John Dioguardi
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| Johnny Dio | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 28, 1914 East Harlem, New York, USA |
| Died | January 12, 1979 Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, USA |
Johnny Dio (born John Dioguardi) (April 28, 1914-1979) was a mafiosi and union boss in the Lucchese crime family.
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[edit] Early life
Dio was born in East Harlem, the same neighborhood that Anthony Corallo was from who would later become a Lucchese family boss. Dio was brought up on Forsyth Street in Little Italy. By age of fifteen he was already being taught the streets as an apprenticed gangster. He was lucky; he had a relative already having a reputation, his uncle James “Jimmy Doyle” Plumeri. He was also involved with Murder, Inc., one of the few non-Jewish gangsters working for Buchalter. Dio made the appearance of any successful business man. He wore $250 suits, was always well manicured and a nice haircut. He was known as "Blackie" as a kid for his darkly handsome looks.
[edit] Battle with the law
Dio was known for getting into trouble with the law on more than one occasion. He was known by Thomas Dewey for being one of the most dangerous hoods in the city before he was even twenty-one. He was dealt a three-to-five year jail sentence at Sing Sing in 1937 for assault and extortion. He was not alone; with him were his uncle, and several other mobsters. They were charging truckers $5000 in the garment district, plus demanding a premium on every suit and coat made in the area. Dio was indicted for operating an illegal still in 1944. For failure to pay his state income tax for his shakedowns he was rewarded with a sixty day jail sentence. In November of 1957 he was sentenced to jail for two years along with Teamster officials. They were shaking down stationary store owners.
[edit] Rise in power
He was a made man by the time he was forty, he was acting as a capo in the family. Known as a "ferocious earner" in the family, he was generating in excess of $100,000 each week. He was so rich, his common Christmas present to his wife was a shoe box stuffed with $50,000 and a note such as "buy yourself some nice clothes, honey". He lived the lifestyle of a celebrity, dining at the best restaurants and hotels. He kept Sundays for his family and friends and preparing lunch or dinner. He loved to cook and entertain at his house at Freeport Avenue, Point Lookout, Long Island, which he had purchased for $75,000 in the early 1960’s. His legitimate business contributed to his tax returns each year, which included many highly profitable clothing factories, and also Jard Products at 260 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, which sold promotional items to commercial establishments. The retail chain, Waldbaums was one of their biggest customers. His legendary skill as a union manipulator came in handy to the mob, many a times. Once Thomas Lucchese asked him to aid an old friend, Jack Dragna, the boss of the Los Angeles crime family. Dragna's scheme of hiring non-union, cheap Mexican labor from his factories was being questioned by the ILGWU. They were attempting to stop this, but Dioguardi’s expertise made sure waivers occurred on every important project set up and foiled the union’s attempt. Senate investigations in the early 1950's showed Dio as a big player in the unions operating out of Idlewild airport, later renamed, JFK airport.
[edit] Hoffa involvement
As notorious Teamsters boss, Jimmy Hoffa was preparing to take his throne as president of the teamsters in 1957, Hoffa remembered someone, Johnny Dio. Whether or not New York locals actually liked Hoffa is unknown. Their vote would matter if Midwest locals would vote for him or not. For help with that, the Chicago Outfit could persuade a couple voters. Creating more locals was the answer, enough to swing the election to his favor. Dio constructed seven teamster unions which would be used to support Hoffa. The members of the unions weren't even workers; they were relatives and friends of Dioguardi. The winner of the nomination was, of course Hoffa. Hoffa was later finished with his war with Kennedy, his arrest, trial, and death.
[edit] The man who blinded Victor Riesel
On April 5, 1956, Victor Riesel, a crusading news columnist who specialized in exposing corruption and mob influence in labor unions, was conducting an interview with a father and son both named William DeKoning. Riesel's work was highly influential and widely read, with his columns appearing in 193 newspapers including the New York Daily Mirror. After the broadcast he went to a late dinner with his secretary. As they approached the secretary's car a man threw sulfuric acid into Riesel's face, blinding him, and then vanished. Reisel was rushed to the hospital, but doctors there were unable to save his eyesight.
A federal investigation revealed the attacker to be a twenty-two-year-old longshoreman named Abraham Telvi. Telvi had been paid $1,175 for the job, with the money supposedly coming from Dio. By this time, Telvi began to believe that due to the increasing media and law enforcement attention focusing upon him, he deserved additional money for completing the job. He demanded another $50,000 from Dio, but instead was paid with two bullets in his head. Permanently silenced, Telvi was found dead on Mulberry Street in Little Italy on July 28, 1956. Dio was never convicted for the attack on Riesel; his two witnesses decided to back off, and the charges were dropped in May of 1957. But the assault on Reisel ended up placing more heat on Dio than if he had simply left Reisel alone. As a result, Dio was permanently branded "The man who blinded Victor Riesel".
[edit] Merkel meat incident
On November 14, 1964 Dio engaged in a telephone conversation Norman LoKietz, the president of Merkel Meat Company. Unknwn to Dio, the conversation was recorded through a bug planted by two NYPD detectives. The conversation revealed that Dio and the Lucchese family were selling substandard and sometimes even rotten meat into the retail marketplace. Dio and his associates were not only making large profits from such sales, but also endangering the public health. The tape of this conversation provided enough evidence to build a case against Dio.
Later, when Dio was leaving the Senate committee hearing room, Dio punched one of the press photographers. His most notorious photograph was taken at that time. This photograph appeared in newspapers everywhere. It shows Dio with a cigarette dangling out of one corner of his mouth with a snarling expression on his face.
In 1967 the law finally caught up to him. He was sentenced him to five years in prison and fined him $10,000. In 1969 an employee of Merkel Meat testified that when he delivered the meat, it was "sometimes light green and sweaty and often was an atrocity to perpetrate on our customers." By this time Dio had already been in the Lucchese family for over thirty years. Further charges were brought against him while he was in prison. He was due for parole in 1979, but would die in prison that same year, prior to his release.
[edit] In popular culture
- The film Goodfellas (1990) stars Frank Pellegrino as Johnny Dio who is in prison with Henry Hill and Paul Vario. He has also been portrayed in the television movie Getting Gotti (1994) by Rino Romano.
- Heavy metal singer Ronnie James Dio (born Ronald James Padavona) took up the name "Dio" after Johnny Dio.
[edit] Further reading
- Pizzo, Stephen; Fricker, Mary; and Muolo, Paul. Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989.
- Kwitny, Jonathan. Vicious Circles: The Mafia in the Marketplace. New York: W.W. Norton, 1979.
- Moldea, Dan E. The Hoffa Wars. New York: Charter Books, 1978.
- Neff, James. Mobbed Up: Jackie Presser's High-Wire Life in the Teamsters, the Mafia, and the FBI. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1989.
[edit] References
- Kelly, Robert J. Encyclopedia of Organized Crime in the United States. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000. ISBN 0-313-30653-2
- Devito, Carlo. The Encyclopedia of International Organized Crime. New York: Facts On File Inc., 2005. ISBN 0-8160-4848-7
- Sifakis, Carl. The Mafia Encyclopedia. New York: Da Capo Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8160-5694-3
- Sifakis, Carl. The Encyclopedia of American Crime. New York: Facts on File Inc., 2005. ISBN 0-8160-4040-0
