Mobsters - Joe bonanno

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for 30 years Joe bonanno's authority in the underworld went unchallenged Bonanno has never been touched never an intent made on his life he witnessed the rise and fall of the mob and lived to tell the tale everybody was afraid of Joe Bonanno when he chose to be scary you often hear about the person who went as a room and all eyes are drawn to that person he was that kind of man the mob boss tried to preserve his traditions by inducting his oldest son in to the secret society he had created I am not ashamed of Who I am or what I am I've accepted the life that was handed to me and I tried to do the best that I can but The Godfather and his son would find themselves betrayed by their own crime family for centuries the island of Sicily has been a breeding ground for renegades radicals and gangsters the island comes by its rebellious spirit naturally enough foreigners kept invading it and ruling over it as a result Sicilians became deeply suspicious of outsiders and fiercely antagonistic toward Authority this spirit gave rise to the Sicilian Mafia and it was into this world that you set the banana was born on January 18th 1905 his father Salvatore was a wealthy mafia leader who owned farmland vineyards and cattle Salvatore was proud to be the descendant of a medieval architect who built the Leaning Tower of Pisa even in those days we couldn't do anything straight you know he built the crooked building giuseppe's mother Catherine was one of 18 children from the Bonventre family an ally of the Bonanno clan in the feuding village of Castellammare del Golfo Salvatore was considered a man of respect to the mostly poor people of coastal Amaury who turned to Mafia families like his for justice the arbitrated disputes controlled jobs influence politicians and when necessary used violence to get his way the bonanno's were really part of a kingdom a kingdom of within sicily that was anything but recognized by the regime in sicily but was certainly respected by the ordinary people of sicily in 1908 on the run from the law saw the tour brought his wife and only child to America it was a great adventure for three-year-old giuseppe who became known as joe to his first-grade classmates in brooklyn new york on weekends his father would take him for walks through the bustling city streets and they would stop at the Nickelodeon the boy fell in love with America but in 1912 much to Joe's disappointment the bonanno's moved back to Sicily when serious feuding threatened the family's power and wealth what was dear to him or was sacred to him was his early American experience because in fact when he went back to the old country he was called the American kid his earliest memories were of America but Joe would spend the rest of his childhood absorbing the tough spirit of his native land as he rode his horse by the sea he fancied himself a knight fighting for honor or the captain of a ship that circles the globe even as a boy he had great expectations Joe grew up expecting to be a man of substance a man of wealth and influence and power he's raised in certain rhetorical traditions of Honor and deference to a great leader a great man at the age of 11 Joe's idyllic childhood was cut short his father drafted to fight for Italy in world war one returned home badly wounded Salvatore's dying words to his son were your name is Bonanno always be proud of your name only five years later his mother died as well just a teenager the orphan inherited his family's fortune Joe grew up fast he's on his own from the age of 15 16 and there's a native shrewdness there Joe soon became disgusted with his uncle's feuding over his inheritance at 17 he decided to take what he needed and leave coastal Amaury behind he enrolled in a nautical College based in Palermo the capital of Sicily more than anything Joe wanted to be a commander of men his ambition was to go into the into college and become a naval officer in the Italian Merchant Marine and just about the time he was ready to accomplish that some bull fella in Rome by the name of Mussolini came into power and decided that although Sicilians down there needed to be totalus by 1924 Palermo was feeling the sting of fascist depression in the Romantic tradition of his ancestors Joe was ready to fight he formed a radical student organization that denounced Mussolini the Naval Academy responded by suspending Bonanno and he never graduated when the fascist police started torturing and killing Sicilians with mafia connections Joe made a decision I guess it's time for me to go home that's the way he put it right when he first told me that's there I said what do you mean time to go home says I think I better go back to America Bonanno arrived in New York in December 1924 and found a city in the midst of a wild spree brought on by the misguided law called prohibition gangsters all over America were getting rich as bootleggers Joe had an uncle in New York