Joseph (Joe Jinx) Livoti – Frick and Frack

Joe Livoti was considered Profaci capo Johnny Bath Beach Oddo’s closest friend and daily companion, he was thought to be in charge of nearly all of Oddo’s gambling and shylocking interests within Brooklyn . Over the years, the two men were like “Frick and Frack" and viewed as inextricably tied to one another’s underworld racket interests.

Joseph (Joe Jinx) Livoti - aka “Jinksie,” “Minxie” “The Minx,” “Jinx,” and “Giuseppe Livoti” (TN) - was born in 1910.

Livoti was a devout Brooklyn hood through and through, who grew up and operated almost exclusively within the borough of Kings County his entire life. He resided for years with his wife and kids at 1375 Shore Parkway. By the early 1960s, he was listing his home address as 145 Chester Avenue, also in Brooklyn.

Joe Livoti

Related by marriage to one of New York City’s most notorious gangsters, Joe Livoti served for many years as the driver-bodyguard of iconic Profaci capo John (Johnny Bath Beach) Oddo.

Considered Oddo’s closest friend and daily companion, he was thought to be in charge of nearly all of Oddo’s gambling and shylocking interests within Brooklyn. Over the years the two men were like “Frick and Frack,” and viewed as inextricably tied to one another’s underworld racket interests.

New York authorities listed a major horse and sports bookmaking operation, continuing high-stakes floating dice games, policy numbers, and a lively loan-shark “book” as the primary rackets operated by Oddo and Livoti. The NYCPD listed a “yellow jacket” for Livoti that was a mile long.

He had been arrested well over 22 times on charges ranging from alcohol tax conspiracy (bootlegging), vagrancy, consorting with known criminals, and criminal contempt of court, to numerous gambling-related arrests for bookmaking and operating crap games.

Joe Jinx generally operated around the Bath Beach, Coney Island, Sheepshead Bay, Bay Ridge, and Bensonhurst sections of the borough. He was tasked with overseeing a large-scale floating crap game Oddo controlled. He ran it all. From consistently securing new locations to rent by which to keep the game “floating,” to hiring the actual game’s workers who served as dealers, stickmen, doormen, “luggers” who transported dice players to the secret locations of the game, lookouts who protected the game, and anyone else needed for those games.

Through the years New York’s Vice Squad detectives picked him up numerous times after police raiders busted up dice game locations. He and Oddo often partnered in such games with key members of other crime families in order to bolster the game's volume and popularity, and subsequently its profitability.

Aside from Oddo, he numbered among his closer associates over the years noted mob luminaries such as Profaci capos Cassandro (Tony the Chief) Bonasera and Nicholas (Jiggs) Forlano to Gambino members Carmine (The Doctor) Lombardozzi, Arthur (Artie Todd) Tortorello, and Philip Arcuri.

All through the 1950s, and 1960s era, Livoti was subpoenaed to appear numerous times before various local grand juries and U.S. Senate Hearings probing Brooklyn’s underworld. He would typically cite his constitutional right to keep silent under his Fifth Amendment privilege.

One particular probe focused on his involvement with Gambino soldier Artie Tortorello who had “recommended” a potential borrower to Livoti. The businessman, Irving (Bob) Ross, needed to quickly borrow $10,000 cash for his fledgling U.S. Transistor Corp., of Syosset, L.I.

He was given the shylock loan and instructed to cough up $500 weekly. It was the equivalent of 260% annual interest rate. Ross was also required to pledge up 40,000 shares of his company’s stock to Tortorello and Livoti as security for the loan, which they later manipulated in a fraud scheme.

Joseph (Joe Jinx) Livoti – Frick and Frack

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Joseph (Joe Jinx) Livoti – Frick and Frack

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You May Also Enjoy

Nicholas (Jiggs) Forlano – Colombo Family Capo

Louis Arcuri – “A Born Trickster”

Giovanni (Johnny Bath Beach) Oddo – “Mob Bathing Beauty”

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