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Albert Gallo | |
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| Born | June 6, 1930 |
| Occupation | Mobster |
| Relatives | Joe Gallo (brother) |
Albert "Kid Blast" Gallo, Jr. (born June 6, 1930) is an American mobster of the Genovese crime family.
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Albert Gallo | |
|---|---|
| Born | June 6, 1930 |
| Occupation | Mobster |
| Relatives | Joe Gallo (brother) |
Albert "Kid Blast" Gallo, Jr. (born June 6, 1930) is an American mobster of the Genovese crime family.
Albert Gallo was born on June 6, 1930, in Red Hook, Brooklyn. His parents were Albert (Umberto) and Mary Gallo (née Nunziata). His two older brothers were Lawrence "Larry" Gallo and Joe "Crazy Joey" Gallo.
A bootlegger during Prohibition, Albert Sr. did not discourage his three sons from becoming criminals. Albert Gallo joined his brothers Larry and Joey in a gang that controlled President Street in South Brooklyn.
At one point, Albert Gallo lived in the Greenwood section of Brooklyn. In the late 1970s, Gallo told the media that he owned a furniture company. [1] It is unknown if Gallo is married or has a family.
The three Gallo brothers became affiliated with capo Harry Fontana's crew in the Profaci crime family, then headed by boss Joseph Profaci.
In 1957, Profaci allegedly asked Joe Gallo and his crew to murder Albert Anastasia, the boss of the Gambino crime family. On October 25, 1957, Anastasia was murdered by two disguised men in the barber shop of a Manhattan hotel. [2] It is unknown if Albert Gallo participated in the Anastasia killing. Some say it was Colombo mobster Carmine Persico, who participated in the shooting of Anastasia.
Eventually, Larry and Joey both became inducted members of the Profaci family. However, Albert never achieved this status in the family. [3] Although Joey was the most explosive and strong-willed of the brothers, Larry was the organized thoughtful one who actually ran the crew. Younger brother Albert tended to stay in the background.
By the end of the 1950s, the Gallo brothers had become very dissatisfied with Profaci's leadership. Profaci was maintaining a lavish lifestyle by severely taxing everyone else in his crime family. In 1959, Profaci ordered the Gallos to murder fellow crew member Frank Abbatemarco, who ran lucrative bookmaking and loan sharking operations. Abbatemarco owed Profaci $50,000 in unpaid tribute and refused to pay it out of protest. On November 4, 1959, Abbatemarco was shot inside a tavern in the Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn. Some accounts state that Albert, his brothers and Joseph "Joe Jelly" Gioelli killed Abbatemarco. Other reports say that Joey Gallo refused the assignment on behalf of the crew. After Abbatemarco's murder, Profaci took his rackets, leaving nothing for the Gallo crew.
Albert and the Gallo crew now turned against Profaci. In February 1961, the Gallos kidnapped underboss Joseph Magliocco and capos Frank Profaci, John Scimone and Joseph Colombo. Profaci was a target also, but he managed to escape capture. [4] To obtain their release, Profaci negotiated an agreement with the Gallos. However, after the hostage were released, Profaci reneged on the agreement and went after the Gallo crew. On August 20, 1961, Scimone, now a Profaci loyalist, lured Larry Gallo into meeting him at a lounge, where several men, including Persico, tried to kill him. This was the start of the First Colombo War.
On December 21, 1961, Joey Gallo was sentenced seven to fourteen years in prison, but the conflict continued. [5] In June 1962, Profaci died of cancer and the family leadership passed to Magliocco. [6]
On January 29, 1962, Albert Gallo and six other crew members rescued six small children from an apartment filled with smoke by a mattress fire. None of the children or mobsters were injured. [7]
In 1963, with the conviction of two more Gallo crew members, both sides accepted a peace agreement brokered by Patriarca crime family boss Raymond L.S. Patriarca. The first war was over, with the Profaci crime family becoming the Colombo crime family.
On January 8, 1965, Albert and Larry Gallo, along with 13 other crew members, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and were sentenced to six months in prison. [8]
In 1966, New York City's Youth Board requested that Albert Gallo and his brothers help them lower racial tensions between white and African-American youths in the East New York and Flatbush sections of Brooklyn. At one meeting with white youths, Albert Gallo sent a teenager sprawling for using a racial epithet. Brooklyn District Attorney Aaron Koota protested the use of the Gallo brothers, but New York Mayor John V. Lindsay defended the Youth Board's actions. [9]
On October 24, 1967, Albert Gallo was indicted on charges related to a ticket cashing racket at Roosevelt Raceway in Westbury, New York. [10]
On May 16, 1968, Larry Gallo died of cancer. [11] Joe Gallo took control of the Gallo crew from prison.
