Junior Persico spent most of his life in prison, there is no question about it. I don’t think he was stupid though. His IQ was measured at one 110, which puts him easily in the top 25-30% of the population in terms of general intelligence as measured by IQ. Famously when Judge Keenan sentenced him to 39 years in ‘86 he told Junior “Mr. Persico, you are a tragedy”, “you are one of the most intelligent people I have ever seen in my life”. Ed McDonald was quoted as saying about Persico “He was the most fascinating figure I encountered in the world of organized crime”, “because of his reputation for intelligence and toughness, he was a legend by the age of 17, and later as a mob boss he became a folk hero in certain areas of Brooklyn”. So whatever mistakes he may have made for whatever reasons, I don’t know that stupidity necessarily had much to do with it. Just my two cents