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Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. [Music] [Applause] Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever
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you are, whatever you are doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host, Nick, and with me is a guy that knows that you
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never go against the family. No matter whose family it is, he is the captain. Okay, I'm reloading.
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It's good to be seen and it's good to see you. [Music] Today we are drinking Green Diamonds by
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Other Half Brewing in beautiful Brooklyn, New York. Green Diamonds is an Imperial IPA brewed with Golden Promise
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malt and lots of Australian Galaxy hops. Shine bright like a diamond. Garage grade four out of five bottle caps.
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Green diamonds was brought to us by some of our special shiny diamonds in the True Crime Garage Army. First up, we
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have Beauty and the Bree from Chandler, Arizona. Next, we go to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and say thanks to BK. BK
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says, "Love the show, and I love how Nick doesn't seem to miss a beat even when the captain goes on a rant." And oh
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yeah, I love the captain's rants, too. Next, we have Anthony. Yo, Anthony from Bronxville, New York.
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>> Yo, Anthony. >> We also have traveling Hillary who says she's always listening while traveling.
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Right now, she's listening to us in Angola. Safe travels, Hillary. That's actually Hillary Clinton there, Captain.
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I don't know if you know, but she's a big big fan. Let's go close to home and say thanks to McKenzie from Columbus,
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Ohio. And last, but not least, thank you to Ryan in Covington, Kentucky. Ryan says, "You guys kick ass. TCG is the
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best podcast out there. >> And if you'd like to buy around for the show, you can do so at true
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Untapped. That's an app, people. Check me out at true crime garage. >> And for all social media, you can follow
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Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, all that stuff. True crime garage. >> All right, that's enough of the
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business, Captain. Everybody gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer, and let's talk some true crime.
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[Music] This is True Crime Garage and this is a case of Joseph Columbo. [Music] Roger. As fews for notorious individuals
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go, this was extremely modest with a service held in the section of Brooklyn where Joe Colo was regarded by many as
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an outstanding citizen and family man. There were only three flower-filled cars. The casket didn't look to be
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overly expensive. And no major recognizable organized crime figures came to pay their last respects to the
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dapperon who headed the family once caused by the late Joe Proface, the olive oil king. While there were a great
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number of politicians at the rally at which Columbbo was shot, including at least one congressman, at least one
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member of the state legislature, I didn't see any of those people today. Some 250 mourners attended the service
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in the half empty church from which cameras were born. FBI agents and plain closed police were present when
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Columbo's wife, four sons, and one daughter, as well as his parents arrived. Well, I met him at 49 at the
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waterfront. I worked with my leg extra labor and I think you're a hell of a nice guy.
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>> Columbbo died Monday at age 54. He'd been virtually paralyzed and in a semi coma since he was shot down at an
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Italian American Civil Rights League rally at Columbus Circle in 1971. >> Well, he was a family man that uh when I
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was a lot younger, I was about 10 years old. My father used to come home sometimes with turkeys and uh Mr.
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Columbo had given them to him. Uh >> Robert Vilanti with Stacy Moscowitz the night he was killed by David Burkowitz
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and who was left almost blinded by the so-called son of Sam didn't know Colbo but came to the church today with a
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friend who did. >> Mother had a lot of respect for the man and uh he was doing the things for the
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Italian people and he was good for our own kind. The massive resurrection was conducted by Father Lewis Jaganti,
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former city councilman from East Holland. He spotted me after the service and as the funeral entourage was passing
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the home of Columbbo's sister on the way to the cemetery. Can you tell us summarize what you said at the service?
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Yeah, I just called Joe Columbo uh a mart for the Italian-American cause. a model for the Italian-American cause
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[Music] last night at a Newberg, New York hospital almost 7 years after he was shot down in Columbus Circle. It's
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believed that his shooting was arranged by crazy Joe Gallow who himself a year later was ventilated by gunfire that
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proved his mortality. More on the Columbbo story. >> Joe Columbo regarded himself as a good
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family man period. And he used to hoot at allegations that he was involved in hijacking, lone sharking, policy and
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bookmaking among other various enterprises. The short stocky balding dapper Don was
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a native of Brooklyn and his last home there was his private house in the Dikica beach section from which the
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Columbos moved about 2 years after he was cut down in the prime of life at the age of 54.
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It happened on a June day in 1971. This is where it happened. Thousands of people were already at the rally. Many
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more were on their way. Many politicians were up on the stands. Suddenly, there was a series of shots and Columbbo was
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hit at least three times. A moment later, his asalant was grabbed and pummeled and then shot, killed instantly
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by Columbbo followers. Columbo was regarded as really being on his way up in 1963
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when Carlo Gambino, the boss of bosses and who died a natural death, named him to take over the family which had been
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run by Joe Proface after the olive oil king died also of natural causes. Columbbo reportedly ran this real estate
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business where nobody would speak with me today. Outside in the gutter, a husky young man
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advised me, quote, "Get the hell out of here and leave the dead. Rest in peace. If you know what's good for you.