who wanted to train him to become a barber but Joe was determined to prove himself as a bootlegger it's just a lot more fun to be a gangster than it is to be a barber it's thrilling you're out playing cops and robbers at night making deliveries and getting paid and it was an adventure for a young man just arrived in America and it was a lot of easy money Joe settled into a Brooklyn neighborhood made up of fellow immigrants from coastal Amaury including a hero of Joe's from the old country salvatore maranzano a charismatic and dashing man of respect was fascinated by the Roman Empire he even spoke some Latin Maranzano was taught disciplined a bit of a reader for a gangster he actually had books in his home and Joe just loves him he feels enhanced when he's around him you could say that Maranzano is a substitute father Maranzano recognized Joe's cunning and aptitude and put him in charge of his thriving bootleg operation Joe quickly developed a reputation for being tough as well as smart once when a local Don tried to muscle in on his business Joe wasted no time setting the man straight my father found out about it told them forget about it one word led to another he happened to have a weapon on him he took the gun stuck it in the guy's mouth and said if you don't back away you're not gonna live to see tomorrow the guy backed away Joe had humiliated the man and was summoned by Maranzano and other local men of respect to account for his actions what happened next said in motion a chain of events that would take decades to unravel Bonanno contacted his older cousin Stefano Magaddino who was running his own rackets in upstate Buffalo New York and who considered himself the most senior leader of the Castellammarese II immigrants Magaddino came down to the city prepared to defend his younger cousins honor and demonstrate his own authority but at the sit-down Marga Dino did not get a chance to play the role of Godfather and peace maker because Joe's new mentor Maranzano jumped to the young man's defence learns Otto said wait a minute here's a guy that was protecting what is his how can we fault them for that the other gangsters agreed Joe was exonerated now it was Joe's cousin Magaddino the black sheep of the family back in Sicily who felt humiliated dishonored and denied the respect he thought he deserved what developed out of that meeting was an insatiable jealousy on the part of Stefano Magaddino toward my father here is this younger whippersnapper cousin of mine coming from the old country and immediately he's now in the good graces of quote/unquote important people in New York a better Stefano retreated to upstate New York but as Joe's stature continued to grow so did his cousin's resentment by 1930 Joe had carved out a coveted role as Maranzano's chief aid though not yet a man of respect he was a man to be reckoned with don't had presence he had charisma he had that undefinable quality that makes people defer to a leader we was sit in his study and discussed Mediterranean history discuss modern history discuss politics discuss opera he was truly a Renaissance man at 25 years old Joe's charm and smarts had taken him far but he had yet to be tested in battle Bonanno would get his chance as the New York underworld erupted in street warfare wielding a machine gun to fight for his clan Joe would become a full-fledged gangster and in the process win a place for himself at the founding of the modern American Mafia by the time he was 25 years old Joe Bonanno was a successful bootleggers and a rising leader in the New York underworld his mentor salvatore maranzano even made joe as chief aide now he wanted Bonanno to marry his own daughter but Joe was already in love with fail Abruzzo a quiet seamstress with a dry sense of humor the courtship was interrupted in 1930 when an old Sicilian feud reignited in the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan it got so dangerous that Joe kissed his girlfriend goodbye he bought himself a bulletproof Cadillac equipped with built-in submachine guns and went into hiding Bonanno and his cronies were fighting against the most powerful Italian gangster in all of New York Joe the boss Masseria the tightly knit customer Ozzie were becoming too independent for the power-hungry Masseria as the bodies piled up the gangsters were losing profits and losing patience Massa Ria's right-hand man and Joe bonanno's arch enemy Charles Lucky Luciano took control of the chaos Charlie Lucky was an Americanized product born in Sicily but came over here to very early age so he and his friends decided that the shooting that was going on wasn't good for business so Luciano orchestrated the assassination of his own boss Masseria in order to make peace with Joe's boss Maranzano after the killing Joe and the other major New York gangsters all attended a crucial meeting hosted by Al Capone at the Congress Hotel in Chicago the conclusion of that meeting was the establishment of Uncle without the de pasión which