Joe Adonis
Encyclopedia
Joe Adonis also known as "Joey A", "Joe Adone", "Joe Arosa", "James Arosa", and "Joe DiMeo", was a New York mobster who was an important participant in the formation of the modern Cosa Nostra crime families.

Early years

Adonis was born Giuseppe Antonio Doto in the small town of Montemarano
Montemarano
Montemarano is a town and comune of the province of Avellino in the Campania region of southern Italy.-History:The existence of the town is documented since the 11th century. During Norman times it was attacked by Ruggiero and completely destroyed. Later it became a fiefdom of Raona of Fragneto...

, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, near Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

. In 1915, Doto stowed away on an ocean liner to the United States and settled in Brooklyn, New York. He was a cousin of Genovese crime family capo Alan Bono, who overlooked operations for Adonis in Greenwich Village in the 1940s and 1950s. Adonis fathered one son, Joseph A. Doto Jr.

Doto started supporting himself by stealing and picking pockets. While working on the streets, Doto became friends with future mob boss Charles Lucky Luciano
Lucky Luciano
Charlie "Lucky" Luciano was an Italian mobster born in Sicily. Luciano is considered the father of modern organized crime in the United States for splitting New York City into five different Mafia crime families and the establishment of the first commission...

 and mobster Settimo "Big Sam" Accardi
Settimo Accardi
Settimo "Big Sam" Accardi was a New Jersey mobster who served as capo in the Lucchese crime family's Jersey crew...

, who were involved in illegal gambling. Doto developed a strong loyalty to Luciano that would last for decades. At the beginning of Prohibition
Prohibition
Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...

, Luciano and Adonis borrowed $35,000 from other mob associates and started a bootlegging operation in Brooklyn. This operation soon began supplying large amounts of alcohol to the show business community along Broadway
Broadway (New York City)
Broadway is a prominent avenue in New York City, United States, which runs through the full length of the borough of Manhattan and continues northward through the Bronx borough before terminating in Westchester County, New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to...

 in Manhattan. Doto soon assumed the role of a gentleman bootlegger, socializing with the theater elite.

Name change

In the early 1920s, Doto changed his name to "Joe Adonis", from the Greek god of love, Adonis
Adonis
Adonis , in Greek mythology, the god of beauty and desire, is a figure with Northwest Semitic antecedents, where he is a central figure in various mystery religions. The Greek , Adōnis is a variation of the Semitic word Adonai, "lord", which is also one of the names used to refer to God in the Old...

. Doto allegedly received this nickname from a Ziegfeld Follies
Ziegfeld Follies
The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air....

 chorus girl that he was dating at that time. However, another version states that Doto adopted the Adonis name after seeing it in a magazine article on Greek mythology. Extremely vain, Adonis spent a great deal of time in personal grooming. On one occasion, Luciano saw Adonis combing his thick, dark hair in front of a mirror and asked him, "Who do you think you are, Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...

?" Adonis replied, "For looks, that guy's a bum!"

Castellammarese War and the National Crime Syndicate

During the 1920s, Adonis became an enforcer for Frankie Yale
Frankie Yale
Francesco Ioele , better known as Frankie Uale or Frankie Yale, was a Brooklyn gangster and original employer of Al Capone before the latter moved to Chicago...

, the boss of some rackets in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

. While working for Yale, Adonis briefly met future Chicago Outfit
Chicago Outfit
The Chicago Outfit, also known as the Chicago Syndicate or Chicago Mob and sometimes shortened to simply the Outfit, is a crime syndicate based in Chicago, Illinois, USA...

 boss Al Capone
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...

, who was also working for Yale. Meanwhile, Luciano became an enforcer for Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria
Joe Masseria
Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria was an early Mafia don in the United States. He was boss of what is now called the Genovese crime family, one of the New York Mafia's Five Families, from 1922 to 1931.-Early days:...

, who ran an organization loosely based on clans from Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

 and Southern Italy. After the 1928 assassination of Yale, Masseria took over Yale's criminal organization.

Masseria soon became embroiled in the vicious Castellammarese War
Castellammarese War
The Castellammarese War was a bloody power struggle for control of the Italian-American Mafia between partisans of Joe "The Boss" Masseria and those of Salvatore Maranzano. It was so called because Maranzano was based in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily...

 with his arch rival, Salvatore Maranzano
Salvatore Maranzano
Salvatore Maranzano was an organized crime figure from the town of Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, and an early Cosa Nostra boss in the United States. He instigated the Castellammarese War to seize control of the American Mafia operations, and briefly became the Mafia's "Boss of Bosses"...

. Maranzano represented the Sicilian clans, most of which came from Castellammare del Golfo
Castellammare del Golfo
Castellammare del Golfo is a town and comune in the Trapani Province of Sicily. The name is roughly translated "Sea- Fortress of the Gulf", deriving from the medieval fortress in the harbor...

 in Sicily. As the war progressed, both bosses started recruiting more soldiers. By 1930, Adonis had joined the Masseria faction. As the war turned against Masseria, Luciano secretly contacted Maranzano about switching sides. Since Adonis' loyalties were to Luciano, he followed him to Maranzano. On 15 April 1931, Adonis joined Benjamin "Busgy" Siegel
Bugsy Siegel
Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel was an American gangster who was involved with the Genovese crime family...