In 1971, Joe Gallo was released from prison. Later that year, boss Joseph Colombo was shot and paralyzed. Former Gallo crew member Carmine Persico now took control of the family through a series of front bosses. Convinced that the Gallos had tried to kill Colombo, the Colombo leadership went after Joey Gallo.
On April 7, 1972, gunmen murdered Joey Gallo in Umberto's Clam House in Manhattan's Little Italy, starting the Second Colombo War. [12] John "Mooney" Cutrone, a made man and close confidant of both Larry and Joey, was seen as Joey's logical successor. However, to maintain harmony in the crew, Cutrone supported Albert for capo. The untested and less experienced Albert now became boss of the Gallo crew. [1]
In August 1972, Albert Gallo learned that several members of the Colombo leadership, including Alphonse Persico (Carmine Persico's brother) and Gennaro Langella would be meeting at the Neapolitan Noodle restaurant on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The Gallo crew hired a hitman from Las Vegas to ambush and murder the Colombo leaders. However, at the restaurant, the confused hitman shot four innocent meat wholesalers instead of the mobsters. Two of his victims died. [3] [13] In the following months, an uneasy truce prevailed between the Colombos and the Gallos.
In 1974, the truce was shattered when Cutrone and his followers defected back to the Colombo family. Cutrone, Gerry Basciano, Sammy Zahralbam, and other Gallo members had become dissatisfied with their lack of income under Albert's leadership.
Almost immediately, violence broke out between the Gallo and Cutrone factions. Gallo loyalist James Geritano wiretapped Basciano's phone, allowing them to plan an ambush. On July 1, 1974, Basciano and Zahralbam were shot and wounded on a Brooklyn sidewalk, but escaped serious injury. [14] In August 1974, the Cutrone faction shot and killed Gallo loyalist Stevie Cirillo while he was playing craps at a charity benefit in a Brooklyn synagogue. [15] On September 11, 1974, a sniper shot and seriously wounded Gallo loyalist Frank "Punchy" Illiano, Albert's lieutenant, near the Gallo headquarters on President street. [16]
In the autumn of 1974, the Mafia Commission intervened in the Gallo/Cutrone conflict. The family bosses believed that the violence was interfering with business and bringing public attention to their activities. The Commission negotiated an agreement under which Albert and his followers would join the crew of Vincent Gigante, then a powerful capo in the Genovese Family. [17] Cutrone and his rebels would remain with the Colombo Family. Losing members, running out of money and virtually besieged in their President Street headquarters, the Gallo crew had no other choice. [18] The Second Colombo War was over.
In February 1976, the peace agreement was violated when a sniper fired two gunshots into the Gallo headquarters, slightly wounding crew member Steven Boriello. Now part of Genovese family, Albert immediately filed a formal protest to the Colombo leadership. The Colombo bosses responded by summoning Cutrone and Basciano to a "sitdown" to explain their actions. Neither man attended the meeting; they also ignored attempts by the Colombo leadership. [19]
At this point, the mob families lost patience with Cutrone and Basciano. On June 16, 1976, a gunman shot and killed Basciano while he was eating at a luncheonette. [19] Cutrone went into hiding, but the Colombos convinced him that Basciano's death ended the problem. On October 5, 1976, a gunman shot and killed Cutrone while he was eating breakfast at a diner. [19] [20] Revealingly, the Colombo family did not show any signs of displeasure at the killing of Cutrone, a made man.
With all threats now extinguished, Gallo peacefully rose through the ranks of the Genovese family, most likely being officially inducted into the New York Mafia in 1976, when the books were open once again after roughly 20 years.
Gallo is still listed as an acting captain. He is, however, retired, remaining a highly respected elder statesman.
Carlo Gambino was a Sicilian crime boss who was the leader and namesake of the Gambino crime family of New York City. Following the Apalachin Meeting in 1957, and the imprisonment of Vito Genovese in 1959, Gambino took over the Commission of the American Mafia and played a powerful role in organized crime until his death from a heart attack in 1976. During a criminal career that spanned over fifty years, Gambino served only twenty-two months in prison for a tax evasion charge in 1937.
The Gambino crime family is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia. The group, which went through five bosses between 1910 and 1957, is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963, when the structure of organized crime first gained public attention. The group's operations extend from New York and the eastern seaboard to California. Its illicit activities include labor and construction racketeering, gambling, loansharking, extortion, money laundering, prostitution, fraud, hijacking, and fencing.
