The Gallo-Colombo War of 1971-1973

The second round of this bloody internal conflict would take place soon after Joe the Blond Gallo was paroled from jail. He was now even more frustrated by his lack of position - both in “financial status” and “underworld status” within the borgata.

And all those years in “stir” only added to his frustration and resolve to get what he felt was due him and his. When released from his extortion sentence, Joey was flat broke and his crew wasn’t faring any better.

He wanted desperately to be a boss. In fact, he wanted to be THE boss..... and in witnessing his contemporary and former adversary Joey Colombo rise to the position of “Representante” of the entire Family was more than Gallo could take. He immediately sent out feelers about the way things stood. Joe Colombo beat him to the punch though.

Joe Colombo in Columbus Circle in NYC

Upon hearing that Joe Gallo had hit the streets, Colombo sent several emissaries with $1,000 cash in an envelope along with best wishes for Gallo now that he was home.

Although $1,000 was probably valued at fifteen times what it is in today’s economy (perhaps $15,000), Gallo considered it a slap in the face and immediately demanded to be elevated to a “captain” status and given a solid slice of all Colombo Family racket operations.....

Crazy Joe Gallo Goes Crazy

“Joey the Blond” or no Joey the Blond...or maybe a better handle would have been the “Crazy Joe” Gallo moniker he’d earned years before. You DO NOT demand or talk to a Family Boss in that manner if you wanna stay upright and among the living and breathing!

Luckily, Joe Colombo half ignored and dismissed Gallo as being the same old Joey he’d known from years before. Colombo had tried to placate Gallo but now chose to just put him on the back burner, but keeping a watchful eye out for him nonetheless.

Before long, Gallo started his bullshit again. Shaking guys down who were “on record” with other wiseguys “pushing in” on various businesses and rackets that he had no business putting his nose into. And just generally making a nuisance of himself with his gang.

By this time Colombo's multimillion dollar Italian-American Anti-Defamation League was in full swing. It had grown to epic proportions within the short time it had been in existence.

Gallo ordered his minions to threaten, intimidate and encourage various neighborhood shop keepers throughout the city to take down the league’s promotion placards, window stickers and not contribute money donations to the league. To pay Gallo their “tribute” instead.

This would be one of the key catalysts to seed disharmony within the ranks. And, of course, after Joe Colombo’s attempted assassination at Columbus Circle that fateful June afternoon in 1971, which would leave Joe a virtual vegetable for the rest of his life, the gloves finally came off.

From that moment forward, there would be a type of guerilla mob warfare the likes of which had not been scene in years. Bodies would be strewn on the streets for several years to come.

It culminated with the infamous 1972 gangland-style killing of Crazy Joe Gallo at Umberto’s Clam House in the wee hours of the morning when Gallo, his brand new wife and her teenage daughter from a previous marriage, along with Gallo’s bodyguard that evening, “Pete the Greek” Diapoulos and his girlfriend, after a night of partying at the famed Copacabana Club in midtown Manhattan decided on a late night meal.

Into the Lion's Den

Driving right into the “Lion’s Den” in typical Joey Gallo bravado fashion, they chose to eat down off Mulberry Street in Little Italy.

Arguably the single most dangerous place in the city for Gallo to show his face. Every single block was chock full of mob social clubs, mafiosi hanging out on every corner, and ground zero for New York’s Five Families.

He was a marked man. And he knew it. He should have known better!

Word soon spread of his arrival to the neighborhood. A Colombo associate immediately ran to a Colombo social club on Mulberry Street reporting the news. A frantic call was made to Joseph (Joe Yak) Yacovelli, at that time the acting consigliere for that crew. Yak gave the ok, green lighting what would happen next.

Carmine (Sonny Pinto) DiBiase, Philip (Fat Foongy) Gambino and two brothers known as Cisco and Benny - the LoCiceros of Brooklyn, immediately grabbed several handguns and automobiles...a “work” car and “crash” car, and off they went!

Within minutes, the two wheelmen pulled to the curb, and while waiting with their motors running, the two torpedo’s Sonny Pinto and Foongy came in pistols ablazing. It was over within a minute...... tables turned over, food, glass and plates strewn across the floor, blood all over the place, thick gun smoke and the smell of gun powder permeating the air, women screaming...and Joey staggering out through the clam house doors, full of holes, stumbling into Mulberry Street where he collapsed at the curb.

Philip (Fat Foongy) Gambino

The gunmen had escaped within seconds. No witnesses! Nobody in that neighborhood had seen a thing.... through over 100 years of history in Little Italy, there never had been any witnesses! The neighborhood was famous (or infamous) for being D&D (deaf and dumb) when it came to taking care of its own. Omertà at its finest.

Even the legitimate people who lived in the neighborhood would never speak to cops or reporters about guys from there. After all, they might have been gangsters, but they were our gangsters...Fathers, uncles, brothers, cousins, and close friends. The area always policed itself..... always!

Side Note: Over the next five years or so, there would be at least a dozen additional gangland shootings and murders of Colombo or Gallo hoods. At least some of which were direct fallout from the war. A few other killings seem to have been a “jockeying” for positions of power within the unsettled borgata, and others were of suspected police informants.

Victims of War

The following listed killings were considered direct fallout of the war. A “house cleaning” of Gallo dissidents so to speak;

1972

Four innocent Jewish businessmen eating in a midtown restaurant were shot and killed in a horrible case of mistaken identify. A Gallo gunman mistook them for Allie Boy Persico and associates. Also that year, Gennaro (Fat Jerry) Ciprio was shot dead while leaving his Italian delicatessen in Brooklyn, and within a year, Louie (The Syrian) Hubela would also be at shot and wounded.