was a committee for peace however because there were some Americanized guys that couldn't say the words correctly they decided to say let's call it the Commission Joe's boss Maranzano pushed through his plan for a syndicate of Mafia families that would function like the Roman military led by Caesar the other leaders quickly realized they had replaced one desperate for another four months later lucky had Maranzano killed as well with his boss dead Joe decided the best course was not to avenge the murder but to make peace with Lucky Luciano there was a meeting in 1931 between my father and Luciano where my father said I have no reason to have any problems with you do you have any problems with me they agreed to agree to a peace it was a peace agreement with a huge dividend for the career of Joe Bonanno he's perfectly happy with the outcome which is it delivers the family that had belonged to Maranzano to Joe Bonanno so all of a sudden at the age of 26 is a mafia boss in keeping with his Sicilian tradition Joe became a father and his fellow immigrants were his family then Bonanno and Luciano created a new commission which would hold sway in the underworld for the next half a century the Commission works beautifully for decades because there is no big boss it's seven top mafia guys and they meet every five years and they just operate by consensus with the war behind him Joe Bonanno married the patient fail Abruzzo in 1931 almost two years after their original wedding date at the ceremony several of the bridegroom's carried pistols under their tuxedos in case of surprise visitors a year later Joe and Faye had a son they named him Salvatore after the baby's grandfather by the mid-1930s the two leaders of the Commission had gone their separate ways Lucky Luciano became a household name while Joe Bonanno remained unknown to the public I think he saw that Luciano got in trouble because he loved to be in the spotlight he would be seen at nightclubs and photographed and in the society columns and newspapers but Otto stays out of the paper I mean for decades he never appears in the newspapers Joe Bonanno concentrated on the traditional staples of the Mafia bookmaking gambling and loan sharking the dark underside of these activities extortion and violence was inevitable but Joe reasoned that if he instilled enough fear in his followers then he wouldn't have to resort to violence fear is what a Mafia family runs on no one could be the head of one of the five New York families without being responsible for many murders and I'm sure Joe ordered any number of killings everybody was afraid of Joe Bonanno when he chose to be scary like other shrewd Godfather's Joe was also involved in legitimate businesses such as a cheese factory and a lady's coat manufacturer in an interview years later he would deny that he ever gained control of any business through extortion some people are come to see you because you are at McMahon yeah under all that says miss Bonanno I want to be a father Joe never directly explained his line of work to his young son Salvatore known as Bill and his daughter Katherine they slowly realized that their father was someone special by observing the people around him one day bill painted the cars of his father's associates with orange house paint the man never even said a word about the prank to the Godfather and that told me something it told me that I could get away with certain things not because of who I was but because of who my father was in the spring of 1941 with Joe's personal driver at the wheel Bonanno and his family headed west in a Cadillac eight-year-old bill had developed a serious inner ear infection and the doctor recommended a drier climate joe settled on a boarding school for bill in tucson arizona and this became the family's part-time home in high school bill lived alone and Tucson for several months of the year while his father was spending much of his time running the crime family in New York bill tried his own hand at crime stealing hubcaps and running guns into Mexico when Joe got wind of his son's activities he decided it was time to bring him into a world where he would be held accountable for his actions one night in Brooklyn 22 year old bill was mysteriously called to a house where men he had known his whole life were waiting the men began telling him the history of the Mafia a secret society to which they wanted him to pledge his life tossing a piece of burning paper in his hands bill proclaimed his allegiance saying this is how I burn if I expose this world of ours it was a profound experience for the young man he realized he was entering a new stage of life where his commitment to his mafia brethren and his father would always come first soon after bill became a man in his father's world he fell in love with Rosalie Profaci a young woman he had known since childhood Rosalie was the niece of Joseph Profaci a friend of Joe Bonanno since the 1920s and the fellow founding member of the Commission