Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Previously on American Godfathers:

The Five Families...

SELWYN RAAB: In the 1930s, Lucky Luciano,

he made the Five Families

the rulers of the entire American Mafia.

NARRATOR: Luciano established a code,

a set of rules for the families to live by.

SAMI JARROUSH: Omertà becomes the most pivotal rule.

Never rat out your friends,

never rat out your family,

and you should be okay.

But if you talk outside of that code of silence,

you never know what might happen to you.

[gunshots ringing]

NARRATOR: When they followed these rules, they won.

But in the 1950s, a new generation

began to challenge the old guard...

TOM FOLSOM: Joey Gallo's one of these

larger-than-life gangsters,

but he also has these ideas

about the future of organized crime

that are really going against the grain.

NARRATOR: ...and their way of life started to fray.

ED O'DONNELL: Valachi is gonna commit

the greatest sin of a mobster,

which is to break the code of omertà.

First of all, I want revenge.

CLAIRE WHITE: After Valachi does it,

the floodgates are open for federal law enforcement

to take advantage of people

who are willing to break the code of omertà.

- MAN: What'd you get out of it? - VALACHI: Nothing but misery.

As you all understand, once you're in, you're in.

You can't get out.

NARRATOR: Joseph Valachi's decision to testify

marked a time of change for the Five Families.

A change in the way they were chased by investigators,

a change in the way they were viewed by outsiders,

and a change in the way they operated.

Changes that would test them like never before.

TOM: In some ways I would say

that's the beginning of the end of--

of the Five Families.

♪

I-- I'm not sure how to introduce my next guest.

He's a businessman who leads a most colorful, uh, life.

His name has been in the papers a great deal lately,

and I, uh, just met him backstage,

but I'm anxious to meet him further.

Will you welcome, please, Mr. Joseph Colombo, Sr.

[audience applauding]

NARRATOR: In the spring of 1971,

Joseph Colombo was the reputed boss

of one of New York's Five Mafia Families.

A title other men had held before,

yet, on this night,

Colombo decided to go somewhere,

do something no boss had done before,

he was a guest on a late-night talk show.

I was wondering how you answer the people

who constantly imply

that you're associated with organized crime?

I would say it's distressing to all people,

and I would also say that

to associate anybody

with organized crime

and just label 'em or stigmatize them

or guilt by association or guilt by innuendo

is very unfair to anyone.

NARRATOR: A Mafia boss on a late-night show.

Clearly the Five Families were in a new era.

But it was no accident.

This was all a part of Joe Colombo's plan.

A plan that started years earlier.

♪

JOHN F. KENNEDY: A great change is at hand.

This is one country, and we owe ourselves

a better country than that.

ED: The 1960s is a tumultuous decade,

to say the very least.

There are all kinds of social movements taking place,

principally the civil rights movement,

where African Americans are demanding equality

and full inclusion in American society.

[women cheering]

You have women, feminists, organizing for equality.

You also have the Vietnam War that's happening at this time.

PROTESTORS: Peace! Now!

Peace! Now!

[crowd chanting, shouting]

SAMI: All of these things

lead to a lot of Americans during this era

no longer trusting the government.

NARRATOR: At the same time, the Five Families,

the core of the American Mafia,

was in the midst of its own period of change.

By 1963,

four of the five original bosses were dead,

and for the first time,

one of New York's Five Families would be led

by an American-born Mafioso,

Joseph Colombo.

MICHAEL FRANZESE: In the early sixties,

there was a deal where Joe Colombo,

he was on a hit squad to go after Carlo Gambino.

And rather than carry that out,

he went and let Carlo know what was happening.

And as a result of that,

Joe Colombo was given the privilege of becoming boss.

That's how he got it.

Everybody thinks that we changed the names.

It's the FBI that changes the names.

We-- we didn't call ourselves anything.

They changed it from Profaci to Colombo.

NARRATOR: Joseph Colombo,

born and raised in South Brooklyn.

Here, the Mafia wasn't just part of life.

It was life.

Colombo's father, Anthony,

was a made man in the Profaci family.

When Joe was 14,

Anthony was found murdered in a car

less than two miles from their home.

By the time Joe was 40, he was a made man,

a rising star in the Profaci family.

He was feared,

having killed at least a dozen men for the family.

In 1961, when the Gallo Brothers

kidnapped a handful of Profaci's men,

Joe Colombo was on their list.

Trusted or feared, Colombo was the future.

His close relationship to leaders on the Commission

like Carlo Gambino made him destined for the big time.

CHRIS COLOMBO: My father looked to Carlo like a father.

Carlo Gambino was the most soft-spoken,

gentleman, kind old man you ever met in your life.

He had a European sense of chivalry.

He was very unpretentious.

They were men of few words.

You knew their ethics. You knew their morals.

You knew their sense of what was right and what was wrong.

NARRATOR: Carlo Gambino was an old-school don,

a valuable mentor,

and a vital ally for Joe Colombo.

But unlike his mentor and the dons before him,

Joe Colombo wasn't born in Sicily.

He was born in America.

And what's more American

than putting a new twist on an old tradition?

Joe Colombo had a new idea

of what it meant to be a mob boss in New York City.

♪

My name is Joe Colombo.

I should be treated the same as anybody else.

Joe Colombo is just a much more sensible gangster.

He's got a funeral parlor. He's got a car dealership.

If someone wants to talk business

and the cops show up, he's just saying,

"I'm just showing the guy a car."

He's very business-oriented.

Joe Colombo was totally innovative

about how he wanted to operate.

He didn't escape from the media.

He welcomed the media.

Mr. Colombo, people have described you

as a man of wealth and power and everything.

Why not-- Will you tell us what you do

and how you have earned your living?

I work very hard, and I work many a job.

Legitimately, hard, diligently.

TOM: Joe Colombo wants to take the Profaci family,

now the Colombo family, to the modern age.

No more of these sort of Sicilian ideas.

We're gonna run strictly on business.

Whatever I earn, I live to what I earn.

INTERVIEWER: You file an income tax return just as I do.

Every year. Never missed.

CLAIRE: The reality is is that Joe Colombo

is still running these extortion rackets,

his family is still involved

in all of these traditional racketeering operations

that the family has always participated in.

JIM NELSON: A lot of loan sharking,

gambling, union activity.

He strangely enough had his own

gambling operation that he ran,

which was very rare for the top guy.

Usually their underlings are doing all that,

but he actually ran it.

He was feared because of his past history

of being a hitman, a murder-for-hire guy.

He was very confident, as most hitmen are.

Always well-dressed, boastful.

And they have to make bosses for wherever they need scapegoats.

I happen to be one of the scapegoats.

NARRATOR: As Colombo rose in stature

in the criminal underworld,

investigators began to take note.

Since Valachi's bombshell testimony back in 1963,

law enforcement agencies were scrambling

to put organized criminals behind bars.

And who would be better to nail

than the first American don, Joe Colombo?

CLAIRE: By the 1960s,

the average American finally knows

that the Mafia is real,

there are organized crime groups

of all ethnic groups across the United States,

and that they really are affecting

at least some aspects of American society.

MAN: Are you a member of any such organization?

Yes, I am.

CLAIRE: All of the federal focus

on the Italian-American Mafia specifically

does sort of give law enforcement this carte blanche

to focus on Italian-American men.

And even though there's mobsters of all ilks,

there is this hyper-focus

on the Italian-American Mafia.

The Justice Department began to send strike forces

into various cities to attack organized crime.

Many Italian-Americans began to protest

that Italian-Americans were being singled out,

and that they were being harassed,

that even their families had not escaped

the prying of the FBI.

In the 1960s, Congress empowered

the Justice Department, the FBI,

federal law enforcement agencies,

to get court orders to authorize

the electronic surveillance on telephones,

and placing bugs in premises

where there were conversations about criminal activity ongoing.

NARRATOR: Title 3 of the 1968 Crime Control Act

allowed law enforcement to more aggressively surveil

New York City's mob families,

and the Colombo family in particular.

Those around Colombo, like his underboss,

Sonny Franzese, were under constant watch.

MICHAEL: My dad was the underboss

of the Colombo family back in the '60s.

