Barbara was born on August 9, 1905, in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, to Giuseppe Barbara and Angela Galante.[4] He immigrated to the United States in 1921, at the age of 16[5][6] and became a naturalized citizen in 1927.[7] He was soon working as a hitman for the Buffalo crime family. During the 1930s, Barbara was arrested for several murders, including the 1933 murder of rival bootlegger Sam Wichner. Wichner had gone to Barbara's house for a business meeting, where Barbara allegedly strangled Wichner to death.[5] However, law enforcement never obtained enough evidence to prosecute Barbara. Though some mistakenly believe he ascended to the top of the Bufalino family in 1940 through the murder of John Sciandra, Barbara was more than likely a caporegime in the Buffalo Maggadino Family. John Sciandra passed away in 1949 of natural causes.[8][9]
Barbara married Josephine Vivona on June 24, 1933, in Endicott, New York,[6] and fathered two sons, Joseph Jr. and Peter, and two daughters, Angeline, who died at the age of two,[10] and Angela.[11]
Country estate
In 1944, Barbara bought a 58-acre (23 ha) parcel of land in the rural town of Apalachin, New York, and built an estate on 625 McFall Road for a total of $250,000.[12][13] Barbara soon involved himself in local business circles and philanthropy. When Barbara applied for a New York handgun permit, the police chief of Endicott, New York, served as a reference.[14] In 1946, Barbara was convicted of illegally purchasing 300,000 pounds of sugar (intended for the manufacture of bootleg alcohol).[15] Soon after this, Barbara entered the soft drink distribution business, buying a Canada Drybottling plant. Barbara eventually gained control of the beer and soft drink market in Binghamton, New York. In 1956, a conference between dozens of mobsters was held at Barbara's estate; Barbara also suffered a heart attack that year.[5]
On November 14, 1957, Barbara's estate in Apalachin was used again to hold a large meeting—over 100 mafiosi from the United States, Italy and Cuba.[18][19] Cuba was one of the Apalachin topics of discussion, particularly the gambling and narcotics smuggling interests of La Cosa Nostra on the island. The international narcotics trade was also an important topic on the Apalachin agenda.[20] The New York garment industry interests and rackets, such as loansharking to the business owners and control of garment center trucking, were other important topics on the Apalachin agenda.[21]
A local state trooper named Edgar D. Croswell had been aware that Carmine Galante had been stopped by state troopers following a visit to Barbara's estate the previous year.[3] A check of Galante by the troopers found that he was driving without a license and that he had an extensive criminal record in New York City. In the time preceding the November 1957 meeting, trooper Croswell had Barbara's house under occasional surveillance.[3] He had become aware that Barbara's son was reserving rooms in local hotels along with the delivery of a large quantity of meat from a local butcher to the Barbara home.[3][22] That made Croswell suspicious, and he therefore decided to keep an eye on Barbara's house.[23] When the state police found many luxury cars parked at Barbara's home they began taking down license plate numbers. Having found that many of these cars were registered to known criminals, state police reinforcements came to the scene and began to set up a roadblock.[22]
Having barely started their meeting, Bartolo Guccia, a Castellammare del Golfo native and Barbara employee, spotted a police roadblock while leaving Barbara's estate. Guccia later said he was returning to the Barbara home to check on a fish order. Some attendees attempted to drive away but were stopped by the roadblock. Others trudged through the fields and woods ruining their expensive suits before they were caught.[24] Many Mafiosi escaped through the woods surrounding the Barbara estate.[25]
Up to 50 men escaped, but over 60 were apprehended, including Commission members Genovese, Carlo Gambino, Joseph Profaci and Joseph Bonanno. Virtually all of them claimed they had heard Joseph Barbara was feeling ill and that they had visited him to wish him well.[26]
Aftermath of Apalachin
Barbara found himself investigated by law enforcement and indicted for not testifying to a grand jury about what transpired at his home on November 14, 1957.[27] In 1959, he was also charged with income tax evasion and submitting fraudulent corporation tax forms.[28] On April 27, 1959, Barbara pleaded innocent to income tax charges before the Federal District Court in Syracuse, New York.[6] Barbara's business interests declined, as he lost his lucrative bottling contract with Canada Dry. Barbara's health continued to deteriorate, suffering a heart attack on May 27, 1959, and another on June 17, 1959, at Wilson Memorial Hospital in Johnson City, New York, killing him.[29][23] Following his death, Barbara's Apalachin estate was sold for $130,000, and, for a time, was used for sightseeing tours.[30] Barbara is buried at Calvary Cemetery in Johnson City, New York.[31]
The Apalachin meeting put the media spotlight directly on the secretive Cosa Nostra, triggering both state and federal hearings. As a result, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover could no longer deny the existence of the Cosa Nostra in the United States.[25]
References
^Weston, Cael (November 1, 1988). "RHOADES CONFIRMS CRIME FIGURE SUPPORT". The Morning Call. Retrieved August 2, 2020. Joseph Mario Barbara Sr., a former capo of the Buffalo Cosa Nostra family who hosted the now-infamous Appalachian crime meeting.