, Vito Genovese
Vito Genovese
Vito "Don Vito" Genovese was an Italian mafioso who rose to power in America during the Castellammarese War to later become leader of the Genovese crime family. Genovese served as mentor to future mob boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante...

, and Albert "Mad Hatter" Anastasia
Albert Anastasia
Albert Anastasia was boss of what is now called the Gambino crime family, one of New York City's Five Families, from 1951-1957. He also ran a gang of contract killers called Murder Inc. which enforced the decisions of the Commission, the ruling council of the American Mafia...

, all part of the Masseria organization, in an attack on Masseria at a Coney Island
Coney Island
Coney Island is a peninsula and beach on the Atlantic Ocean in southern Brooklyn, New York, United States. The site was formerly an outer barrier island, but became partially connected to the mainland by landfill....

 restaurant, killing him.

With the death of Masseria, the war ended and Maranzano was the victor. To avoid any future wars, Maranzano reorganized all the Italian-American gangs into families and anointed himself as the "boss of all bosses". Luciano and his loyalists quickly became dissatisfied with Maranzano's power grab. When Luciano discovered that the suspicious Maranzano had ordered his murder, Luciano struck first. On September 10, 1931, several gunmen, attacked and killed Maranzano in his Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

 office.

With Maranzano's death, Luciano became the pre-eminent organized crime boss in New York City. However, unlike Maranzano, Luciano did not want to become the "boss of all bosses". Instead, he established a National Crime Syndicate
National Crime Syndicate
The National Crime Syndicate was the name given by the press to a loosely-organized multi-ethnic organized crime syndicate. Its origins are uncertain....

 that united all the Italian-American gangs across the country and allowed for shared decision-making. For his part in murdering Masseria, Adonis received a seat on the Syndicate "board of directors". He then changed his name to Joe Adonis.

Criminal empire

Adonis soon controlled the Broadway
Broadway (New York City)
Broadway is a prominent avenue in New York City, United States, which runs through the full length of the borough of Manhattan and continues northward through the Bronx borough before terminating in Westchester County, New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to...

 and Midtown Manhattan
Midtown Manhattan
Midtown Manhattan, or simply Midtown, is an area of Manhattan, New York City home to world-famous commercial zones such as Rockefeller Center, Broadway, and Times Square...

 area of New York, building a criminal empire worth millions of dollars. Adonis made large profits from illegal alcohol sales, Adonis also bought car dealerships in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

. When customers bought cars from his dealerships, the salesmen would intimidate them into buying "protection insurance" for the vehicle. Adonis soon moved into cigarette manufacturing, buying up vending machines by the hundreds and stocking them with stolen cigarettes. Adonis ran his criminal empire from Joe's Italian Kitchen, a restaurant he owned in Brooklyn. By 1932, Adonis was also a major criminal power in Brooklyn. Despite all his wealth, Adonis still participated in jewelry robberies, a throwback to his early criminal career on the streets.

Adonis also placed many politicians and high-ranking police officers on his payroll. Adonis used his political influence to assist members of the Luciano crime family, such as Luciano and Genovese, and mob associates such as Meyer Lansky
Meyer Lansky
Meyer Lansky , known as the "Mob's Accountant", was a Polish-born American organized crime figure who, along with his associate Charles "Lucky" Luciano, was instrumental in the development of the "National Crime Syndicate" in the United States...

 and Louis "Lepke" Buchalter
Louis Buchalter
Louis "Lepke" Buchalter was a Jewish American mobster and head of the Mafia hit squad Murder, Inc. during the 1930s. After Dutch Schultz' request of the Mafia Commission for permission to kill his enemy, U.S. Attorney Thomas Dewey, the Commission decided to kill Schultz in order to prevent the hit...

, the head of Murder, Inc.
Murder, Inc.
Murder, Inc. was the name given by the press to organized crime groups in the 1920s through the 1940s that resulted in hundreds of murders on behalf of the American Mafia and Jewish Mafia groups who together formed the early organized crime groups in New York and...



As a syndicate board member, Adonis, along with Buchalter, may have been responsible for assigning some murder contracts to Murder Inc.

Government scrutiny

In the late 1930s Thomas E. Dewey, then a state-appointed special prosecutor in New York, started looking for ways to prosecute Luciano. In 1936, Dewey convicted Luciano on highly suspect pandering charges and sent him to prison in upstate New York
Upstate New York
Upstate New York is the region of the U.S. state of New York that is located north of the core of the New York metropolitan area.-Definition:There is no clear or official boundary between Upstate New York and Downstate New York...

 for 30 years. Adonis remained relatively untouched by this crackdown because he was a still relative unknown to prosecutors. Luciano now left Frank Costello
Frank Costello
Frank Costello was an Italian New York City gangster who rose to the top of America's underworld, controlled a vast gambling empire across the United States and enjoyed political influence.Nicknamed the "Prime Minister of the Underworld", he became one of the most powerful and influential Mafia...

 in charge of the Luciano family and Adonis in charge of the Syndicate.

