One of the most violent enforcers and collectors for Brooklyn Mafia don Joe Profaci, Carmine Persico was introduced to Profaci’s rackets by Larry Gallo. Eventually Persico joined Larry and his two brothers, Crazy Joe and Kid Blast Gallo, in an open revolt against the Profaci rule. Profaci, perhaps the most grasping Mafia boss in decades, extracted tribute constantly from his soldiers. Persico once complained to later-informer Joe Valachi: “Even if we go hijack some trucks he taxes us. I paid up to $1,800.”
With the Gallos and Persico there was a lot of nasty firepower standing up to Profaci, who relied on all his deviousness to resolve his dilemma. He promised to do right for a few of the rebels, including Jiggs Forlano and Carmine Persico, if they would return to the fold and show their fealty by going after the Gallos. Persico jumped at the chance and did all he could.
In fact, New York police would later say it was Persico who tightened the garrote on Larry Gallo when he was lured to a bar in Brooklyn, allegedly for an anti-Profaci plotting session. Gallo narrowly survived; a police officer walked in at the critical moment. It was a scene that was to be replayed in fictional form in The Godfather. The Gallos called Persico “the Snake” after that. So did the police. Persico advised his friends to call him “Junior.”
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After Profaci’s successor, Joe Colombo, was shot in 1971, Persico became a capo under the almost secret rule of elderly Thomas DiBella who was boss of the family for three years before the FBI and other investigative agencies discovered the fact. Eventually DiBella stepped aside because of his years and functioned as consigliere, or adviser, while Persico, the former rebel, took over as boss.
Bizarre events dominated his reign, most of which was spent in prison (although this didn’t stop the federal government from indicting him in the mid-1980s on racketeering charges for crimes they said he masterminded behind bars). Persico became one of the very few mafiosi to ever make it on the FBI’s Most Wanted list after he fled the indictment and eluded capture for several months.
Persico was also a unique would-be hit victim who ended up with a spent bullet in his mouth after enemy mobsters pumped several carbine shots into a car in which he was riding. Persico spat out the bullet.
An avid reader about himself in the newspapers, Persico took deep offense in December 1985 when writer Pete Hamill, covering his racketeering trial for the Village Voice, recalled Persico’s younger days (Hamill had grown up in the same Brooklyn neighborhood). “Man to man,” Hamill wrote, “Junior wasn’t very good with his hands . . . But if Junior caught you while three others were holding you, he was devastating.”
Ignoring the advice of his lawyers, Persico penned an angry letter to the Voice, calling Hamill’s story “biased, degrading, angry, perverse, and unprofessional.”
Hamill’s response in part was:
Mr. Persico’s many years behind bars obviously have refined his prose style beyond the narrow limits he had attained 35 years ago in our old neighborhood. . . . In those days, his usual reply to criticism was to mutter, “Your sister’s box!” before creasing your skull with a length of pipe. Who now can dispute the possibilities for rehabilitation afforded by the joint?
However, Persico had more than a war of words to wage or a legal battle to engage of with the government. He had spent almost 10 years of the previous 13 behind bars, a fact that left his godfatherly role a bit frazzled, despite the government’s claims about what he could manage from prison. Another capo, Jerry Langella ran the family on the outside.
Persico had the misfortune of being out of prison and back in control of the Colombos when the government in 1986 polished its RICO approach in the Mafia Commission case against the top bosses of several families. Persico may have been the most outraged of the defendants about the use of membership in the Mafia as enough, or close to it, to win a conspiracy conviction. Persico, in his usual pride in his own abilities, acted as his own attorney.
His most memorable comment to the court was an anguished outcry: “Without the Mafia, there wouldn’t even be no case here!”
The Snake got it absolutely right. He also got a 100-year sentence for murder and conspiracy.
