Joseph Colombo /// Part 1 /// 72 | Forensic Files

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chair grab a beer and let's talk some true [Music] crime this is true crime garage and this is a
case of Joseph [Music] Columbo Roger as funerals for notorious individuals go this was extremely modest
with a service held in the section of Brooklyn where Joe Columbo was regarded by many as an outstanding Citizen and
family man there were only three flower filled cards the casket didn't look to be overly expensive and no major
recognizable organized crime figures came to pay their last respects to the Dapper Dino headed the family once
bossed by the late Joe paachi the olive oil King while there were a great number
of politicians at the rally at which Columbo was shot including at least one Congressman at least one member of the
state legislature I didn't see any of those people today some 250 MERS attended the service in the half empty
church from which cameras were B FBI agents and plain closed police were present when Columbo's wife four sons
and one daughter as well as his parents arrived well I met him in 49 at the waterfront I wake with him on
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
since he was shot down at an Italian American Civil Rights League rally at Columbus Circle in
1971 well he was a family man at uh when I was a lot younger I was about 10 years
old my father used to come home sometimes with turkey and uh Mr Columbo had given him to him Robert viante with
Stacy mwit the night she was killed by David burtz and who was left almost blinded by the so-called Son of Sam
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
uh he was doing the things for the Italian people and he was good for our own kind the mass of Resurrection was
conducted by father Lewis ganti former city councilman from East Harem he spotted me after the service and as the
funeral Entourage was passing the home of Columbo's sister on the way to the cemetery can you tell us summarize what
you said at the service yeah I just called Joe Columbo uh a mod for the Italian American
cause a mod for the Italian American cause [Music] last night at a Newberg New York
Hospital almost 7 years after he was shot down in Columbus Circle it's believed that his shooting was arranged
by crazy Joe Gallow who himself a year later was ventilated by gunfire that proved his mortality more on the Columbo
story Joe Columbo regarded himself as a good family man period and he used to hoot at allegations that he was involved
in hijacking loone shocking policy and bookmaking among other various [Music] Enterprises the short stocky baling
Dapper Don was a native of Brooklyn and his last home there was his private house in the daa beach section from
which the columbos moved about 2 years after he was cut down in the prime of Life at the age of
54 it happened on a June day in 1971 this is where it happened thousands of people were already at the rally many
more were on their way many politicians were up on the stands suddenly there was
a series of shots and Columbo was hit at least three times a moment later his assil was grammed and pummeled and then
shot killed instantly by Columbo followers Columbo was regarded as really being on
his way up in 1963 when Carlo Gambino the boss of bosses and who died a natural death
named him to take over the family which had been run by Joe prachi after the olive oil King died also of natural
causes Columbo reportedly ran this real estate business where nobody would speak
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
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
Columbo was believed by police to be a Hired Gun who got the contract from the Gallow
gang Joe Columbo detested the word mafia and he once said I don't know what they're talking about when they talk
about the mafia I do have a family a model for the Italian American [Music] cause who was Joe Columbo Joe Columbo
was a father he was the the alleged boss of the Columbo crime family and the founder of the Italian-American civil
rights league and in 1971 Joe Columbo was gunned down among a crowd of thousands in one of the most highly
publicized shootings in New York City's history I'll take you through the scene here a bit before we get to our guest
this week this is the summer of 1971 in New York City and the Italian-American civil rights league is putting on a
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
for the people and to bring everyone together as a community but this is not a small gathering no thousands of people
were present the FBI sent every field agent from their New York City offices to the rally NYPD sent 1,500 uniformed
police officers there for crowd control they also sent a few hundred higher ranking officers as well most likely to
oversee the patrol on duty that day and this is basically a rally the unity rally is basically Joe Columbo was
really pushing the issue of affirmative action and when we think of affirmative action we think of um you know
African-American affirmative action but he was really pushing Italian yes and so
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
then in the early' 70s yeah and so we're talking about 17 or 1,800 police officers there we're talking about a
bunch of FBI uh Agents from the NYC field off offices um so 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 to figure out that the FBI is not they're not there
for crowd control no pun intended yeah of course not the the FBI they don't mess around with crowd control mhm no
they are there because some might call this a mafia event there is going to be Mafia presence there that day as well
and the FBI well they are going to go there to photograph document and of course Eaves drop on these mob members
now Joe Columbo you could consider him the host of this event the guest of honor the headliner whatever you want to
call it right the main speaker but Unity Unity day existed because of Joe Columbo
he was the one everyone was there to see and hear he was their leader and I have
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
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