The Godfather gave his eager blessing to the Union and in 1956 bill and Rosalie were married two of the most powerful Mafia families in America would be United never never did my father ever tell me I had to marry anyone however he made at a point to make me understand who I was what was expected of me in the future and that it would be advisable and better if we married our own kind have a point in time when the Mafia enjoyed unprecedented power the wedding marked the pinnacle of prestige for Joe Bonanno he spared no expense on the sumptuous celebration which years later would be the inspiration for the famous wedding scene in the first Godfather movie it was like the Royal heads of Europe joining together by marrying off two of their offspring it's a huge affair the hotel Astor 3,000 guests and there are cash gifts amounting to about $100,000 in 1956 dollars which would be about a half a million dollars today more or less among the entertainers there was Tony Bennett it just hired you know like you would hire some neighborhood say well they just hired Tony Bennett to sing the guest list read like a who's who of the American Mafia Tommy Lucchese Vito Genovese Albert Anastasia Tony Accardo and Stefano Magaddino were all they're all these people that came to my wedding came because of the respect and admiration they had for my father not because of the bride and groom Joe bonanno's surveyed his kingdom he had recently brokered a peace between two rivals in the New York mob Vito Genovese and Albert Anastasia he called it the pox Bonanno Joe was the most respected man in the Mafia perhaps too respected for his own good his brooding cousin Stefano Magaddino was said to have remarked look at all these people it's going to Joe's head no one at the wedding could have imagined just how swiftly the peace Bonanno created in the underworld was about to unravel and how Joe's authority would be fatally undermined in August 1957 Godfather Joe Bonanno was as powerful as he would ever be he had recently presided over his son's marriage uniting two Mafia families and solidifying a dynasty it was a moment in history when the Mafia's influence permeated every layer of society now 52 years old Joe felt secure about leaving New York to take a trip back to his native Sicily he failed to notice that his fellow mob bosses were thrilled to see him go in Italy Joe was treated like royalty he met with leaders of the Sicilian Mafia to brief them on the success of the Commission in America but the Godfather is believed to have had other more pressing business to discuss as well according to the later testimony of a Sicilian mafioso he was really there to arrange narcotic shipments that was part of his purpose there Bonanno himself did not establish the lucrative narcotics trafficking operation that was masterminded by a captain of his named carmine Galante through Galante's connections in sicily and france the Mafia's drug trade flourished all the while Joe Bonanno would claim to be adamantly opposed to drug trafficking if the gonig along without for my knowledge available at Cadiz I never know this had a necklace with my conspirator on anything law enforcement officials say the Joe may have preached zero tolerance for narcotics but when the vast drug money came into the family he didn't turn it down the idea that he was against drugs absurd it always was they were the principal leaders of the drug trafficking in the United States for nearly 40 years and they made millions and millions of dollars only a few years after the 1957 meeting in Palermo carmine Galante was convicted of narcotics trafficking and sentenced to 20 years in prison but Joe Bonanno managed to elude the law when Joe returned to New York in November 1957 he was shocked to find that in his absence his PAC's Bonanno had been shattered the assassination of Albert Anastasia had thrown the Commission into chaos in response Joe's cousin Stefano Magaddino had called for an emergency national mob meeting in the tiny upstate New York town of Appalachian the purpose to install underboss Carlo Gambino is the new head of Anastasia's family Joe bonanno's Authority was being put to the test by his fellow mobsters they waited till he'd gone to Sicily before they put the contract on Anastasia so it may be that what the whole thing means in terms of bonanno's leadership within the commission is that they're trying to do an end run around him while he's out of the country there is no real honor and loyalty it comes down to personal ambitions and personal ambitions will overcome anything Joe was furious not only because the violence was a clear challenge to his underworld leadership but because the meeting would occur in the exact same place where the Commission had met the year before inviting unwanted attention from the law just as Joe had feared on November 14 1957 the group of national mafia leaders was ambushed by local police 58 men were detained while many others fled on foot into the