Joseph Galizia

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Joseph "Joe Glitz" Galizia was a New York City based mobster, and a high ranking solider in the Genovese crime family. Galizia was made sometime in the mid-1980s after making his "bones" by killing Genovese mobster Collie DiPietro. DiPietro had been a partner of Galizia and future Gambino boss John Gotti in a Queens flea market.

During the early-1980s Galizia earned a reputation as a huge money maker by moving the family into the extremely lucrative "Gasoline Bootlegging" rackets. The rackets were originally developed by Russian mobsters, but these mobsters ulitmately had to answer to New York's Five Families to continue their business. The men would set up shell companies that would distribute gasoline at a price which they fraudulently represented as including federal, state and local excise taxes. However, the purchasers of the gasoline would eventually realize that no taxes had been paid on the gasoline and when the government went to look for the owners, the shell companies had already folded. Another major figure in the racket was Colombo crime family soldier/acting captain Michael Franzese, who was also a friend of Galizia. Galizia's operation was run by Russian gangsters Igor Roizman, Igor Porotsky, and Sheldon Levine. In 1986, all of the men would be indicted by the Organized Crime Task Force in New York, and charged with evading over $5 million in taxes during the investigations 6-month period. All men would eventually be convicted or plead guilty and would be sent to federal prison.

Former Gambino underboss Salvatore Gravano testified that at Galizia's son's wedding in the early-1990s, a sitdown was set up between John Gotti and Patriarca crime family captain Junior Russo, who was hoping to avoid a shooting war with Providence based acting head Junior Patriarca, the son of the longtime family Godfather Raymond L.S. Patriarca. Also, during the 1990s, Galizia's son Lawrence would get made into the Genovese family (Joe Glitz's brother Lawrence is also a Genovese soldier involved in construction industry rackets and loan sharking.) Galizia died in 1996, after suffering from the effects of terminal cancer. While never attaining a position within the administration, Galizia (like fellow Genovese solider Joseph Zito) managed to become a very influential and wealthy mafioso who occassionally answered directly to Vincent Gigante and his uppermost family members, very often foresaking the usual route of only dealing with a captain.