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If you know what's good for you." Jerome Johnson, the man who shot Columbbo, was believed by police to be a
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hired gun who got the contract from the Gallow gang. Joe Colombo detested the word mafia and
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he once said, "I don't know what they're talking about when they talk about the mafia. I do have a family,
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>> a model for the Italian-American cause. [Music] Who was Joe Columbo? Joe Columbo was a
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father. He was the alleged boss of the Columbbo crime family and the founder of the Italian-American Civil Rights
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League. And in 1971, Joe Columbo was gunned down among a crowd of thousands in one of the most highly publicized
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shootings in New York City's history. >> I'll take you through the scene here a bit before we get to our guest this
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week. This is the summer of 1971 in New York City and the Italian-American Civil
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Rights League is putting on a rally or let's say a gathering rather. This is the second of such gatherings and they
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call it unity day. It's a day for the people and to bring everyone together as a community. But this is not a small
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gathering. No, thousands of people were present. The FBI sent every field agent from their New York City offices to the
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rally. NYPD sent 1,500 uniformed police officers there for crowd control. They also sent a few hundred higher ranking
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officers as well, most likely to oversee the patrolman on duty that day. >> And this is basically a rally, the unity
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rally is basically Joe Colombo was really pushing the issue of affirmative action. And when we think of affirmative
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action, we think of um you know, African-American affirmative action, but he was really pushing Italian.
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>> Yes. >> And so this is something that nowadays 2016, we're going this was an issue.
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This was a this was a big issue in the '60s and then in the early '7s. >> Yeah. And so we're talking about 17 or
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1,800 police officers there. We're talking about a bunch of FBI uh agents from the NYC field off offices. Um so
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there is going to be a very large big police presence was going to be on tap that day. Now it doesn't take a wise guy
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to figure out that the FBI is not they're not there for crowd control. >> No pun intended.
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>> Yeah. Of course not. The the FBI, they don't mess around with crowd control. No, they are there because some might
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call this a mafia event. There is going to be mafia presence there that day as well. And the FBI, well, they are going
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to go there to photograph, document, and of course, eavesdrop on these mob members.
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>> Now, Joe Colombo, you could consider him the host of this event, the guest of
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honor, the headliner, whatever you want to call it, >> right? The main speaker. >> But Unity, Unity Day existed because of
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Joe Colombo. He was the one everyone was there to see and hear. he was their leader. And I have to point out, you
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know, we all we all know the FBI does not like the mob. But more importantly, it was no real secret that Jay Edgar
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Hoover, a number one FBI, well, he really did not like Joe Colombo. And I'll let our guest Don Capria get into
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that a little bit later. But back to Unity Day. Shortly before the event could kick off, Joe Colomo is standing
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inside a press barricade. Keep in mind, Joe is practically surrounded by Italian
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American Civil Rights League members, Columbbo mob members, family members, as well as NYPD patrolman. Now, there's
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about 15 to 20 NYPD, just to be clear, right around Joe Colombo. It is at this point that Joe is gunned down. The
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shooter is Jerome Johnson, who is posing as a cameraman with fake press credentials. Jerome Johnson is tackled
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by police. He's handcuffed and then someone in the crowd shoots Johnson. Johnson dies in handcuffs and Joe
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Columbo somehow survives the attack but he is comeomaosse. >> Yeah. And we believe that these are
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people that worked for Joe Columbo. You know his supporters. Somebody was like, "Oh no, they shot Joe, so now we killed
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this guy. >> They re Yeah. The thought is that they may have retaliated." Now, we are all
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familiar with the FBI and Jay Garoover, but let's take a minute to introduce >> How familiar are we? Well, we, you know,
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had >> well read >> had him to brunch uh one day many years ago. >> He was in the garage sipping on a a nice
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cold beer, >> possibly dressed as a woman. >> Well, let's introduce the five crime
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families. >> Okay, so the five families are known as the Banano family, the Columbbo family,
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the Gambino family, the Genevves family, and the Lucasy family. And I tried to throw a little Italian on there at the
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end. I kind of kind of butchered it. Now, these are the five major New York City organized crime families of the
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Italian-American mafia. Now, I know that some of the families have had different
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names from time to time. So, I don't want to get any email saying I'm going to swim with the fishes because
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>> because the Genevves family was once the Luciano family. I mean, >> yeah. And basically what happens here is
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you have a crime family and then you have let's say cousins and brothers and stuff like that that are all working for
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this crime and sometimes the cousin or a family friend becomes the leader and then they change the name of the crime
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family. >> You're exactly right. So I mean no disrespect but for the sake of argument
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and for the fishes >> for the sake of this episode let's just agree that those are the five families.
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Now, I did say Luciano or Luciano family. That's a popular name and one that most people are familiar with. If
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you're not, Charles Lucky Luciano. He was once the boss of what more recently is referred to as the Genevacy family
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and is pretty much considered the father for modern-day organized crime and splitting New York into the different
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criminal gangs. Lucky became the boss by secretly betraying his boss. And then Lucky ended up going to prison and
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eventually he is deported to Italy and at some point loses the boss title. >> I wonder with New York having the five
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burrows and then we also have the five crime families. I wonder if there's any connection there.
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>> You're right. There is some connection there. and the five major families historically operated in the New York
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metropolitan area but also having a big presence in New Jersey and also have and
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may still be who knows be active in South South Florida, Las Vegas, Connecticut and Massachusetts. So we got
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the five crime families and sometimes they're just working independently. Sometimes they're working in clusters
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you sometimes it's as a whole and sometimes they're waring between each other. Maybe it's two against three or
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just one against one, you know, kind of a turf war battle. >> Yeah, that's a little bit of the
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background here. But we are not here to give a primer lesson on Italian-American
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organized crime. >> Yes, we are. >> No, we are here to discuss the conspiracy plot and cover up to kill and
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silence mob boss and community leader Joseph Columbo. >> Mhm. You know, you know that most
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What's What do you think is the most cover up? You know, like construction. Mhm.
