79 Facts About Joseph Massino

Joseph Massino was a member of the Mafia and boss of the Bonanno crime family from 1991 until 2004, when he became the first boss of one of the Five Families in New York City to turn state's evidence.

Originally a truck hijacker, Joseph Massino secured his own power after arranging two 1981 gang murders, first a triple murder of three rebel captains, then his rival Dominick Napolitano.

In 1991, while Joseph Massino was in prison for a 1986 labor racketeering conviction, Rastelli died and Joseph Massino succeeded him.

Joseph Massino became known as "The Last Don", the only full-fledged New York boss of his time who was not in prison.

In July 2004, Joseph Massino was convicted in a RICO case based on the testimony of several cooperating made men, including Joseph Massino's disgruntled underboss and brother-in-law Salvatore Vitale.

Joseph Massino testified twice for the government, helping to win a murder conviction against his acting boss Vincent Basciano in 2011, and was resentenced to time served in 2013.

Joseph Massino was born on January 10,1943, in New York City.

Joseph Massino was one of three sons of Neapolitan-American Anthony and Adeline Massino.

Joseph Massino dropped out of Grover Cleveland High School in tenth grade.

Joseph Massino's weight gained him the nickname "Big Joey", and during a 1987 racketeering trial, when he asked FBI agent Joseph Pistone who was to play him in a film adaptation of his undercover work, Pistone joked that they could not find anyone fat enough.

Joseph Massino led a successful truck hijacking crew, with the assistance of his brother-in-law Salvatore Vitale and carjacker Duane Leisenheimer, while fencing the stolen goods and running numbers using the lunch wagon as a front.

Joseph Massino befriended another mob hijacker, future Gambino crime family boss John Gotti.

In March 1975, Joseph Massino was arrested along with of one of his hijackers, Raymond Wean, and charged with conspiracy to receive stolen goods.

Joseph Massino was scheduled to go on trial in 1977, but the charges were dropped after he successfully argued that he had not been properly mirandized, disqualifying statements Massino gave to police from being used in trial.

Joseph Massino worked as a soldier in James Galante's crew, and later worked in Philip "Phil Lucky" Giaccone's crew.

Joseph Massino nevertheless remained loyal to Rastelli, then vying to oust Galante despite his imprisonment.

The Commission initially tried to maintain neutrality, but in 1981, Joseph Massino got word from his informants that the three capos were stocking up on automatic weapons and planning to kill the Rastelli loyalists within the Bonanno family to take complete control.

Joseph Massino turned to Colombo crime family boss Carmine Persico and Gambino boss Paul Castellano for advice; they told him to act immediately.

Joseph Massino, Napolitano and Gerlando Sciascia, a Sicilian-born capo linked to the Montreal Rizzuto crime family, arranged a meeting at a Brooklyn social club with the three capos for May 5,1981.

When Trinchera, Giaccone and Indelicato arrived with Frank Lino to meet Joseph Massino, they were shot to death, with Joseph Massino himself stopping Indelicato from escaping.

Joseph Massino quickly won Lino over to his side, but Indelicato's son, Anthony "Bruno" Indelicato, vowed revenge.

Already skeptical of Napolitano's support of "Brasco", Joseph Massino was deeply disturbed by the breach of security when he learned of the agent's true identity.

In March 1982, Joseph Massino was tipped off by a Colombo-associated FBI insider that he was about to be indicted and went into hiding in Pennsylvania with Leisenheimer.

On March 25,1982, Joseph Massino was charged with conspiracy to murder Indelicato, Giaccone and Trinchera and truck hijacking.

In hiding, Joseph Massino was able to see the prosecution's strategy and better plan his defense as well as eventually face trial without association with other mobsters.

Pistone later speculated Joseph Massino feared retaliation upon the revelation that his associate, Raymond Wean, had turned state's evidence.

Joseph Massino was visited by many fellow mobsters, including Gotti, and Vitale would secretly deliver cash to support him.

Still a fugitive, Joseph Massino summoned Vitale, Louis Attanasio and James Tartaglione to his hideout and gave them the order.

Joseph Massino was picked up by Vitale and Attanasio and driven to a garage.

In 1985, Joseph Massino was indicted twice more, first as a co-conspirator with Rastelli in a labor racketeering case for controlling the Teamsters Local 814, then with a conspiracy charge for the Pastore murder that was added to the original three capos indictment.

On January 16,1987, Joseph Massino was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, his first prison term.

Around this time, Joseph Massino was believed to be the Bonanno family's official underboss.

Prosecutor Michael Chertoff, describing Joseph Massino's rise in his opening statements, would characterize him as the "Horatio Alger of the mob".

Raymond Wean and Joseph Pistone testified against Massino, but both proved unable to conclusively link Massino with any of the murder charges.

Rastelli had spent all but two years of his reign behind bars, and many felt Joseph Massino would bring the family stability.

Joseph Massino was reluctant to take over as long as Rastelli was alive.

However, in the spring of 1991, Joseph Massino ordered Vitale to "make me boss" as soon as Rastelli died; Rastelli died on June 24,1991.

Joseph Massino was granted two years' supervised release on November 13,1992.

Joseph Massino returned to his job at King Caterers, and in 1996 became co-owner of Casablanca, a well-reviewed Maspeth Italian restaurant.

Joseph Massino was 48 years old at the time of his accession and knew that he potentially had a long reign ahead of him.