A very powerful position.

REPORTER: This man is John "Sonny" Franzese.

Franzese, who has been arrested countless times,

was described as a rising young lieutenant

in the Brooklyn Mafia

and one of the most dangerous mobsters in the country.

MICHAEL: And my dad was extremely high-profile

in terms of media attention, law enforcement investigations.

And he was arrested several times,

indicted several times in the state of New York,

so we had law enforcement around us all the time.

They all had cars parked around our house

24 hours a day, seven days a week.

REPORTER: These women are the wives, sisters, and friends

of the Colombo and Franzese families.

All of them claim the FBI is harassing their families.

"Oh, you must be Joe Colombo's sister.

Well, we wanna get to your brother."

Why? Why do you wanna get to my brother?

"Well, we're gonna put him away."

MICHAEL: I grew up hating the police.

Hated law enforcement, hated the government.

You know, I always saw them as harassing my dad,

harassing my family.

We were all in a car.

There were the seven-- seven children.

And they said,

"Go ahead, Sonny, do something to me."

And the other one pulled a gun out of his pocket and said,

"Go ahead, 'cause I'm dying to do it."

Taking pictures or walking into your job,

disrupting your place of business...

They get me upset because...

they sit in front of my house.

[sobs] They bother my husband.

...disrespectful at wakes, weddings.

Name it, they did it.

There is no such thing as the Mafia.

I'm supposed to be the sister

of the biggest Mafia in New York.

I don't know what the word means.

People wanna know this about Joe Colombo?

No!

What they wanna know about Joe Colombo,

he's gangster, he's connected with every dirty thing there is.

We, the family, know he isn't.

♪

SEAN MCWEENEY: You gotta remember, this guy whacked up

a lot of other Mafia guys.

That was his job in the Colombo family,

was murder for hire.

And he was hired by a lot of people,

Gambino and others, to do those activities.

He was a tough guy and he was a fighter,

and he wanted to fight back,

and the investigative activity

involving the Colombo family was pretty intense.

They had a very strong squad,

and it was a natural instinct.

He saw the FBI coming at his family,

and he fought back.

NARRATOR: If there was one characteristic,

one universal instinct of all men in the Mafia,

it was to protect their families at all costs,

to defend when necessary.

Joe Colombo was no different.

He realized early that the best defense

was a good offense.

I will say there's a conspiracy in this country

against all Italian-Americans.

And I won't stop saying it until I feel

that the father of our country

treats us all like his children.

INTERVIEWER: Mr. Colombo, are you a boss of the Mafia?

No, I am not.

- INTERVIEWER: Is there a Mafia? - No, there is not.

[protesters chanting]

NARRATOR: By the early 1970s,

America was in the midst of sweeping change.

The new laws brought about by the Civil Rights Act

were now in effect,

and some Italian-Americans figured

it was now their turn to speak up

and fight back against Italian-American discrimination.

ED: A lot of white ethnic groups, Irish-Americans,

Polish-Americans, Italian-Americans,

begin to dig into their histories

and to say, "Well, we have a history too,

we have culture too,

and we also have suffered

some level of discrimination."

♪

So Joseph Colombo sees what's happening in the 1960s

and all this talk about rights

and oppression and discrimination,

and he realizes that there's an opportunity there.

♪

He was so outraged at that period of time

because the harassment tactics by the FBI were terrible.

The final thing was that they had arrested

my brother, Joey, unjustly.

He was charged with interfering

with interstate commerce,

and he was arrested and facing 20 years.

My father realized that it was a tactic to get to him

because of his alleged stature

within what they call

Italian-American organized crime,

and it was a tactic to hurt him.

SEAN: Colombo made a big deal out of his son's arrest,

and he claimed that the FBI

was just picking on his son to get at him,

and that they were picking on Italians in general.

They were trying to portray all Italians

as members of organized crime, which was not true.

It was patently a false claim.

MICHAEL: Well, my dad had been convicted on a federal case

and sentenced to 50 years in prison,

And I was devastated.

But shortly after my dad went into prison in 1970,

we got a call from Joe Colombo

that his son had been arrested,

and he said, "We're not standing for FBI harassment anymore.

We're gonna be picketing the FBI building

on 69th Street and Third Avenue."

NEWS ANCHOR: Joe Colombo had organized a picket line

around FBI headquarters in Manhattan.

MICHAEL: So I was excited.

I saw it as a way to help my dad,

and I was probably the first day or second day

I was on that line, picketing the FBI.

They actually gave me a sign when I got there.

"My dad's a victim of FBI Gestapo tactics.

He was framed and sentenced to 50 years."

That's what it said.

So I was happy to walk that line with Joe Colombo.

CHRIS: People started coming that knew us.

The neighborhood came to support.

We had a mass demonstration outside

of 69th Street FBI headquarters.

MICHAEL: It was several months.

That line grew from 30

or 40 or 50 people the first day

to several thousand.

I mean, they had to close off the street.

Before you knew it, everybody was joining

in that picket line.

The FBI was extremely distressed.

They didn't like us out there.

They were throwing water balloons out

from the top floor of the building

down onto the line.

Hidey-hidey-hidey-ho,

[indistinct].

I was the night supervisor at the time.

I worked the 12:00 to 8:00 shift,

and I was in charge of the FBI office at that point.

And I would go down in the morning.

They usually came about nine o'clock.

PROTESTORS: Hitler vowed he'd never die,

he came back as the FBI!

JIM: We would hear on the wiretaps sometimes,

the word went out, "Hey, it's 3:30.

You gotta get down to 69th Street,"

where the FBI office was.

SEAN: And they'd be carrying

these homemade signs

uh, criticizing the FBI,

saying that the FBI was picking on Italians,

calling all Italians members of organized crime,

which was absolutely not true.

We had more FBI agents that were Italian

than probably all of the Mafia people in the United States.

♪

SAMI: The committees and the hearings

of people like Frank Costello,

and the rise of guys like Vito Genovese.

All these names coming from Italian immigrant backgrounds

are now affiliated with Mafia,

affiliated with crime, affiliated with violence.

"We are sick and tired

of being stereotyped as violent mafioso.

That is not who we are."

So it makes sense that with all of this...

civil rights activity happening,

why wouldn't Colombo

get involved in the fray as well?

♪

CHRIS: We were basically viewed as greaseballs.

They now had a sense of pride,

which they didn't have before, and a sense of unity,

and they looked to my father as their leader.

♪

ED: And so he founds an organization,

the Italian-American Civil Rights League.

And in 1970, he holds a rally at Columbus Circle,

where there's a great big statue of Christopher Columbus,

symbol of Italian-American heritage.

And thousands of people show up.

There are big speeches.

MARIO A. PROCACCINO: What we are doing here today,

pledging allegiance to our country

with a show of Italian- American solidarity.

[crowd cheering]

ANTHONY IMPERIALE: Let us not forget

that the Italian-American...

has been an asset to this country!

That we built it with our backs brick by brick!

We didn't steal it! We didn't burn it!

[crowd cheering]

Thank God that I was born

of Italian birth.

[crowd cheering]

But today,

this day belongs to you, the people!

You are organized. You are one!

Nobody could take you apart anymore.

[crowd cheering]

You've overcome what no Italian

has overcome in this country.

God bless you, and thank you!

[crowd cheering]

ED: And this goes really well.

They start to draw in lots of members.

By the end of the year, he says he has 45,000

dues-paying members across the country.

SELWYN: Nelson Rockefeller,

who was then the governor of New York,

became a supporter.

And there were other politicians.

Nobody wanted to stop them.

So for me, it was all about the League helping me

get my father's conviction overturned.

That's what I believed in, that's why I was there.

As far as, "There was no Mafia." I obviously knew there was.

This sort of message begins to steamroll.

The governor's involved all of a sudden.

You've got Frank Sinatra at, you know,

Madison Square Garden

for the Italian-American Civil Rights League.

This thing is huge.

Mobster, Joe Colombo,

he's on the cover of Time magazine,

and he's kind of positioned himself

in the spirit of the times as a civil rights figure

for Italian-Americans.

