituary states that "Carl left behind his devoted wife Corrine, two sons, Carl and Jeffrey, and three precious grandchildren". It added that he was "survived by siblings Josephine, Connie, Anna, Lillian, Joseph, Salvatore, and Henry."

The young up-and-coming mafioso was only 46 years old.

Until next time…”The Other Guy”

Racketeer Snapshot: Bonanno Family Associate Camillo (Carl) Sardegna

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Racketeer Snapshot: Bonanno Family Associate Camillo (Carl) Sardegna

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