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>> So like you're in organized crime. What are you actually in? >> Oh, your front.
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>> Yeah. Your front. What would your front be? Like >> waste management. >> Yours would be Well, I I used to have
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this guy that I s suspected >> Uhhuh. >> of knowing some people. And we'll get into that a little bit later. I'll tell
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you interesting story. But one guy I knew, very suspect, was into antiques. >> Oh, he's an antiques dealer.
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>> Yeah. I could never find his store. Uh, and then another guy was a barista. He
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had a coffee shop, but I I'll have to tell you a little bit about him later. >> The shooting of Columbbo could have been
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carried out and organized by any number of groups. Was it the mob? Was this a hit by one of the other four crime
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families? Was it the government and the CIA trying to take down a crime boss? Right.
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>> Or was it the FBI? Did Jay Edgar Hoover try to silence the very voice that was
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calling for regulations and sanctions on his own bureau? As we all know, the FBI
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has been >> Well, hold on. You're missing another The other possibility is just a lone
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gunman. >> Well, of course, >> somebody that Joe did wrong and just wanted revenge and the revenge would
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happen in public. >> Yeah. And the to help us do so, we have asked Don Capria, who has very recently
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teamed up with Joe Columbo's eldest son, Anthony, to join us. Now, Anthony knew his father extremely well. He worked
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alongside his father with the Italian-American Civil Rights League, but Anthony has been silent for over 40
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years and has recently decided to speak out about his life beside his father and
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his father's unsolved murder. And Don Caprio wrote this great book, Columbbo, the Unsolved Murder. Don is also going
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to talk to us about Joe Colomo's father. See, Joe Columbo's father was killed as
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well. murdered mafia style and most likely a retaliation kill for a killing that Joe's father, two gun Tony, carried
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out. You know, they called him two gun Tony because he kept a 38 caliber pistol in each of his two vest pockets.
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>> And one of the things that people believe that is evidence that this wasn't a mob killing was because this
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wasn't done in the typical hit style of the mob. >> Yep. Don is a New York native, so he
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knows the playing turf of this case. And of course, he grew up hearing stories about the mafia families and the
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different crime bosses. So without further ado, an interview with Don Capria. Don, you are a writer, producer, and
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music video director. How did you get involved in writing a true crime book? >> So I had always been interested in in
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true crime um and especially the New York Five. Um, so I had mentioned to a friend a while back in Brooklyn that I
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wanted to do a story on Joe Colombo. Uh, an actual I wanted to do a screenplay on
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Joe Colombo. I had always found that from the five families his story to be one of the most interesting because of
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how diverse he was as the leader of a family and also that there was so much so much a little bit of information but
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so much more story out there that no one really knew about for his life. So, um,
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pursuing the screenplay, I was kind of told, you know, this wouldn't be something that you can do being that his
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five his five children are still alive. This would be something you would really
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need a family blessing to to touch upon. Um, and I I said, "Fine, no problem." I
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had put it to bed. And then about a year later, that same friend had had told me,
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"Hey, look, are you interested in doing something with the Columbbo uh story?" And I said, "Of course." So, he said,
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"Well, a guy is going to be calling you. They're working on the book now and they're looking for someone to do the
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adaptation for a screenplay. I took a call with a gentleman that was like a liaison between the family and their
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agent Mickey Fryberg. And when we were on the call talking, he also let me know that they were probably looking for
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someone to do the book that something wasn't working out with the writer that they had on board. And I think it was a
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timing thing. So I went upstate and I met with Joe Columbo's oldest son Anthony Colombo, his grandson Anthony
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Colombo Jr. um Rey who was like the liaison of the family to the agent and we sat at a diner and and discussed what
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I knew about Joe Columbo's life, why I wanted to write this book, what my agenda was to to the story and the
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telling of Joe Columbo. and they told me a little bit of bit about what was not written and what was not in the media
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and what was not written in true crime books and we we it was a really great chemistry and I had never intended to
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write a book. I always wanted to be a screenwriter but when the opportunity arose and I sent in a little treatment
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to their agent and he accepted it, I decided I was going to take on my first true crime biography.
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>> Tell everybody about Joseph Columbo. Yeah, Joseph Columbo. Um, you know, he died before I was born and I I did a lot
00:20:43
of research on him from everything from the the media story of who Joe Colbo was, the the jacket of of criminal
00:20:52
history and and investigation done by the FBI and the NYPD, but I think the most interesting stories of course came
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from the people that had firsthand experiences with him. Uh, the more and more that I met people that that met Joe
00:21:06
or had heard stories about Joe and of course working side by side with Anthony, his oldest son, I I learned
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that the man could have he was one of these gentlemen that could have been anything. Um, and he did live and become
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successful in many different ways besides what you know the reputed mob boss story that everybody knew about
00:21:27
him. uh as a businessman, he was a dealmaker and he was a dealmaker that wanted to create win-win situations. Um
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as a community person, he was a leader. Uh in his family, he was a strong cohesive piece, but have of course the
00:21:42
head of his family, but always making sure that everyone is included and and he's the type of person that I met one
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guy in Brooklyn and I asked him, I said, you know, what is what is Joe Columbo? Who is Joe Colombo to you as far as the
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community person? He said Joe Colombo was the type of person that when a black man and a and an Asian man and a Russian
00:22:02
guy and and a Jewish guy and an Italian guy were having an argument over something, they would walk into a room
00:22:07
with Joe, Joe would sit him down, they'd come out of that room an hour later and
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everyone would be laughing and patting each other on the back. And and to me, I just learned that no matter what Joe
00:22:17
Colbo was in the media eye or to any person that wrote or spoke about him, he was just going to be a successful
00:22:25
leader. And that's why I think he had uh leaned over into politics and started the Italian-American Civil Rights
00:22:31
League. He knew how to pave the way to a successful situation. Whether that situation was a business deal, whether
00:22:39
that situation was uh a community organization, you know, he wanted to build a hospital. He was building a camp
00:22:45
in upstate New York. To me, Joe Colombo was just a naturalb born leader. >> We're talking about Joseph Columbo, the
00:22:52
famous mob boss of the Columbbo family. But when when Joe was a kid, his father was murdered.