woods imagine maybe a hundred mafiosi caught in this little town out in the country with no plausible explanation of what they're doing there it was terribly embarrassing and really the first great breakthrough in public awareness of the Mafia Joe was not even at the meeting yet he was sought out and arrested along with the rest his compatriots had unwittingly dealt him his first serious blow by thrusting him out of the cloak of secrecy and into the glare of publicity The Godfather handled the exposure with style Joe always looks composed he's smiling and it's as though he's saying this is all ridiculous I'm an honest businessman I have no idea how it was caught up in this and accused of being a criminal while the Godfather handled the press attention well he did not appreciate the nickname that the New York papers gave him it offended his deep pride in his family name in the aftermath of a pelican the bonanno's private lives became much more tense there was a constant feeling of being watched of cops lurking around every corner I remember my father-in-law calling me and I said oh hello dad you know and he yelled at me it was the first time he had ever scolded me no he should never use a person's name when they call up at the time the FBI had begun secretly tapping mobsters telephones so the mafiosi were baffled as to how the feds seemed to know about their most private conversations I figured either I have a bug on me someplace or someone very close to me has betrayed us and it takes a lot of self-control not to let that seed of doubt grow and mushroom into you doing something that you might regret and hurt an innocent person in 1963 banana was further exposed when a low-level soldier named Joseph Valachi became the first member of the Mafia to break the mobs oath of silence on national television he was asked who performed the initiation rite when he was inducted into the Mafia banana Joe banana after the military's he is here at the head of one of the families now yes - is he still it and still a lot right in the wake of the fresh publicity 58 year old Joe Bonanno fled New York for his home in Arizona Joe Fay and their youngest child Joe jr. had long ago moved their permanent residence west now Joe began to think about retiring in Tucson The Godfather asked his son Bell to look after things in his absence from New York our number three men was gravely ill and I had been told see what you can do to make life easy for him and as a result of that I started becoming his eyes and ears Joe told his captains to elect a new number three man or consul iary hoping to stay close to their cherished leader the captain's elected his son bill and Joe proudly approved it bill later expressed his devotion in a poem he wrote to his father it read I stand stately in your shadow it is an honor I covet I accept the sins heaped upon me I am a banana Bill's resilience was tested right away his promotion upset mafiosi inside and outside the family who considered bill a child of privilege with no experience of the city streets bill Bonanno had a bit of swagger and a bit of maybe evoking some of the spirit of fraternity life and football weekends in Arizona that did not quite conform to what an older mafia man's idea of a aspiring mafia leader should be for the first time in decades they were stirrings of rebellion within the Bonanno clan was Joe really setting the stage for making his son the boss the brewing dissension now gave Joe's bitter cousin Stefano Magaddino the opportunity he had been waiting for the buffalo crime boss instigated a rebellion by one of Joe's longtime captains Gaspar de Gregorio Gaspar had been the best man at Joe's wedding and was the godfather of son bill the commission now operating without Joe Bonanno supported the uprising the tension mounted when a rumor spread in New York the Joe Bonanno was planning to eliminate his adversaries by assassinating three of his fellow Godfather's the commission demanded the Joe come forward and explain himself fearing a trap Joe refused he denied the story claiming that Magaddino had concocted the tale in order to destroy him all of the problems that develop between bonanno's and the so called commission were could be laid directly at the doorstep of Steve Magaddino we caused our own downfall in that respect because it caused dissension among ourselves by the fall of 1964 both the Commission and a federal grand jury wanted answers from Bonanno The Godfather was being squeezed by the mob and the law then he disappeared on October 20th 1964 the night before the scheduled grand jury hearing Bonanno was kidnapped in front of his lawyers apartment on Park Avenue this man said come on Joe my boss wants to fuck you without he swung Joe around and I saw that he had a gun in his right hand at first it appeared that Bonanno had in fact been murdered soon however there was speculation that Joe had staged his own kidnapping to avoid both the government and his vicious enemies in the mob in the