Joseph Massino took a great number of precautions in regards to security and the possibility of anything incriminating being picked up on a wiretap.

Joseph Massino arranged family meetings to be conducted in remote locations within the United States.

Joseph Massino created a clandestine cell system for his crews, forbidding them from contacting one another and avoiding meeting their capos.

In contrast to his contemporaries, particularly the publicity-friendly Gotti and the conspicuous feigned insanity of Gigante, Joseph Massino himself was able to operate with a relatively low public profile; both Pistone and mob writer Jerry Capeci would consequently refer to Joseph Massino as the "last of the old-time gangsters".

Vitale remained loyal and helped Joseph Massino organize the March 18,1999 murder of Gerlando Sciascia.

Sciascia's body was not covertly buried but instead left to be discovered in a street in the Bronx, an attempt to make the hit look like a botched drug deal rather than a Mafia-ordered hit, and Joseph Massino had his capos attend Sciascia's funeral.

Shortly after becoming boss, Joseph Massino announced that his men should no longer consider themselves as part of the Bonanno family.

Joseph Massino had backed Gotti in his plot to take over the Gambino family, and as Gambino boss, Gotti tried to get Joseph Massino a seat on the Commission as the Bonannos' acting boss.

Gotti was reportedly infuriated that Joseph Massino had been officially promoted without him being consulted, and Joseph Massino would later testify he believed Gotti conspired with Vitale to kill him.

Joseph Massino had a poor relationship with Vincent Gigante, who had backed the opposition to Rastelli and blocked Gotti's attempts to bring Joseph Massino onto the Commission.

Wary of surveillance, Joseph Massino generally avoided meeting with members of other Mafia families and encouraged his crews to operate independently as well.

In January 2000 Joseph Massino did preside over an informal Commission meeting with the acting bosses of the other four families.

At the beginning of his reign as boss, Joseph Massino enjoyed the benefit of limited FBI attention.

The Bonanno squad's chief, Jack Stubing, was well aware of the measures Joseph Massino had taken to avoid scrutiny.

Joseph Massino therefore decided to go after Massino with a rear-guard action.

Joseph Massino convinced his bosses to lend him a pair of forensic accountants normally used in fraud investigations, believing that they could easily pinpoint conspirators in the family's money laundering schemes.

Joseph Massino used this as a point of pride to rally his crime family.

Joseph Massino was followed shortly by acting underboss Richard Cantarella, a participant in the Mirra murder, who was facing racketeering and murder charges.

On January 9,2003, Joseph Massino was arrested and indicted, alongside Vitale, Frank Lino and capo Daniel Mongelli, in a comprehensive racketeering indictment.

The charges against Joseph Massino himself included ordering the 1981 murder of Napolitano.

Joseph Massino was denied bail, and Vincent Basciano took over as acting boss in his absence.

Joseph Massino hired David Breitbart, an attorney he had originally wanted to represent him in his 1987 trial, for his defense.

Three more Bonanno made men would choose to cooperate before Joseph Massino came to trial.

In custody Joseph Massino again put out the word, to a receptive Bonanno family, that he wanted Vitale killed.

Joseph Massino was followed in short order by Lino, knowing Vitale could implicate him in murder as well.

Joseph Massino now faced 11 RICO counts for seven murders, arson, extortion, loansharking, illegal gambling, and money laundering.

Joseph Massino had spent most of his three decades in the Mafia as a close confidant to Massino, and his closeness to his brother-in-law allowed him to cover Massino's entire criminal history in his testimony.

Joseph Massino did so in hopes of sparing his life; he was facing the death penalty if found guilty of Sciascia's murder.

Joseph Massino thus stood to be the first Mafia boss to be executed since Lepke Buchalter was executed in 1944.

Joseph Massino subsequently claimed he decided to turn informer due to the prospect of his wife and mother having to forfeit their houses to the government.

Joseph Massino was the first sitting boss of a New York crime family to turn state's evidence, and the second in the history of the American Mafia to do so.

That same day Josephine Massino negotiated a settlement to satisfy the forfeiture claim, keeping the homes of herself and Massino's mother as well as some rental properties while turning over, among other assets, a cache of $7 million and hundreds of gold bars both of which were kept in his Howard Beach home, and the Casablanca restaurant.

Joseph Massino was not replaced as Bonanno boss until 2013 when Michael Mancuso, who had replaced Basciano as acting boss, was reported to have formally assumed the title.

Joseph Massino was conspicuously absent from the prosecution witnesses at the 2006 racketeering trial of Basciano, the prosecution deciding he was not yet needed; he was expected to testify against Vito Rizzuto regarding his role in the three capos murder, but the Montreal boss accepted a plea bargain in May 2007 before Rizzuto's case went to trial.

Joseph Massino testified again in the 2012 extortion trial of Genovese capo Anthony Romanello, primarily to provide background as an expert on the American Mafia.

Joseph Massino had been considered as a witness in the 2013 murder trial of Colombo acting boss Joel Cacace, but was dropped after he was unable to fully remember the meeting where he claimed Cacace indicated his involvement in the murder of NYPD officer Ralph Dols.

Joseph Massino lived out his final years in the Federal Witness Protection Program, residing at an upscale retirement community in the Greater Cleveland area under the alias "Ralph Rogers".

Joseph Massino died following a short illness at a rehabilitation facility in Glen Cove, Long Island on September 14,2023, at the age of 80.

Joseph Massino had been living in Ohio until shortly before his death.