00:22:58
>> Yes. So his father was an immigrant who while their roots are from Calabrian,
00:23:05
Italy, his father um came by way of Brazil, which was very common during the heavy immigration of Italian-Americans
00:23:12
to from Italy to the Americas. So his father came over and grew up just with his father because his siblings did not
00:23:23
make it because a lot of the people that were traveling on the boats got sick and
00:23:26
were rejected at the New York ports. So um he grew up as a street kid in in South Brooklyn and eventually joined
00:23:36
gangs and was known as two gun Tony um who was a member of what would be the Paci organization. But I think this was
00:23:45
even pre five families that he was involved in you know the bootlegging activity the roaring 20s and then in the
00:23:52
1930s um the at the end of the castle mors there was a huge power struggle that was
00:23:59
happening in Brooklyn and we all know the story of Saluchiano and how he with myansky devised the five families where
00:24:07
these territories would finally be defined and leaders would be defined and the work would be defined. Um, and when
00:24:14
that was happening, there was still someone in the streets of South Brooklyn, a very powerful uh, gangster,
00:24:22
um, Frankie Yell's associate, and his his name is a clutching hand pirano. Um, and he would not settle. He would not do
00:24:33
organiz organized crime like these men wanted to do where there was a politics involved. So, the man had to be taken
00:24:39
out. And from from what I was told, um he was walking home from a meeting one day where he had he had left the meeting
00:24:46
and told him the same thing. He was not going to give up property. He was not going to compromise. Um and he was shot
00:24:52
on Zacket Street in Brooklyn. And the coroner report on that shooting was that the first two bullets that entered his
00:24:59
body, um you could put a quarter over those first two bullets that entered his heart. meaning that the gun was fired
00:25:05
and the second gun was fired and he hit the same spot twice, which is pretty rare when it comes to sharp shooting
00:25:11
with a pistol. um that that murder and from from what I was told again is was was done by two gun which would be Joe
00:25:19
Komao's father and years later when the Pacei organization came to be someone had to take responsibility
00:25:27
for this lieutenant dying and it was rumored that that's when they decided they had to kill Anthony Colomo who was
00:25:34
responsible for the shooting of Jeppi Proface. So he was slain um with with a girl that was someone that he was seeing
00:25:42
on the side of his wife. And it was a very brutal murder. They they um in those days uh in the the late 1930s,
00:25:52
1920s, 1930s, they were still doing um stuff that they did when they came over was called like the barrel murders. I
00:25:58
don't know if you're familiar with that, but where they would take a body and they would affixiate it by tying a rope
00:26:04
from the legs to the head and the body would actually fold. And that that's how um Joe Columbo's father was found. And
00:26:12
the photos were all over the newspaper. And it was something I'm sure was extremely difficult for Joe as a
00:26:18
14-year-old boy to have everyone that knows him know about his father's murder and had seen pictures of his father's
00:26:24
body, the hand even laying out from the backseat of the car in the police photos
00:26:28
that made it into the newspapers. And this was something that was a turning point for Joe Colo because his his
00:26:34
mother at that time was so nervous about what was going on decided to pack up and
00:26:38
leave the state and go to California. And Joe at 14 years old did not want to leave the state. He wanted to stay in
00:26:45
New York and I think he wanted to stay in New York because he wanted to find out who was responsible for his father's
00:26:50
murder. >> And was Anony's mistress killed that day as well? >> She was. Yes. >> So his father and his father's mistress
00:26:58
were both killed that day by strangulation. >> Both murders were done by strangulation.
00:27:02
Uh Christine Olivieri, who was married at the time as well, was the mistress. Um and she was also strangled and left
00:27:10
inside this uh Pontiac. Um, it was called the Shore Road Murders in the newspaper. It was in the Bay Ridge
00:27:17
section of Brooklyn. And it was a very, very foggy morning that those cars, it must have happened in the evening before
00:27:24
and a very foggy morning. The killer and accompllices took this Pontiac and drove
00:27:29
it right off of Shore Road, parked it on the side of the street. And then when the fog cleared in the morning, the
00:27:35
bodies were actually found by a little boy who was just walking his dog. and he saw these this two bodies in the
00:27:42
backseat of this Pontiac and then called the superintendent of the building next
00:27:46
door, the police, and there you had the crime scene. >> We're talking with true crime author Don
00:27:51
Capria about Joseph Columbo, the mob boss, and his father has been killed when he was a boy. Now, his mother moves
00:27:59
out to California, and Joseph stays behind in New York. >> Yes. And again, my belief is that Joe
00:28:08
wanted to find out who was responsible for his father's murder. And I think that Joe also angered wanted to avenge
00:28:16
his father. Um, and there was a gentleman that was very close to his father that they live around the corner
00:28:22
from each other in Sheep's Head Bay. And this gentleman went to Joe at his father's funeral and let him know that
00:28:32
listen, I'm a very dear friend of your fathers. He was a mentor to me and he's a a very important person in my life.