that a little bit later but back to Unity day shortly before the event could kick off Joe Columbo is standing inside
a press barricade keep in mind Joe is practically surrounded by Italian American Civil Rights League members
Columbo mob members family members as well as NYPD patrolmen now there's about 15 to 20 NYPD just to be clear right
around Joe Columbo it is at this point that Joe is gunned down the shooter is Jerome Johnson who is posing as a
cameraman with fake press credentials Jerome Johnson is tackled by police he handcuffed and then someone in the crowd
shoots Johnson Johnson dies in handcuffs and Joe Columbo somehow survives the attack but he is comos yeah and we
believe that these are people that worked for Joe Columbo you know his supporters somebody was like oh no they
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
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
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
let's introduce the five crime families okay so the five families are known as the bonano family the Columbo family The
Gambino family the genovesi family and the luuk Casey family and I tried to throw a little Italian on there I kind
of kind of butchered it now these are the five major New York City organized crime families of the Italian American
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
email saying I'm going to swim with the fishes because because the genovesi family was once the Luciano family I
mean yeah and basically what happens here is you have a crime family and then you have let's say cousins and brothers
and stuff like that that are all working for this crime and sometimes the cousin
or a family friend becomes the leader and then they changed the name of the crime family you're exactly right so I
mean no disrespect but for the sake of argument and for theing with the fishes for the sake of this episode let's just
agree that those are the five families now I did say Luciano or Luciano family that's a popular name and one that most
people are familiar with if you're not Charles Lucky Luciano he was once the boss of what more recently is referred
to as the geneves family and is pretty much considered the father for modern-day organiz crime and splitting
New York into the different criminal gangs lucky became the Boss by secretly betraying his boss and then lucky ended
up going to prison and eventually he is deported to Italy and at some point loses the boss title I wonder with New
York having the five burrows and then we also have the five crime families I wonder if there's any connection there
you're right there is some connection there and the five major families historically operated in the New York
metropolitan area but also having a big presence in New Jersey and also have and
may still be who knows be active in South South Florida Las Vegas Connecticut and Massachusetts so we got
the five crime families and sometimes they're just working independently sometimes they're working in clusters
and sometimes it's as a whole and sometimes they're Waring between each other maybe it's two against three or
just one against one you know kind of a Turf War battle Yeah that's a little bit
of the background here but we are not here to give a primer lesson on Italian-American organized crime yes we
are no we are here to discuss the conspiracy plot and cover up to kill and silence mob boss and Community Leader
Joseph Columbo MH you you know that most what's what do you think is the most cover up you know like construction
mm so like you're an organized crime what are you actually in oh your front yeah your front what would your front be
like Waste Management yours would be well I I used to have this guy that I suspected of knowing some people and
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
antiques oh he's an antiqu stealer yeah I could never find his store uh and then
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
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
the other four crime families was it the government in the CIA trying to take down a Crime Boss right or was it the
FBI did Jay Edgar Hoover try to silence the very voice that was calling for regulations and sanctions on his own
Bureau as we all know the FBI has been well hold on you're missing another the other possibility is just a lone gunman
well of course somebody that Joe did wrong and just wanted revenge and the Revenge would happen in public yeah and
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
join us now Anthony knew his father extremely well he worked alongside his father with the Italian American Civil
Rights league but Anthony has been silent for over 40 years and has recently decided to speak out about his
life beside his father and his father's unsolved murder and Don capria wrote this great book Columbo the unsolved
murder Don is also going to talk to us about Joe Columbo's father see Joe Columbo's father was killed as well
murdered Mafia style and most likely a retaliation kill for a killing that Joe's father Two Gun Tony carried out
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
the things that people believe that is evidence that this wasn't a mob killing was because this wasn't done in the
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
he grew up hearing stories about the mafia families and the different crime bosses so without further Ado an
interview with Don capria Don you are a writer producer and music video director how did you get
involved in writing a true crime book so I had always been interested in in True
Crime um and especially the New York five families um so I had mentioned to a friend a while back in Brooklyn that I
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
the five families his story to be one of the most interesting because of 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 so much more story out there that no one really
knew about for his life so um pursuing the screenplay I was kind of told you know this wouldn't be something that you
can do being that his five his five children are still alive this would be something you would really need a family
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