In 1946, in return for helping the U.S. Government in World War II, Luciano was released from prison and immediately deported to Italy. In December 1946, Adonis and Luciano met at the famous Havana Conference
Havana Conference
The Havana Conference of 1946 was an historic meeting of United States Mafia and Cosa Nostra leaders in Havana, Cuba. Supposedly arranged by Charles "Lucky" Luciano, the conference was held to discuss important mob policies, rules, and business interests. The Havana Conference was attended by...

 of U.S. organized crime bosses in Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

. It was Luciano's goal at the conference to regain his mob influence, using Cuba as a base, and being loyal, Adonis willingly agreed to help by handing over his reins of power in the syndicate. However, the U.S. soon discovered Luciano's presence in Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...

 and pressured the Cuban government to deport him back to Italy.

By the late 1940s, the government had begun watching Adonis. During this period, prosecutors successfully recruited Abe "Kid Twist" Reles
Abe Reles
Abe "Kid Twist" Reles was a New York mobster who was widely considered the most feared hit man for Murder, Inc., the enforcement contractor for the National Crime Syndicate. Reles later turned government witness and sent several members of Murder, Inc...

, the second-in-command Jewish-American killer for hire gang Murder, Inc.
Murder, Inc.
Murder, Inc. was the name given by the press to organized crime groups in the 1920s through the 1940s that resulted in hundreds of murders on behalf of the American Mafia and Jewish Mafia groups who together formed the early organized crime groups in New York and...

, to testify against Buchalter and his other associates. Reles also provided the government with valuable information on Adonis, but prosecutors were unable to indict Adonis.

In 1950, the U.S. Senate began televised committee hearings in several U.S. cities on organized crime. When summoned to the Kefauver Commission, Adonis repeatedly refused to testify, citing his right against self-incrimination
Self-incrimination
Self-incrimination is the act of accusing oneself of a crime for which a person can then be prosecuted. Self-incrimination can occur either directly or indirectly: directly, by means of interrogation where information of a self-incriminatory nature is disclosed; indirectly, when information of a...

 under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. Its guarantees stem from English common law which traces back to the Magna Carta in 1215...

. Although Adonis escaped contempt charges, he suffered undesirable national exposure as a mobster. In 1951, Adonis pleaded guilty to illegal gambling charges in New Jersey and was sentenced to two years in state prison.

Deportation and death

In 1953, a court ruled that Adonis was an illegal alien and issued a deportation order to send him back to Italy. Adonis fought a long legal battle that delayed his deportation until 1956. Once in Italy, Adonis moved to a luxurious villa outside the city of Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

. Although Luciano and Adonis were both in Italy, the two men reportedly never met or spoke to each other during this period. It was speculated that Luciano was angry at Adonis for ceding too many New York City rackets to Genovese. On January 26, 1962, Luciano died of a heart attack in Naples at age 64. Adonis attended the funeral in Naples, bringing a huge floral wreath with the words, "So Long, Pal".

On November 26, 1971, during an anti-mafiosi criminal operation, Italian police forces took Adonis from his villa and transported him to a small hillside shack for interrogation. During the lengthy questioning, Adonis suffered a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...

 and died. Adonis had a quiet funeral attended only by his immediate family. He was buried in Madonna Cemetery in Fort Lee, New Jersey
Fort Lee, New Jersey
Fort Lee is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 35,345. Located atop the Hudson Palisades, the borough is the western terminus of the George Washington Bridge...

.

In popular culture

  • Adonis is portrayed in the 1984 film Gangster Wars
    Gangster Wars
    -Synopsis:The film tells the story of three teenagers, based on real life gangsters Charles "Lucky" Luciano , Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel and Michael Lasker , growing up in New York's ghettos during the early 1900s to their rise though organized crime.-Adaptation:This movie is based on...

    by James Percell, the 1991 film Bugsy
    Bugsy
    Bugsy is a 1991 American crime-drama film which tells the story of mobster Bugsy Siegel. It stars Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Harvey Keitel, Ben Kingsley, Elliott Gould, Joe Mantegna, Bebe Neuwirth, and Bill Graham....

    by Lewis Van Bergen
    Lewis Van Bergen
    Lewis Van Bergen is an American actor, best known for his role as Jon Sable on the short-lived 1987 television series Sable.- Biography :He became famous by being humiliated and beaten by Warren Beatty in the film Bugsy.- Film :...

     and in the 1999 television movie Lansky
    Lansky (film)
    Lansky is a 1999 American made-for-television crime drama film. Directed by John McNaughton, it stars Richard Dreyfuss as the famous gangster Meyer Lansky, Eric Roberts as Bugsy Siegel, and Ryan Merriman as the young Lansky.-Plot summary:...

    both by Casey McFadden and Sal Landi.
  • Adonis has been featured in the television documentary series American Justice
    American Justice
    American Justice is an American criminal justice television program on the A&E Network, hosted by Bill Kurtis. The show features interesting or notable cases, such as the Selena Murder of a Star, Scarsdale Diet doctor murder, the Hillside Stranglers, Matthew Shepard, or the Wells Fargo heist, with...

    .

External links

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