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brand [Music] [Music] [Applause] never [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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reloading it's good to be seen and it's good to see [Music] you today we are drinking green Diamonds
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Crime garage Army first up we have Beauty in the Brie from Chandler Arizona next we go to Green Bay Wisconsin and
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say thanks to BK BK says love the show and I love how Nick doesn't seem to miss a beat even when the captain goes on a
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Anthony we also have traveling Hillary who says she's always listening while traveling right now she's listening to
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all that stuff @ True Crime garage all right that's enough of the business Captain everybody gather around grab a
00:03:52
chair grab a beer and let's talk some true [Music] crime this is true crime garage and this is a
00:04:13
case of Joseph [Music] Columbo Roger as funerals for notorious individuals go this was extremely modest
00:04:37
with a service held in the section of Brooklyn where Joe Columbo was regarded by many as an outstanding Citizen and
00:04:43
family man there were only three flower filled cards the casket didn't look to be overly expensive and no major
00:04:52
recognizable organized crime figures came to pay their last respects to the Dapper Dino headed the family once
00:05:00
bossed by the late Joe paachi the olive oil King while there were a great number
00:05:04
of politicians at the rally at which Columbo was shot including at least one Congressman at least one member of the
00:05:11
state legislature I didn't see any of those people today some 250 MERS attended the service in the half empty
00:05:19
church from which cameras were B FBI agents and plain closed police were present when Columbo's wife four sons
00:05:27
and one daughter as well as his parents arrived well I met him in 49 at the waterfront I wake with him on
00:05:35
exr and I think he was a hell of a nice guy Columbo died Monday at age 54 he'd been virtually paralyzed in a semic coma
00:05:44
since he was shot down at an Italian American Civil Rights League rally at Columbus Circle in
00:05:50
1971 well he was a family man at uh when I was a lot younger I was about 10 years
00:05:56
old my father used to come home sometimes with turkey and uh Mr Columbo had given him to him Robert viante with
00:06:04
Stacy mwit the night she was killed by David burtz and who was left almost blinded by the so-called Son of Sam
00:06:11
didn't know Columbo but came to the church today with a friend who did well I had a lot of respect for the man and
00:06:19
uh he was doing the things for the Italian people and he was good for our own kind the mass of Resurrection was
00:06:25
conducted by father Lewis ganti former city councilman from East Harem he spotted me after the service and as the
00:06:33
funeral Entourage was passing the home of Columbo's sister on the way to the cemetery can you tell us summarize what
00:06:41
you said at the service yeah I just called Joe Columbo uh a mod for the Italian American
00:06:48
cause a mod for the Italian American cause [Music] last night at a Newberg New York
00:07:14
Hospital almost 7 years after he was shot down in Columbus Circle it's believed that his shooting was arranged
00:07:20
by crazy Joe Gallow who himself a year later was ventilated by gunfire that proved his mortality more on the Columbo
00:07:26
story Joe Columbo regarded himself as a good family man period and he used to hoot at allegations that he was involved
00:07:34
in hijacking loone shocking policy and bookmaking among other various [Music] Enterprises the short stocky baling
00:07:45
Dapper Don was a native of Brooklyn and his last home there was his private house in the daa beach section from
00:07:52
which the columbos moved about 2 years after he was cut down in the prime of Life at the age of
00:07:58
54 it happened on a June day in 1971 this is where it happened thousands of people were already at the rally many
00:08:10
more were on their way many politicians were up on the stands suddenly there was
00:08:15
a series of shots and Columbo was hit at least three times a moment later his assil was grammed and pummeled and then
00:08:24
shot killed instantly by Columbo followers Columbo was regarded as really being on
00:08:34
his way up in 1963 when Carlo Gambino the boss of bosses and who died a natural death
00:08:41
named him to take over the family which had been run by Joe prachi after the olive oil King died also of natural
00:08:49
causes Columbo reportedly ran this real estate business where nobody would speak
00:08:54
with me today outside in the gutter a husky young man had advise me quote get the hell out of here and leave the dead
00:09:03
rest in peace if you know what's good for you if you know what's good for you Jerome Johnson the man who shot
00:09:15
Columbo was believed by police to be a Hired Gun who got the contract from the Gallow
00:09:22
gang Joe Columbo detested the word mafia and he once said I don't know what they're talking about when they talk
00:09:30
about the mafia I do have a family a model for the Italian American [Music] cause who was Joe Columbo Joe Columbo
00:09:57
was a father he was the the alleged boss of the Columbo crime family and the founder of the Italian-American civil
00:10:05
rights league and in 1971 Joe Columbo was gunned down among a crowd of thousands in one of the most highly
00:10:12
publicized shootings in New York City's history I'll take you through the scene here a bit before we get to our guest
00:10:18
this week this is the summer of 1971 in New York City and the Italian-American civil rights league is putting on a
00:10:26
rally or let's say a gathering rather this is the second of such Gatherings and they call it Unity day it's a day
00:10:34
for the people and to bring everyone together as a community but this is not a small gathering no thousands of people
00:10:41
were present the FBI sent every field agent from their New York City offices to the rally NYPD sent 1,500 uniformed
00:10:50
police officers there for crowd control they also sent a few hundred higher ranking officers as well most likely to