SELWYN: And he also got the FBI

and the Justice Department

to never use the word "Mafia"

when they had the few indictments that they did.

In fact, Colombo was so powerful

that when the movie, The Godfather was made,

he made sure that the word "Mafia"

would never be used in it.

CHRIS: It was Lindsay's office

that wouldn't give him the permits,

because the League was up in arms.

What happened is Al Ruddy comes

and meets my father at League headquarters

and brings him a suitcase,

they don't put this in the movie,

with a half a million dollars,

which is significant money

in 1970, '71.

Serious money.

My father says, "Keep your money.

Bring the script." He says, "I'll help you.

As long as you don't put "Mafia," "Cosa Nostra"

and try to make Italians look bad."

It was an immigrant story.

It was a great story.

AL: We have been in touch

with the Italian-American Civil Liberties Union--

- MAN: Civil Rights. - Civil Rights, [indistinct].

We are going to delete any reference

to "Mafia" and "Cosa Nostra."

We are working closely with your organization

to get ultimately the result that I want,

that Paramount wants, and that you all want.

[audience applauding]

TOM: It's interesting that these themes

that are going on in American culture during the '60s

are also finding voice in the underworld.

Flip side, though, is that they want money.

For a guy like Joe Colombo, it's like,

"Let's start this League.

I'm gonna be in charge of it

and, uh, I'm gonna send out this terrific message,

but, you know, it's also a really good way

to launder some profits."

SEAN: Colombo began using the League

for, uh,

purposes of extortion.

Extorting shopkeepers in Queens and Brooklyn,

uh, asking for donations

to the Italian-American Civil Rights League,

and it ended up being, uh,

an extortion-type racket.

NARRATOR: To the naked eye,

Joe Colombo was a businessman,

an organizer, a public figure.

But beneath the surface, he continued to lead

one of New York's most powerful crime families,

and he was sworn to a code of secrecy,

a code that, if threatened,

could cost him his life.

♪

♪

NARRATOR: As Joe Colombo's public exposure increased,

the other bosses looked on uneasily.

At the time, Carlo Gambino was the most tenured

and respected boss in New York.

Gambino and his allies in the Lucchese family

had enthusiastically supported

Colombo's Civil Rights League in the beginning.

But word on the street was

that the bosses were having second thoughts,

that all the publicity was doing more harm than good.

But Colombo was unperturbed.

By this point, Joseph Colombo

had been boss of a Mafia family for seven years.

He had come to power at the end of the Gallo-Profaci war,

a time of great conflict

and uncertainty within the family.

But he had successfully steadied the ship.

It may have been his strong leadership qualities.

Or perhaps the fact

that the family's biggest troublemaker,

Joey Gallo, was stuck in jail.

That was about to change, however.

Crazy Joe would soon be back on the street,

which meant trouble for Joe Colombo.

♪

SELWYN: After becoming head of the family,

Joe Colombo was outward.

Welcomed people.

Wanted publicity.

But that was his undoing.

Because eventually what happened to him was,

with that Italian-American Civil Rights League,

he exposed himself,

which a lot of bosses didn't wanna do.

♪

You didn't go out there and address thousands of people,

'cause you realized it was always a crackpot

or some enemy.

You get the sense that your Carlo Gambinos

are kind of looking at Joe Colombo,

and they don't want publicity.

And this guy's on, you know, the cover of Time.

I mean, it was bad enough when the Gallo brothers

were plastered all over the tabloids.

So, you get the sense that a shrewd cat

like Carlo Gambino is just like,

"What the hell is he doing?"

You know, "He's taking this thing too far."

I mean, going and antagonizing the FBI

will really probably only get you in trouble at the end.

MICHAEL: There was a lot of dissent coming from the guys.

But there was a lot of talk on the street

that Joey was becoming too high-profile.

A lot of the guys within the family were upset

that they were walking the line,

and that the FBI was noticing guys

that probably had a lower profile prior to this.

So, everybody's complaining,

"Hey, I'm on blast here, you know?

"The FBI is watching our movements now.

Where they didn't know us, they're knowing us now."

Uh, and one time I went to see my dad in Leavenworth,

and he wanted me to stop hanging out at the League.

He said "It's gonna put you in trouble."

And I said, "Dad, they're gonna help you."

And he said, "They're not gonna help me."

♪

NARRATOR: In early 1971,

things were tense in the Colombo family.

It didn't help that on April 11th, 1971,

Joey Gallo was released from prison.

It had been 10 years

since Crazy Joe was down on President Street,

and a lot had changed.

His brother, Larry, had died,

as had the old boss, Joe Profaci.

But Joey Gallo was still a bull in a china shop

with no respect for the rules, no respect for the code,

and no respect for his new boss, Joe Colombo.

Joe Colombo,

his one big enemy was Crazy Joe Gallo.

And Crazy Joe had also come from the same roots

in South Brooklyn.

They knew each other.

And Crazy Joe really thought

he deserved to be head of the Profaci family

when Profaci died,

that he was really the one who had been a big earner,

had done a lot of important things,

including being involved in the assassination

of Albert Anastasia.

So, here was an inbuilt rivalry

that Colombo wasn't ready for.

♪

While in prison,

Gallo was looking for reinforcements

for his own group.

And he knew he couldn't get it from Colombo.

And he recruited a lot of Black prisoners.

And he told them, "When you come out,

go and see my brothers in South Brooklyn."

So, he was building up an army.

It's sort of an interesting thing,

because this is definitely a breach of etiquette,

to go into prison

and to be actively courting friendships

with people outside of the mafia.

♪

When you're in prison,

each ethnic group is gonna look at the guy that...

the people in that group gonna have the most respect for.

If they can see themselves making money with that person,

they're gonna try to get in touch with them.

TOM: Joey Gallo, he does not like the shape

that the Gallo brothers are in.

Joey starts to think, "You know what?

"If the Black gangsters got organized,

"they could team up with us, the Gallo brothers.

You know, we would really be kings of the streets then."

Now, this idea

to the traditional mob establishment is just,

"Why would you, you know, partner with Black gangsters?"

They don't see this happening at all.

But Joey Gallo is,

um, better or for worse,

he's sort of an innovator in that sense,

and he's willing to go there.

FRANK DiMATTEO: Joey came home.

Joey never acknowledged

that Joe Colombo was gonna be boss.

So, he refused him as boss.

"I don't care who made him boss. Ain't happening."

And he demanded from Colombo,

the Colombo family, pay him $100,000

that was owed to him.

And then Colombo took a dollar bill

out of his billfold and threw it at Gallo

and said, "Here, this is all you're getting,"

and left the room.

CLAIRE: The fact that Gallo is even willing

to demand things,

and allude to a lack of respect

for his leadership

is very much outside of the code

of the families.

Even if you don't agree with your boss,

you don't outright say it.

FRANK: When Joey got home, he told 'em,

"We give them nothing and we take everything

"from now on.

"I want everything that was ours before.

"The waterfront, bars, restaurant,

"bookmaking, shylocking.

I want it. That's it."

TOM: Joey Gallo, he thinks that the Gallo brothers

are being disrespected by Joe Colombo.

He hates the idea

of this Italian-American Civil Rights League,

thinks of it totally as a sham.

And he starts ripping up these League posters

that are required to be put on Red Hook turf.

Sort of like grease the pistols, you know?

The war's back on.

♪

[cheerful music playing]

[crowd cheering]

It's June 28th, 1971.

This is the second

Italian-American Civil Rights League rally.

[crowd chanting]

All over Columbus Circle, you got cameras everywhere.

People are coming in droves.

They've got

the little Italian-American Civil Rights League pins.

They've got-- Waving Italian flags.

This is gonna be a major turnout.

CHRIS: I had my outfit all picked out,

red, white, green shorts, a hat.

You know, excited to go. Sausage and peppers, zeppoles.

You know, entertainment, people, politicians.

MICHAEL: So, I wanted to be among the first getting there,

so I was there early.

My mother refused to come.

As a matter of fact, she didn't want me to come.

She said she had a dream

that something bad was gonna happen.

She said, "I don't want you going."

And I said, "Mom, I'm going."

