Joe Valachi
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Joseph Valachi |
Joseph 'Joe Cargo' Valachi (
September 22,
1903 â€"
April 3,
1971) was the first
Mafia member to publicly acknowledge the existence of the
Mafia. He is also the person who made
Cosa Nostra (meaning "our thing") a household name. In October
1963, Valachi (a "soldier" in New York City's powerful
Vito Genovese crime family, whose primary "job" within the family was that of a driver) had testified before
Arkansas Senator
John L. McClellan's congressional committee on
organized crime that the Mafia did exist. Although the low-ranking Valachi's disclosures never led directly to the prosecution of any
Mafia leaders, he was able to provide many details of
its history, operations and rituals, aiding in the solution of several uncleared murders, as well as naming many members and the major crime families. The effect of his testimony, which was also broadcast on radio and television and published in newspapers, was devastating for the mob, which was still reeling from the November 14, 1957,
Apalachin Meeting where state police had accidentally discovered several
Mafia bosses from all over the United States meeting at the Apalachin,
New York, home of mobster
Joseph Barbara. After the Apalachin exposures and then Valachi's testimony, the mob was no longer invisible to the public eye.
Valachi's motivations for becoming an informer have been the subject of some debate. While Valachi had claimed to be testifying as a public service and a way to expose a powerful criminal organization that he blamed for ruining his life, it is also possible he was simply hoping for US government protection to avoid the
death penalty after his August 1962
murder of a man in prison whom he had mistaken for a Mafia member intending to kill him (Valachi and Genovese were both serving a sentence for
heroin trafficking). Genovese had apparently ordered Valachi killed (offering $100,000 to anyone who did so) because the powerful mob boss had believed Valachi had betrayed him to the authorities in exchange for a lighter prison sentence, thus violating the strict Mafia oath of
Omertà (silence) which traditionally had carried the death penalty.
After the
U.S. Department of Justice first encouraged and then blocked publication of Valachi's
memoirs, a
biography heavily influenced by those memoirs and by interviews with Valachi was written by journalist
Peter Maas and published in 1968 as
The Valachi Papers, forming the basis for a later movie of the same title starring actor
Charles Bronson as Valachi. Valachi also reportedly inspired the character of
Frank Pentangeli (
Michael V. Gazzo) in the hit film
The Godfather Part II (1974).
In 1966, Valachi attempted unsuccessfully to
hang himself in his prison cell, using an electrical extension cord. He died of a heart attack in 1971 at La Tuna Federal Correctional Institution in Texas, having outlived his chief nemesis
Vito Genovese by two years. The $100,000
bounty placed on Valachi's head by Genovese went uncollected.
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Crime Library - Joe Valachi*
Joseph Valachi