00:10:58
oversee the patrol on duty that day and this is basically a rally the unity rally is basically Joe Columbo was
00:11:06
really pushing the issue of affirmative action and when we think of affirmative action we think of um you know
00:11:14
African-American affirmative action but he was really pushing Italian yes and so
00:11:21
this is something that nowadays 2016 we're going well this was an issue this was a this was a big issue and 60s and
00:11:29
then in the early' 70s yeah and so we're talking about 17 or 1,800 police officers there we're talking about a
00:11:36
bunch of FBI uh Agents from the NYC field off offices um so there is going to be a very large big police presence
00:11:46
was going to be on tap that day now it doesn't take a wise guy to figure out that the FBI is not they're not there
00:11:52
for crowd control no pun intended yeah of course not the the FBI they don't mess around with crowd control mhm no
00:11:59
they are there because some might call this a mafia event there is going to be Mafia presence there that day as well
00:12:07
and the FBI well they are going to go there to photograph document and of course Eaves drop on these mob members
00:12:16
now Joe Columbo you could consider him the host of this event the guest of honor the headliner whatever you want to
00:12:22
call it right the main speaker but Unity Unity day existed because of Joe Columbo
00:12:28
he was the one everyone was there to see and hear he was their leader and I have
00:12:34
to point out you know we all we all know the FBI does not like the mob but more importantly it was no real secret that
00:12:41
Jay Edgar Hoover a number one FBI well he really did not like Joe Columbo and I'll let our guest Don capria get into
00:12:51
that a little bit later but back to Unity day shortly before the event could kick off Joe Columbo is standing inside
00:12:58
a press barricade keep in mind Joe is practically surrounded by Italian American Civil Rights League members
00:13:05
Columbo mob members family members as well as NYPD patrolmen now there's about 15 to 20 NYPD just to be clear right
00:13:15
around Joe Columbo it is at this point that Joe is gunned down the shooter is Jerome Johnson who is posing as a
00:13:23
cameraman with fake press credentials Jerome Johnson is tackled by police he handcuffed and then someone in the crowd
00:13:31
shoots Johnson Johnson dies in handcuffs and Joe Columbo somehow survives the attack but he is comos yeah and we
00:13:39
believe that these are people that worked for Joe Columbo you know his supporters somebody was like oh no they
00:13:45
shot Joe so now we kill this guy they re yeah the thought is that they may have retaliated now we are all familiar with
00:13:52
the FBI and Jer Hoover but let's take a minute to introduce how familiar are we well we you know how well read had him
00:13:59
to brunch one day many years ago he was in the garage sipping on a a nice cold beer possibly dressed as a woman well
00:14:07
let's introduce the five crime families okay so the five families are known as the bonano family the Columbo family The
00:14:15
Gambino family the genovesi family and the luuk Casey family and I tried to throw a little Italian on there I kind
00:14:22
of kind of butchered it now these are the five major New York City organized crime families of the Italian American
00:14:28
Mafia now I know that some of the families have had different names from time to time so I don't want to get any
00:14:35
email saying I'm going to swim with the fishes because because the genovesi family was once the Luciano family I
00:14:42
mean yeah and basically what happens here is you have a crime family and then you have let's say cousins and brothers
00:14:49
and stuff like that that are all working for this crime and sometimes the cousin
00:14:55
or a family friend becomes the leader and then they changed the name of the crime family you're exactly right so I
00:15:01
mean no disrespect but for the sake of argument and for theing with the fishes for the sake of this episode let's just
00:15:08
agree that those are the five families now I did say Luciano or Luciano family that's a popular name and one that most
00:15:16
people are familiar with if you're not Charles Lucky Luciano he was once the boss of what more recently is referred
00:15:22
to as the geneves family and is pretty much considered the father for modern-day organiz crime and splitting
00:15:30
New York into the different criminal gangs lucky became the Boss by secretly betraying his boss and then lucky ended
00:15:37
up going to prison and eventually he is deported to Italy and at some point loses the boss title I wonder with New
00:15:45
York having the five burrows and then we also have the five crime families I wonder if there's any connection there
00:15:51
you're right there is some connection there and the five major families historically operated in the New York
00:15:58
metropolitan area but also having a big presence in New Jersey and also have and
00:16:03
may still be who knows be active in South South Florida Las Vegas Connecticut and Massachusetts so we got
00:16:10
the five crime families and sometimes they're just working independently sometimes they're working in clusters
00:16:16
and sometimes it's as a whole and sometimes they're Waring between each other maybe it's two against three or
00:16:22
just one against one you know kind of a Turf War battle Yeah that's a little bit
00:16:27
of the background here but we are not here to give a primer lesson on Italian-American organized crime yes we
00:16:33
are no we are here to discuss the conspiracy plot and cover up to kill and silence mob boss and Community Leader
00:16:41
Joseph Columbo MH you you know that most what's what do you think is the most cover up you know like construction
00:16:50
mm so like you're an organized crime what are you actually in oh your front yeah your front what would your front be
00:16:56
like Waste Management yours would be well I I used to have this guy that I suspected of knowing some people and
00:17:05
we'll get into that a little bit later I'll tell you an interesting story but one guy I knew very suspect was into
00:17:12
antiques oh he's an antiqu stealer yeah I could never find his store uh and then
00:17:18