NARRATOR: While Joe Colombo and his League members prepared

for their biggest rally yet,

the Gallo crew down on President Street

has other plans.

Joey Gallo and the Gallo faction

were not interested in the political actions

that Colombo was trying to push forward.

This is not a world that they wanted to be a part of.

They weren't going to go to this rally.

FRANK: They made us go up into Court Street

and go to a few stores and make sure

they didn't close down for the day.

Told 'em that Joey didn't want them closing for the day.

And then the day of rally,

we all were in the clubs on President Street,

just hanging out.

NARRATOR: Back in Manhattan, Giuliano Schiozzi,

a 22-year-old cop from the 14th Precinct

prepared for the day's events.

He remembers it well.

♪

GIULIANO SCHIOZZI: I heard about it

the morning of the actual event.

So, there's no advance notification given.

You came to work and you were told,

"You're attending this Italian-American unity rally."

I had heard through the grapevine,

having Italians in my family,

that Italians who worked for unions

would not work that day.

They were told to take the day off.

"Don't come to work that day. Go up to the rally."

JIM: So when the rally-- On that-- on that day,

police were everywhere.

We staked out a photo area

on the 13th floor of the Gulf and Western Building,

looking right down on-- on Columbus Circle.

One of my squad mates had the camera,

and I had binoculars.

We're all watching.

[crowd cheering]

CLAIRE: It's a wild thing, you know.

It is-- it's a political rally, but it's a mob boss,

and Joe Colombo is there, like always, front and center.

He is just mixing with the people.

He is, uh, talking to the media,

he's talking to law enforcement.

He's interacting with all of these people

that, traditionally,

the mob would have done anything

to distance themselves from.

♪ God bless...

GIULIANO: These were all peaceful people milling around.

I thought it was benign.

Kick off with a few speeches

and a few rounds of applause,

and that would be the end of it, we would be dismissed,

and I'd go back to the precinct,

and that would be the end of the day.

♪

Somebody came and said "Joey wants to see you,"

so I went up on the stage, and he looked at me

and he gave me some brochures to hand out near Central Park.

And then he looked at me

and the last thing he said to me, he said,

"Hey, Michael, this League is going to help your father."

[cheering]

I walked 12 steps away, ready to go down the stairs,

and that's when the shots fired out.

[gunshot]

[screaming]

[gunshots]

GIULIANO: I hear what sounds like, to me...

muted firecrackers.

But people don't run from fireworks.

People run from gunfire.

As Joseph Colombo is making his way

through the crowd,

a gunman approaches him and gets off three shots.

Shoots him three times, Colombo collapses to the ground.

Please do not panic!

Please, ladies and gentleman!

This is the type of thing you can't do!

OFFICER: Captains, get into your position.

Keep your eyes open.

[clamoring]

GIULIANO: As I'm going towards the area

where the gunshots are,

I see a female

with a medium-sized afro

with a camera, a tri-lens camera.

She's running away.

Where she ultimately ends up going,

down the subway.

Joe Colombo was on the ground...

with what appears to be two gunshot wounds

to the back of his head.

There was an individual holding a gun.

Myself and other police officers now tackle

this unknown person.

Take him to the ground, secure him, handcuff him.

Mr. Johnson, I believe was his name.

[overlapping shouting]

MICHAEL: I turn around, and it's hysteria.

The only thing I heard was "Joey's been shot,

Joey's been shot."

And, you know, I didn't see him.

He obviously went right down.

And then, boom, I heard another shot...

- [gunshot] - [shouting]

MAN: Please be calm!

...and that's when they got Johnson.

GIULIANO: Jerome Johnson was, uh, shot

while being apprehended by the police.

♪

NEWS ANCHOR: The crowd was still gathering

in New York's Columbus Circle

for what was to be the mass rally

of Italian-Americans

when suddenly, gunshots,

a whole series of them.

And Joe Colombo Sr.,

the principal organizer of this event,

was lying on the ground, badly wounded,

shot in the head and bleeding profusely.

REPORTER: One was apparently killed.

One was killed.

I don't know what happened to the other two.

The one-- the girl was closest to the colored guy.

She was here, I don't know what happened to her, either.

JIM: Through the investigation, Jerome Johnson, Black man,

had press credentials.

And he had a camera pouch on his belt,

and he's taking Colombo's picture like that.

Put the camera down, pulled out his gun,

and hit him three times in the head.

Jerome Johnson was grabbed by the police

and dragged down immediately.

Meanwhile, as we later learned,

a Colombo bodyguard named Philip "Chubby" Rosillo

crawls through the cop's legs, got his gun,

and shot Jerome Johnson in the back and killed him.

And get this, he got away.

With-- with 25 cops around the whole--

the whole time, he got away.

CHRIS: This fellow, Philip Rosillo,

he crawled under the cops,

and he unloaded a .38

into Jerome Johnson's back

and neck.

Crawled out from under the cops.

They never arrested him. Could never figure out why.

JIM: Police investigated him

but were never able to get enough to charge him.

Murder's not a federal crime.

And usually, and unfortunately, when--

when our jurisdiction ends,

quite often we have to back off.

DIRECTOR:

Oh, we gave 'em all to--

to New York City Police Department, sure.

And there was a-- there was a female with--

with Jerome Johnson, our photos showed.

And I thought-- I've thought many times since then,

all you have to do is go to where Jerome Johnson lived

and show photos of that.

So, I don't know what the police did,

but to my knowledge,

they never found out who she was.

[siren blaring]

I ask you in joining hands...

to order a prayer with me for Joey.

NARRATOR: With three rounds in his brain,

Joe Colombo was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital,

where doctors scrambled to keep him alive.

♪

JIM: Colombo is then taken to Roosevelt Hospital.

Uh, and I was then sent

to go find out what's going on.

We got there, and they said he's in operation.

- REPORTER: How many bullets? - Three in the brain.

- Three in the brain? - Yes.

Is there any hope, Doctor?

It's impossible to say.

JIM: Two surgeons came out right next to me,

and I heard them say, "We're out of B-negative blood."

B-negative blood is--

is had by about 1.5% of the population.

I have B-negative blood.

So, I'm thinking, "Uh-oh. What do I do?"

I said, "I have B-negative blood."

They said, "Would you give it?"

I said, "Under these conditions,

nobody else needs to know about this."

They agreed.

I don't know what was said

at the FBI headquarters in New York,

but after I gave blood,

I was brought back up to the office,

to the head of-- of Criminal Investigations,

who was my boss, and he said, "Tell me what happened."

I told him exactly what I just related.

And I said, "I don't want any publicity.

"I did it. It's my blood.

And the person was dying."

His pupils were unreactive. He was more or less half-dead.

He is more or less reacting...

much better now than he did before.

NARRATOR: With Joe Colombo on life support

and his survival unlikely,

word began to spread in the underworld.

♪

FRANK: There was somebody who came and told us

that Joe Colombo got shot.

You know, a lot of scuttlebutt about,

you know, right away, that it was a Gallo.

What are we gonna do?

Who are you gonna reach out to?

Go get a gun? What are we gonna do?

It was a lot of, you know, chaos.

TOM: Now, here's the big million-dollar question.

Is Jerome Johnson just a lone nut

like Lee Harvey Oswald,

or is he part of a greater conspiracy?

This is, of course, what the mob thinks.

And if there's anyone who they can look at

and say is responsible for hiring Jerome Johnson

to kill Joe Colombo,

it's Crazy Joe Gallo.

♪

♪

WOMAN: Our Father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be Thy name.

Thy kingdom come...

NEWS ANCHOR: In New York City today,

they are still trying to figure out

who wanted Joe Colombo dead.

Colombo is the alleged mafia figure

identified by the federal government

as a top man in Brooklyn crime circles

who has gained considerable notoriety

as the organizer

of the Italian-American Civil Rights League.

Colombo was shot yesterday at a League rally,

and he remains in critical condition today.

Blessed art thou among women,

and blessed is the fruit--

CLAIRE: When Joe Colombo was first brought

to the hospital,

there's really no clear idea

of whether he will survive this hit.

He's in a coma, and his biological family

as well as his crime family as well as his activist family

are all sort of rushing to his side to be there

and to give him their support and their prayers.

