Joseph Magliocco

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Joseph Magliocco (c. 1898-December 28, 1963) was a New York mobster and the boss of the Profaci crime family (later known as the present day Colombo crime family) from 1962 to 1963.

Magliocco first served as underboss to Joseph Profaci, and was arrested at both well-known National Crime Syndicate 'summits', at the Cleveland Statler Hotel on December 5, 1928, and at the Apalachin Meeting of November 17, 1957.

Magliocco took control of the family following Profaci's death from liver cancer on June 2, 1962. His tenure coincided with the ongoing battles of the "Gallo-Profaci War", an internal conflict between Profaci (and then Magliocco) and Joey Gallo. The war had begun following Gallo's dissatisfaction with Profaci's leadership (he felt his boss was taking an overly large cut of his rackets syndicate) and the killing for disloyalty of a Gallo associate, Frank Abbatemarco, by Profaci.

This led to the February 1961 kidnapping of a number of Profaci's men, including Magliocco. The group were only released when the two sides negotiated a settlement, but as Magliocco would find out when he took control of the family, it was not to be the end of hostilities between the two camps. Car bombs, drive-by shootings and various attempted murders were aimed at such Magliocco men as Carmine Persico and Hugh McIntosh before the hostilities came to an end in 1963 with the jailing of various members of the Gallo group, including Joey himself.

Often described as easily led, Magliocco soon found himself embroiled in a plot which would rock Cosa Nostra. In 1963 Joseph Bonanno, the head of the Bonanno crime family, conspired with Magliocco to have rival bosses Tommy Lucchese, Carlo Gambino and Stefano Magaddino killed, with the intention of taking control of the National Crime Syndicate, with Magliocco as his chief ally. Magliocco turned to Joe Colombo to organise the killings, but having decided the intended victims would be worth more to him than the contract, Colombo instead told the heads of the other families and implicated Bonanno and Magliocco in the plot.

While Bonanno fled the 'justice' of the Commission (the executive arm of the National Crime Syndicate), Magliocco was ordered to explain himself. Though he could have expected grim treatment at the hands of the other families, Magliocco was spared due to his clearly failing health - his fine of $50,000 and dismissal as head of the family (to be replaced by the enterprising Joe Colombo) proved a largely irrelevant punishment, as Magliocco died of a heart attack related to high blood pressure on December 28, 1963.

[edit] Further reading

Bernstein, Lee. The Greatest Menace: Organized Crime in Cold War America. Boston: UMass Press, 2002. ISBN 1-55849-345-X
Bonanno, Bill. Bound by Honor: A Mafioso's Story. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. ISBN 0-312-97147-8
Capeci, Jerry. The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Mafia. Indianapolis: Alpha Books, 2002. ISBN 0-02-864225-2
Cirules, Enrique. The Mafia in Havana: A Caribbean Mob Story. Melborne: Ocean Press, 2004. ISBN 1-876175-42-7