the another guy was a barista he had a coffee shop but I'll have to tell you a little bit about him later the shooting
00:17:25
of Columbo could have been carried out and organized by any number of groups was it the mob was this a hit by one of
00:17:31
the other four crime families was it the government in the CIA trying to take down a Crime Boss right or was it the
00:17:38
FBI did Jay Edgar Hoover try to silence the very voice that was calling for regulations and sanctions on his own
00:17:45
Bureau as we all know the FBI has been well hold on you're missing another the other possibility is just a lone gunman
00:17:52
well of course somebody that Joe did wrong and just wanted revenge and the Revenge would happen in public yeah and
00:17:59
the to help us do so we have asked Don capria who is very recently teamed up with Joe Columbo's eldest son Anthony to
00:18:07
join us now Anthony knew his father extremely well he worked alongside his father with the Italian American Civil
00:18:15
Rights league but Anthony has been silent for over 40 years and has recently decided to speak out about his
00:18:22
life beside his father and his father's unsolved murder and Don capria wrote this great book Columbo the unsolved
00:18:29
murder Don is also going to talk to us about Joe Columbo's father see Joe Columbo's father was killed as well
00:18:35
murdered Mafia style and most likely a retaliation kill for a killing that Joe's father Two Gun Tony carried out
00:18:43
you know they called him two gun Tony because he kept a 38 caliber pistol in each of his two vest pockets and one of
00:18:50
the things that people believe that is evidence that this wasn't a mob killing was because this wasn't done in the
00:18:57
typical hit Style style of the mob yep Don is a New York native so he knows the playing Turf of this case and of course
00:19:04
he grew up hearing stories about the mafia families and the different crime bosses so without further Ado an
00:19:10
interview with Don capria Don you are a writer producer and music video director how did you get
00:19:22
involved in writing a true crime book so I had always been interested in in True
00:19:27
Crime um and especially the New York five families um so I had mentioned to a friend a while back in Brooklyn that I
00:19:37
wanted to do a story on Joe Columbo uh an actual I wanted to do a screenplay on Joe Columbo I had always found the from
00:19:44
the five families his story to be one of the most interesting because of how diverse he was as the leader of a family
00:19:52
and also that there was so much so much a little bit of information but so much more story out there that no one really
00:20:00
knew about for his life so um pursuing the screenplay I was kind of told you know this wouldn't be something that you
00:20:07
can do being that his five his five children are still alive this would be something you would really need a family
00:20:12
blessing to to touch upon um and I I said fine no problem I had put it to bed and then about a year later that same
00:20:19
friend had had told me hey look are you interested in doing something with the Columbo uh story and I said of course so
00:20:26
he said well a guy's going to be calling you they're working on the book now and
00:20:29
they're looking for someone to do the adaptation for a screenplay I took a call with a gentleman that was like a
00:20:35
liaison between the family and their agent Mickey fryberg and when we were on the call talking he also let me know
00:20:42
that they were probably looking for someone to do the book that something wasn't working out with the writer that
00:20:46
they had on board and I think it was a timing thing so I went Upstate and I met with Joe Columbo's oldest son Anthony
00:20:53
Columbo his grandson Anthony Columbo Jr um Ray who was like the liaison of the family to the agent and we sat at a
00:21:02
diner and discussed what I knew about Joe Columbo's life why I wanted to write this book what
00:21:09
my agenda was to to the story and the telling of Joe Columbo and they told me a little bit of bit about what was not
00:21:17
written and what was not in the media and what was not written in True Crime books and we we it was a really great
00:21:22
chemistry and I had never intended to write a book I always wanted to be a screenwriter but when opportunity arose
00:21:29
and I sent in a a little treatment to their agent and he accepted it I decided I was going to take on my first True
00:21:35
Crime biography tell everybody about Joseph Columbo yeah Joseph Columbo um you know he died before I was born and I
00:21:45
did a lot of research on him from everything from the the media story of who Joe Columbo was the the jacket of of
00:21:54
criminal history and an investigation done by the FBI and the nyp but I think the most interesting stories
00:22:00
of course came from the people that had firsthand experiences with him uh the more and more that I met people that
00:22:07
that met Joe or had heard stories about Joe and of course working side by side with Anthony his oldest son I I learned
00:22:16
that the man could have he was one of these gentlemen that could have been anything um and he did live and become
00:22:23
successful in many different ways besides what you know the reputed mom boss story that everybody knew about him
00:22:30
uh as a businessman he was a dealmaker and he was a dealmaker that wanted to create win-win situations um as a
00:22:37
community person he was a leader uh in his family he was a strong cohesive piece to have of course the head of his
00:22:44
family but always making sure that everyone is included and and he's the type of person that I met one guy in
00:22:51
Brooklyn and I asked him I said you know what is what is Joe Columbo who is Joe Columbo to you as far as the community
00:22:57
person he said Joe Columbo was the type of person that when a black man and and an
00:23:03
Asian man and a Russian guy and and a Jewish guy and an Italian guy were having an argument over something they
00:23:08
would walk into a room with Joe Joe would sit him down they'd come out of that room an hour later and everyone
00:23:14
would be laughing and patting each other on the back and and to me I just learned
00:23:18
that no matter what Joe Columbo was in the media eye or to any person that wrote or spoke about him he was just
