Joseph Gambino, son of top Mafia boss Carlo and one-time Garment District powerbroker, dead at age 84

By LARRY MCSHANE
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |
MAR 19, 2020

Joseph Gambino in 1992.(Tom Monaster / New York Daily News)


Philanthropic mobster Joseph Gambino, the son of mighty “Boss of All Bosses” Carlo Gambino and one-time partner in a multimillion-dollar Mafia monopoly in the Garment District, reportedly died at the age of 84, according to the website GanglandNews.com.

Joseph Gambino famously teamed with his older brother Thomas to oversee a corrupt system where mob-controlled trucking businesses were assigned for decades to specific zones in the busy Manhattan business district. Without any competitive bidding, the mob truckers pocketed tens of millions of dollars by simply imposing a 7% mob tax on all Gambino-trucked items.

Thomas Gambino was the head of the scam, while Joseph served as his principal operating officer, authorities said. Both took a 1992 plea bargain deal where they agreed to quit their lucrative jobs in the trucking industry and pay a $12 million fine — with both avoiding jail time as part of the agreement.

Authorities estimated the brothers grossed roughly $70 million and pocketed $22 million in profits.

The deal also required the siblings to sell off a large portion of their trucks, effectively ending the crime family’s control of the Garment District since the 1950s. Asked how he was feeling after entering his plea, Joseph Gambino replied, ''I’m a lot happier.''

It wasn’t his only profitable venture in the clothes business. Back in 1991, it was revealed that celebrity fashion designer Bob Mackie, to help pay off a loan provided by the Gambino brothers four years earlier, provided Joseph Gambino’s wife Arlene with a new wardrobe and created dresses for a number of relatives before a family wedding.

The siblings were the sons of Carlo Gambino, the powerful head of the crime family that still bears his name despite decades of internal difficulties. Carlo Gambino, who died of natural causes at age 74 in 1976, rose to the boss’ seat after the infamous 1957 assassination of Albert Anastasia in a barber’s chair at the Park Sheraton Hotel.

The elder Gambino turned the reins over to his brother-in-law Paul Castellano, who was infamously gunned down just before Christmas 1985 in a hit orchestrated by new family boss John “Dapper Don” Gotti.



(Charles Hoff/New York Daily News)
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Both Joseph and Thomas kept a much lower profile after their guilty pleas as the Gambino crime family fell on hard times during the 1990s and into the new millennium.

But brothers Thomas and Joseph shared a softer side: In 1991, the pair donated more than $1 million toward the creation of a state-of-the-art children’s cancer center on Long Island. The brothers also gave generously to another cancer foundation, according to their lawyers.