Carmine Galante

Carmine Galante ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}; February 21, 1910 – July 12, 1979) was an American Mafioso who was de facto boss of the Bonanno crime family of New York City. Law enforcement have accused Galante of participating in between 80 and 100 murders, with an extensive arrest record dating back to 1926 for assault, robbery, murder, grand larceny, alcohol tax violation, and narcotics. According to FBI files, during the 1930s and 1940s, Galante served as an enforcer for Don Vito Genovese, including himself carried out several murder contracts. During the 1950s, Galante ran an international narcotics ring with Joe Bonanno. Galante also attended the infamous October 1957 Apalachin meeting.

In 1958 and 1960, Galante was indicted for drug trafficking. In 1962, Galante was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and was paroled in 1974. Galante was rarely seen without a cigar hanging from his mouth, leading to the nickname "The Cigar" and "Lilo", "after the Italian slang word for a stubby little cigar."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He was assassinated on Commission orders in 1979 while dining at the patio of a restaurant, alongside his cousin Giuseppe Turano and Bonanno associate Leonardo Coppolla.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Background

Camillo Carmine Galante was born on February 21, 1910, in a tenement building in the East Harlem section of Manhattan. His parents, Vincenzo "James" Galante and Vincenza Russo, had emigrated from Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, to New York City in 1906, where Vincenzo was a fisherman.<ref name="galante image">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="fbi records 1" />

Carmine Galante had two brothers, Samuel and Peter Galante, and two sisters, Josephine and Angelina Galante.<ref name="fbi records 1" /> On February 10, 1945, Galante married Helen Marulli,<ref name="fbi records 1" /> by whom he had three children: James Galante, Camille Galante, and Angela Galante. For the last 20 years of his life, Carmine Galante lived with Ann Acquavella; the couple had two children together.<ref name="galante image" /> He was the uncle of Bonanno crime family capo James Carmine Galante.<ref>Template:Cite news </ref>

While in prison in 1931, doctors diagnosed Galante as having a psychopathic personality.<ref name="fbi records 1" /> Galante owned the Rosina Costume Company in Brooklyn, New York<ref name="fbi records 1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and was associated with the Abco Vending Company of West New York, New Jersey.

Criminal career

Early years

At the age of 10, Galante was sent to reform school due to his criminal activities. He soon formed a juvenile street gang on New York's Lower East Side. By the age of 15, Galante had dropped out of seventh grade. As a teenager, Galante became a Mafia associate during the Prohibition era, becoming a leading enforcer by the end of the decade. During this period, Galante also worked as a fish sorter and at an artificial flower shop.<ref name="fbi records 1" /> On December 12, 1925, the 15-year-old Galante pleaded guilty to assault charges. On December 22, 1926, Galante was sentenced to at least two and a half years in the state prison.<ref name="fbi files 2" />

In August 1930, Galante was arrested for the murder of police officer Walter DeCastilla that occurred during a payroll robbery. However, Galante was never indicted.<ref name="fbi records 1" /> Also in 1930, New York Police Department (NYPD) officer Joseph Meenahan caught Galante and other gang members attempting to hijack a truck in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In the ensuing gun battle, Galante wounded Meenahan and a six-year-old bystander; both survived. On February 8, 1931, after pleading guilty to attempted robbery, Galante was sentenced to 12 and a half years in the state prison. On May 1, 1939, Galante was released from prison on parole.<ref name="fbi files 2">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

By 1940, Galante was carrying out "hits" for Vito Genovese, the official underboss of the Luciano crime family. Galante had an underworld reputation for viciousness and was suspected by the NYPD of involvement in over 80 murders.<ref>Raab, Selwyn. Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires. New York: St. Martin's Press 2005. Template:ISBN</ref>

In 1943, Galante allegedly murdered Carlo Tresca, the publisher of an anti-fascist newspaper in New York. Genovese, living in exile in Italy, offered to kill Tresca as a favor to Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini. Genovese allegedly gave the murder contract to Galante. On January 11, 1943, Galante allegedly shot and killed Tresca as he stepped outside his newspaper office in Manhattan, and then got in a car and drove away.<ref name="slays tresca">Template:Cite news</ref> Although Galante was arrested as a suspect, no one was ever charged in the murder.<ref name="obscure gangster">Template:Cite news</ref> After the Tresca murder, Galante was sent back to prison on a parole violation. On December 21, 1944, Galante was released from prison.<ref name="fbi files 2" />

Later years

In 1953, boss Joseph Bonanno sent Galante to Montreal, Quebec, to organize the family’s drug business and rackets there. He worked with Vincenzo Cotroni of the Cotroni crime family in the French Connection. The Bonannos were importing huge amounts of heroin by ship into Montreal and then sending it into the United States. Police also estimated that Galante was collecting gambling profits in Montreal worth about $50 million per year.<ref>Auger and Edwards The Encyclopedia of Canadian Organized Crime p.63.</ref> In April 1956, due to Galante's strong-arm extortion tactics, the Canadian Government deported him back to the United States.<ref name="capeci2">Template:Cite book</ref>

In October 1957, Bonanno and Galante, now a consigliere,<ref name=galantebon>Raab, Selwyn. The Five Families: The Rise, Decline & Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empire. New York: St. Martins Press, 2005. Page 112</ref> held a hotel meeting in Palermo, Sicily, on plans to import heroin into the United States. Attendees included Lucky Luciano and other American mobsters, with a Sicilian Mafia delegation led by Giuseppe Genco Russo. As part of the agreement, Sicilian mobsters would come to the U.S. to distribute the narcotics. Galante brought many young men, known as Zips, from his family home of Castellammare del Golfo, Trapani, to work as bodyguards, contract killers and drug traffickers.