00:28:38
And I'm going to be watching over you and if there's anything that you ever need, please come and see me. And Joe
00:28:45
started developing a relationship with this man from the time he was 14 years old. Uh a mentorship I would say. And um
00:28:52
you know I can get into that later on and how that relationship grew. But I think that that person was also
00:28:59
a pivotal person kind of the detent pole for Joe saying okay well my whole family
00:29:03
is going to leave and go to California but if I stay here I have someone that I can turn to for money job or whatever it
00:29:09
needs to survive in New York City. Joseph Columbo. His father's been killed. His mother moves away. Now,
00:29:29
Joseph has to become a man very quickly here. What does he do? Does he drop out of school? How does he fend for himself?
00:29:36
>> He stays in school. He does not um stay in school to complete uh high school. He
00:29:42
had switched schools because he needed a residency. So the mother's sister was living off of New Utri a so more towards
00:29:49
Benenhurst. So he stays in school. Um he was he had a shine box and he was shining shoes. Um and then he started
00:29:58
learning how to roll dice and he started making money because he noticed that well the money doesn't come from rolling
00:30:04
dice and having good luck. The money comes from running the games. So at a very early age he was running crap games
00:30:11
and he started learning hustles on the street and he got a job um working for a butcher. uh he got a job working bakery
00:30:21
delivery and then I think he started to notice um from some of the older gentlemen in the neighborhood as well
00:30:26
that there was ways to have the job and also make a little bit of extra money by
00:30:31
hitting up bakery deliveries and hitting up uh meat deliveries and all these different kinds of things. So he he
00:30:38
learns h to hustle and and uh earn money at a very early age you know 14 15 years
00:30:44
old and once he started to support himself then that's when he was feeling like he could live on his own and I
00:30:51
think before he turned 18 years old his mother moved back from California once the dust had settled and she felt things
00:30:59
were safe um she decided that she would move back to New York so he was living under her roof again by the time he was
00:31:05
17 or 18. >> So, when does Joe Columbo become involved in organized crime and get
00:31:11
involved with one of the famous Five Families? >> The organized crime stuff wasn't until
00:31:18
much later in his life. I think the first thing that happened for him was he started he started working at uh
00:31:23
Franklin Pocketbook Factory in Brooklyn. And he was about 17 or 18 years old when he got this job.
00:31:31
And this job was where he met his future wife uh Jojo. And he also met some of his closest friends around this time
00:31:41
that he had lifelong friends. Uh he also learned to organize at this time where at this factory he he became a leader.
00:31:48
This was you know where he started getting leadership role and and people look to him to settle disputes and um it
00:31:55
was his first experience with union work. Uh he also had an experience with a comm the communist party at this time.
00:32:02
He was invited to a camp upstate from some of the union workers which would be around Pauling New York I would say. And
00:32:11
at this camp they were recruiting uh Italians and uh Germans and other people that were immigrants in New York to join
00:32:19
the communist party. And this was during the time of the war. Joe went up to the
00:32:23
camp, check out everything that they had to say and, you know, politely thanked them for letting him stay there and
00:32:31
feeding him and giving him all this information, but let him know that, you know, this was not something that was
00:32:36
for him, that he was he was definitely on the other side of the the political sphere. And uh when he came home, uh
00:32:42
Pearl Harbor had happened. And when Pearl Harbor happened, he felt that he needed to act. and he joined the not the
00:32:50
Navy but he joined the Coast Guard and he went to active duty right away. Um he was on a few different ships and
00:32:59
he saw action off the coast of Casablanca everywhere in between France and North Africa. Um a lot of action
00:33:08
actually and during one of the trips he got a message from his wife that their house on Saka Street had burned down.
00:33:16
Well, he I'm sorry, she wasn't his wife yet. They were just engaged to be married and he came back home and he
00:33:22
didn't have furlow and he skipped furlow and he went up into the mountains in New
00:33:26
York with his best friend, his wife and he got married and with that he went awall and he was locked up and placed on
00:33:33
Hart's Island. So he spent a lot of time um incarcerated a few months and then his wife got pregnant um and he had his
00:33:44
he got married and he had his first son within a year and that's when he started
00:33:48
working on the Brooklyn docks and I think when he started working on the Brooklyn docks he was introduced to a
00:33:55
lot of people in organized crime as we all know the docks were overrun with with criminals and and organized crime
00:34:01
figures you know everyone from Albert Anastasia on town. So, I think a lot of people respected Joe for who his father
00:34:07
was and they knew that his father was an an assassin for one of the gangs. And that gang, I think, took him under the
00:34:14
wing being the Pace Gang. And at the time that he was at the Brooklyn docks, so we're talking early 1940s, that was
00:34:22
when he was probably first introduced to organized crime and started to see that
00:34:26
he could be a leader within this community. In my research of Joe Colombo, there was a lot of talk about a
00:34:32
kidnapping that uh may have happened in 1961. Uh and I hope I'm not jumping too far
00:34:38
ahead here, but uh maybe you could fill us in on that. >> Now, there was a lot of kidnapping going
00:34:43
on during what the media and everyone spoke of as the Gallo Proface War. And what had happened, I think this all
00:34:51
started in 1958 or 1959. Um there was the whole the Gallow gang which was a a faction within the Pacei organization
00:35:02
from President Street and you had the the Gallows which was Joe Gallow, Albert Gallow and Larry Gallow. Larry Gallow as