friend had had told me hey look are you interested in doing something with the Columbo uh story and I said of course so
he said well a guy's going to be calling you they're working on the book now and
they're looking for someone to do the adaptation for a screenplay I took a call with a gentleman that was like a
liaison between the family and their agent Mickey fryberg and when we were on the call talking he also let me know
that they were probably looking for 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 timing thing so I went Upstate and I met with Joe Columbo's oldest son Anthony
Columbo his grandson Anthony Columbo Jr um Ray who was like the liaison of the family to the agent and we sat at a
diner and discussed what I knew about Joe Columbo's life why I wanted to write this book what
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
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
chemistry and I had never intended to write a book I always wanted to be a screenwriter but when opportunity arose
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
Crime biography tell everybody about Joseph Columbo yeah Joseph Columbo um you know he died before I was born and I
did a lot of research on him from everything from the the media story of who Joe Columbo was the the jacket of of
criminal history and an investigation done by the FBI and the nyp but I think the most interesting stories
of course came from the people that had firsthand experiences with him uh the more and more that I met people that
that met Joe or had heard stories about Joe and of course working side by side with Anthony his oldest son I I learned
that the man could have he was one of these gentlemen that could have been anything um and he did live and become
successful in many different ways besides what you know the reputed mom boss story that everybody knew about him
uh as a businessman he was a dealmaker and he was a dealmaker that wanted to create win-win situations um as a
community person he was a leader uh in his family he was a strong cohesive piece to have of course the head of his
family but always making sure that everyone is included and and he's the type of person that I met one guy in
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
person he said Joe Columbo was the type of person that when a black man and and an
Asian man and a Russian guy and and a Jewish guy and an Italian guy were having an argument over something they
would walk into a room with Joe Joe would sit him down they'd come out of that room an hour later and everyone
would be laughing and patting each other on the back and and to me I just learned
that no matter what Joe Columbo was in the media eye or to any person that wrote or spoke about him he was just
going to be a successful leader and that's why I think he had uh leaned over into politics and started the
Italian-American civil rights League he knew how to pave the way to a successful
situation whether that situation was a business deal whether that situation was uh Community organization you know he
wanted to build a hospital he was building a camp in Upstate New York to me Joe Columbo was just a natural born
leader we're talking about Joseph Columbo the famous mob boss of the Columbo family but when when Joe was a
kid his father was murdered yes so his father was an immigrant who while their roots are from calabrian Italy his
father um came by way of Brazil which was very common during the heavy immigration of italian-americans to from
Italy to the Americas so his father came over and grew up just with his father because his siblings did not make it
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
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
member of what would be the prachi organization but I think this was even pre five families that he was involved
in you know the bootlegging Activities The Roaring 20s and then in the 1930s um the at the end of the Castle de
mes Wars there was a huge power struggle that was happening in Brooklyn and we all know the story of sa luchiano and
how he with Myer Lansky devised the five families where these territories would finally be defined and leaders would be
defined and the work would be defined um and when that was happening there was still someone in the streets of South
Brooklyn of a very powerful uh gangster um Frankie Yale's associate and his his name is a clutching hand pirano um and
he would not settle he would not do organiz organized crime like these men wanted to do where there was politics
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
where he had he had left the meeting 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 on sacket Street in Brooklyn and the corner report
on that shooting was that the first two bullets that entered his body um you could put a quarter over those first two
bullets that entered his heart meaning that the gun was fired and the second gun was fired he hit the same spot twice
which is pretty rare when it comes to sharp shooting with a pistal um that that murder and from from what I was
told again is was was done by two gony which would be Joe komo's father and years later when the Pachi organization
came see came to be someone had to take responsibility for this Lieutenant dying
and it was rumored that that's when they decided they had to kill Anthony Columbo
who was responsible for the shooting of jeppi prachi so he was slain um with with a girl that was someone that he was
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
1920s 1930s they were still doing um stuff that they did when they came over was called like the barrel murders I
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
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
photos were all over the newspaper and it was something I'm sure was extremely difficult for Joe as a 14-year-old boy
to have everyone that knows him know about his father's murder and have seen pictures of his father's body the hand
even laying out from the backseat of the car in the police photos that made it into the newspapers and this was
something that was a turning point for Joe Columbo because his his mother at that time was so nervous about what was
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
