Joseph Colombo -- The Colombo Family Boss

Joseph Colombo was born on June 16, 1923, and was the boss of the Colombo crime family, one of the Cosa Nostra in New York. A very influential boss to say the least. The only boss that fought against the FBI. He formed the Civil Rights League for Italians and was able to get tens of thousands of people involved, even including actors and politicians.
"Five Families" of the

Colombo became the boss of the family from somewhat of some odd circumstances.  Joseph Magliocco, the boss of the Profaci Family wanted to take out the boss of bosses, Carlo Gambino. Gimbino ran the biggest crime family in New York city and had enough power to go to war with three different families at the same time, taking him out would be like a kiss of death.

For this job Magliocca turned to the mid level gangster Joe Colombo. Joe Colombo actually grew up under the wing of Gambino and was mentored by him. This is mostly why Magliocca chose Colombo, he figured Colombo would be able to get close to him without raising any suspicion. There was one problem with this plan, Colombo was not going for it. Instead of seating himself up for death, Colombo double crossed Magliocco and gave Gambino the heads up.

This double cross would put Magliocco out of business, luckily avoiding a death sentence. Gambino and the commission would send Magiocco with his bags packing and decided to put Colombo in charge of the Profaci family as a reward for his loyalty to Gambino, thus renaming the Profaci Family to the Colombo Crime family.

Through the years Colombo would show he face in public way more then any other crime boss, yes even more then John Gotti. This was mainly due to his creation of the Civil Right League that he was the head of. He often gave speeches and held events that would poke back at the FBI for labeling all Italian Americans part of the mafia. He also was able to play a big part in the world famous movie the The God Father. Halting production in New York until certain script demands were meet, which included the deletion of the works like "The Mafia" and the "Cosa Nostra".

Through the years, the Colombo's had a big problem on his hands by the name of Crazy Joe Gallo. He was a mid level gangster who had his own crew. With a violent past Gallo wanted control of the Profaci family and went to war with them ultimately losing. He ended up going to jail and spent 9 years in prison, most of that time was spent in prison when Colombo was boss. The problem for Colombo was Gallo never lost his lust for power of the family, even if the name had changed from Profaci to Colombo.

Through the years a lot of high ranking mafia members were undoubtedly getting fed up with Colombo's political agenda. In 1970 with the FBI fed up with this fight against law enforcement arrested him and another high ranking member of his family. After being arrested a search of his car turned up a breif case that held info of all the Colombo Families rackets and info on other high ranking Mafia members including Carlo Gambino. This was not good for Colombo.



He would eventually pay the price for his loyalty to his Civil Rights League. In June 1971, at the second Italian unity rally, which had a showing of about 50 thousand less people than the first rally due to the other crime families disapproval, Colombo was shot twice. The shooter was shot dead right after the initial shooting and Colombo was rushed to the hospital where he laid in a comma for 8 years before dying in 1978.

No one was ever prosecuted for the crime and speculation pointed at either Crazy Joe Gallo or soldiers of Carlo Gambio. It didn't really matter, in the last years of boss of the Colombo family, Colombo gain a lot of enemies and most believe that his shooting was a joint effort by many different people who would benefit from him being dead.

Colombo was quite the character. He was the head of the Civil Rights League of Italian Americans aimed at taking away the stereo type that all Italian Americans were criminals and some how connected to organized crime. On the other hand Colombo was the boss of the second largest crime family in New York, skimming money from donation giving to the Civil Rights League to support his criminal origination. What a great guy.