00:35:11
I was told was the leader of the organization and beyond the Gallow gang you you had a lot of other people that
00:35:16
were involved. one of them um Joe Jelly who was you know infamous infamously known as one of the toughest guys in the
00:35:24
streets of Brooklyn at that time. Um these guys were vying for power within the organization because um from what I
00:35:31
was told again they were um they were the tough guys that were handling a lot of business for Pacei in
00:35:38
South Brooklyn. But it seemed that Pacei had such a grip on business that he would have them, you know, do different
00:35:45
things, take care of scores, maybe take out people, but then not give them the piece of the pie that they felt entitled
00:35:51
to. And crazy Joe Gallow, Joey the Blonde, as he was referred to in the street, was very rebellious. And I think
00:35:59
with him and his brother Larry who was a leader, he devised a plan that they could start kidnapping members of the
00:36:06
Pace organization and demands the money and whatever stake they felt was owed to
00:36:13
them. So there was a few different people that were kidnapped in 1961 and it's been rumored that Joe Colbo was
00:36:20
among those people, but he never was. um he actually just moved to upstate New York and made sure that he kept his
00:36:28
family outside of the city while all this was happening because beyond the kidnapping there were some murders that
00:36:34
were happening during the Gallow Pace war and and Joe was smart enough to know that he didn't want to get in the middle
00:36:40
of this situation and as I heard from folks Joe was the the influential person after Pacei had passed and after Mlakia
00:36:49
who was the under boss who became the leader of the Pace organization Joe was the person who really
00:36:56
cleaned up the war and made sure that everyone could be back together and it could be one family. And that was the
00:37:03
reason why in folklore the pace organization doesn't even exist in the five families anymore. Matter of fact,
00:37:09
the Colbo crime organization as they call it is the only crime organization that changed names and is still its name
00:37:16
in the FBI. You know, if we talk about five families, Mukesi, Genevvisi, Banano, Gambino, Columbbo, it didn't
00:37:23
start off that way. It was actually the Pacei organization that became the Columbbo organization. And I think this
00:37:29
was due to the disdain that a lot of the Gallow faction people had towards the Pace name and they said, well, if we're
00:37:34
going to make this an organization again, we'll never call ourselves Pacei members.
00:37:39
>> So, Joseph Columbo was never actually kidnapped. He just moved his family to kind of lay low. uh especially with
00:37:46
murder having been such a real thing for him seeing his father, you know, knowing
00:37:50
that his father was killed. >> Yeah, that that's what I'm going to guess. Um he, you know, while he moved
00:37:55
the family, he bought a house in Blooming Grove, New York, and he actually started buying more and more
00:38:02
property up there as his business was doing better. He still stayed in New York in Brooklyn. Um he was uh working
00:38:10
at Canalupo Realy on 86th Street. So, he still operated out of South Brooklyn. And I I would want to say that there was
00:38:17
probably even days that he was sleeping upstate and driving all the way back into the city for a full days of work
00:38:24
and then probably spending time with his family on the weekends up there and just
00:38:29
keeping them mainly out of Brooklyn as much as possible. Not thinking that there was anything per se that um would
00:38:36
happen to his family because of what was going on. The the you know, the organized crime members were never known
00:38:41
for that sort of behavior. So, I think it was just something that with the media and the news and the people on the
00:38:48
street, it was just, you know, there's so much dialogue going on about the streets that he felt it was better to
00:38:53
just keep them removed from everything. >> Columbo was sent away to prison in the
00:38:57
60s. How much time did he do? >> Very small amount of time. Um this was uh this was always the the the piece of
00:39:05
the puzzle that you know I worked closely with Anthony on where you know when I was writing this story I wrote it
00:39:12
with his oldest son and Anthony had told me he has a father-son story to tell and
00:39:18
he only wants to tell this father-son story from the time that he was born until the time that his father was shot.
00:39:25
And during that time, he never knew his father as an organized crime figure. Um,
00:39:31
he only knew his father as the head of his household. And whatever was written about him in the papers and whatever he
00:39:37
was arrested for, uh, even what he had gone to jail for, this is believable that Anthony would
00:39:44
see his father just as the businessman he told him he was and not an organized crime figure. Because if you have uh
00:39:50
someone that arrests you and you beat the charge or if you have someone that put you in jail for not speaking to a
00:39:55
committee or you know the one thing that he was convicted of for was um sign checking the wrong box on a real estate
00:40:03
application. You know, you're looking you look up to this man, you eat dinner with this man every day, you're going to
00:40:09
believe your father and you're not going to question him. So the the time that he
00:40:14
spent in jail was was something that anyone could go to jail for, which was just contempt. Um him and and Larry
00:40:21
Gallow were seen together at a resort in the Caskills um by a police officer and
00:40:28
just the police officer seeing um Larry Gallow and there was another gentleman who was also a convicted felon. Uh this
00:40:36
allowed for a grand jury hearing back in New York City. Joe had to sit and speak
00:40:41
at the grand jury hearing and when you don't speak at the grand jury hearing um you're in contempt and they can put you
00:40:47
in jail. So they ended up putting Joe and Larry in jail together and I I think the sentence was only about 60 days for
00:40:54
contempt. Um but this was the only time that he served in in jail. It was for something that you know you or I or
00:41:00
anyone who doesn't want to speak during a grand jury hearing could be put in jail for.