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
was responsible for his father's murder and was anon's mistress killed that day as well she was yes so his father and
his father's mistress were both killed that day by strangulation both murders were done by strangulation uh Christine
olivieri who was married at the time as well was the mistress um and she was also strangled and left inside this uh
Pontiac um it was called The Shore Road murders in the newspaper it was in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn and it was
a very very foggy morning that those cars it it must have happened in the evening before and a very foggy morning
the Killer and accomplices took this Pontiac and drove it right off of Shore Road parked it on the side of the street
and then when the fog cleared in the morning the bodies were actually found by a little boy who was just walking his
dog and he saw these this two bodies in the backseat of this Pontiac and then called the superintendent of the
building next door the police and there you had the crime scene we're talking with true crime author Don capria about
Joseph Columbo the mob boss and his father has been killed when he was a boy now his mother moves out to California
and Joseph stays behind in New York yes and again my belief is that Joe wanted to find out who was responsible for his
father's murder and I think that Joe also angered wanted to avenge his father um and there was a gentleman that was
very close to his father that they live around the corner from each other in sheep's head Bay
and this gentleman went to Joe at his father's funeral and let him know that listen I'm very dear friend of your
fathers he was a mentor to me and he was a a very important person in my life 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 started
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
can get into that later on and how that relationship grew but I think that that person was
also a pivotal person kind of the detent pole for Joe saying okay well my whole family 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 needs to survive in New
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Cellular when Freedom calls we're here to answer call us at 1888 Freedom Joseph Columbo his father's been
killed his mother moves away now 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 he stays in school he does not um stay in school to complete uh high school he had
switched schools because he needed a residency so the mother's sister was living off of new utri G so more towards
Bensonhurst so he stays in school um he was he had a shine box and he was shining shoes um and then he started
learning in how to roll dice and he started making money because he noticed that well the money doesn't come from
Rolling Dice and having good luck the money comes from running the games so at a very early age he was running crap
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
Bakery delivery and then I think he started to notice um from some of the older gentlemen in the neighborhood as
well that there was ways to have the job and also make a little bit of extra money by hitting up Bakery deliveries
and hitting up uh meat deliveries and all these different kinds of things so he he learned H to hustle and uh earn
money at a very early age you know 14 15 years old and once he started to support
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
mother moved back from California once the dust had settled and she felt things 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 17 or 18 so when does Joe Columbo become
involved in organized crime and get involved with one of the famous five families the organized crime stuff
wasn't until much later in his life I think the first thing that happened for him was he start he started working at
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
where he met his future wife uh Jojo and he also met some of his closest friends
around this time that he had lifelong friends uh he also learned to organize at this time where at this Factory he he
became a leader this is you know where he started getting leadership role and people looked to him to settle disputes
and um it was his first experience with Union work uh he also had an experience with a Comm the Communist party at this
time he was invited to a camp Upstate from some of the union workers which would be around polling New York I would
say and at this Camp they were recruiting uh Italians and uh Germans and other people that were immigrants in
New York to join the Communist party and this was during the time of the war Joe
went up to the camp checked out everything that they had to say and you know politely thank them for letting him stay
there and feeding him and giving him all this information but let him know that you know this was not something that was
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
Harbor had happened and when Pearl Harbor happened he felt that he needed to act and he joined the not the Navy
but he joined the Coast Guard and he went to active duty right away um he was on a few different ships and
he saw action off the coast of Casablanca everywhere in between France and North Africa um a lot of action
actually and during one of the trips he got a message from his wife that their house on sacket Street had burned down
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
Furlow and he skipped Furlow and he went up into the mountains in New 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 Harts Island so he spent a lot of time um
incarcerated a few months and then his wife got pregnant um and he had his he got married he had his first son within
a year and that's when he started working on the Brooklyn docks and I think when he started working on the
Brooklyn docks he was introduced to a lot of people in organized crime as we all know the docs were overrun with with
criminals and and organized crime figures you know everyone from Albert Anastasia on down so I think a lot of
people respected Joe for who his father 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 wing being the Pachi gang and at the
