One of the most notorious racketeers and mafiosi to ever operate in Brooklyn was Carlo Gambino Family member Carmine Lombardozzi. Better known to the underworld as “Carmine the Doctor,” during his career Lombardozzi would become one of the biggest money-makers the American Mafia ever produced. He had a gaggle of five brothers, sons, and nephews who would all be drawn into “The Life” of New York’s underworld. Collectively, the Lombardozzi clan was known as a formidable bunch of hoodlums.
Born, bred, and raised in the Sheepshead Bay and Mill Basin sections of Kings County, Carmine and his brothers operated from these insular Brooklyn neighborhoods where they felt protected, and where the Mafia was an everyday way of life.
Within a few years of getting his “button” Lombardozzi was elevated to a “capo di decina” status within the hierarchy of what was then known as the Vincent Mangano Family, and later the Albert Anastasia Family. In 1957, Carlo Gambino came into power and from that point forward Carmine Lombardozzi could seemingly do no wrong.