00:41:03
>> Let's talk about the Italian-American Civil Rights League. tell us what that is and let's talk about Joe Colombo's
00:41:10
involvement with that. >> Yes, Joe was always a you know he had a lot of pride um for his Italian heritage
00:41:19
and he loved the community in New York that he lived in and and beyond and he was I don't want to know say if he
00:41:27
wasn't a member of aid but he was a supporter of aid. I'm sure he was a supporter of the spons of Italy. So he
00:41:34
was not only proud but he was also a strong supporter in the organizations that existed. Um whenever he saw any
00:41:42
kind of defamation, whenever he saw any kind of struggle, he was the the type of
00:41:46
person that would step up and and fight. And something happened in 1970 to his son that had been um boiling and boiling
00:41:56
and waiting to explode and it finally did. the FBI had been threatening him that if we can't catch you, we're going
00:42:03
to we're going to go after your family. You know, we'll get your kids. And they indicted his son on a coin melting case
00:42:11
in April of 1971. When this happened, Joe went to these organizations and he said, "Look, it's it's time for the the
00:42:19
Italian people to step up and fight the the Justice Department." The Justice Department not only attacked him, but
00:42:27
they had been known for going around in the community. And if you knew a criminal, if you were a relative of a
00:42:32
criminal, they were shaking people down, you know, doing the robbing money from their homes, uh, threatening immigrants
00:42:38
with deportation that wouldn't answer questions, um, walking into stores that were, you know, possibly owned by an
00:42:45
organized crime figure, and, you know, just complete disruption within the community to anyone that possibly knew
00:42:53
or was involved with a criminal. and and Joe had a disdain for this and Joe wanted to fight for this and he could
00:42:59
not get the support of these organizations. So he decided at that moment and with a with a close friend
00:43:04
with Matt Maronei that he was going to start the Italian-American Civil Rights League is what it became and he was
00:43:11
going to combat the Justice Department and beyond the Justice Department he was going to start combating all things that
00:43:18
he felt needed to be rectified within the Italian-American community. And a lot of people looked at this and just
00:43:26
said, you know, well, he started this organization for the reasons of making money or it was a very very passionate
00:43:33
and important part of of Joe Colbo's life. I think uh in some respects looking back at his life, I think he
00:43:40
would have made a greater political leader than he would have a mob boss if he could have chose his life's path, you
00:43:46
know, many many years earlier and maybe what had happened to him and his father never happened at all. You talked about
00:43:53
how he got involved in organized crime and we know he you don't just start off being the boss of a crime family. How
00:43:59
does Joe rise through the ranks? >> Well, there are stories and you know then there are stories that I heard
00:44:05
there stories I've read. There stories I've heard. Um the the ones that you've read it was really that
00:44:12
um in South Brooklyn until he was pretty much off the radar through the FBI. you
00:44:18
know, I had his his jacket and a lot of other people's um foyer files and he was
00:44:25
pretty much off the radar. I think a lot of the people in the Columbbo organization were and maybe even all the
00:44:30
organizations uh until the Gallo Pace War and I think even then they didn't know who was leading the family once the
00:44:38
war had ended in 1963. um post 1963 from from all the stuff that I've read and from some of the people I heard, Joe
00:44:47
was a progressive thinker. Joe wanted uh anyone that was involved in organized crime to be a businessman, to not be in
00:44:56
the street and known as a criminal, not to be lazy, to be, you know, ambitious enough to open up a construction
00:45:02
company, to have a real estate company, to own a flower shop, to have a car dealership, to have a restaurant. So he
00:45:09
was he was one of the youngest among you know all of these men that came from the
00:45:15
prohibition era. Joe was um you know he was about 20 years younger than than all
00:45:22
the leaders of the families at this time and and I think that he was the person that started to see that change needed
00:45:29
to be as the justice department was gearing up to really go after organized crime figures. So as a leader, he was
00:45:37
amongst those five families, he was the most different to me because he was trying to create change within how their
00:45:44
structure was. Um, and and I think that created a tension not only with some of the street guys, but also with the
00:45:52
leaders of these five families. And you know, as I was reading and learning more
00:45:57
about Joe Colombo, like the dichotomy of his character was was he was just so diverse. That was most one of the most
00:46:03
interesting things to me was that you know he was creating a resistance almost in in every area of his life especially
00:46:11
the the organized crime area >> once Colbo takes over the family. What kind of leader is he? Is he loved? Is he
00:46:17
hated? >> I would say that he was loved by by a lot of the the men that were in the
00:46:23
organization. I know he was very very close with um Carmine Persico. He was very close to and a lot of people don't
00:46:30
know Larry Gallow. Um, everyone thinks of Gallo Columbbo as this uh riff that was forever and this is just something
00:46:39
wasn't true. Gallow was not only so close to Joe, he was at Anthony Columbo, his son's wedding. Um, and while Joe
00:46:48
Gallow was not a fan of Joe Columbos to say the least, um, his brother was and they had
00:46:55
a great relationship and Larry was, you know, definitely one of the more powerful people in the Columbbo
00:47:00
organization. Um, and I I think that Joe had the love and the support of people across organized crime families within
00:47:10
New York. And this would be evident in when he started the league. Um there were faces and there were people on
00:47:16
those pickup lines and there were people that were um really helping Joe turn this league into a monster and a
00:47:24
threat to the to the justice department. That couldn't have happened if he wasn't
00:47:28
a a well-loved and respected leader in the organized crime world. Not only just the the community of New York, but also
00:47:34
in the organized crime world. because this is a man that that went from starting the Italian-American Civil
00:47:41
Rights League in April and picking the FBI offices in New York City to putting 200,000 people a few months later in
00:47:50
Columbus Circle for one of the biggest rallies New York has seen. So that can only come from being um not just
00:47:58
charismatic but really well-loved inside the communities. Columbo and his league,
00:48:04
they've organized picketing sessions and they've organized rallies. What are they
00:48:09
rallying against? And we see here an example of such on the cover of your book. What are they trying to achieve?