There are vigils outside of Roosevelt Hospital

for days,

praying that he will make it through.

...forgive us our trespasses

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

I mean, it was a horrible situation.

It was a tragedy.

It forever changed the life of my siblings,

my mother, the family, the Italian people.

NARRATOR: The shooting of Joe Colombo

devastated family members, shocked the press,

and left law enforcement with more questions

than answers.

Here's what was understood.

The shooter, Jerome A. Johnson,

a 24-year-old Black man

and graduate of New Brunswick High School

was an aspiring filmmaker and small-time crook.

♪

He had a rap sheet that cited arrests

for grand larceny, attempted rape,

and drug possession,

and did a two-year stint in prison

from 1968 to 1970.

When he got out, it was back to making movies,

or trying to.

[chanting]

And on June 28th, 1971,

he attended the rally with his Bolex camera, a rental,

and an unknown female associate.

Before the rally began, he fired three rounds

into the head and neck of Joseph Colombo.

Johnson was tackled instantly,

subdued, and shot to death.

We know what happened to him. We know what he did.

We don't know why or who gave the orders.

The street knew. Or thought they knew.

They knew Joey Gallo didn't like Joe Colombo.

Joey Gallo had Black friends.

And they knew a Black man killed Joe Colombo.

Without any evidence stronger than that,

a theory took hold.

Yesterday, a federal crime official said

Colombo's assassin acted alone.

Today, the New York Police Department

disputed that theory

and said it is the department's view

that the shooting resulted from a power struggle

in the underworld.

The story right away

was that Jerome Johnson was set up

by Joey Gallo

because he made friends

with a lot of the Black guys in prison,

and that somehow they set up this guy, Jerome Johnson,

to do the hit.

I mean, it kind of made sense.

That was the talk.

Nobody really knew.

But that was the talk.

And obviously it had to be investigated,

but everybody pointed to Joe Gallo.

Everybody.

NARRATOR: Joey Gallo was suspect number one,

yet another theory implicated a boss

from a different family.

Sure, Gallo still helped orchestrate,

but the call to kill Joe Colombo

came from even higher up the food chain.

From the most respected boss,

Don Carlo Gambino.

REPORTER: Carlo Gambino,

regarded by the Justice Department

as the boss of bosses.

Gambino was said to have been Colombo's patron at one time,

but then, say police officials,

he and the Gallos became disenchanted with Colombo.

♪

The theory behind the whole thing

goes to an argument

that Carlo Gambino had with Joe Colombo

a couple of weeks before.

And what the argument was

is that Gambino ordered Colombo up on the carpet

and ordered him to cease and desist

as far as the Italian-American Civil Rights League.

He told him to stop it because it was hurting

their mob business.

Colombo called Gambino a traitor to the Italian cause.

Which, obviously, Gambino, born in Sicily,

took great umbrage of.

It ended up-- Colombo stormed out of the room.

Before he did, he spit on the floor

at the feet of Carlo Gambino.

An ultimate act of disrespect.

Carlo Gambino did not like

what Joe Colombo was doing.

And he knows

that Joey Gallo essentially feels the same way about Colombo

that he does.

And so the story goes

that Gambino talks to Gallo,

sort of hires him for the hit.

SEAN: We believe Carlo Gambino used Gallo before

in killings, in the Anastasia killing.

So, it's logical.

CLAIRE: And the guy that Gallo taps

is this guy Jerome Johnson.

And there's proof

that Johnson is,

you know, connecting with Gambino guys.

♪

Shortly before

the second rally

at Columbus Circle,

Jerome Johnson was spotted by the NYPD

going into a social club in Queens

run by the Gambino family.

And that again is the potential tie-in

with Gambino.

NARRATOR: It seemed unfathomable to some

that Carlo Gambino would order the slaying of Joe Colombo

in such a public manner.

Broad daylight, Columbus Circle,

thousands of witnesses.

But it wasn't entirely unprecedented.

Bosses had been whacked in public before,

and it would surely happen again.

Whether Gambino was in cahoots with Gallo was never proven,

but on the street, the word was that Crazy Joe

had put Jerome Johnson up to the hit.

And for those seeking revenge,

there was never a doubt of who was behind it,

and what would come next.

NARRATOR: April, 1972.

One month after The Godfather premiered in theaters

and less than a year after Joe Colombo was shot

in broad daylight,

Joey Gallo had a problem.

He knew what his perception was

among those in the Five Families.

He was nuts, crazy, a liability,

and likely the man

behind the killing of Joe Colombo.

FRANK: Joey was always making trouble in that family.

It just escalated after the Colombo shooting.

There's an open hit out on Joey Gallo

after the Colombo hit.

The Colombo family's gonna get revenge.

And the word was out that Gallo was gonna get hit.

I mean, I heard that.

And that's why they told me again afterwards,

um, not to go down to Little Italy at all,

'cause he was known to go down there quite a bit.

I should stay away from everybody,

and matter of fact, don't come into Brooklyn for a while,

'cause they didn't know how far this was gonna go.

You're on the Columbo side.

And-- um, so whether he was at fault or not, he was gone.

NARRATOR: He knew that he was danger.

Revenge in one form or another was imminent.

But at least on the surface, Joey Gallo didn't seem to care.

Everybody was telling Joey just to stay low,

not to walk around so freely,

because we know there's an open hit.

And Joey said, "No,

they ain't got the balls to do it, [bleep] them."

That's exactly what his expression was.

"[bleep] them, they ain't got the balls to do it."

♪

So Joey Gallo's

basically walking around the streets of New York.

He's kind of the walking dead.

At the same time,

in the wake of The Godfath movies,

he's become a celebrity, because The Godfather is a hit,

and all of a sudden, society types in New York City

wanna start hanging out with the real gangsters,

especially a gangster who's as erudite

and intelligent as "Crazy Joe" Gallo.

"Wow, these guys aren't really that bad.

They're just on the other side of the system."

So there's this sort of naïve thinking

in New York high society

that makes Joey Gallo a bona fide celebrity.

♪

FRANK: Joey, you know, would just disappear.

He was running around the Village,

sightseeing, having coffee, talking to people.

He would talk to anybody, he would just go up to you,

"Hey, how are ya? I'm Joey."

He was very inquisitive that way,

and wanted to walk around

and smell the roses and have a drink.

He walked around doing what he wanted.

He wasn't afraid.

TOM: Now, the problem is,

is that you can't really be

a media celebrity like Joey Gallo

and still be in the Mafia.

They don't like that.

He's gonna spill all the Mafia secrets, this guy?

And he just put a hit out on boss Colombo?

They're gonna get him one way or another,

and I think Joey Gallo starts to know this.

NARRATOR: April 7th, 1972.

Joe Gallo's 43rd birthday.

Against the advice of his crew members,

Crazy Joe threw a party for himself at the Copacabana,

a who's-who of entertainers and socialites.

Gallo was traveling with a party of five,

his wife, Sina, his stepdaughter, Lisa,

his sister, Carmella, his bodyguard, Pete the Greek,

and Pete's girlfriend, Edith.

It was a big party,

and news traveled fast

among the wise guys out that night.

Joey Gallo was a sitting duck.

Joey Gallo is celebrating his birthday.

He's just recently married.

He's with his new wife, his ten-year-old daughter,

and they've got a huge night planned.

Any other mobster at this point, with all of the heat on him,

is probably gonna lay low.

Celebrate quietly at home, go out of town.

Not Gallo. He goes to the Copacabana.

Very high-profile, very easy to spot.

SEAN: They had seen a show,

and afterwards, they went to Umberto's Clam Shop

in Little Italy at 4:30 in the morning.

♪

A Colombo guy had to get permission

to do something.

A high official in the Colombo family

gave the okay...

♪

and they went through the kitchen of the restaurant,

and they just started shooting.

[gunshots popping]

Gallo got up, tried to get out of the Umberto's,

crawled to the door, and got out to the street.

TOM: Staggers out...

and drops dead.

We got a call, maybe 7:30.

And he goes, "They killed Joey."

