Word: profaci
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Colombo's career as a gangster also could provide a plausible motive?revenge. One product of his years as a member of the assassination team of Joseph Profaci, head of a New York family, is a list of victims' relatives?young men orphaned by contract, brothers bound to avenge a family murder?who would like to see Colombo killed. His rise in the Mob hierarchy has also earned him the bitter enmity of former comrades, notably Joseph ("Crazy Joe") Gallo, onetime Profaci triggerman whom Colombo opposed during a bloody gang war in the early...
Moreover the five New York families are just emerging from a decade that left their tight paramilitary structure shaken and disorganized. The bitterness of past Mafia wars still lingers, especially between Colombo and Joseph Gallo, the volatile former Profaci triggerman whose defection sparked the 1961 war. He once kept a wildcat in his basement and, for luck, a dwarf on his payroll. Released last March after serving nine years for extortion, he returned to New York with a grudge against Colombo and heretical ideas about recruiting blacks into Mafia ranks. These have made him the subject of speculation regarding...
...Army during World War II. After a dishonorable discharge, he became a minor figure along New York's waterfront. He was arrested at least 12 times during this period and had three convictions on gambling charges. In 1964, authorities allege, Colombo ascended to leadership of Joseph Profaci's Mafia family in Brooklyn after the "Banana War" power struggle between the Profaci family and the Joseph ("Joe Bananas") Bonanno family. In 1966, Colombo served 30 days for contempt after he refused to answer questions put to him by a grand jury. In addition to his perjury for lying...