Joseph Bonanno
Joseph Bonanno |
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Giuseppe "Joseph/Joe" Bonanno (January 18, 1905 – May 12, 2002) was a Sicilian-born American Mafioso who became the boss of one of the infamous five families crime families of New York City. He was nicknamed Joe Bananas, a name he hated due to the implication that he was crazy.
Biography
Early life and career
Joseph Buonanno was born in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Italy, to Salvatore Buonanno and Catarina Bonventre. In 1906 the 26-year-old Salvatore took his young wife and one-year-old son to the United States. They settled in Brooklyn, where Salvatore operated a bar/restaurant. In 1911 Salvatore was summoned by his brothers to return to Castellammare because the Buonanno family business was being threatened by a rival family. Salvatore died in Sicily in 1915, followed byhis mother, Caratina, who died in 1920, making Joseph an orphan at the age of fifteen. In 1921 Joseph enrolled in a nautical college in Palermo.
The following year, Benito Mussolini rose to power and, with the aid of the "iron prefect" of Palermo, Cesare Mori, began a ruthless crackdown against the Mafia, who were perceived as an unacceptable threat to the exclusive power of the Fascist regime. Hundreds of Sicilian citizens – many of whom were not Mafiosi – were arrested and subjected to torture and execution.
Appalled by these harsh measures, Buonanno and his friend Peter Maggadino joined an anti-fascist student group. As a result of his anti-Mussolini activities an arrest warrant was issued, forcing Buonanno and Maggadino, along with five other student protesters, to flee Italy, first by freighter to Marseilles, then to Paris and finally to Cuba. From Cuba, Joseph was smuggled to the western shore of Florida by boat. He eventually returned to the same area in Brooklyn, near Roebling Street and Metropolitan Avenue, where he had lived as a boy thirteen years earlier. Joseph, now nineteen years old, lived in the home of his uncle, Peter Bonventre, a barber. Before long, the youthful Buonanno affiliated himself with the neighborhood Mafiosi, also mainly from Castellammare, and began a life of crime as a bootlegger and illegal lottery operator. Much later, in 1938, Joseph left America and re-entered legally at Detroit, finally becoming a naturalized citizen in 1945.
The Castellammarese War
Almost from the beginning, Bonanno was recognized by his accomplices in Brooklyn as a man with superior organizational skills and quick instincts. He also became known to the leader of Mafia activities in New York: Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria. Masseria became increasingly suspicious of the growing number of Castellammarese in Brooklyn. He sensed they were gradually disassociating themselves from his overall leadership. The Castellammarese faction of the Mafia headquartered in North Williamsburg, Brooklyn was led by Salvatore Maranzano. He had been sent over by Don Daniel Herrera, the Sicilian mafia leader.
In 1927 violence broke out between the two rival factions that shortly developed into all out war. This war between Masseria and Maranzano became known as the Castellammarese War. It would continue for more than four years.
By 1930 Maranzano’s chief aides were Joseph Bonanno, Joseph Profaci, Thomas Lucchese and Joseph Magliocco. Gaetano Gagliano from another gang allied with and strongly supported the Castellammarese cause, as did the Buffalo, New York Castellammarese led by Stefano Magaddino, the uncle of Peter Maggadino, (Joseph's old boyhood friend from his student days in Palermo).
Joe the Boss had on his side Charles Lucky Luciano, Vito Genovese, Joe Adonis, Carlo Gambino, Albert Anastasia and Frank Costello.
By 1931 momentum had shifted to the Castellammarese. They were better organized and more unified than Masseria’s men, some of whom began to defect. Luciano and Genovese urged their leader to make peace with the Castellammarese but he stubbornly refused. In the end Luciano and Genovese hatched a secret deal with Maranzano in which he guaranteed them safety and status in exchange for which they arranged for Joe the Boss to be “whacked”, (murdered).
Maranzano outlined a peace plan to all the various gang leaders in which each gang would be led by a capo (boss). Under this plan there would be 24 gangs (to be known as “families”) throughout the United States who would elect their own capo. At the head of the whole organization would be the capo di tutti capi, (the boss of bosses), namely himself. This final article of the plan did not sit well with many of the gangsters, especially Luciano. As a consequence he conspired to have Maranzano eliminated and in place of the capo di tutti capi he established a commission in which each of the families would be represented by their capo. Each family would be largely autonomous in their designated area but the Commission would arbitrate disputes between gangs.
In New York City, five Mafia families were established. Lucky Luciano was the head of one family. The others were led by Gaetano Gagliano, Joseph Profaci, Vincent Mangano and Joseph Bonanno. Bonanno was 26, making him one of the youngest ever bosses of a crime family. With the establishment of the Commission, the Castellammarese War ended, ushering in more than twenty years of relative "peace" to the New York crime scene.
Control of the family
The Bonanno crime family's underbosses were Frank Garofalo, John Bonventre and Carmine Galante. Although the family was smaller than the other New York organizations, it was more efficiently operated, and since there was virtually no internal dissension and little harassment from other gangs or the law, the family prospered in the running of its illegal activities, such as loan sharking, bookmaking, numbers running and control of prostitution.
Bonanno's large cash position gleaned from crime allowed him to make many profitable real estate investments during the Depression. His legitimate business interests included areas as diverse as the garment industry, cheese factories and funeral homes, and by the time Bonanno became a US citizen in 1945, he was a multimillionaire. The single encounter Joseph had with the law during these years was when a clothing factory that he partly owned was charged with violating the Federal Wage and Hour Law. He was fined $50.
