Notorious Mafia head 'Joe Bananas' dies

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

Bonanno, who retired to Arizona in 1968 and had suffered from several health problems in recent years, died 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, he 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."

Only one conviction

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, for 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, Ky., 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 to take his testimony, but Bonanno claimed ill health in refusing to testify.

Bonanno was born Jan. 18, 1905, in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily. He entered the United States illegally through Cuba, setting up his operations in New York City.

He was arrested numerous times, including once in the 1930s when he was accused of transporting guns for mob boss Al Capone. He was convicted in 1945 of violating wage laws and fined $450.

Through his crime family, established in the early 1930s, Bonanno rose to become a member of "The Commission."

But he denied the Mafia existed, writing in his book that the term "refers to a process, a special set of relationships among men. I stay away from the term because it creates more confusion than it is worth."