Joseph Luparelli
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Joseph "Joe Pesh" Luparelli was a New York mobster and member of the Colombo crime family involved in the gangland murder of renegade mobster "Crazy" Joe Gallo.
As chauffeur and bodyguard to Colombo councilor Joseph "Joe Yack" Yacovelli during the 1970s, Luparelli was ordered to murder rival mobster Joe Gallo who had been moving in on the Colombo's south Brooklyn docks in recent months.
During the spring of 1971, Luparelli oversaw several failed attempts on Gallo's life including an attempt to kill Gallo as he arrived to meet with his parole officer at the offices of the New York State Department of Correctional Services. The murder contract was cancelled however when, after failing to keep two appointment with his parole officer, after having been recently released after serving a ten year prison sentence for extortion.
However, by March 1972, Gallo's continued raids against the Colombo's criminal operations caused the contract to again be taken out. On the night of March 18, with Sonny Pinto, Philip "Fat Fungi" Gambino and brothers Cisco and Benny (soldiers under Colombo capo John "Sonny" Franzese), drove to Umberto's Clam House in Little Italy where Gallo was dining with his wife Sina, his sister and his bodyguard Peter "Pete the Greek" Diapoulas. While Luparelli and Gambino blocked traffic Pinto Cisco and Benny entered the restaurant with Pino hitting Gallo twice before Diapoulas could draw his gun. The three continued shooting Gallo until he collapsed on the sidewalk outside of the restaurant.
Although pleased with Luparelli for the Gallo hit, Yacovelli later put out a murder contract on his former bodyguard. Turning himself in to authorities in Santa Anna, California, Luparelli agreed to enter the U.S. Department of Justice's Witness Protection Plan.
[edit] Further reading
- Capeci, Jerry. The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Mafia. Indianapolis: Alpha Books, 2002. ISBN 0-02-864225-2
- United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure. Witness Protection Program: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure. 1978. [1]
- United States. Congress. House. Select Committee on Assassinations. Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: hearings before the Select Committee on Assassinations. 1979. [2]
[edit] References
- Raab, Selwyn. Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires. New York: St. Martin Press, 2005. ISBN 0-312-30094-8
