Word: colombos
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...connection between Jerome Johnson and the Mafia. By week's end they had settled on the theory that Johnson had been chosen precisely because such a connection was difficult to prove. Johnson, police asserted, was a hired killer who had been silenced by a second triggerman at the rally. Colombo associates meanwhile continued to insist that the murder attempt was an isolated attack. "It seems like shooting civil rights leaders is 'in' in recent years," explained a league official...
...Colombo family's public pronouncements constituted a weak, improbable case. As Colombo lay in a coma, Mafia and law-enforcement officials awaited developments in what was certainly the opening round of a new Mob conflict. In the past, the emergence of a boss of bosses like Gambino has usually resulted in a war. The modern Mafia was reorganized in the 1930s, and the Commission was established after bloody battles to curb the power of a single leader. Gambino's assertion of leadership?quite apart from the Colombo family's need for revenge?makes it possible that a full-scale battle...
...COLOMBO'S civic career is a recent development. Until he organized the Italian-American Civil Rights League, he was a much more private person, intent on following his father's profession. Anthony Colombo was a successful Brooklyn mobster until he was garroted one night in 1938 in the back seat of his car along with his girl friend. The killing forced young Joe to quit high school and go to work in a printing plant to support his mother and younger sister. He enlisted in the Coast Guard in World War II, but he got into so much trouble that...
Returning to Brooklyn, Colombo drifted into a life of petty crime under the shadow of the Mafia. By Mafioso standards, Colombo was not much of a success. He failed to compile the kind of record that would mark him for bigger things. For a while he served as a muscleman on the piers; later he organized rigged dice games. He was given a promotion of sorts when he was appointed to a five-man assassination squad under the direction of Mafia Boss Joe Profaci. Also on the team were the Gallo brothers: Larry and Crazy...
Remaining loyal to Profaci but keeping as quiet as possible, Colombo escaped from the wars unscathed?but only just. On July 4, 1963, the Gallos planned to ambush him on his way home from the country club where he regularly played golf. Somehow, he got word and took another route...