Joseph Gallo, also known as "Crazy Joe", was an Italian-American mobster and Caporegime of the Colombo crime family of New York City, New York.
Joseph Anthony Colombo Sr. was the boss of the Colombo crime family, one of the Five Families of the American Mafia in New York City.
Giuseppe "Joe" Profaci was an Italian-American Cosa Nostra boss who was the founder of what became the Colombo crime family of New York City. Established in 1928, this was the last of the Five Families to be organized. He was the family's boss for over three decades.
Carmine John Persico Jr., also known as "Junior", "The Snake" and "Immortal", was an American mobster and the longtime boss of the Colombo crime family in New York City from 1973 until his death in 2019. He had been serving 32 years in federal prison from 1987 until his death on March 7, 2019.
The Five Families refer to five Italian American Mafia crime families that operate in New York City. In 1931, the five families were organized by Salvatore Maranzano following his victory in the Castellammarese War.
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Joseph Magliocco, also known as "Joe Malayak" and "Joe Evil Eye", was a Sicilian-born New York mobster and the boss of the Profaci crime family from 1962 to 1963. In 1963, Magliocco participated in an audacious attempt with Joseph Bonnano to kill other family bosses and take over the Mafia Commission. The attempt failed, and, while his life was spared, he was forced into retirement. Soon after, he died of a heart attack on December 28, 1963.
Vittorio "Little Vic" Amuso is an American mobster and the boss of the Lucchese crime family. He was described as "The Deadly Don" by Assistant United States Attorney Charles Rose. Amuso's reign is considered one of the bloodiest periods in American Mafia history during the late 1980s and early 1990s, alongside his former underboss and close protégé Anthony Casso, who turned informer against him in 1994. Since the death of Colombo crime family boss Carmine Persico in March 2019, Amuso is currently the longest-serving crime family boss of the Five Families and American Mafia, dating back to 1987. Amuso has been serving a life sentence since 1992 and is currently located at the Federal Correctional Complex, Butner, in North Carolina, on murder and racketeering charges.
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VincenzoAloi is an American mobster involved in stock fraud who briefly served as the acting boss of the Colombo crime family. Vincenzo was also a figure in the Third Colombo War alongside his brother Benny.
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Umberto "Albert" Anastasia was an Italian-American mobster, hitman and crime boss. One of the founders of the modern American Mafia, and a co-founder and later boss of the Murder, Inc. organization, he eventually rose to the position of boss in what became the modern Gambino crime family. He also controlled New York City's waterfront for most of his criminal career, mainly through the dockworker unions. Anastasia was murdered on October 25, 1957, on the orders of Vito Genovese and Carlo Gambino; Gambino subsequently became boss of the family.
Francesco "Frankie Shots" Abbatemarco was a New York captain in the Profaci-Colombo crime family, his murder is known for starting the first Colombo mafia war which was on and off for 12 years.
Lawrence "Larry" Gallo was born circa 1927. He became a member of the Profaci Family of La Cosa Nostra. His younger brothers Joey and Albert would follow him into organized crime. Larry was the leader of the Gallo Crew from President Street, Brooklyn. Hostilities broke out between the Gallo Crew and the rest of the Profaci Family. These hostilities became known as the Gallo-Profaci War. In an effort to peacefully resolve the war, a sit-down was scheduled at the Sahara Lounge in Flatbush, Brooklyn on August 20, 1961. Larry's trusted friend and bodyguard Joe "Jelly" Gioielli was not at this important meeting. An attempt was made on Larry's life at the meeting, but a police officer walked in. The assassins fled, shooting Officer Melvin Blei in the face. Both Officer Blei and Larry survived. In accord with mob tradition, Larry would not name the attempted assassins. Elements of Larry's life were depicted in The Godfather films. The attempted strangulation of the fictional Frank Pentangeli resembles the attempt on Larry's life. The "sleep with the fishes" scene also parallels Larry's real life only the victim was his friend Joe "Jelly" Gioielli instead of the fictional Luca Brasi. Jelly boarded a boat in Sheepshead Bay and was never seen again. Larry and the Gallo Crew had a good side. They rescued a mom and five children from a burning tenement, and in 1966 they helped the City Youth Board by intervening with Italian youth gangs. Larry struggled with cancer for many years. Ultimately, Larry lost his battle with cancer. He passed away at Nassau Hospital on May 17, 1968.
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