Joe Gallo
April 6, 1929, to April 7, 1972.
"Crazy Joe"
Early in his career, Gallo served as an enforcer for the Brooklyn-based Joe Profaci crime family. Gallo is believed by some to have been part of the team that assassinated Albert Anastasia in 1957. Gallo and his brothers, Albert and Larry, were called to testify before the McClellan Committee in 1958 and answered all questions by citing the Fifth Amendment.
Profaci's Family and that of Joe Bonanno, linked by marriage, comprised a strong conservative wing of the Mafia's ruling Commission. The Gallo brothers began having problems with Profaci around 1960 and took their complaints to Carlo Gambino, boss of another family and leader of the Commission's liberal wing. The complaints were likely related to the membership dues Profaci charged the men in his crime family. Gambino took the complaints to a meeting of the Commission in 1962 and called on "Old Man" Profaci to retire.
When Profaci and Bonanno objected, the Commission - faced with the prospect of a civil war throughout the mob - gave Profaci a vote of confidence. The Gallos fell in line momentarily.
When Profaci died of cancer later in 1962, his crime family split apart, probably due to meddling by Gambino and allies. (The Bonanno family would also later splinter as a result of Commission politics.) Joe Magliocco, Profaci's underboss, attempted to control the family, but he was ill-suited to the job. The Gallos grew in strength and openly broke with Magliocco.
Magliocco died of a heart attack in 1963 and was succeeded by Gambino ally Joe Colombo. Colombo, helped by Joe Gallo's imprisonment for attempting to extort money from a Manhattan cafe owner, was able to get the Family in order.
Joe Gallo was released from prison in 1971 and was the prime suspect when Colombo was assassinated in that year. (But, apparently, Gambino had grown disgusted with Colombo's publicity-seeking behavior and decided to eliminate him.)
Gallo declared that he was going straight and announced he was beginning work on his memoirs. That was apparently a book the underworld did not want written. Early in the morning of April 7, 1972, continuing his birthday celebration begun on the evening of April 6, Gallo and some companions settled in for a meal at Umberto's Clam House in Manhattan's Little Italy. A gunman stepped into the building and shot Joe Gallo to death.
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