Personal life
In 1931, two months after Maranzano was murdered, Joseph was married to Fay Labruzzo. They had three children: Salvatore "Bill" Bonanno, born 1932; Catherine, born 1934; and Joseph Jr., born 1945.
As he prospered, Joseph bought property in Hempstead, Long Island and moved his family out of Brooklyn. When Bill was ten years old he developed a mastoid infection of his ear that led to his being transferred to a private boarding school in Tucson, Arizona. Joseph and Fay would visit their son during the winter months. Eventually Joseph purchased a house in Tucson.
Plots and kidnapping
By the mid 1950s the Commission that had held the peace for so many years was unraveling. Many of the original Dons had been convicted of crimes and either jailed or deported. Vito Genovese and Frank Costello were fighting for control of the Luciano family. Vincent Mangano had mysteriously disappeared and his place as capo had been taken over by Albert Anastasia, one of the most feared men in the syndicate. In October of 1957 Anastasia was gunned down. Then in November the New York State Police raided the infamous Apalachin Meeting and dozens of capos – including Joseph Bonanno – were captured and charged with various crimes. Then in 1963 Joseph Valachi, a soldier in the Genovese family, under indictment for murderering a fellow inmate, broke the code of omertà. Valachi described in detail the organizational structure of the Mafia, unmasked many of the leaders and recalled old feuds and murders.
After the death of Joseph Profaci, a very good friend of Bonanno and leader of the Profaci crime family, Bonanno was the sole survivor of the original Commission. Joseph Magliocco became boss of the Profaci faction. Soon, Magliocco began to have troubles with the Gallos, who were now backed by Lucchese and Gambino. He devised a plot to kill the two men. He gave the order to Joseph Colombo, who soon betrayed his boss and went to the Commission.
The Commission wanted an explanation from Magliocco. Magliocco was very ill, so the Commission were lenient, levying a fine of $50,000 and ordering him to retire from active criminal life, being replaced by Joseph Colombo. One month later, Magliocco died of high blood pressure.
After Magliocco's death, Bonanno had few allies left. Many members felt he was too power hungry, and one, a boss from Florida, Trafficante, once said in anger, "He's planting flags all over the world!" Some members of his family also thought he spent too much time away from New York, and more in Canada and Tucson, where he had business interests. The Commission members decided that he no longer deserved leadership over his family and replaced him with a caporegime in his family, Gaspar DiGregorio. Bonanno, however, would not accept this. This resulted in his family breaking into two groups, the one led by DiGregorio, and the other headed by Bonanno and his son, Salvatore. Newspapers referred to this as "The Banana Split."
Since Bonanno refused to give up his position, the other Commission members felt it was time for drastic action.
In October of 1964, Bonanno was betrayed by his own enforcer, Mike Zaffarino and allegedly kidnapped by Buffalo Family members, Peter and Antonino Magaddino. Bonanno was held captive in upstate New York by his cousin, Stefano Maggadino. Maggadino represented the Commission, and told his cousin that he "took up too much space in the air", a Sicilian proverb for arrogance. After much talk, Bonanno was released. The Commission members believed he would finally retire and relinquish his power.
The Banana War
Meanwhile a war had erupted in the Bonanno Family. DiGregorio forces and Bonanno loyalists, led by Salvatore Bonanno, erupted in war when Salvatore retaliated after his father's kidnapping. Eventually, DiGregorio promised a peace meeting on whatever territory Salvatore wanted. It was an ambush. DiGregorio's men opened fire with rifles and automatic weapons on Salvatore and his associates, who were armed only with pistols. The police estimated that over 500 shots were fired but remarkably, no one was hurt. The war lasted for over two years. The Commission originally thought they could win, but when Joseph Bonanno returned, their hopes were dashed. Joseph Bonanno sent a message that for every Bonanno loyalist killed, he would retaliate by hitting a caporegime from the other side. The Bonanno loyalists were starting to see victory when Bonanno suffered a heart attack. He decided that he and his son would retire to Tucson, leaving his broken family to Paul Sciacca, who had replaced DiGregorio. The Commission had won.
Later career in Arizona
Bonanno and his son subsequently moved to Arizona, where he was at one time sent to jail by the FBI to serve time for various charges during his previous stay in that state. In 1983, he wrote his autobiography A Man of Honor. The government seized the opportunity and questioned him about the Commission, hoping to prove its existence. He kept the vow of omertà and answered no questions. Though old and in poor health, he was jailed for nearly a year because of this.
In the 1990s, cable television channel Lifetime produced a movie about his life, called "Bonanno: A Godfather's Story." It is a true story account of the rise and fall of organized crime in the United States of America. He is depicted in a more limited way in Lifetime's production of "Love, Honor, & Obey: The Last Mafia Marriage," based on the 1990 memoir by his daughter-in-law, Rosalie Profaci Bonanno.
He was never convicted of a serious crime. He was once fined $450 and was also jailed for contempt of court for refusing to answer questions, being released in 1986 after serving fourteen months. Upon retirement, Bonanno was allowed to live in peace in a normal house in Tucson, Arizona with his family. Joseph Bonanno, the last remaining Mafia don who survived Italian fascism, Mustache Petes, and his own bloody war, died Sunday, May 12, 2002 of heart failure at the age of 97.
In popular culture
Bonanno is said to be one of the models for Vito Corleone in Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather, both Bonanno and Corleone wanting their sons to succeed them and they're against the drug racket.
References
- Bonanno, Joe (2003). A Man of Honor: The Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno. New York: St Martin's Paperbacks.
- Talese, Gay (1971). Honor Thy Father. United States of America: World Publishing Company.