Joe Adonis
Nov. 22, 1906, to Nov. 26, 1971.
Giuseppe Antonio Doto
Adonis was born in Montemarano, an Italian village within the province of Avellino not far from the City of Naples. His family brought him to the United States when he was a child.
A longtime Brooklynite, he was affiliated early in his criminal career with Mafia bigshots Frank Yale and Anthony "Little Augie" Pisano (Anthony Carfano).
After the death of Yale in 1928, Adonis, Vito Genovese and Mike Miranda joined Pisano as the most prominent Neapolitans working within the Giuseppe Masseria organization in 1920s New York.
Adonis attended the May 13-15, 1929, national "convention" of bootleggers in Atlantic City. He aligned himself with the more Americanized Mafiosi - Charlie Luciano's faction - as "Mustache Petes" Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano were eliminated in 1931. Some sources indicate that Adonis was one of the gunmen who dispatched Masseria at Nuova Villa Tammaro restaurant on April 15, 1931.
Joe Valachi stated that Adonis -- who directed criminal activity at the Brooklyn docks alongside Albert Anastasia and ran a Brooklyn eatery, Joe's Italian Kitchen on Carroll Street and Fourth Avenue -- was among those targeted for elimination by Maranzano after the conclusion of the Castellammarese War. After Maranzano was out of the way, the Mafia reorganized and Adonis became a major player, though his precise role in the hierarchy is hazy.
Some sources name him a top lieutenant in the Brooklyn Family of Vincent and Philip Mangano, while others place him within Luciano's own Manhattan-based Family. Nicholas Gage suggests that Adonis was actually the first post-war leader of what became the Mangano Family. But he does not offer a sufficient explanation for how or why Adonis became less than a Family boss later on.
Joe Bonanno, who probably knew Adonis' title, doesn't speak of it in his autobiography, and Valachi seems not to know anything about the Brooklyn leader.
Evidence suggests that Adonis was, at least nominally, part of the leadership of the Mangano mob, but owed his primary allegiance to his long-time friends Luciano and Frank Costello.
Eventually, Adonis seemed to be everywhere and into everything - alcohol, gambling, drugs, union rackets, political shenanigans... He had established relationships with several Mafia Families and with some non-Italian gangs as well. Adonis was known to be a trusted ally and confidant of Frank Costello, who presided over Luciano's Manhattan Family and served as supreme arbiter of Mafia affairs after Luciano went up the river in the 1930s. He joined Costello and Jewish mobsters Meyer Lansky and Benjamin Siegel in ownership of the Colonial Inn casino in Miami Beach. Adonis also shared a gambling empire in New Jersey with Mafioso Willie Moretti.
Adonis, who had long claimed to be an American native and who had settled in Fort Lee, NJ, was shown to be an immigrant in the 1950s. He was ordered to be deported in 1953, but a voluntary deportation to Italy occurred in 1956 in the wake of a perjury charge stemming from the Kefauver Committee hearings.
One of the fallings out between the American Mafiosi and the Kennedy Administration was allegedly over arrangements for the Mafia to support Kennedy's candidacy for President in return for Kennedy allowing Adonis back into the country. President John Kennedy was reportedly willing to welcome Adonis home, but Attorney General Robert Kennedy blocked the move.
The Italian government decided to inflict an exile within an exile upon Adonis on June 20, 1971. A Milan court demanded that he be restricted to the town of Ancona. Adonis died there of natural causes on Nov. 26, 1971. His remains were returned to the United States and buried Dec. 6 in Madonna Roman Catholic Cemetery in Fort Lee, NJ.
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