00:23:26
going to be a successful leader and that's why I think he had uh leaned over into politics and started the
00:23:32
Italian-American civil rights League he knew how to pave the way to a successful
00:23:38
situation whether that situation was a business deal whether that situation was uh Community organization you know he
00:23:45
wanted to build a hospital he was building a camp in Upstate New York to me Joe Columbo was just a natural born
00:23:51
leader we're talking about Joseph Columbo the famous mob boss of the Columbo family but when when Joe was a
00:23:58
kid his father was murdered yes so his father was an immigrant who while their roots are from calabrian Italy his
00:24:08
father um came by way of Brazil which was very common during the heavy immigration of italian-americans to from
00:24:16
Italy to the Americas so his father came over and grew up just with his father because his siblings did not make it
00:24:26
because a lot of the people that were traveling on the boats got sick and were rejected at the New York ports so um he
00:24:32
grew up as a street kid in in South Brooklyn and eventually joined gangs and was known as two gun Tony um who was a
00:24:44
member of what would be the prachi organization but I think this was even pre five families that he was involved
00:24:50
in you know the bootlegging Activities The Roaring 20s and then in the 1930s um the at the end of the Castle de
00:24:58
mes Wars there was a huge power struggle that was happening in Brooklyn and we all know the story of sa luchiano and
00:25:06
how he with Myer Lansky devised the five families where these territories would finally be defined and leaders would be
00:25:13
defined and the work would be defined um and when that was happening there was still someone in the streets of South
00:25:20
Brooklyn of a very powerful uh gangster um Frankie Yale's associate and his his name is a clutching hand pirano um and
00:25:33
he would not settle he would not do organiz organized crime like these men wanted to do where there was politics
00:25:39
involved so the man had to be taken out and from from what I was told um he was walking home from a meeting one day
00:25:47
where he had he had left the meeting and told him the same thing he was not going
00:25:50
to give up property he was not going to compromise um and he was shot on sacket Street in Brooklyn and the corner report
00:25:58
on that shooting was that the first two bullets that entered his body um you could put a quarter over those first two
00:26:05
bullets that entered his heart meaning that the gun was fired and the second gun was fired he hit the same spot twice
00:26:10
which is pretty rare when it comes to sharp shooting with a pistal um that that murder and from from what I was
00:26:18
told again is was was done by two gony which would be Joe komo's father and years later when the Pachi organization
00:26:26
came see came to be someone had to take responsibility for this Lieutenant dying
00:26:31
and it was rumored that that's when they decided they had to kill Anthony Columbo
00:26:35
who was responsible for the shooting of jeppi prachi so he was slain um with with a girl that was someone that he was
00:26:44
seeing 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
00:26:54
1920s 1930s they were still doing um stuff that they did when they came over was called like the barrel murders I
00:27:00
don't know if you're familiar with that but where they would take a body and they would affixiated it by tying a rope
00:27:06
from the legs To The Head and the body would actually fold and that's how um Joe Columbo's father was found and the
00:27:14
photos were all over the newspaper and it was something I'm sure was extremely difficult for Joe as a 14-year-old boy
00:27:21
to have everyone that knows him know about his father's murder and have seen pictures of his father's body the hand
00:27:27
even laying out from the backseat of the car in the police photos that made it into the newspapers and this was
00:27:33
something that was a turning point for Joe Columbo because his his mother at that time was so nervous about what was
00:27:39
going on decided to pack up and leave the state and go to California and Joe at 14 years old did not want to leave
00:27:45
the state he wanted to stay in New York and I think he wanted to stay in New York because he wanted to find out who
00:27:51
was responsible for his father's murder and was anon's mistress killed that day as well she was yes so his father and
00:27:59
his father's mistress were both killed that day by strangulation both murders were done by strangulation uh Christine
00:28:05
olivieri who was married at the time as well was the mistress um and she was also strangled and left inside this uh
00:28:14
Pontiac um it was called The Shore Road murders in the newspaper it was in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn and it was
00:28:21
a very very foggy morning that those cars it it must have happened in the evening before and a very foggy morning
00:28:28
the Killer and accomplices took this Pontiac and drove it right off of Shore Road parked it on the side of the street
00:28:34
and then when the fog cleared in the morning the bodies were actually found by a little boy who was just walking his
00:28:40
dog and he saw these this two bodies in the backseat of this Pontiac and then called the superintendent of the
00:28:48
building next door the police and there you had the crime scene we're talking with true crime author Don capria about
00:28:54
Joseph Columbo the mob boss and his father has been killed when he was a boy now his mother moves out to California
00:29:02
and Joseph stays behind in New York yes and again my belief is that Joe wanted to find out who was responsible for his
00:29:13
father's murder and I think that Joe also angered wanted to avenge his father um and there was a gentleman that was
00:29:22
very close to his father that they live around the corner from each other in sheep's head Bay
00:29:27
and this gentleman went to Joe at his father's funeral and let him know that listen I'm very dear friend of your
00:29:36
fathers he was a mentor to me and he was a a very important person in my life and
00:29:41
I'm going to be watching over you and if there's anything that you ever need please come and see me and Joe started