1974

Gennaro (Jerry) Basciano and Sammy Zahralbam were both shot and wounded but survived. In other incidents, Joey Gallo’s nephew Stevie Cirillo was shot dead in a gambling den, and Gallo stalwart Frank (Punchy) Illiano was shot and wounded in another incident.

Gennaro (Jerry) Basciano

1976

They finally caught up to Gallo soldier John (Mooney) Cutrone. He was shot to death on a Brooklyn street one afternoon.

Many of the additional killings committed over the years I’ve listed below had their genesis in the various power plays, lingering jealousies, house “cleaning”, and other private matters that played out before the borgata finally stabilized. These included:

1969

Top soldiers, torpedo’s and partners Salvatore (Sally D) D’Ambrosio and Ferdinand (Freddy Red) DeLucia disappear off the face of the earth forever. It was said Joe Colombo feared their ambitions and designs on the Family, ordering their executions just to be safe in order to prevent another civil war.

Salvatore D'Ambrosio

January 10, 1974

Powerful and feared capo Dominick (Mimi) Scialo disappears. Police find his decomposed body and that of a second hoodlum ten months later under floorboards, encased in concrete at a mob social club on President Street in Brooklyn. Both had been shot in the head. One of the reasons for his murder is the fear he would try and seize the Family.

June 22, 1974

Within weeks of Scialo’s death several of his loyal minions are slaughtered after they make it known they want to avenge Mimi’s killing. Soldier Gaetano (Tommy) Barbusca and associate John Coiro were accosted and shotgunned to death as they sat in a car parked at the curb in the Bensonhurst section.

May 10, 1977

Underboss Anthony (Abby Shots) Abbatemarco and his allies Salvatore (Sally Boy) Albanese and Joseph (Joe Yak) Yacovelli make a power play for the top seats against the Persico regime. Albanese disappeared forever after attending a supposed peace powwow. Abbatemarco and Yacovelli went into hiding and are shelved forever.

1983

The Regina brothers - Anthony (Fat Tony) Regina and Vincent (Chico) Regina are found shot to death in a burning car on West 15th Street in the Coney Island section. Recently paroled after having served a life sentence for murder from the old Gallo-Profaci War, Fat Tony demanded his reward for being a loyal soldier and “stand up” guy, keeping his mouth shut all those years in prison...and this was his reward!

Even More Deaths

• Richard (Diddy) Lo Cicero • Salvatore (Sammy) Curatola • Dominick Famulari • Dominick (Big Dom) DeAngelis • Richard Grossman • Emanuele (Nello) Cammarata • John (Johnny Tarzan) Lusterino • Anthony (Tony Long) Ricciardo • Salvatore Badalamente * • Calogero (The Sidge) LoCicero • Edward (The Killer) Fanelli • Thomas Mattio -shot/crippled • Joseph Cannizzaro • Arthur (The Animal) Intrator • John (Johnny Irish) Matera • Carmelo Mutola • Charles (Ruby) Stein • Joseph Peraino Sr. -shot/crippled • Joseph Peraino Jr. • Louis Peraino • Angelo (Jilly) Greca • Thomas (Shorty) Spero • Dominick (Donny) Somma • Caesar Vitale • Ralph (Whitey) Tropiano • Lawrence (Champagne) Carrozza • Anthony (Tony the Gawk) Augello * • Joseph (Joe Brewster) DeDomenico • Robert DiLeonardo • Vito Guzzo Sr. • Salvatore Scarpa • Michael (Midge) Belvedere

*connotes suicide

New Beginnings...Maybe

By the late-1980s, the Colombo Family had reconstituted itself very well. The mid-1970s throughout the entire decade of the 1980s had been heady times for all Cosa Nostra. The five borgatas had all stabilized but certainly the Colombo mob had solidified and expanded itself tremendously.

To the point that although its official hierarchy, the boss, underboss, and consigliere had fallen with the 1985 Commission case as had the other four crews, business carried on as usual through a stable “acting” hierarchy drawn from the ranks of its most capable “capo di decina” and soldiers.

All was good. Members and associates alike were earning well. Lucrative rackets were being developed and expanded daily. And with few exceptions, there had been relative peace and harmony within. Like I said, all was good!.....

Acting boss Victor (Little Vic) Orena, Sr., tapped by Persico himself to lead, seemed to be well-liked by the troops. His second, underboss Benedetto (Benny) Aloi and consigliere Jimmy Angellino, rounded out an “Acting” administration second to none.

Victor (Little Vic) Orena, Sr

But as will happen when you’re dealing with mountainous piles of cold cash, handled by greedy and dangerous men, the seeds of disharmony and Machiavellian machinations are never far behind.

Part three of the Profaci-Colombo saga will be written about in a future post of mine. But suffice it to say, that the third Colombo War would have its genesis in the basic greed inherent in most human beings. Men who should have known better had they bothered to stop and study their borgatas previous mob history.

Certainly, Aloi had been groomed by his father Buster and knew their history. As had Orena, a distant Persico cousin, who had come up under the old timers as well.

There is an ancient phrase. A proverb if you will, that states “those who choose to ignore history are doomed to repeat it!” ......no truer words have ever been spoken, especially when it comes to the underworld.

Until next time..... The Other Guy!

The Gallo-Colombo War of 1971-1973

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The Gallo-Colombo War of 1971-1973

Unlock This Door to the Underworld

Take the Journey!

You May Also Enjoy

Racketeer Snapshot: Connecticut’s Frank (The Cigar) Piccolo

The Anthony Strollo Regime of NY/NJ

The Day Charlie (the Bug) Workman Saved a Horse

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