News
Magliocco, Cosa Nostra Chief, Buried Quietly on Long Island
Special to The New York Times
JANUARY 1, 1964
EAST ISLIP, L. I., Dec. 31— Joseph Magliocco, interim head of one of the most powerful Cosa Nostra “families” in the East, was buried today following a requiem mass attended by 50 kinsmen and friends.
The funeral procession of two floral cars and seven limousines was followed from St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church here to St. Charles Cemetery at Pinelawn by agents of the Federal Bureau of investigation and the police of the state, New York City and Nassau and Suffolk Counties.
A police official said that “no known hoods” were among the graveside mourners.
Magliocco died Saturday night of a heart attack in Good Samaritan Hospital at West Islip, but the police did not learn of his death until late yesterday. Dr. Sidney Weinberg, Suffolk Medical Examiner, said that the deputy examiner who certified the death had not notified the police because “he didn't know the significance of the name.”
Notoriety in 1957
But the name Magliocco was not without significance to many other residents of Suffolk County and to millions of newspaper readers and television viewers across the nation, Magliocco, known in the underworld as the “Fat Man,” burst from relative obscurity to national notoriety in 1957 as one of the participants in the meeting of gang chieftains at Apalachin, N. Y.
He and 19 fellow participants in the Apalachin conference were convicted of conspiracy, but he won a reversal on appeal.
Magliocco's brother‐in‐law, Joseph Profaci of Brooklyn, who died of cancer on June 6, 1962, is said to have “willed” his leadership of the Profaci gang of racketeers to Magliocco. But a group of younger members—the Gallo branch of the underworld “family” — rebelled at this imposed leadership, with murders and atrocious assaults resulting on both sides.
Named at Hearings
The story of the rise of Magliocco to an uneasy leadership was told before a Senate subcommittee at public hearings in Washington last October by Joseph Valachi turncoat member of the national crime syndicate called Cosa Nostra, also known as the Mafia.
Supplementing Valachi's story, John P. Fay, head of the Suffolk District Attorney's racket squad, said today thatMagliocco's failure to halt the GalloProfaci war and his general ineffectiveness as interim leader had led the inner council of the syndicate to start a search for a successor several months ago.
“It was our information that Magliocco was out—a sick, old man allowed by the gang to retire,” Mr. Fay said.
The police believe that Magliocco's death will intensify the search for a successor, but they can only guess whether the new leader would emerge from a
Some sources believe that John (Sonny) Franzese, a Magliocco protege, may become the next head of the “family.” Frank zese,who has been cited by the police as Long Island's gambling boss and a hidden owner in several bars in New York City and on the Island, has a record of a dozen arrests but on two convictions.
Magliocco, who was 65, had lived in virtual seclusion here recently in a manSion behind a chain fence surrounding his sixacre waterfront estate on Bayview Avenue. He had investment in several legitimate businesses and was recently described as the power behind two Broolyn‐based companies that supply linens and liquor to many restaurants, bars and night clubs in New York City.