time that he was at the Brooklyn docks so we're talking early 1940s that was when he was probably first introduced to
organized crime and started to see that he could be a leader within this community in my research of Joe Columbo
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
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
media and everyone spoke of as the Gallow prachi War and what had happened I think this all started in 1958 or
1959 um there was the whole the Gallow gang which was a faction within the paasi organization from President Street
and you had the The Gallows which was Joe Gallow Albert Gallow and Larry Gallow Larry Gallow as I was told was
the leader of the organization and Beyond the Gallow gang you you had a lot of other people that were involved one
of them um Joe jelly who was you know Infamous infamously known as one of the toughest guys in the streets of Brooklyn
at that time um these guys were vying for power within the organization because um from what I was told again
they were um they were the tough guys that were handling a lot of business for Pachi in South Brooklyn but it seemed
that Pachi had such a grip on business that he would have them you know do different things take care of scores
maybe take out people but then not give them the piece of the pie that they felt
entitled to and crazy Joe Gallow Joey the blonde if he was referred to in the street was very rebellious and I think
with him and his brother Larry who was the leader he devised a plan that they could start kidnapping members of the
Pachi organization and demands the money and whatever stake they felt was owed to
them so there was a few different people that were kidnapped in 1961 and it's been rumored that Joe Columbo was among
those people but he never was um he actually just moved to Upstate New York and made sure that he kep his family
outside of the city while all this was happening because beyond the kidnapping there were some murders that were
happening during the Gallow Pachi war and and Joe was smart enough to know that he didn't want to get in the middle
of this situation and as I heard from folks Joe was the the influential person after Pachi had passed and after mgio
who was the underboss who became the leader of the Pachi organization Joe was the person who
really cleaned up the war and made sure that everyone could be back together and
it could be one family and that was the reason why in folklore the proface organization doesn't even exist in the
five families anymore matter of fact the Columbo crime organization as they call
it is the only crime organization that changed names and is still its name in the FBI you know if we talk about five
families lukasi geneves banano Gambino Columbo it didn't start off that way it was actually the Pachi organization that
became the Columbo organization and I think this was due to the disain that a lot of the Gallow faction people
had towards the Pachi name and they said well if we're going to make this an organization again we'll never call
ourselves Pachi members so Joseph Columbo was never actually kidnapped he just moved his family to kind of lay low
uh especially with murder having been such a real thing for him seeing his father you know knowing that his father
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
Blooming Grove New York and he actually started buying more and more property up
there as his business was doing better he still stayed in New York in Brooklyn um he was uh working at canalo realy on
86 Street so he still operated out of South Brooklyn and I I would want to say that there was probably even days that
he was sleeping up State and driving all the way back into the city for a full days of work and then probably spending
time with his family on the weekends up there and just keeping them mainly out of Brooklyn as much as possible not
thinking that there was anything per se that um what happened to his family because of what was going on the the you
know the organized crime members were never known for that sort of behavior so I think it was just something that with
the media and the news and the people on the street it was just you know there's
so much dialogue going on about the streets that he he felt it was better to just keep them removed from everything
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
always the the the piece of a puzzle that you know I worked closely with Anthony on where you know when I was
writing the story I wrote it with his oldest son and Anthony had told me he has a fatherson story to tell and he
only wants to tell this fatherson story from the time that he was born until the
time that his father was shot and during that time he never knew his father as an
organized crime figure um he only knew his father as the head of his household and whatever was written about him in
the papers and whatever he was arrested for uh even what he had gone to jail for this was believable that Anthony
would see his father just as the businessman he told him he was and not an organized crime figure because if you
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
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
application you know you're looking you look up to this man you eat dinner with this man every day you're going to
believe your you're going to believe your father and you're not going to question him so the the time that he
spent in jail was was something that anyone could go to jail for which was just contempt um him and and Larry
Gallow were seen together at a resort in the Catskills um by a police officer and just the police officer seeing um
Larry Gallow and there was another gentleman who was also a convicted felon uh this allowed for a grand jury hearing
back in New York City Joe had to sit and speak 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 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 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 anyone who doesn't want to
speak during a grand jury hearing could be put in jail for let's talk about the Italian-American civil rights League
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
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
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