♪

CAPT. ROBERT MCDERMOTT: At about 5:30 this morning--

this is the best that we can determine at this moment--

an unidentified male walked in the side door,

fired some shots,

and then ran from the premises.

Joe Gallo is dead, DOA, at Beekman Downtown Hospital.

A man walked in from the back door,

and he walked up to the side of the table

and fired three shots,

and he hit Joe twice

and he hit his bodyguard Pete the Greek one time.

FRANK: No one knew really nothing

until Pete the Greek got out of hospital.

Pete the Greek was bodyguarding Joe that night,

and Pete got shot in the ass, got arrested.

But he went to the hospital, made bail,

and got called back down to President Street.

"Who shot Joey?"

Pete the Greek turned around and said,

"Sonny Pinto did."

CLAIRE: When you have that breakdown

in the official rules of the Mafia,

it's easier to let anything slide.

Instead of doing something in a way

that's not going to affect the family,

this is now just commonplace.

You can kill someone in front of their wife and child,

and that's an accepted part of doing business with the mob.

The period of the 1970s,

the continued violence that we see in New York,

in a lot of ways becomes the undoing

of these traditional Mafia families.

It's quiet out here on President Street,

Joey Gallo's turf.

In fact, it's too quiet.

Joey Gallo was a hero out here.

Speculation has it that his killing

may start a gang war, if it hasn't already.

FRANK: There was a sit-down afterwards,

but they couldn't blame nobody.

It was either go to war with the whole world,

or you had to take it on the chin.

[church bell chiming]

♪

SEAN: The funeral for Joe Gallo was a scene.

The sister roared out on the church steps

that New York City would run red with blood

over what happened to her brother.

♪

FRANK: A lot of people were there.

A lot of people were hurting. A lot of people were mad.

Joey was loved in the neighborhood.

He was very generous. He was liked, Joey.

♪

REPORTER: What did Joey Gallo mean to this neighborhood?

He was a nice guy...

far as my point of view.

REPORTER: When you say he was a nice guy,

did he do anything to help the neighborhood?

Oh, yeah, lots of it. What I've seen of it.

- REPORTER: Did you like him? - Sure.

- REPORTER: Why? Why? - He was a good guy.

REPORTER: Why do you say he was a good guy?

He tried to help everybody around here.

TOM: The public reaction to the Joe Gallo murder,

it's legendary, especially for a guy like him,

who lived his entire life trying to be a movie gangster.

Joe Gallo becomes sort of a hero to the younger generation.

You know, they tell their dons to piss off

when they don't like what they're being told.

It just was this thing

where there's no order in the ranks anymore.

So in some ways, I would say that's... [sighs]

...the beginning of the end of-- of the Five Families.

NARRATOR: The killing of Joey Gallo marked the end

of a chapter in the history of New York's Five Families.

Gallo and Colombo had both reimagined

what it meant to be an American gangster,

and they were both killed for it.

As much as a new wave of American mafiosos

wanted to innovate and transform their criminal operation,

they were still bound to their original code,

a code that had no tolerance for individualism.

A code that resisted publicity and fanfare.

A code that continued to require absolute and unwavering silence.

Omertà.

♪

NARRATOR: The 1970s was a transformative time

for the Five Families.

By the middle of the decade,

all Five Families would be led by men

born not in Sicily, but in America.

The old guard was getting old.

Carlo Gambino, the most revered godfather of the time,

died of natural causes in 1976.

His cousin from Bensonhurst, Paul Castellano, became boss,

a promotion that was not without controversy.

Vito Genovese died in prison in 1969

and was succeeded by Philip Lombardo of East Harlem.

After the shooting of Joe Colombo,

the Colombo family fell under the leadership

of Carmine Persico of South Brooklyn.

The death of Tommy Lucchese in 1967

led to Antonio "Tony Ducks" Corallo

becoming boss of the Lucchese crew.

And the Bonannos--

well, after their Don fled to Arizona,

they'd been trying to figure that out.

Another East Harlem-bred gangster,

Carmine Galante, had his eyes on the throne,

and the conditions in New York City

could not have been more accommodating for his rise.

Certainly people talk about the 1970s

as when New York was going off the rails.

New York lost almost a million people in the 1970s.

Huge population decline.

[sirens blaring]

ED: White New Yorkers

are leaving New York City for the suburbs,

and they're taking with them their purchasing power

and also their tax dollars.

So by the mid-1970s, New York City,

still a very expensive city to operate,

is running out of money.

The fiscal crisis of the mid-70s

really puts New York City in a bind,

and the city almost goes bankrupt.

All that meant that there was a lot of empty space

and a lot of sort of general hopelessness.

If you walk around the Lower East Side in that era,

the number of empty buildings is amazing.

♪

You go look at a picture from Avenue B, Avenue C,

and it's just entire streets of empty buildings

with cinder blocks in the windows, over and over.

Same in Harlem, same in big swaths of Brooklyn.

There were so many people out of work,

so many people leaving,

that you ended up with a city

that really felt like its best days were behind it.

And inevitably, that leads to opportunities

for predatory criminal behavior.

And the rise of drug culture,

which was really destructive to the city fabric.

[siren blaring]

NARRATOR: It was allegedly against Commission rules

to be involved in the drug trade.

♪

But since Joe Bonanno's meeting in Palermo in 1957,

members of the Bonanno family

had doubled down on the heroin trade.

Carmine Galante, an associate of Bonanno

who was at the infamous meeting,

had spent the years after

growing the family's international drug operation,

and in the process, had earned himself a reputation.

ANTHONY DESTEFANO: Well, Carmine Galante

was a drug dealer.

He was violent.

He had a volatile temper.

ALEX HORTIS: Even by Mafia standards,

he was considered particularly crazy,

particularly ruthless.

♪

He is really interested in the drug trade.

Galante has long-standing connections in Montreal.

Quebec was a much easier way

to move drugs into the United States

than the New York ports,

and so Carmine Galante sees that,

he ramps up drug trafficking in a big way

through that particular route in the '50s.

♪

SELWYN: It created a lot of resentment

with other families who thought he wasn't cutting them in,

and at the same time,

he was endangering the families

by getting arrested a lot.

He wasn't that careful.

So Galante was always on the outside looking in.

NARRATOR: Galante was arrested on narcotics charges in 1959

and convicted in 1962.

He served 12 years of a 20-year sentence

and was paroled in 1974.

By the time he got out,

his mentor, Joe Bonanno, had retired to Arizona,

and the Commission had chosen Phillip "Rusty" Rastelli

as the new boss.

But Carmine Galante, he had other ideas.

♪

EDWARD: Galante became the subject

of a lot of media attention.

He had been incarcerated since the 1950s

for the result of a major narcotics investigation

involving the Bonanno faction in Montreal.

And he came back on the scene,

and it was sort of amazing

that he was able to have all this clout,

spending almost 20 years in prison.

♪

When he got out, the story was

that he tried to assert himself

as boss of the Bonanno family.

He never really was boss,

but he was given wide berth because people were wary of him,

'cause they knew about his volatility.

EDWARD: Galante came in and said,

"I'm taking over," throwing his weight around,

even though he technically wasn't the boss of the family,

he started acting as if he were the boss of the family.

And the newspapers don't know

who's the boss or who isn't the boss,

but here's a guy who's saying he's the boss.

REPORTER: The federal investigators say Mr. Galante

is the boss of organized crime in this country.

Would that be a correct characterization,

the godfather of the New York Mafia?

I don't think, uh--

From my experience,

practically everything they've said

is totally incorrect and inaccurate.

The Commission had said no,

that they had picked Rusty Rastelli,

somebody they trusted

and somebody they thought deserved the post.

Galante wouldn't stand for this.

It was obvious he was determined to create havoc.

NARRATOR: With little local support in New York City,

after more than a decade behind bars,

Galante needed reinforcements.

So he called on associates back home in Sicily

to join him in New York, work as foot soldiers,

help run his drug operation,

and serve as bodyguards, henchmen.

They had their own code name.

"Zips" is the colloquial term

that the mobsters in the US

called the Sicilian gangsters for hire.

What was convenient about the Zips

is they didn't really have a profile in the United States.

They weren't really known by the FBI or by the DEA.