00:48:17
>> Yeah, starting with the the cover photo. Um, that was a photo taken by a really
00:48:23
amazing political photographer, uh, Robert Delesandro. And I had found there's a little story behind that photo
00:48:30
if you don't mind. I had found a photo of Joe in a magazine that I I needed to have inside the book and it's it's it's
00:48:36
just a photo of him at a rally with a young boy. And when I um when I found that photo and I found
00:48:43
out who shot that photo, um I somehow got in touch with this photographer who was living in Mexico at the time and uh
00:48:51
he let me know, yeah, I still have an apartment in New York that I keep and I I go there one month out of the year and
00:48:56
I have some old photos, some stuff I never even developed. So, I met this man a few months later at his apartment in
00:49:02
Harlem and he developed all this film and that's where that cover photo came from. So, um very
00:49:10
interesting uh photo. It it has Joe squaring off with the police officer. They're near the FBI offices in
00:49:17
Manhattan and um the person that's in the center of the photo behind him is Duke Santoro and
00:49:24
he's holding a sign that says, "Are we headed for a police state?" And that's why I feel this book was better told,
00:49:30
you know, 40 years later as what Joe Colombo was thinking and what he was saying um as a civil rights leader and
00:49:37
also just as a community leader was to stand out and have some action against the government. Um Joe Colo did not
00:49:45
believe in the practices of the FBI. He did not believe in the practices of the organized crimes um strike force, the
00:49:52
justice department as a whole, because he felt that they had to hold the respect and the law of what America said
00:49:59
it was and the integrity of of justice. And he knew that they were doing illegal
00:50:04
activities to make arrests. He knew that they were robbing. He knew that the same
00:50:08
men that were putting guys away for running numbers were gamblers. uh booze, drugs, everything that that he felt was
00:50:18
right and wrong. He he wanted to make sure that there was a line between the Justice Department and the street guys
00:50:23
that were doing it. And that type of forward thinking was what he wanted to fight against because he knew that they
00:50:29
were just, you know, we look at it today, you know, the illegal spying. If we look at um Snowden and if we look at
00:50:36
Wikileaks, um Joe never learned to know about this, but in 1971, I don't know if you're familiar with
00:50:43
CONITLEP Pro, but that was outed in 1971 by a bunch of college students in Pennsylvania who broke into an FBI
00:50:51
office was a very low security FBI office, but they managed to get a whole bunch of papers out uh about Hoover's
00:50:59
illegal organization within the FBI called Coinselp Pro, which was short for counter intelligence program. And this
00:51:05
program has documentation of illegal activities and even murder. They killed a Black Panther in Chicago. Um, and this
00:51:14
is the kind of stuff that Joe had was privy that was going on. He didn't have facts or evidence. and he wanted to stop
00:51:21
the FBI from being able to without a warrant bust in the people's doors, take money from their apartment and and shake
00:51:29
people down and and you know illegal wire taps and and all these different things that were happening. So the are
00:51:35
we headed for a police state sign, I I felt like wow, you know, this was in 1970, you know, how how relevant is that
00:51:41
right now and what the people are fighting for in the streets and protesting against big government. And
00:51:46
Joe was a Republican. He was a conservative, I'm sure, a libertarian. And you know, he wanted to make sure
00:51:51
that the government remained where it was when this country started, where it was ruled by the people. And he
00:51:59
started to see that Hoover and and the Justice Department were doing exactly the opposite. And no one was trying to
00:52:05
curb this. Some really interesting stuff that uh Don is he's putting down some stuff and
00:52:17
I'm picking it up. >> Yeah. And we'll have to finish this in part two, which will come out tomorrow.
00:52:21
>> Yeah, I'll try to edit it as soon as I can and and release it as soon as I can.
00:52:26
Uh cuz we a little more to dive into. >> A lot more to dive into. And of course,
00:52:30
our recommended reading for tonight is Colombo, the Unsolved Murder by Don Capria and Anthony Colombo. Uh I'm going
00:52:37
to read a little caption that I found uh regarding the book itself. You know, I'm
00:52:42
not writing my own here. To the media and the FBI, Joe Colombo was the head of one of New York's infamous five
00:52:49
families. To the Italian-American community, he was an organizer and a leader. To his family, he was a great
00:52:56
husband and father. Who was responsible for Joe Columbo's death? And why have the efforts that Joe made for the
00:53:03
Italian-American community gone unrecognized? All this stuff has weighed very heavily on Anthony Columbo for
00:53:10
years and he has finally decided to write a book to address who Joe Columbo really was and to address who should be
00:53:18
held responsible for his death. The book is based on Anony's personal life beside
00:53:23
his father and his in-depth knowledge surrounding his shooting and the suspiciously flawed investigation into
00:53:30
his death. So, pick up Columbombo, an unsolved murder by Don Capria and Anthony Colombo. You can pick that up at
00:53:37
our website trueimerg.com and click on the recommended page. We will see you right here back in the garage tomorrow.
00:53:44
>> So, don't be late. >> And until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter. Heat.
00:54:01
[Music] [Applause] [Music]