NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Joseph 'Big Joey' Massino, the former boss of the Bonanno crime family, died in early September 2023 at the age of 80. He was the first head of one of New York's five mob families to become an informant for law enforcement.
Massino ran the Bonanno family with an iron fist from 1991 to 2003. Sources close to his family told Newsday that he died at a rehab facility in the New York City area on September 14, after battling a number of health conditions including diabetes and obesity.
After a Brooklyn federal court jury found him guilty of racketeering and organizing a string of murders as the head of the Bonanno crime family, Massino ratted out his fellow mobsters for leniency. He was also facing a federal death penalty trial in a different case.
He formally entered the federal witness protection program in 2005. His life sentence was reduced to time served in 2013.
Early life of Joseph Massino
Big Joey was born in Queens in January 1943 to Anthony and Adeline Massino. An athletic young man, he earned his reputation as being a street thug after dropping out of school in the seventh grade.
He took a number of odd jobs, including working as a lifeguard at Atlantic Beach on Long Island and starting a coffee cart business.
Massino became associated with Philip Rastelli, who rose to become boss of the Bonanno crime family, in the 1970s. Rastelli's trust in Massino grew after he went to prison.
How did Joseph Massino become Bonano Crime Family Boss?
Massino joined the Mafia around 1977 and was made a captain in 1979, as per the FBI. Massino helped engineer the murders of three other captains, Philip Giaccone, Alphonse Indelicato, and Dominic Trinchera, in May 1981, according to a federal court testimony.
He served time in federal prison in the 1980s. After the death of Rastelli in 1991, Massino was officially anointed as the boss of the Bonanno family.
Massino kept a low profile and closed down mob social clubs to tackle FBI surveillance. Fellow gangsters were asked to keep his name out of conversations that could be bugged, and instead refer to him by tugging on their ears. This secret gesture earned Massino the nickname 'The Ear.'
How did Joseph Massino turn into an informant?
After a federal indictment, Massino and his brother-in-law Sal Vitale were arrested in January 2003. Vitale became a government witness against Massino and testified at the mob boss’s trial in 2004.
Massino started talking to the feds after being convicted in 2004. He was sentenced to life for his crimes and spent 12 years in prison.
Upon his conviction, Massino had to forfeit $7 million in cash and the more than 250 bars of solid gold that he stashed in his Howard Beach residence where he lived with his wife and daughters.
In 2013, a Brooklyn federal judge ruled in favor of his release as a reward for cooperating with authorities and testifying against fellow gangsters, including his Bonanno successor, Vincent 'Vinny Gorgeous' Basciano.
“Quite simply, Mr. Massino may be the most important cooperator in the modern history of law enforcement to prosecute the American Mafia,” the judge observed.
Massino was already ill by the time he was released. As per the Newsday obituary, he was given a new identity as a part of the witness protection program and had been living in Ohio for some time prior to his death.