00:29:47
developing a relationship with this man from the time he was 14 years old uh a mentorship I would say and um you know I
00:29:55
can get into that later on and how that relationship grew but I think that that person was
00:30:00
also a pivotal person kind of the detent pole for Joe saying okay well my whole family is going to leave and go to
00:30:06
California but if I stay here I have someone that I can turn to for money job or whatever it needs to survive in New
00:30:13
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Cellular when Freedom calls we're here to answer call us at 1888 Freedom Joseph Columbo his father's been
00:32:26
killed his mother moves away now Joseph has to become a man very quickly here what does he do does he drop out of
00:32:32
school how does he fend for himself he stays in school he does not um stay in school to complete uh high school he had
00:32:40
switched schools because he needed a residency so the mother's sister was living off of new utri G so more towards
00:32:47
Bensonhurst so he stays in school um he was he had a shine box and he was shining shoes um and then he started
00:32:56
learning in how to roll dice and he started making money because he noticed that well the money doesn't come from
00:33:03
Rolling Dice and having good luck the money comes from running the games so at a very early age he was running crap
00:33:09
games and he started learning hustles on the street and he got a job um working for a butcher uh he got a job working
00:33:19
Bakery delivery and then I think he started to notice um from some of the older gentlemen in the neighborhood as
00:33:25
well that there was ways to have the job and also make a little bit of extra money by hitting up Bakery deliveries
00:33:32
and hitting up uh meat deliveries and all these different kinds of things so he he learned H to hustle and uh earn
00:33:39
money at a very early age you know 14 15 years old and once he started to support
00:33:45
himself then that's when he was feeling like he could live on his own and I think before he turned 18 years old his
00:33:53
mother moved back from California once the dust had settled and she felt things were safe um she decided that she would
00:33:59
move back to New York so he was living under her roof again by the time he was 17 or 18 so when does Joe Columbo become
00:34:08
involved in organized crime and get involved with one of the famous five families the organized crime stuff
00:34:15
wasn't until much later in his life I think the first thing that happened for him was he start he started working at
00:34:21
uh Franklin po pocketbook Factory in Brooklyn and he was about 17 or 18 years old when he got this job and this job is
00:34:32
where he met his future wife uh Jojo and he also met some of his closest friends
00:34:38
around this time that he had lifelong friends uh he also learned to organize at this time where at this Factory he he
00:34:46
became a leader this is you know where he started getting leadership role and people looked to him to settle disputes
00:34:52
and um it was his first experience with Union work uh he also had an experience with a Comm the Communist party at this
00:35:01
time he was invited to a camp Upstate from some of the union workers which would be around polling New York I would
00:35:08
say and at this Camp they were recruiting uh Italians and uh Germans and other people that were immigrants in
00:35:17
New York to join the Communist party and this was during the time of the war Joe
00:35:21
went up to the camp checked out everything that they had to say and you know politely thank them for letting him stay
00:35:29
there and feeding him and giving him all this information but let him know that you know this was not something that was
00:35:34
for him that he was he was definitely on the other side of the the political sphere and uh when he came home uh Pearl
00:35:41
Harbor had happened and when Pearl Harbor happened he felt that he needed to act and he joined the not the Navy
00:35:49
but he joined the Coast Guard and he went to active duty right away um he was on a few different ships and
00:35:58
he saw action off the coast of Casablanca everywhere in between France and North Africa um a lot of action
00:36:07
actually and during one of the trips he got a message from his wife that their house on sacket Street had burned down
00:36:15
well I'm sorry she wasn't his wife yet they were just engaged to be married and he came back home and he didn't have
00:36:21
Furlow and he skipped Furlow and he went up into the mountains in New York with his best friend his wife and he got
00:36:27
married and with that he went awall and he was locked up and placed on Harts Island so he spent a lot of time um
00:36:36
incarcerated a few months and then his wife got pregnant um and he had his he got married he had his first son within
00:36:44
a year and that's when he started working on the Brooklyn docks and I think when he started working on the
00:36:51
Brooklyn docks he was introduced to a lot of people in organized crime as we all know the docs were overrun with with
00:36:58
criminals and and organized crime figures you know everyone from Albert Anastasia on down so I think a lot of
00:37:04
people respected Joe for who his father was and they knew that his father was an
00:37:08
an assassin for one of the gangs and that gang I think took him under the wing being the Pachi gang and at the
00:37:16
time that he was at the Brooklyn docks so we're talking early 1940s that was when he was probably first introduced to
00:37:23
organized crime and started to see that he could be a leader within this community in my research of Joe Columbo
00:37:29
there was a lot of talk about a kidnapping that uh may have happened in 1961 uh and I hope I'm not jumping too
00:37:36
far ahead here but uh maybe you could fill us in on that now there was a lot of kidnapping going on during what the
00:37:43
media and everyone spoke of as the Gallow prachi War and what had happened I think this all started in 1958 or
00:37:53
1959 um there was the whole the Gallow gang which was a faction within the paasi organization from President Street
00:38:02
and you had the The Gallows which was Joe Gallow Albert Gallow and Larry Gallow Larry Gallow as I was told was
00:38:10
