The Garofalo Brothers: Rats of a Feather Flock Together

Vincent and Angelo Garofalo were brothers affiliated with the Colombo Family who both had a few skeletons in their closet.

Angelo (Fat Angelo) Garofalo was born in 1921 in Brooklyn. By the early 1950s, he and his brother had moved out to Suffolk County on Long Island. He resided for many years at 337 Harned Road in Commack.

His brother Vincent Garofalo was born in 1925 and was also a mob associate and garbage racketeer who lived at 3653 Sarah Drive in Wantagh, Long Island.

Angelo Garofalo

Vincent had a police record for possessing a gun, attempted grand larceny, vagrancy, burglary, and possession of hijacked property. He had never been previously jailed.

Angelo was a slovenly mess of a hoodlum who at 450-pounds and never clean-shaven, with unkept hair and dress was extremely hard on the blinkers often looking like the garbage he carted. His brother Vinny was not much better.

Angelo had also received a bad conduct discharge from the U.S. Army which only added to his charm.

Their activities included garbage racketeering, hijacking, strong-arm terror tactics, theft and fencing stolen goods, shylocking, and arson.

Vincent Garofalo

The Garofalo brothers (Angelo and Vincent) have long been considered hoodlums who concentrated their efforts on the Long Island carting industry. They operated a variety of rubbish removal companies over the years in both Nassau and Suffolk Counties, but Suffolk is where they were most prominent.

They operated Royal Sanitation & Rubbish Removal Corp., A & D Sanitation Co., ABC Sanitation Corp., V. Garofalo Inc., Garofalo Carting Corp., and V & D Carting Corp., all based in either Wantagh, Holbrook, or Commack, and were among their more noteworthy garbage firms.

Law enforcement listed both brothers as associates of the Colombo Family of LCN and specifically tied to the regime of Capo and future Family boss Carmine (Junior) Persico, who at that time resided in Hempstead in Nassau.

Their additional criminal associates over the years included:

Anthony (Tony Fats) Regina - A Profaci gunsel who was convicted of murder in 1963 during the Gallo-Profaci War. He served a life sentence.

Andrew (Mush) Russo - A cousin to Carmine Persico, Family “sleeper,” and active garbage company owner who would, in later years, gain public prominence.

Leonard (Lenny the Jew) Sudler - a Suffolk County-based thief and conman. He was a hanger-on of several Colombo-affiliated mob associates. In later years, Sudler would be exposed as a longtime undercover informant and rat for both local and federal authorities dating to the mid-1960s.

Frank Carione and Anthony Carione - The brothers were active in the carting industry and mob associates. Frank was the one-time president of the Suffolk Cartmen’s Assn.

Anthony (Tony the Gawk) Augello - A veteran Colombo soldier. Garofalo would testify against Augello in open court helping to get him convicted for hijacking.

Frank (Frankie the Bug) Sciortino - Another veteran Long Island mob figure. He, too, would be convicted of hijacking on the testimony of Garofalo.

Salvatore Spatarella - A Colombo associate and former garbage association president.

Joseph (Joe Mooney) Petrizzo - A carting industry racketeer. He was an associate of both the Colombo and Gambino Families and was later convicted of loansharking.

Gennaro (Jerry) Mancuso and Aniello (Wahoo) Mancuso - Brothers and both members of the Gambino Family and one-time powers in the Long Island garbage industry. They were nephews of murdered Bronx racketeer Vincent Squillante.

Many of the above were active Long Island garbage racketeers.

Note: Leonard Sudler, a known hoodlum from the Copiague area, had been an undercover informant for years. Lenny Sudler worked with both the Suffolk D.A.’s rackets squad and the FBI giving up information on friends and foes alike, while committing numerous crimes for decades on Long Island, pretending to be a fellow street guy.

Angelo had a criminal arrest record for carnal abuse of an 8-year-old girl (what a degenerate this bum was,) possession of goods stolen in interstate commerce, hijacking, criminally receiving stolen property from a burglary, and possession of guns.

He had convictions for all counts and arrests and would eventually be imprisoned on the stolen goods charges, and, additionally, for five years on the weapons conviction.

But at first glance, these varied cases didn’t reveal what the true circumstances would come to be. More on that later.

In 1960, Vinny Garofalo was arrested in connection with a Brooklyn-based burglary and hijack gang. He was accused of stealing $13,000 in fur coats from a Brooklyn furrier.

In 1965, the Suffolk County police intelligence unit found him to be the organizer and treasurer of the South Shore Social Club which had been formed with the help of mob elements. He was also being investigated for arson (where his wife’s hairdresser shop was burned down) and loanshark activity in Suffolk.

Also in 1965, Vincent was one of several hoods arrested by the FBI for their involvement in operating a mob-linked truck hijacking ring. He was one of two nabbed in a truck with $26,000 worth of clothing stolen by three armed gunmen a month earlier in two separate heists.

Agents also raided their Commack truck depot where they uncovered additional stolen shipments including a load of children’s clothing taken from a Saint James garment factory that had been emptied by loansharks linked to Persico. His brother Angelo and nephew Ralph were also among the arrested.

They were all charged with possessing property stolen from interstate shipments from Hong Kong and Japan, and goods from a local burglary.

Back in 1964, Angelo Garofalo had been listed as an “organizer” and on the grievance committee of the Suffolk County Cartmen’s Assn., a mob-dominated association of independent carters for that Long Island county. He was the last person who should have been on any grievance committee.

Angelo (Fat Angelo) Garofalo

The Garofalo brothers were repeatedly accused of terror tactics over the years that included threats, the burning of competitors' garbage trucks, sugared gas tanks, and beatings of garbage carting firm owners who bucked the association. They did their very best to coerce and scare other firms to relinquish valuable commercial garbage collection “stops” or customers to the brothers.

They also hauled garbage for Smithtown and Huntington townships under annual contracts awarded to the low bidder which was most oftentimes rigged.

The president of the Suffolk Cartmen’s Assn. was Colombo mob associate Frank Carione, who was a close associate of the Persico brothers, and their cousin Andrew (Andy Mush) Russo, who was also an active carting company owner. Carione was one of three brothers, the others being Anthony and Joseph, who were also mobbed-up in the Long Island garbage rackets.

By 1967, the district attorneys in both Nassau and Suffolk started an extensive probe of the garbage carting industry. A grand jury was empaneled and numerous subpoenas went out to various carting firm owners and mob figures to testify about industry corruption and a so-called “garbage war” among companies.

Soon, this investigation started to produce results in the form of various indictments for related crimes.

Vincent Garofalo

Side Note: But read further into the story.... Both he and his brother became well-known rats to get out from under the truck hijack case. First, they gave confidential information to authorities providing the names of their mob accomplices, namely notorious Family soldier Anthony (Tony the Gawk) Augello and associate Frank (Frankie the Bug) Sciortino as the men who brought the stolen tractor-trailer to Suffolk for unloading and stashing at his company warehouse. Down the road prosecutors would expect more from the stool pigeon brothers.

In 1972, while serving a five-year prison term up in Sing Sing, 51-year-old, wheelchair-ridden Angelo Garofalo collapsed and died.

His family and lawyers threatened to sue the state of New York and the judicial system for having imprisoned him despite repeated requests by his attorney to give him a probationary sentence stating that any jail term would be fatal to his client.

Nothing came of their allegations and threats. All in all, with all things considered, I’m not shedding any tears for Garofalo.

Although I never like to see anybody sent to the can, this guy was a convicted and admitted pedophile, stool pigeon rat, and all-around prolific degenerate.

I consider it no loss to the planet earth.... Fuck em!

Until next time..."The Other Guy"

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