So they were more easily controlled in a lot of ways.

The Zips were hired hands that were brought in from Sicily

to help with the dirtier aspects of the drug trade.

Galante was bringing in those so-called Zips,

these recruits from Sicily,

because he had no real following in America

with the Five Families in the New York area.

NEWS ANCHOR: Cesare Bonventre and Baldo Amato,

who they describe as henchmen

for the crime family Galante headed.

♪

FRANK: First time I met Galante, he was very serious.

No big smiles, no big hellos.

He had those two bodyguards with him both times.

Greaseball, old-style, old-school.

RUSS KUBIT: His reputation is one

of being totally ruthless and vicious.

Of course, that is by reputation,

and it may or may not be one

that he chooses to embellish upon himself.

He may enjoy that reputation.

It may make, uh, dealing

with his competition a lot easier.

FRANK: He wanted to be the boss,

and he had that old-school mentality.

He was making tons of money in dope,

so he's powerful.

And he was a real tough guy.

NARRATOR: Carmine Galante's return to New York City

and ruthless pursuit of power took the underworld by storm.

He became a priority for law enforcement

and a regular on the nightly news,

often within an arm's length of his lawyer.

ROY COHN: Sit down.

I'm gonna leave in the morning go into the country.

ROY: What are you gonna do when you get to the country?

Well, I mean, I planted peppers last week.

Now I'm gonna plant tomatoes.

ROY: You think that'd have any influence

on the federal judge when he held that you were right

and the parole commission was wrong?

CARMINE: I think so.

He thinks a farmer ought to be able to seed, right?

I think so, I mean,

it's very well-known that that's what I do.

NARRATOR: But most of all,

he was becoming a problem

for the Commission,

a problem that sooner or later

would have to be dealt with.

♪

The US government estimates

that there were about 50,000 heroin addicts

in America in 1959.

By the 1970s, there are 500,000, and the number is soaring.

♪

There's two things that happen

to make the heroin epidemic a real problem.

One is the Vietnam War.

Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers

are gonna go over to Vietnam,

where heroin is cheap, it's available,

and many of them are gonna get hooked.

One study of the US military from the early 1970s

estimated that 10-15% of American soldiers

were hooked on heroin.

And the second thing that happens is the supply,

through these Mafia connections,

flooding the streets of New York City.

DENNIS SNYDER: My estimation is that I am seizing

approximately 7-10% of the heroin

that is smuggled through the port of New York.

90-92% is getting by.

REPORTER: The heroin trafficking,

which is attributed to organized crime,

has a ready market

all over the metropolitan area.

40% of all the addicts in the United States

are heroin addicts, are located here

right in the city of New York,

which gives you 40% of the consumer market.

NARRATOR: In public, Mafia leaders fiercely denied

any involvement in the drug trade.

Joe Bonanno would famously swear years later

that he had no knowledge of the family's drug operation.

MIKE WALLACE: Now, let me understand.

If anybody dealt in narcotics

from the Bonanno family,

they did it without your knowledge?

Without my knowledge. No question about it.

- MIKE: You swear it? - I swear it before God.

NARRATOR: But this was far from the truth.

We have guys going on record like Joe Bonanno saying,

"We don't deal drugs. We're not a part of the trade."

The evidence points to that being entirely false.

ANTHONY: The rule was

that you're not supposed to get caught.

And if you got caught, that was trouble.

But, you know, it was, like, a question

of, uh, sculpted ignorance.

The bosses didn't wanna know if you were involved.

They would take the money.

They could say, "Oh, well,

I didn't know where it was from."

But everybody would know

that drugs were a key feeder

for organized crime's coffers.

Half of them say, "You can't do it,"

the other half say, "You can't do it,"

and both halves take the envelope.

So, I don't know. Smoke and mirrors, man.

NARRATOR: Carmine Galante had no problem breaking the rules.

He'd been trafficking heroin for decades

and had paid the price for it with lengthy prison sentences.

Now back in New York City and under the microscope

of law enforcement and the Commission,

Galante employed his Sicilian muscle, Zips,

to run the bulk of his operation.

He wasn't alone in this kind of subterfuge.

Mob leaders throughout the Mafia had taken it a step further,

frequently hiring members of other gangs

to do their dirty work.

ALEX: The Italian Mafia,

after some very hard lessons early

in which some of their members were convicted,

they tried to do more insulating practices.

So for the most part, the Mafia wasn't doing street deals.

They instead were relying on Black organized crime figures

for a number of reasons.

First of all, reduce their exposure

to actually being caught.

If they could be caught, it gave them some deniability.

And also, it wasn't easy for some Italian guy

to walk into Black Harlem and start dealing drugs.

You sort of had to be part of the community in some ways

to get away with that, and to not be reported.

♪

I was born May 31st, 1951,

in Harlem Hospital.

I went to Catholic school, so I was with a lot of Italians.

I knew people...

that were seeing people,

and I wouldn't-- I wouldn't be able to say their names.

I wouldn't be able to say

who I just knew that people were seeing guys

considered organized crime,

that had access to getting them

good quality drugs,

and they formed an alliance.

♪

You gotta realize,

they were legitimately organized crime,

and they took over the docks, and they had the truckers.

So they can move things around at massive levels

that, you know, most ethnic groups,

they didn't have that kind of organization.

Organized crime had generations to develop information

and instruction to pass down,

where in the inner communities where I come from,

the heads keep getting chopped off.

♪

When I was growing up in Harlem,

there was adults coming from everywhere to buy drugs

so they could either use it,

and maybe come back to their neighborhoods and sell it.

They could be from Maryland, DC,

not just Long Island or Connecticut or the Bronx--

That area in Harlem was an open-air drug market

where the highest quality drugs for the lowest price

was being distributed.

NARRATOR: Through the 1970s, the Mafia made a fortune

moving mass amounts of heroin into New York City.

At the top of the list of earners was Carmine Galante.

But it wasn't the drugs explicitly

that put him in danger.

It was greed.

If one were a mob boss,

I think high up on the list of things not to do

was to be too greedy

in what you're collecting from your underlings.

That would be high on the list.

Talking to the media or becoming a media figure is very bad,

that all of a sudden, you get an expiration date

from the other gangsters then.

Above all,

don't make yourself vulnerable

to snakes in the family,

because they will come back and bite you.

♪

♪

NARRATOR: In 1975,

Carmine Galante, AKA "The Cigar,"

and his crew of Sicilians

had the Bonanno family in disarray.

The rightful boss, Rusty Rastelli,

had the backing of the Commission...

but legal troubles made it difficult for him

to run a family with a disruptor in its ranks.

He needed a solution, quickly.

Phil Rastelli wasn't a very good boss

in the sense that he would constantly get into trouble,

constantly get indicted,

and constantly get sent to prison.

Prosecutors have filed an unprecedented civil suit

against the Mafia family, the Bonanno mob.

The Bonanno crime family,

which has existed for some 50 years,

and engaged in everything from bootlegging,

to loan sharking, to murder, to robbery, to hijacking.

♪

ANTHONY: His time on the street was rather limited.

So he had to work as a boss through emissaries

who would communicate with him in prison.

NARRATOR: In the mid-seventies, one of Rastelli's closest

and most trusted confidants emerges from a surprising place.

ANTHONY: Joe Massino was a working man.

♪

He grew up in a poor family environment.

♪

Nothing special.

Money became always an object.

PAT: Joe Massino, back in the early '70s,

ran a coffee truck.

He sold bagels, he sold sandwiches.

And he was a legitimate guy.

But at the same time, ran numbers and took bets

while he was on his coffee delivery.

That's why he had the nickname "Joey Bagels."

That's how he got started.

NARRATOR: Massino had first met Rastelli

through his nephew in the late '50s.

They were neighborhood guys.

And through Massino's lunch wagon business,

the two grew closer.

♪

Rusty took a real liking to Joe Massino,

as perhaps heir apparent to himself

within the Bonanno family.

Joey became infamous, so to speak.

ANTHONY: Joe Massino would go to see Rastelli

wherever he was in prison,

Be it Lewisburg or wherever else.

It was quite clear, it was well known

in law enforcement that he was visiting Rastelli.

