Joseph Gallo (April 7, 1929 – April 7, 1972), also known as "Crazy Joe", was an American mobster and soldato (soldier) often characterized as a de facto caporegime (captain) in the Colombo crime family of New York City.
Diagnosed with schizophrenia in his youth, Gallo became an enforcer in the Profaci crime family (forerunner to the Colombo family) and formed his own crew with his brothers, Larry and Albert. In 1957, Joe Profaci allegedly asked the Gallo crew to murder Albert Anastasia, the boss of what was to become the Gambino crime family; Anastasia was later murdered at a barbershop in Midtown Manhattan. In 1961, the Gallo brothers kidnapped four of Profaci's top men: underboss Joseph Magliocco, Frank Profaci (Joe Profaci's brother), captain Salvatore Musacchia and soldier John Scimone, demanding a more favorable financial scheme for the hostages' release. After a few weeks of negotiation, Profaci and his consigliere, Charles "the Sidge" LoCicero, made a deal with the Gallos and secured the peaceful release of the hostages. This incited the First Colombo War.
In 1961, Gallo was sentenced to seven to fourteen years' imprisonment for conspiracy and extortion. During his incarceration, Magliocco took over the family in the wake of Profaci's death, leading to a murder attempt against Carmine Persico by the remaining Gallo brothers in 1963. Patriarca family boss Raymond L.S. Patriarca negotiated a peace agreement between the two factions, but Gallo later refused to abide by the agreement, citing his imprisonment. After Gallo's release from prison in 1971, a peace offering of $1,000 was made by boss Joseph Colombo, but Gallo demanded $100,000; Colombo refused. On June 28, 1971, at an Italian-American Civil Rights League rally in Columbus Circle, Colombo was shot three times by an African-American gunman, who was immediately killed by Colombo's bodyguards; Colombo survived the shooting but was paralyzed. Although many in the Colombo family blamed Gallo for the shooting, police eventually concluded that the gunman acted alone after they had questioned Gallo.
The Colombo family leadership was convinced that Gallo ordered their boss' murder after his falling out with the family, inciting the Second Colombo War. On April 7, 1972, at around 4:30 a.m., Gallo was shot dead at Umbertos Clam House in Little Italy, Manhattan, while celebrating his 43rd birthday. Although differing accounts of who the killer or killers were have been reported by various sources over the years, "the case officially remains unsolved."
Joe Gallo was born on April 7, 1929, in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York City. His parents were Umberto and Mary Gallo. A bootlegger during Prohibition, Umberto invested his earnings into a loan-sharking racket and did little to discourage Gallo and his two brothers, Larry and Albert, from participating in local criminal activity.
Although he would remain deeply entwined with South Brooklyn in the popular imagination, and often frequented the area as a youth because of familial ties, Gallo was actually raised in Kensington (then customarily characterized as a subsection of Flatbush), where his family owned and operated Jackie's Charcolette, a greasy spoon at 108 Beverley Road. As late as 1964, a United States Senate dossier on organized crime identified the family's home at 639 East 4th Street as Gallo's permanent residence. Gallo completed his primary education at P.S. 179 in Kensington before dropping out of the Brooklyn High School of Automotive Trades in Williamsburg at the age of 16.
Shortly thereafter, Gallo sustained head trauma in an automobile accident, resulting in the manifestation of a "nervous tic"; by this juncture, he and lifelong associates Peter "Pete the Greek" Diapoulas and Frank Illiano had begun to contemplate various criminal schemes while frequenting the Ace Pool Room on Church Avenue and a candy store on 36th Street and Fourteenth Avenue in nearby Borough Park. In 1949, after viewing the film Kiss of Death (1947), Gallo began mimicking Richard Widmark's gangster character "Tommy Udo" and reciting movie dialogue. After a 1950 arrest he was temporarily confined to Kings County Hospital Center, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Albert Seedman, the head of New York City Police Department's Detective Bureau, called Gallo "that little guy with steel balls." Gallo's brothers Larry and Albert (the latter of whom had by now gained the street moniker "Kid Blast") were also his criminal associates.
Gallo's first wife – whom he married around 1960, divorced in the mid-1960s and then remarried in July 1971 – was Las Vegas showgirl Jeffie Lee Boyd. Later in 1971, Jeffie divorced Gallo again. The couple had one daughter, Joie. In March 1972, three weeks before his death, Gallo married 29-year-old actress Sina Essary. He became the stepfather of Sina's daughter, Lisa Essary-Gallo (born 1962).
Gallo started his adult criminal career as an enforcer and hitman for Joe Profaci in the Profaci crime family. In addition to helping to manage his father's loan-sharking business and Larry's vending machine and jukebox operations (with the latter often perceived as the "crown jewel" of the family's rackets), Gallo directly oversaw a variety of enterprises, including floating dice and high-stakes card games, extortion shakedowns and a numbers game. He maintained his headquarters at "The Dormitory," a three-story brick tenement at 51 President Street (within the boundaries of Brooklyn's contemporary Columbia Street Waterfront District) that previously housed the Gallo family's vending machine interests; there, he allegedly kept a pet lion named Cleo in the basement. Within a few years, Gallo secretly owned several Manhattan nightclubs and two sweatshops in the Garment District.
In 1957, Profaci allegedly asked Gallo and his crew to murder Albert Anastasia, the boss of what would later become the Gambino crime family. Anastasia's underboss, Carlo Gambino, wanted to replace him and asked Profaci for assistance. On October 25, Anastasia entered the barbershop at the Park Sheraton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. As Anastasia relaxed in the barber's chair, two men—scarves covering their faces—rushed in, shoved the barber out of the way and killed Anastasia in a hail of bullets. The killers have never been conclusively identified, but Carmine Persico later claimed that he and Gallo had shot Anastasia, joking that he was part of Gallo's "barbershop quintet."
The following year, Gallo and his brothers were summoned to Washington, D.C., to testify before the McClellan Committee of the United States Senate on organized crime. While visiting Senate Counsel Robert F. Kennedy in his office, Gallo flirted with Kennedy's secretary and told Kennedy his carpet would be excellent for a dice game. On the witness stand, none of the brothers provided any useful information.
On February 27, 1961, the Gallo brothers kidnapped four of Profaci's top men: underboss Joseph Magliocco, Frank Profaci (Joe Profaci's brother), caporegime (captain) Salvatore Musacchia and soldato (soldier) John Scimone. Profaci himself eluded capture and flew to sanctuary in Florida. While holding the hostages captive, Larry and Albert sent Joe to California. The Gallos demanded a more favorable financial scheme for the hostages' release. Gallo wanted to kill one hostage and demand $100,000 before negotiations, but his brother Larry overruled him. After a few weeks of negotiation, Profaci and his consigliere, Charles "the Sidge" LoCicero, struck a deal with the Gallos and secured the peaceful release of the hostages.
However, Profaci had no intention of honoring this peace agreement. On August 20, 1961, he ordered the murders of Larry and Joseph "Joe Jelly" Gioielli, a member of the Gallo crew. Gunmen allegedly murdered Gioielli after inviting him to go fishing. Larry survived a strangulation attempt by Persico and Salvatore "Sally" D'Ambrosio at the Sahara Club in East Flatbush after a police officer intervened. The Gallos had been previously aligned with Persico against Profaci and his loyalists; they then began calling Persico "the Snake" after he had betrayed them. The gang war continued, resulting in nine murders and three disappearances. With the start of the war, the Gallo crew retreated to the Dormitory. Persico was indicted later in 1961 for the attempted murder of Larry, but the charges were dropped when Larry refused to testify.