In 1958, after being indicted on drug conspiracy charges, Galante went into hiding. On June 3, 1959, New Jersey State Police officers arrested Galante after stopping his car on the Garden State Parkway close to New York City. Federal agents had recently discovered that Galante was hiding in a house on Pelican Island off the Jersey shore. After posting $100,000 bail, he was released.<ref name="fugitive seized">Template:Cite news</ref> On May 18, 1960, Galante was indicted on a second set of narcotics charges; he surrendered voluntarily.<ref name="gives up">Template:Cite news</ref>

Galante's first narcotics trial started on November 21, 1960; one of his co-defendants was William Bentvena, a Gambino made man who was murdered by Henry Hill's associates James Burke and Thomas DeSimone.<ref>United States of America, Appellee, v. William Bentvena et al., Defendants-appellants, 319 F.2d 916 (2d Cir. 1963)</ref> From the beginning, the first trial was characterized by jurors and alternates dropping out and coercive courtroom displays by the defendants. On May 15, 1961, the judge declared a mistrial. Galante was sentenced to 20 days in jail for contempt of court.<ref name="mistrial ruled">Template:Cite news</ref> On July 10, 1962, after being convicted in his second narcotics trial, Galante was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison and fined $20,000.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="13 sentenced">Template:Cite news</ref>

Power grab

In January 1974, Galante was released from prison on parole.<ref name="release galante">Template:Cite news</ref> Following his release from prison, Galante allegedly ordered the bombing of the doors to the private mausoleum of his enemy Frank Costello, who had died in 1973, in St. Michael's Cemetery.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

On February 23, 1974, at a meeting at the Americana Hotel in Manhattan, the Commission named Philip "Rusty" Rastelli as boss.<ref name="schneider 267">Template:Cite book</ref> When Rastelli was sent to prison in 1976,<ref name=shakedown>Template:Cite news</ref> Galante seized control of the Bonannos as unofficial acting boss and in turn becoming de facto boss.<ref name="Raab, pp. 203–205">Raab, pp. 203–205</ref>

During the late 1970s, Galante allegedly organized the murders of at least eight members of the Gambino family, with whom he had an intense rivalry, to take over a massive drug-trafficking operation.Template:Cn

On March 3, 1978, Galante's parole was revoked by the United States Parole Commission for allegedly associating with other Bonanno mobsters, and he was sent back to prison.<ref name="revokes probation">Template:Cite news</ref> However, on February 27, 1979, a judge ruled that the government had illegally revoked Galante's parole and ordered his immediate release.<ref name="release galante" />

Assassination

File:Galantedead.jpg

Galante shot dead at a restaurant patio with a cigar still held between his teeth

The New York crime families were alarmed at Galante's brazen attempt to take over the narcotics market.<ref name="Raab, pp. 203–205"/> Genovese crime family boss Frank Tieri began contacting Cosa Nostra leaders to build a consensus for Galante's murder, even obtaining approval from the retired Joseph Bonanno.<ref>Sifakis, Carl (2005). p. 443.</ref> In 1979, they received a boost when the official boss, Rastelli, sought Commission approval to kill Galante. Joseph Massino, a Bonanno soldier loyal to Rastelli, relayed the request to the Commission, which swiftly approved a contract on Galante.<ref name=raab>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Raab, pp. 607–608</ref>

On July 12, 1979, Galante was killed just as he finished eating lunch on an open patio at Joe and Mary's Italian-American Restaurant at 205 Knickerbocker Avenue in Bushwick, Brooklyn. He was dining with Leonard Coppola, a Bonanno capo and staunch Galante loyalist, and restaurant owner/cousin Giuseppe Turano, a Bonanno soldier. Also sitting at the table were Galante's Sicilian bodyguards, Baldassare Amato and Cesare Bonventre. At 2:45 pm, three ski-masked men entered the restaurant, walked into the patio, and opened fire with shotguns and handguns. Galante, Turano, and Coppola were killed instantly. A picture of the murdered Galante showed a cigar still in his mouth. Amato and Bonventre, who had done nothing to protect Galante, were left unharmed. The gunmen then ran out of the restaurant.<ref name="galante shot">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=Reppetto>Template:Cite book</ref>

Aftermath

The Archdiocese of New York refused to allow a funeral mass for Galante due to his notoriety.<ref name="funeral mass">Template:Cite news</ref> Galante was buried at Saint John's Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens.

In 1984, Bonventre was found murdered in a New Jersey warehouse, allegedly to guarantee his silence in the Galante murder.<ref>Sifakis, Carl (2005). p. 53.</ref> On January 13, 1987, Anthony Indelicato was sentenced to 40 years in prison, as a defendant in the Commission trial, for the Galante, Coppola, and Turano murders.<ref name="8 mafia">Template:Cite news</ref>

Books

• Pistone, Joseph D.; & Woodley, Richard (1999) Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia, Hodder & Stoughton. Template:ISBN.
• Pistone, Joseph D.; & Brandt, Charles (2007). Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business, Running Press. Template:ISBN.
• DeStefano, Anthony. The Last Godfather: Joey Massino & the Fall of the Bonanno Crime Family. California: Citadel, 2006.

External links

• "FBI Files Carmine Galante 1 through 12"
• Seize the Night: Carmine Galante
• Carmine "Lilo" Galante at Find A Grave