^ abcdBlumenthal, Ralph (July 31, 2002). "For Sale, a House With Acreage. Connections Extra.; Site of 1957 Gangland Raid Is Part of Auction on Saturday". The New York Times. p. 1. Retrieved June 2, 2012. Mr. Barbara (pronounced Bar-BARE-a), [...] Mr. Vasisco recalled that in 1956, about a year before the big raid, troopers stopped a car with fake plates. Inside was Carmine Galante, a Bonanno underboss. An investigation pointed to some kind of crime conclave in Binghamton. [...] "We get back out of the way and listen," Mr. Vasisco said. They heard the younger Barbara reserve six rooms, saying his father would pay.
^"Immagine 109". Antenati (in Italian). Retrieved August 2, 2020. L'anno millenovecentocinque, addì dieci di Agosto [...] è comparso Barbara Giuseppe, [...] il quale mi ha dichiarato che alle ore [...] del dì dieci del corrente mese [...] da Galante Angela di Antonino sua moglie [...] è nato un bambino di sesso maschile che egli mi presenta, e a cui dà il nome di Giuseppe.
^ abc"Sicilian Immigrant's Dream Was Smashed by Headlines". Press & Sun-Bulletin. June 18, 1959. p. 3. Retrieved August 2, 2020 – via Newspapers.com. Joseph Barbara [...] came to this country in 1921 from Sicily as an obscure immigrant. [...] On June 24, 1933, [...] Joseph Barbara was married to Josephine Vivona of 4 Garfield Avenue, Endicott, [...] DAY IN COURT—The ailing Joseph Barbara looked like this on his last appearance in court, last April 27 when he pleaded innocent to income tax charges in Federal District Court in Syracuse
^Newton, Michael (2012). The Mafia at Apalachin, 1957. p. 86. ISBN9780786489862. he immigrated to the United States at the age of 15 or 16 and was naturalized in 1927.
^"Obituaries". Press & Sun-Bulletin. March 15, 1937. p. 5. Retrieved August 2, 2020 – via Newspapers.com. Angeline Barbara, two years and four months' old died [...] after a short illness. She is survived by her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Barbara; a brother, Joseph, and her grandmother.
^ ab"Apalachin raid on Mafia reverberates 50 years later". Mafia News. November 11, 2007. Archived from the original on February 12, 2010 – via Wayback Machine. a police raid sent Mafia bosses, their underbosses and capos running through the woods of Apalachin [...] FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover could no longer pretend that the crime families were not organized, Rossie said.
^"Apalachin Pals Rapped". The Newburgh News. March 14, 1959. p. 1. Retrieved May 28, 2012. A federal grand jury indicted Barbara on charges of evading payment of $14,600 in income taxes in 1952-56 and failing to report approximately $38,000 in taxable income for those years.
^"Six Mobsters Yet At Large In Fed Sweep". Sarasota Journal. Associated Press. May 22, 1959. p. 2. Retrieved May 27, 2012. While the roundup was going on, the hilltop mansion and 53-acre estate of Barbara was sold for $130,000. Russell Terry, of Endicott, N.Y., a real estate dealer, said he and Laurie Quick of Endwell, N.Y., a builder, will reopen the place to sighteers at a fee to be determined.