supporter of the sons of Italy so he was not only proud but he was also a strong
supporter in the organizations that existed um whenever he saw any kind of defamation whenever he saw any kind of
struggle he was the the type of person that would step up and and fight and something happened in 1970 to his son
that had been um boiling and boiling and waiting to explode and it finally did the FBI had been threatening him that if
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
his son on a coin melting case in April of 1971 when this happened Joe went to these organizations and he said look
it's it's time for the the Italian people to step up and fight the the justice department the justice
department not only attacked him but they had been known for going around in the community and if you knew a criminal
if you were relative of a criminal they were shaking people down you know doing robbing money from their homes uh
threatening immigrants with deportation that wouldn't answer questions um walking into stores that were you know
possibly owned by an organized crime figure and you know just just complete disruption within the community to
anyone that possibly knew or was involved with criminal and and Joe had a distin for this and Joe wanted to fight
for this and he could not get the support of these organizations so he decided at that moment and with a with a
close friend with Matt Marone that he was going to start the Italian-American civil rights league is which it became
and he was going to combat the justice department and Beyond the justice department he was going to start
combating all things that he felt needed to be rectified within the Italian-American community and a lot of
people looked at this and just said you know well he started this organization for the reasons of making money or it
was a very very passionate and important part of of Joe Columbo's life I think uh
in some respects looking back at his life I think he would have made a greater political leader than he would
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
him and his father never happened at all you talked about how he got involved in
organized crime and we know he you don't just start off being being the boss of a
crime family how does Joe Rise through the ranks well there are stories and you know then there are stories that I heard
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
Brooklyn until he was pretty much off the radar through the FBI you know I had his his jacket and a lot of other
people's um Foya files and he was pretty much off the radar I think a lot of the
people and the Columbo organization were maybe even all the organizations uh until the Gallow prachi war and I think
even then they didn't know who was leading the family once the 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 was a progressive thinker Joe wanted
uh anyone that was involved in organized crime to be a businessman to not be in the street and known as a criminal not
to be lazy to be you know ambitious enough to open up a construction company to have a real estate company to own a
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
these men that came from the prohibition era Joe was um you know he was about 20 years younger than than all
the leaders of the families at this time and and I think that he was the person that
started to see the change needed to be as the justice department was gearing up to really go after organized crime
figures so as a leader he was amongst those five families he was the most different to me because he was trying to
create change within how their structure was um and and I think that created a tension not only with
some of the street guys but also with the leaders of these five families and you know as I I was reading and learning
more about Joe Columbo like the dichotomy of his character was was he was just so diverse that was most one of
the most interesting things to me was that you know he was creating a resistance almost in in every area of
his life uh especially the the organized crime area once Columbo takes over the family what kind of leader is he is he
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
was very very close with um Carmine curo he was very close to and a lot of people
don't know Larry Gallow um everyone thinks of Gallow Columbo as this uh riff that was forever and this is just
something wasn't true Gallow was not only so close to Joe he was at Anthony Columbo his son's wedding um and while
Joe Gallow was not a fan of Joe columbos to say the least um his brother was and they had a
great relationship and Larry was you know definitely one of the more powerful people in the Columbo
organization um and I think that Joe had the love and the support of people across organized crime families within
New York and this would be evident in when he started the league um there were faces and there were people on those
pickup lines and there was people that were um really helping Joe turn this league into a monster and
a threat to the to the justice department That Couldn't happen if he wasn't a well-loved and respected leader
in the organized crime world not only just the the community of New York but also in the organized crime world
because this is a man that that went from starting the Italian-American civil rights league in April and picking the
FBI offices in New York City to putting 200,000 people a few months later in Columbus Circle for one of the biggest
rallies New York has seen so that can only come from being um not just charismatic but really well- loved
inside the communities Columbo and his League they've organized picketing sessions and they've organized rallies
what are they rallying against and we see here an example of such on the cover of your book what are they trying to
achieve yeah starting with the the cover photo um that was a photo taken by a really amazing political photographer uh
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
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
boy and when I um when I found that photo and I found out who shot that photo um
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