classic gangster style she had taken for a ride you never seen again Joe gets taken for a ride he says but he's not killed six weeks later Joe contacted bill at a pay phone saying only that he was unharmed and in hiding the FBI searched all over the world to find Joe Bonanno dozens of potential witnesses were subpoenaed including Bill Bonanno and his younger brother Joe jr. were you glad to hear that your father was alight in Joe's absence the leader of the Bonanno family insurrection Gaspar de Gregorio Lord Sun bill - a supposed peace meeting at this house in Brooklyn when bill arrived Gaspar's gunmen ambushed shooting back and running for his life bill narrowly escaped hearing about the attempted hit on his son a furious Joe Bonanno emerged from hiding after 18 months he was tan and looked healthy as he showed up at the federal courthouse in New York saying I understand you want to speak with me The Godfather took the fifth amendment sailed through the proceedings and then focused on retribution in his own family when he reappeared it was like the second coming first of all no one expected him to ever reappear or be found let alone emerge alive Bonanno sent word to the mission that he was still in control of his family he claimed he had been held captive for six weeks by his cousin Magaddino who was trying to intimidate him into abandoning New York the commission made no move for fear of starting another war Joe's reputation as a street fighting gangster dating all the way back to 1930 now insulated him they ended up having enough doubt at least or enough fear of Joe Bonanno depending on how you look at it to not do what was the most obvious move according to organized crime rules which would be to kill him but in an underworld that abhors any kind of power vacuum Joe bonanno's withdrawal from active leadership of his family had done irreversible damage but the next two years he would fight his own men and the ambitions of the other bosses who would try and take over his family Lynn by Lynn Godfather Joe Bonanno emerged from hiding in 1966 ready to fight and kill to save his troubled crime family an insurrection had split the family and now the Mafia Commission was poised to take control of the bonanno's though he wanted to retire Joe would not be dictated to by the Commission or anyone else the street war dubbed the banana split in the press lasted for two years a murder on one side calling for a retaliation from the other Joe moved into the Long Island ranch house of his dutiful son Bill and daughter-in-law Rosalie the house became bonanno's war room and headquarters for the mob soldiers who were still loyal to the Godfather and wanted to defend their turf but in the spring of 1968 one of Bill bonanno's closest associates was murdered and it was rumored that he was next fearing for the safety of their families The Godfather and his son made a fateful decision they would retreat to the west were far from the street war Joe's patient wife Fay was waiting it gradually came to to his consciousness that they ain't worth it anymore shortly after returning to Arizona the 73 year-old Bonanno suffered a heart attack Joe's cousin Stefano Magaddino also suffered a heart attack and faded from power Joe had no choice but to concede defeat to the rising mafia powerhouse Carlo Gambino who was now the dominant force on the Commission Joe agreed to be exiled from New York in exchange there would be no repercussions against any Bonanno family soldiers Joe Bonanno by the fact that he was banished and you know lived on for years on the shelf is the organized crime term and it's very rare you know you put a soldier on the shelf it is very rare to put a boss on the shelf and that's essentially what the Cosa Nostra did to Joe banana leaving behind his failed Kingdom in 1968 Joe hoped to live out his days in peace but for the next 10 years the FBI attempted to break Joe Bonanno using scare tactics spies and wiretapping my father is fond of saying that he left Italy to get away from the fascist and he came to this country and he ran smack into the Gestapo in his old age Joe Bonanno thought persecuted and misunderstood he watched from afar as his former driver and captain carmine Galante was murdered by his own men the underlings wanted control of the heroin pipeline Galante had established in time they too were murdered but the lucrative drug trade only expanded Joe winced at every reference in the media to his family name and he lamented the loss of loyalty restraint and discipline in his world my dad told me many years ago that only a Mad Dog wants to hurt another human being without just cause there is no tradition today on the streets it's dog-eat-dog and hurt or be hurt there's this constant distinction in the Mafia between the rhetoric and the reality the rhetoric is one of loyalty and tradition and order the reality is constant competition and new generations coming along and wanting what the bosses have in 1980 Joe's wife of 49 years