[Deathwatch] Joseph Bonanno, Mafia kingpin, 97

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

Mafia kingpin 'Joe Bananas' dead at age 97
Exiled to Arizona in 1960s following 'Banana War'
May 11, 2002 Posted: 10:51 PM EDT (0251 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/05/11/bonanno.obit.ap/index.html

TUCSON, Arizona (AP) -- Joseph Bonanno, the notorious gangster known as
"Joe Bananas" who ran one of the most powerful Mafia groups in the
1950s and '60s, has died. He was 97. 

Bonanno, who retired to Arizona in 1968 and had suffered from a variety
of health problems in recent years, died Saturday of heart failure,
said his attorney, Alfred "Skip" Donau. 

At the height of his power, Bonanno directed one of the five original
crime families in New York City. The public knew him as "Joe Bananas"
-- a nickname he detested. 

By his own admission, Bonanno was a member of "the Commission," which
acted as an organized crime board of directors in New York and other
major U.S. cities. He denied engaging in such "unmanly" activities as
narcotics trafficking or prostitution, though authorities said
otherwise. 

Bonanno fell from grace during the 1960s, reputedly for trying to
become the boss of bosses in what came to be known as "the Banana War."
The battle among the crime families resulted in his eventual exile to
Tucson. 

His crime family still bears his name, though he maintained in his 1983
autobiography that "I'm not a Father anymore and there is no Bonanno
Family anymore." 

Even in his waning years, Bonanno was unable to avoid the attention of
prosecutors. In 1980 they succeeded in getting the only felony
conviction against him -- obstruction of justice, for trying to block a
federal grand jury investigating his sons. 

Evidence that led to the conviction was obtained by a narcotics strike
force that sifted through his trash for years.

A federal judge eventually reduced his five-year sentence to a year and
Bonanno served nearly eight months in a Lexington, Kentucky, federal
prison before being paroled in July 1984. 

In 1985 and '86, he served 14 months in prison for contempt of court.
He had refused to answer prosecutors' questions prior to a planned
trial of reputed leaders of New York's organized crime families. 

The judge and prosecutors -- including then-U.S. Attorney Rudolph
Giuliani -- had traveled to Tucson, Arizona, to take his testimony, but
Bonanno claimed ill health and refused to testify. 

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