apartment in New York that I keep and I I go there one month out of the year and
have some old photos some stuff I never even developed so I met this man a few months later at his apartment in Harlem
and he developed all this film and that's where that cover photo came from so um very interesting uh photo it it
has Joe squaring off with the police officer they're near the FBI offices in Manhattan
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
headed for a police station and that's why I feel this book was better told you know 40 years later as
what Joe Columbo was thinking and what he was saying um as a civil rights leader and also just as a community
leader was to stand out and have some action against the government um Joe Columbo did not believe in the practices
of the FBI he did not believe in the practices of the organized Crim um Strike Force the justice department as a
whole because he felt that they had to hold the respect and the law of what America said it was and the Integrity of
of justice and he knew that they were doing illegal activities to make arrests he knew that they were robbing he knew
that the same men that were putting guys away for running numbers were gamblers uh booze drugs everything that that he
felt was right and wrong he he wanted to make sure that there was a line between
the justice department and the street guys that were doing it and that type of forward thing was what he wanted to
fight against because he knew that they 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 Wikileaks um Joe never learned to know about this but in
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
Pennsylvania who broke into an FBI office a very low security FBI office but they managed to get a whole bunch of
paper ERS out uh about Hoover's illegal organization within the FBI called cenel
Pro which was short for a Counter Intelligence program and this program has documentation of illegal activities
and even murder they killed a black panther in Chicago um and this 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 the FBI from being able to without a warrant
bust in the people's doors take from their apartment and and Shake people down and and you know illegal wire Taps
and and all these different things that were happening so the are 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 right now what the people are fighting for in the streets
and protesting against big government and Joe was a republican he was a conservative I'm sure a Libertarian and
you know he wanted to make sure that the government remained where it was when this country
started where it was ruled by the people and he started to see that Hoover and and the justice department were doing
exactly the opposite and no one was trying to curve this some really interesting stuff that
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
will come out tomorrow yeah I'll try to edit it as soon as I can and and release
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
reading for tonight is Columbo the unsolved murderer by Don capria and Anthony Columbo uh I'm going to read a
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
Columbo was the head of one of New York's Infamous five families to the Italian-American Community he was an
organizer and a leader to his family he was a great husband and father who was responsible for Joe Columbo's death and
why have the efforts that Joe made for the Italian American Community gone unrecognized all this stuff has weighed
very heavily on Anthony Columbo for years and he has finally decided to write a book to address who Joe Columbo
really was and to address who should be held responsible for his death the book is based on Anthony's personal life
beside his father and his in-depth knowledge surrounding his shooting and the suspiciously flawed investigation
into his death so pick up Columbo an unsolved murder By Don capria and Anthony Columbo you can pick that up at
our website true Crim garage.com and click on the recommended page we will see you right here back in the garage
tomorrow so don't be late and until then be good be kind and don't litter [Music]
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Joseph Colombo /// Part 1 /// 72

Part 1 of 2

Being the leader of one of New York's five crime families does not come without problems. Joseph Colombo was the boss of the Colombo mafia but he was also a family man and a community leader. Coming up through the ranks was tough though. Joseph's father was killed by a rival gang when he was just a teenager. In 1970 he created the Italian-American Civil Rights League. Joe arranged for the community to picket against J Edgar Hoover and the FBI as they harassed and used questionable tactics to arrest Italian-Americans. In 1971 Colombo was gunned down at a rally in one of the most publicized assassinations in New York's history. The shooter was quickly hand cuffed and shot in front of police. Jerome Johnson shot Colombo but who shot Johnson? Was it the police, was it one of Colombo's men or was it the FBI? Author and director Don Capria joins us in the garage to discuss the biggest conspiracy in New York mafia history.

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Brief Summary

Joseph Columbo's life, assassination, and legacy are examined with insights from his son and true crime author Don Capria.

Key points

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True Crime Garage Introduction. Nick and the Captain welcome listeners to the show with humor and camaraderie.
The Assassination of Joe Columbo. Columbo was gunned down in a public rally, shocking the community.
Joe Columbo's Early Life. Joe Columbo grew up in Brooklyn, facing challenges after his father's murder.
The Shore Road Murders. The brutal murders of Joe Columbo's father and his mistress shocked the community.
Joe's Transition to Organized Crime. Joe Columbo's early experiences led him into the world of organized crime.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Joe Columbo was a good family man.

Describing Columbo's reputation despite his criminal ties

7:29WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

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