passed away phase last delirious words to Joe where are they coming to get you Joe became despondent at 78 years old the aging Godfather wanted the world to know that he considered the current crop of mafiosi to be practicing a mutant form of his sacred tradition in 1983 Bonanno announced he was doing something previously unheard of for a godfather he was publishing his memoirs the only person who can tell the story of a Joe Bonanno he said Joe Bonanno he was the first and only one to write a book about the mob years ago he did that he even tried to do it you'd be murdered what Bonanno could not have anticipated was that an aggressive young District Attorney would use his memoirs as ammunition and Joe Bonanno exiled by his peers 20 years earlier would unwittingly have his revenge in 1983 at 78 years old Joe bonanno's memoir about his life as a Godfather called a man of honor was published in the book Joe referred to himself as the last survivor of an extinct species he wrote I've had to protect myself and my people but I've never been bloodthirsty all my life had been misunderstood I just a rule of my family is a father Rudy Guiliani had just become a US attorney when a man of honor hit the bookstores Giuliani was on a crusade against the Mafia and did nothing but contempt for bonanno's self-serving image of a godfather living by a code of honor I have no romance about people involved in organized crime they are vicious cold-blooded killers and some of them are worse than others some of them really enjoy killing but when Giuliani read bonanno's book something clicked he realized that the Godfather's documented experience could be used as evidence that the Commission existed and was responsible for half a century of murders and racketeering schemes unaware of Giuliani's plans Joe Bonanno made an appearance on 60 minutes to discuss his autobiography he invited the camera crew to Christmas dinner at his daughter's home for a rare glimpse of his personal life you know why because I love you all Joe Bonanno tried to use the television appearance to show that he was not the mysterious crime figure that the media and law enforcement portrayed him to be he was instead a man of honor I was the muster respected man in New York and all over the country I came from the family Bonanno wears a great tradition in Sicily and I came here with honor US attorney Rudy Giuliani traveled all the way to Arizona with some questions of his own for the so called man of honor Joe refused to talk saying that the experience would pose a serious threat to his health the judge rejected bonanno's medical excuse held him in contempt of court and put him in jail for the next year and a half his longest day in prison but he would not rat on his fellow mobsters still his book a man of honor helped to convict more mafiosi than ever thought possible diminishing the power of organized crime in New York City and yet the family that Joe Bonanno built not only survives to this day but is flourishing and the Bonanno crime family the family that had had all the trouble over the years they're in better shape right now than any other organized crime family in New York or probably the country Joe Bonanno now 93 years old and a great grandfather is the only surviving Godfather from the original Commission created in 1931 his life encompasses nearly a century of mafia history Bonanno has never been touched never new attempt made on his life because he's an original he's a charter member of the Mafia Commission in this country nobody's gonna take him as Joe's oldest son bill Bonanno has lived in the long shadow cast by his father yet where there might have been resentment there is great love and acceptance of his fate I am not ashamed of Who I am or what I am they've accepted the life that was handed to me and I've tried to do the best that I can after spending a decade in and out of jail on conspiracy charges and tax evasion bill eventually became a television producer focusing on stories about his family my dad's philosophy was you have a right to lead your life the way you want to lead it as long as you are responsible for the decisions that you make and assume the consequences of those decisions joe was I think very successful leader he did do a good job in keeping the families operating in the 30s 40s and 50s where is the real honor in an organization where you take a sworn oath of secrecy and your official job is to go out to double-crossed a double deal to steal to murder to intimidate the frighten in his memoirs Joe wrote that he leaves it to God to decide the true definition of honor

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Channel: Marko okraM

Views: 597,556

Rating: 4.4948859 out of 5

Keywords: mob, mafia, Sicilian Mafia (Film Subject), bonanno, joe

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Length: 43min 9sec (2589 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 16 2013

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