former purple gang member killed

Notorious gangster who led the Purple Gang found shot to death in car in Bronx
Michael Meldish, 62, was found with a gunshot wound to the head in a Lincoln LS in the Bronx Friday night. His brother Joseph was convicted in 2007 for shooting Joseph Brown. Joseph was suspected in over 70 contract killings, police said.

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BY BARRY PADDOCK / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Joseph Meldish, above, is the brother of Michael Meldish, who was found murdered in the Bronx Friday night.

A reputed gangster who “terrorized the Bronx” for two decades was fatally shot in the head in the Bronx Friday night.

Michael Meldish — whose brother is a convicted mob hit man — was shot in the head sitting in the driver’s seat of a Lincoln LS on Ellsworth Ave. in the affluent Throggs Neck neighborhood about 10:28 p.m. police said.

Meldish, 62, died at the scene.

“I’m happy,” said Joseph Coffey, former commanding officer of the NYPD’s organized crime homicide task force, who tried for years in the 70s and 80s to pin murders on Meldish.

“He terrorized the Bronx.”

Coffey estimates Meldish carried out killings “in the double digits” as part of the Purple Gang,an independent crew originally affiliated with the Luchese, Genovese and Bonanno crime families.

Michael Meldish lived here on Second Ave. in East Harlem.

“Michael was a stone-cold killer. We couldn’t get any witnesses. They had the people so terrified they just wouldn’t cooperate,” Coffey said.

Michael Meldish, who most recently lived on Second Ave. in East Harlem, was arrested five times by the NYPD in the 1970s, police said, for charges including rioting, assault, gun possession and forgery.

He was arrested in the 1980s by state police and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and in the 1990s by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, officials said.

Meldish and his brother Joseph Meldish are believed to have helped run the Purple Gang.

“They were targets of ours,” said Coffey, who worked on rackets investigations for the Manhattan district attorney before joining the NYPD.

“They were the lowest of the low.

Meldish was found shot to death in front of this home in the Bronx on Ellsworth Ave.

“They were running a protection racket on bars and restaurants - they’d come in and shoot the place up. Just ruthless scumbags,” he said.

Joseph Meldish was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison in 2011 for shooting Joseph Brown, 35, to death in 1999.

Police have said they believe he actually carried out about 70 contract killings over the decades before he was finally fingered for Brown’s murder.

Coffey said the circumstances of Michael Meldish’s murder in the Bronx Friday had all the markings of a hit.

“It should have happened a long time ago,” he said.

“I call it vermin killing vermin - poetic justice.”

With Rocco Parascandola



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bron...2#ixzz2kqusOIXe

I've never heard of this particular "purple gang" so when I read the post title I thought it was talking about Detroit's Purple Gang and was thinking this guy must be a 100 years-old.

His family must have been blue with sadness and red with anger.

70 contracts? that seems kind of high

Sounds like the world is a better place with this p.o.s not coming down for breakfast. But how do you get away with killing 70 people. What kind of childhood did these scumbags have?

It is. He might have killed 7 people, he might have killed 2 or 3, he might have killed 10, but 70 is a ridiculous amount of kilings to account for. Between cops like Joe Coffey and the tabloid reporters, the amounts just get thrown out with no regard to facts. As long as many in public will buy into it, they will continue to do so. Why was he on the streets is the bigger question. They claim to have 70 murders to tie him to, yet they not even try to get an indictment on even one.

See the indictment thing is what gets me. If you personally whack 70 people, the sheer volume would indicate that at some point something would happen and you would at least go on trial for one.

The actual number if you break down going back to the 60's, 70's, whenever he started works out to 1 or 2 a year, which is entirely plausible...that said, at some point in the process of murdering 70 people some loose end would trip you up and you would at least be on trial if not in prison.

I think what happens is these cops just start attributing any missing fool as a victim of some of these gangsters (just like how the gemini crew got labeled to have killed over 200 people in a span of roughly 15 years), and they just go with it because it doesn't mean anything outside of public perception.

No reason to kill that many people. I think its an exageration. Especially a gang that small.

Yes, Coffey is an exaggerator and there's no way the Meldishes killed 70 people. But they killed more than a few and they hurt a whole lot more. Not too many people in East Harlem or here in Throggs Neck will be missing them; I can assure you of that.

There is an interesting article somewhere about a guy in Detroit who, I think in the early 90s, would hang out at a deli near the old Tiger stadium and wait for the last living Purple Gang guy to come in. If I remember correctly it was one of the guys who had gone to jail forever, then was released as an old man, almost like an Alvin Karpis. Unfortunately the guy never got an interview with him, though he saw him a couple times.

Interesting the old Purple chose to live in the city, or at least hang out there, as it had changed almost completely since he'd been sentenced. I wish someone would write a longer piece about it or make a movie or something.

That would be interesting to hear more about. I'd imagine for a guy locked up that long about the only thing he had left was to come back to the home of his youthful days and essentially wait around to die.

that's better than waiting to die in prison, anyway

Well in all fairness to coffey, he only said ''double digits''....Him being a suspect in 70 hits doesn't mean he did them all, only that he was a suspect in them..But when 3 major crime families are sharing your services to do hits for them, you must have have a big reputation for being very efficient at it !!

Its true..... Throughout the years along Harlem and into the bronx, Florida and as far as Nevada and Los Angeles. Remember these guys served 3 of the five families.

The only reason Michael was killed was because his brother Joey got put away for life. If he was still out they would have had to kill both of them...

Coffey makes those comments because he could never get a charge that would stick....Sucks to be him!

They Worked as a crew under Prisco. Who was recently sent up for killing his own cousin Angelo Sangiuolo....

Boy that cop didn't like him one bit....came off a bit unprofessional IMO

Mob hit in Country club

I wonder who ordered it

Michael was responsible for taking care of a made man's GF. Nowles? Well he was doing that and few other things. Not appreciated and as a result his number was up.

what do you mean taking care of a made man's GF..like he killed her or he was taking care of her while the boyfriend was in jail? can you elaborate?

He was banging her brains out

Yes while he was in Jail.

LOLLL!! this Michael guy sounds like a pervert and a killer! My gawd!

was he 62 and banging the girlfriend???

Here is a small snap shot of some of the associates and how they are linked. http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2009/nyfo081809.htm

Here is a small snap shot of some of the associates and how they are linked. http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2009/nyfo081809.htm

Was Meldish Italian?

Can knowledgeable members compose a list of ex purple gang members?

I know Daniel Leo was a member.
Others?

Scalish was an italian name i believe

Since when the purple gang stopped being a crew of associates for the genovese?

Since East Harlem stopped being Italian, which is going on forty years now. And to be painfully honest, the neighborhood was getting to be predominantly Puerto Rican as far back as the mid '60s. A few Italians stuck it out through the '80s, but you'd be hard pressed to find many in Harlem today. There are a few octagenarians (my 84 year old Dad among them) who are a part of the Church and Giglio committees, but not much else.

Long story short, Italian Americans moved up and out of Harlem. But that's a good thing. I mean, who wants their kids to grow up in a cold-water, six-story, walk-up?

Seems like all the Italians are being pushed out of every borough by minorities. Why don't they stand their ground?

They're choosing to leave on their own.

Why's that? I thought the Italians were a "proud" race of people.

Not trying to be rude but what the hell are you talking about? You're either 15 or from Australia. No Italians got pushed out. They moved up the social ladder my friend. Google assimilation. If you're looking for the days of Bronx tale go and rent it

I got news for you pal, Italians are apart of the minority race, when Italians came to america they got treated just as bad as the blacks

so did they ever catch who killed this guy?