the leader of the organization and Beyond the Gallow gang you you had a lot of other people that were involved one
00:38:16
of them um Joe jelly who was you know Infamous infamously known as one of the toughest guys in the streets of Brooklyn
00:38:23
at that time um these guys were vying for power within the organization because um from what I was told again
00:38:30
they were um they were the tough guys that were handling a lot of business for Pachi in South Brooklyn but it seemed
00:38:38
that Pachi had such a grip on business that he would have them you know do different things take care of scores
00:38:45
maybe take out people but then not give them the piece of the pie that they felt
00:38:49
entitled to and crazy Joe Gallow Joey the blonde if he was referred to in the street was very rebellious and I think
00:38:57
with him and his brother Larry who was the leader he devised a plan that they could start kidnapping members of the
00:39:05
Pachi organization and demands the money and whatever stake they felt was owed to
00:39:11
them so there was a few different people that were kidnapped in 1961 and it's been rumored that Joe Columbo was among
00:39:19
those people but he never was um he actually just moved to Upstate New York and made sure that he kep his family
00:39:27
outside of the city while all this was happening because beyond the kidnapping there were some murders that were
00:39:33
happening during the Gallow Pachi war and and Joe was smart enough to know that he didn't want to get in the middle
00:39:38
of this situation and as I heard from folks Joe was the the influential person after Pachi had passed and after mgio
00:39:48
who was the underboss who became the leader of the Pachi organization Joe was the person who
00:39:53
really cleaned up the war and made sure that everyone could be back together and
00:39:59
it could be one family and that was the reason why in folklore the proface organization doesn't even exist in the
00:40:06
five families anymore matter of fact the Columbo crime organization as they call
00:40:10
it is the only crime organization that changed names and is still its name in the FBI you know if we talk about five
00:40:17
families lukasi geneves banano Gambino Columbo it didn't start off that way it was actually the Pachi organization that
00:40:25
became the Columbo organization and I think this was due to the disain that a lot of the Gallow faction people
00:40:30
had towards the Pachi name and they said well if we're going to make this an organization again we'll never call
00:40:36
ourselves Pachi members so Joseph Columbo was never actually kidnapped he just moved his family to kind of lay low
00:40:43
uh especially with murder having been such a real thing for him seeing his father you know knowing that his father
00:40:49
was killed yeah that that's what I'm going to guess um he you know while he moved the family he bought a house in in
00:40:56
Blooming Grove New York and he actually started buying more and more property up
00:41:01
there as his business was doing better he still stayed in New York in Brooklyn um he was uh working at canalo realy on
00:41:11
86 Street so he still operated out of South Brooklyn and I I would want to say that there was probably even days that
00:41:17
he was sleeping up State and driving all the way back into the city for a full days of work and then probably spending
00:41:24
time with his family on the weekends up there and just keeping them mainly out of Brooklyn as much as possible not
00:41:32
thinking that there was anything per se that um what happened to his family because of what was going on the the you
00:41:38
know the organized crime members were never known for that sort of behavior so I think it was just something that with
00:41:44
the media and the news and the people on the street it was just you know there's
00:41:48
so much dialogue going on about the streets that he he felt it was better to just keep them removed from everything
00:41:54
Columbo was sent away to prison in the 60s how much time did he do very small amount of time um this was uh this was
00:42:01
always the the the piece of a puzzle that you know I worked closely with Anthony on where you know when I was
00:42:09
writing the story I wrote it with his oldest son and Anthony had told me he has a fatherson story to tell and he
00:42:17
only wants to tell this fatherson story from the time that he was born until the
00:42:21
time that his father was shot and during that time he never knew his father as an
00:42:28
organized crime figure um he only knew his father as the head of his household and whatever was written about him in
00:42:34
the papers and whatever he was arrested for uh even what he had gone to jail for this was believable that Anthony
00:42:42
would see his father just as the businessman he told him he was and not an organized crime figure because if you
00:42:48
have uh someone that arrests you and you beat the charge or if you have someone that put you in jail for not speaking to
00:42:54
a committee or you know the one thing that he was convicted of for was um sign checking the wrong box on a real estate
00:43:02
application you know you're looking you look up to this man you eat dinner with this man every day you're going to
00:43:07
believe your you're going to believe your father and you're not going to question him so the the time that he
00:43:12
spent in jail was was something that anyone could go to jail for which was just contempt um him and and Larry
00:43:20
Gallow were seen together at a resort in the Catskills um by a police officer and just the police officer seeing um
00:43:30
Larry Gallow and there was another gentleman who was also a convicted felon uh this allowed for a grand jury hearing
00:43:37
back in New York City Joe had to sit and speak at the Grand Jury hearing and when
00:43:41
you don't speak at the Grand Jury hearing um you're in contempt and they can put you in jail so they ended up
00:43:47
putting Joe and Larry in jail together and I I think the sentence was only about 60 days for contempt um but this
00:43:54
was the only time that he served in in jail it was for something that you know you or I or anyone who doesn't want to
00:43:59
speak during a grand jury hearing could be put in jail for let's talk about the Italian-American civil rights League
00:44:05
