Joseph Massino

Joseph Charles Massino (January 10, 1943 – September 14, 2023) was an American mobster.

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

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

Raised in Maspeth, Queens, Massino has admitted to being a juvenile delinquent by the age of 12 and claimed that at 14 he ran away from home to Florida.

He dropped out of Grover Cleveland High School in tenth grade.

Massino first met his future wife Josephine Vitale in 1956, and married her in 1960.

The couple had three daughters.

Massino also befriended Josephine's brother, Salvatore Vitale, who, after briefly serving in the Army, became one of Massino's most trusted allies.

While athletic in youth, Massino was an avid cook, and grew overweight in adulthood.

After he turned state's evidence, Massino claimed his first murder victim was a Bonanno crime family associate named Tommy Zummo, whom he shot dead some time in the 1960s.

The killing aroused the ire of Maspeth-based Bonanno caporegime Philip Rastelli, but he remained unaware of Massino's participation, and a nephew of Rastelli ultimately helped Massino become his protégé.

Rastelli would set Massino up as a lunch wagon operator as part of his "Workmen's Mobile Lunch Association", an effective protection racket; after paying a kickback to Rastelli in the form of membership dues, Massino was assured no competition where he operated.

By the late 1960s, Massino was a Bonanno associate.

He 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.

He also befriended another mob hijacker, future Gambino crime family boss John Gotti.

Increasingly prosperous, Massino opened his own catering company, J&J Catering, which became another front for his activities.

Massino was a protégé of Philip Rastelli, who took control of the Bonanno family in 1973.

In 1973, boss Natale Evola died.

On February 23, 1974, at a meeting at the Americana Hotel in Manhattan, the Commission named Massino's mentor, Rastelli as boss.

In 1975, Massino and Vitale participated in the murder of Vito Borelli, who Massino claimed was primarily executed by Gotti at the behest of Paul Castellano of the Gambino crime family.

The Borelli hit was significant for Massino in that he "made his bones"—proved his loyalty to the Mafia by killing on its behalf—and put him close to becoming a made man, a full member, in the Bonanno family.

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

On April 23, 1976, Rastelli was convicted of extortion, and on August 27, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

In his absence Carmine Galante, a former consigliere and convicted drug trafficker, seized control of the Bonannos as unofficial acting boss.

Massino also arranged the murder of one of his hijackers, Joseph Pastore, in 1976, after having Vitale borrow $9,000 from him on his behalf.

While later acquitted of the crime, both Vitale and Massino would admit to participation after turning state's evidence.

He 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.

On June 14, 1977, Massino was inducted into the Bonanno family along with Anthony Spero, Joseph Chilli Jr. and a group of other men in a ceremony conducted by Carmine Galante.

Rastelli spent most of his reign in and out of prison, but was able to get the assassination of Carmine Galante, a mobster vying for power, approved in 1979.

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

His 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.

He 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.

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

Upon his release the following year, he set about rebuilding a family that had been in turmoil for almost a quarter of a century.

By the dawn of the new millennium, he was reckoned as the most powerful Mafia leader in the nation.

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

By 2004, Massino was suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure as well.

He was also facing the death penalty if convicted in a separate murder trial due to be held later that year, but after agreeing to testify against his former associates, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for both indictments in 2005.

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.