SELWYN: They were very close, very buddy-buddy.

And Rastelli, in effect, used to pass out

whatever information he wanted to run the family

when he was in prison through Joe Massino.

NARRATOR: Information would flow two ways,

Massino would send messages to the street

on Rastelli's behalf

while keeping the boss informed

with the latest family news.

And there was a lot to report.

Carmine Galante was becoming a problem.

If you're not the boss, you don't get to decide how much

of your individual earnings you get.

It may even be, on paper, your business,

but the earnings are split up.

You've got to pay your tax up.

There's not a sense

that you hold onto your individual money.

And a lot of Galante's organizational challenges

come from the fact

that he was selfish about his earnings.

NARRATOR: Rastelli knew that in order to maintain

his position as boss of the family,

he needed to make a move.

So with the help of Joe Massino,

he sought approval from the Commission to strike.

ANTHONY: Joe Massino's role

was transmitting word and approval

from Rastelli to the street.

The Sicilian faction,

which had been loyal to Galante,

basically was turned against him.

Joe played a role to help set him up.

I just think that, uh,

Rusty had a little more guys

on his end of the crew,

and that basically that was it.

They got his zip guys, bodyguards,

they said to them, "Come on," and they grabbed them and said,

"If you don't walk away, you're gonna die with him."

He knew there was trouble already.

He knew there was trouble already.

But he thought he was strong

because he had the Zip guys with him,

and he thought they were strong,

and they wound up giving him up in a minute.

They gave him up.

There's an old saying in the mob

that it's only your friends who can hurt you.

And in this case of Galante, that's what happened.

♪

[intense music plays]

[cars honking]

[indistinct chatter]

[gunshot bangs]

♪

I heard a job come over the radio,

reports of shots fired.

205 Knickerbocker, I think it was.

Possibly three people wounded or killed.

[siren blaring]

So I take off,

and I was the first detective getting there.

Speaking to the wife first.

She says, "My husband hasn't come out.

Carmine."

"Carmine?"

She says, "Yeah, Carmine Galante!"

So, then I walk back there

and I see Galante

with the cigar hanging out of his mouth.

There was three people dead and one other wounded.

[camera shutter clicking]

♪

When I pulled up, I was the only cop car there at first.

An hour later, the street was jammed with cars,

all kinds of photographers and reporters.

Complete insanity, you know?

NEWS ANCHOR: The killers came in two cars,

the three trigger men rushing inside,

ski masks over their faces.

The owner's son saw the killers advancing,

shouted a warning, "Watch out!"

But a second wave of two gunman,

also masked, entered and shot and wounded the son.

The two gentleman inside

died as a result of multiple gunshot and shotgun wounds.

Because of television,

the information gets out to the public right away,

but it also gets out to all the wise guys.

So if you publicize all the information

you know about the criminals, everybody knows.

REPORTER: For the neighborhood, the passing of Carmine Galante

meant a lot of excitement.

Hundreds of people took to the streets

of this Brooklyn block trying to catch a glimpse.

Yeah, when Galante, uh, hit happened,

I was kind of shocked,

and so was a lot of people on the street.

A lot of talk about it.

Again, not a lot of chatter,

but just, "Wow."

You know, "That was unexpected.

Wonder what's going to happen now."

REPORTER: For organized crime,

it means the beginning of something new,

a new struggle for control

at the top of New York's Five Families.

♪

NEWS ANCHOR: As one police Mafia expert put it,

"A contract was fulfilled this afternoon."

On the receiving end of that contract

was one of the top Mafia chiefs in the nation,

perhaps the boss of all bosses,

Carmine Galante.

♪

NARRATOR: The murder of Carmine Galante

temporarily restored order in the Bonanno family.

Rusty Rastelli kept his seat as boss.

The Commission was relieved.

The man to thank was Joe Massino.

♪

Massino's orchestration of the Galante murder

put him in the good graces of the Commission.

And Joey Bagels began making allies in other families.

One of the strongest families at the time,

the Gambinos, led by Paul Castellano,

had an up-and-comer in their ranks...

♪

John Gotti.

In the early eighties, Gotti and Massino both lived

in the Howard Beach section of Queens.

They were around the same age, and they'd help one another

when they could to keep order in their respective families.

♪

ANTHONY: Well, Gotti and Massino were friends.

They helped each other...

the way they could.

The one instance in particular,

about 1980, '81...

NARRATOR: Less than two years after a power grab was squashed

in the Bonanno family, another one was underway.

Three Bonanno captains wanted Rastelli out.

They'd need the Commission's approval,

however, and they'd never get it without the support

of the family's powerful underboss,

Joe Massino.

Massino remained loyal to Rastelli,

loyal to his oath, so he once again was tasked

with taking care of an internal politics.

The three captains, Indelicato,

Philip Giaccone and Dominick Trinchera,

were buying guns and weapons,

and that was seen as a sign

that the three captains were gonna make a move.

Massino put together a countermove.

He went to the other crime families

and they seemed to say,

"Look, you've got to do what you've got to do

to protect yourself."

I heard there was a fraction going on.

They wanted to take over the family,

and they wound up with a meeting,

and it was held, if I remember correctly,

in Sammy Gravano's club.

NARRATOR: Sammy "The Bull" Gravano

was a member of John Gotti's crew.

He had a club on 13th Avenue down in Brooklyn

in a neighborhood known as Dyker Heights.

And for one evening in May of 1981,

he lent it to Gotti's friend Joe Massino,

who had some business to take care of.

RICHARD: So these three guys, when they walk in,

somebody-- I guess it was Joe--

but the signal was,

he put his hand through his hair.

They came out of the closet and started shooting.

[gunshots banging]

And they shot the three of them.

And Massino's people took care of the homicide.

Gotti-- Gotti's people

dumped the bodies in the Hole,

that part of Brooklyn and Queens

which became known as a mob burial ground.

RICHARD: The Gambinos wound up burying the three guys.

♪

And one guy's arm was found out of the ground,

but that was done on purpose, from my understanding.

♪

Paul Castellano was the boss of the Gambinos.

Paul wanted people to know that body would be found.

"This is what happens to people

that look to take over our family."

NARRATOR: The murder of the three captains

sent a message to the Five Families,

"This is how an unapproved coup will be dealt with."

But word also got around of who had pulled it off.

Joe Massino was getting a reputation

in the criminal underworld.

He had successfully maneuvered two power struggles

in his own family.

But internal power struggles were nothing new.

The next threat to face the Bonannos

would be something new entirely,

a threat that would strike fear like never before

among the leaders of New York's Five Families.

ANTHONY: After the three captain murders,

it was revealed that an FBI agent

had infiltrated the Bonanno crime family.

REPORTER: This man, known as Donnie Brasco,

small-time jewel thief,

now testifying at a federal trial in New York.

Brasco has revealed his true name,

Joseph Pistone, agent of the FBI,

who went undercover to infiltrate the mob

for six years.

LARRY: It was a disaster for the Bonanno family.

Probably the biggest thing was,

the Bonannos were forced to forfeit their seat

on the Commission

for letting this guy infiltrate the family.

♪

ANTHONY: Pistone was dealing with...

the Bonanno family.

But he had information about other families too.

The feeling is, "What other shoe's gonna drop?"

♪

NARRATOR: On the next episode

of American Godfathers: The Five Families.

The US Government delivers a blow like never before

to the American Mafia.

CLAIRE: The Commission Case is a watershed moment

in battling organized crime.

All the bosses went to prison.

NARRATOR: And as the walls begin to come in on the Five Families,

The Dapper Don takes to the streets of New York City.

John Gotti showed up at the right time in New York.

MCSHANE: He became a star.

NARRATOR: Joe Massino emerges

as public enemy number one.

EDWARD: The only true boss of the Five Families

who's out on the street with power is Joey Massino.

NARRATOR: But by this time,

the playing field had changed entirely.

MIKE: If somebody was in jail

and nobody knew where that person was,

that person was probably cooperating

and additional charges were coming.

I think the guys do the arithmetic,

and they realize you're going to spend

the rest of your days in jail,

what for?

♪

Omertà has eroded.