tell us what that is and let's talk about Joe Columbo's involvement with that yes Joe was always a uh you know he
00:44:13
had a lot of Pride um for his Italian Heritage and he loved the community in New York that he lived in and and Beyond
00:44:22
and he was I don't want to know say if wasn't a member of aid but he was a supporter of Aid I'm sure he was a
00:44:31
supporter of the sons of Italy so he was not only proud but he was also a strong
00:44:36
supporter in the organizations that existed um whenever he saw any kind of defamation whenever he saw any kind of
00:44:43
struggle he was the the type of person that would step up and and fight and something happened in 1970 to his son
00:44:52
that had been um boiling and boiling and waiting to explode and it finally did the FBI had been threatening him that if
00:45:00
we can't catch you we're going to we're going to go after your family you know we'll get your kids and they indicted
00:45:06
his son on a coin melting case in April of 1971 when this happened Joe went to these organizations and he said look
00:45:16
it's it's time for the the Italian people to step up and fight the the justice department the justice
00:45:23
department not only attacked him but they had been known for going around in the community and if you knew a criminal
00:45:29
if you were relative of a criminal they were shaking people down you know doing robbing money from their homes uh
00:45:35
threatening immigrants with deportation that wouldn't answer questions um walking into stores that were you know
00:45:42
possibly owned by an organized crime figure and you know just just complete disruption within the community to
00:45:49
anyone that possibly knew or was involved with criminal and and Joe had a distin for this and Joe wanted to fight
00:45:56
for this and he could not get the support of these organizations so he decided at that moment and with a with a
00:46:02
close friend with Matt Marone that he was going to start the Italian-American civil rights league is which it became
00:46:09
and he was going to combat the justice department and Beyond the justice department he was going to start
00:46:15
combating all things that he felt needed to be rectified within the Italian-American community and a lot of
00:46:23
people looked at this and just said you know well he started this organization for the reasons of making money or it
00:46:30
was a very very passionate and important part of of Joe Columbo's life I think uh
00:46:35
in some respects looking back at his life I think he would have made a greater political leader than he would
00:46:41
have a mob boss if he could have chose his life's path you know many many years earlier and maybe what had happened to
00:46:47
him and his father never happened at all you talked about how he got involved in
00:46:53
organized crime and we know he you don't just start off being being the boss of a
00:46:56
crime family how does Joe Rise through the ranks well there are stories and you know then there are stories that I heard
00:47:04
there stories I've read There are stories I've heard um the the ones that you've read was really that um in South
00:47:12
Brooklyn until he was pretty much off the radar through the FBI you know I had his his jacket and a lot of other
00:47:19
people's um Foya files and he was pretty much off the radar I think a lot of the
00:47:25
people and the Columbo organization were maybe even all the organizations uh until the Gallow prachi war and I think
00:47:33
even then they didn't know who was leading the family once the war had ended in 1963 um post
00:47:41
1963 from from all the stuff that I've read and from some of the people I heard Joe was a progressive thinker Joe wanted
00:47:48
uh anyone that was involved in organized crime to be a businessman to not be in the street and known as a criminal not
00:47:56
to be lazy to be you know ambitious enough to open up a construction company to have a real estate company to own a
00:48:03
flower shop to have a car dealership to have a restaurant so he was he was one of the youngest among you know all of
00:48:12
these men that came from the prohibition era Joe was um you know he was about 20 years younger than than all
00:48:20
the leaders of the families at this time and and I think that he was the person that
00:48:26
started to see the change needed to be as the justice department was gearing up to really go after organized crime
00:48:32
figures so as a leader he was amongst those five families he was the most different to me because he was trying to
00:48:40
create change within how their structure was um and and I think that created a tension not only with
00:48:49
some of the street guys but also with the leaders of these five families and you know as I I was reading and learning
00:48:55
more about Joe Columbo like the dichotomy of his character was was he was just so diverse that was most one of
00:49:01
the most interesting things to me was that you know he was creating a resistance almost in in every area of
00:49:08
his life uh especially the the organized crime area once Columbo takes over the family what kind of leader is he is he
00:49:15
loved is he hated I would say that he was loved by by a lot of the the men that were in the organization I know he
00:49:22
was very very close with um Carmine curo he was very close to and a lot of people
00:49:28
don't know Larry Gallow um everyone thinks of Gallow Columbo as this uh riff that was forever and this is just
00:49:37
something wasn't true Gallow was not only so close to Joe he was at Anthony Columbo his son's wedding um and while
00:49:46
Joe Gallow was not a fan of Joe columbos to say the least um his brother was and they had a
00:49:54
great relationship and Larry was you know definitely one of the more powerful people in the Columbo
00:50:00
organization um and I think that Joe had the love and the support of people across organized crime families within
00:50:08
New York and this would be evident in when he started the league um there were faces and there were people on those
00:50:15
pickup lines and there was people that were um really helping Joe turn this league into a monster and
00:50:22
a threat to the to the justice department That Couldn't happen if he wasn't a well-loved and respected leader
00:50:29
in the organized crime world not only just the the community of New York but also in the organized crime world
00:50:34
because this is a man that that went from starting the Italian-American civil rights league in April and picking the
00:50:41
FBI offices in New York City to putting 200,000 people a few months later in Columbus Circle for one of the biggest
00:50:50
rallies New York has seen so that can only come from being um not just charismatic but really well- loved
00:50:59
inside the communities Columbo and his League they've organized picketing sessions and they've organized rallies
00:51:07
what are they rallying against and we see here an example of such on the cover of your book what are they trying to
00:51:14
achieve yeah starting with the the cover photo um that was a photo taken by a really amazing political photographer uh
00:51:24
Robert delandro and I had found there's a little story behind that photo if you don't mind I had found a photo of Joe in
00:51:31
a magazine that I I needed to have inside the book and it's it's it's just a photo of him in a rally with a young
00:51:37
boy and when I um when I found that photo and I found out who shot that photo um
00:51:44
I got in touch with this photographer who was living in Mexico at the time and uh he let me know yeah I still have an
00:51:51
apartment in New York that I keep and I I go there one month out of the year and
00:51:55
have some old photos some stuff I never even developed so I met this man a few months later at his apartment in Harlem
00:52:02
and he developed all this film and that's where that cover photo came from so um very interesting uh photo it it
00:52:11
has Joe squaring off with the police officer they're near the FBI offices in Manhattan
00:52:17
and um the person that's in the center of the photo behind him is Duke Santoro and he's holding a sign that says are we
00:52:24
headed for a police station and that's why I feel this book was better told you know 40 years later as
00:52:31
what Joe Columbo was thinking and what he was saying um as a civil rights leader and also just as a community
00:52:37
leader was to stand out and have some action against the government um Joe Columbo did not believe in the practices
00:52:45
of the FBI he did not believe in the practices of the organized Crim um Strike Force the justice department as a
00:52:52
whole because he felt that they had to hold the respect and the law of what America said it was and the Integrity of
00:52:59
of justice and he knew that they were doing illegal activities to make arrests he knew that they were robbing he knew
00:53:06
that the same men that were putting guys away for running numbers were gamblers uh booze drugs everything that that he
00:53:14
felt was right and wrong he he wanted to make sure that there was a line between
00:53:20
the justice department and the street guys that were doing it and that type of forward thing was what he wanted to
00:53:26
fight against because he knew that they were just you know we look at it today you know the illegal spying if we look
00:53:32
at um Snowden and if we look at Wikileaks um Joe never learned to know about this but in
00:53:39
1971 I don't know if you're familiar with Cel Pro but that was outed in 1971 by a bunch of college students in
00:53:47
Pennsylvania who broke into an FBI office a very low security FBI office but they managed to get a whole bunch of
00:53:54
paper ERS out uh about Hoover's illegal organization within the FBI called cenel
00:54:00
Pro which was short for a Counter Intelligence program and this program has documentation of illegal activities
00:54:07
and even murder they killed a black panther in Chicago um and this is the kind of stuff that Joe had was privy
00:54:16
that was going on he didn't have facts or evidence and he wanted to stop the FBI from being able to without a warrant
00:54:23
bust in the people's doors take from their apartment and and Shake people down and and you know illegal wire Taps
00:54:31
and and all these different things that were happening so the are we headed for a police state sign I I felt like wow
00:54:36
you know this was in 1970 you know how how relevant is that right now what the people are fighting for in the streets
00:54:42
and protesting against big government and Joe was a republican he was a conservative I'm sure a Libertarian and
00:54:49
you know he wanted to make sure that the government remained where it was when this country
00:54:55
started where it was ruled by the people and he started to see that Hoover and and the justice department were doing
00:55:01
exactly the opposite and no one was trying to curve this some really interesting stuff that
00:55:13
uh don is he's putting down some stuff and I'm picking it up yeah and we'll have to finish this in part two which
00:55:18
will come out tomorrow yeah I'll try to edit it as soon as I can and and release
00:55:23
it as soon as I can cuz we get a little more to dive into a lot more to dive into and of course our recommended
00:55:29
reading for tonight is Columbo the unsolved murderer by Don capria and Anthony Columbo uh I'm going to read a
00:55:36
little caption that I found uh regarding the book itself you know I'm not WR my own here to the media and the FBI Joe
00:55:44
Columbo was the head of one of New York's Infamous five families to the Italian-American Community he was an
00:55:51
organizer and a leader to his family he was a great husband and father who was responsible for Joe Columbo's death and
00:55:59
why have the efforts that Joe made for the Italian American Community gone unrecognized all this stuff has weighed
00:56:06
very heavily on Anthony Columbo for years and he has finally decided to write a book to address who Joe Columbo
00:56:13
really was and to address who should be held responsible for his death the book is based on Anthony's personal life
00:56:21
beside his father and his in-depth knowledge surrounding his shooting and the suspiciously flawed investigation
00:56:28
into his death so pick up Columbo an unsolved murder By Don capria and Anthony Columbo you can pick that up at
00:56:36
our website true Crim garage.com and click on the recommended page we will see you right here back in the garage
00:56:42
tomorrow so don't be late and until then be good be kind and don't litter [Music]
00:57:05
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