John Barbato (born May 15, 1934), nicknamed "Johnny Sausage", is an American mobster and former captain in the

Genovese crime family The Genovese crime family, () also sometimes referred to as the Westside, is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City and New Jersey as part of the American M ...

. Barbato served as acting underboss from 2003 to 2005.

Career and NJ exclusion

A distant cousin of

mob boss

Frank Costello Frank Costello (; born Francesco Castiglia; ; January 26, 1891 – February 18, 1973) was an Italian-American crime boss of the Luciano crime family. In 1957, Costello survived an assassination attempt ordered by Vito Genovese and carried out by ...

and cousin to

capo

Willie Moretti Guarino "Willie" Moretti (February 24, 1894 – October 4, 1951), also known as Willie Moore, was a notorious underboss of the Genovese crime family and a cousin of the family boss Frank Costello. Criminal career Born Guarino Moretti in Bari ...

, Barbato had reportedly been an associate of the Genovese crime family since the 1940s At the time, his criminal record included convictions of four counts of

bookmaking A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays off bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds. History The first bookmaker, Ogden, stood at Newmarket in 1795. Range of events Bookm ...

in the 1950s and 1960s, plus a conviction for robbery in 1963. Sometime in the late 1970s, Barbato became the personal bodyguard and chauffeur for Genovese crime family underboss and

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

faction leader Venero "Benny Eggs" Mangano. After being recognized as a "made member" or soldier since the 1970s, Barbato was officially excluded from the state of

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

on August 11, 1987. Barbato was a distant relative to the first wife of singer/actor Frank Sinatra, Nancy Barbato (Nancy Sinatra Sr.)

Indictments and guilty plea

In 2005, Barbato was

indicted An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concept often use that of ...

on federal racketeering charges and racketeering

conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agre ...

, which included murder conspiracy,

extortion Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, ...

, loansharking and witness tampering. U.S. law enforcement charged him with operating criminal activities in the Brooklyn section as well as associating with then-current family acting boss Dominick "Quiet Dom" Cirillo and fellow captains Lawrence "Little Larry" Dentico and Anthony "Tico" Antico. Federal and state authorities alleged that Barbato was a "capo" (or captain) in the

."14. At various times, the defendant JOHN BARBATO, also known as "Johnny Sausage," was a captain or soldier within the Genovese family." The indictment alleged that Barbato was included in a panel since the late 1990s of powerful family capos on how to corrupt

labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the la ...

and construction unions in New York and New Jersey through bribery and extorting their locals in order to achieve influence with companies operating in those areas. Barbato, Cirillo and Antico were even charged with murder conspiracy, as they reputedly plotted to murder an important witness who had helped building the racketeering case against the defendants. Following the arrests of Barbato and three others, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' reported:

'With these arrests, law enforcement has effectively dismantled the present leadership of the Genovese family,' the United States attorney in Brooklyn, Roslynn R. Mauskopf, said in a statement announcing the indictments of the men. Prosecutors charged that the men took over the administration of the Genovese family business when their leader,
Vincent Gigante Vincent Louis Gigante (; March 28, 1928 – December 19, 2005), also known as "The Chin", was an American mobster who was boss of the Genovese crime family in New York City from 1981 to 2005. Gigante started out as a professional boxer who fough ...
, went to jail in 1997. The men, prosecutors said, continued the family's involvement 'in crimes designed to enrich its members,' including extortion, loan sharking and fraud.

The '' New York Daily News'' reported that Barbato and the others were "allegedly members of the Westside Crew, a ruling panel that runs the crime family in the absence of imprisoned Genovese boss Vincent (Chin) Gigante."

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...

Acting Assistant Director John Klochan said at the time: "Our hope is that the indictment will serve as their retirement papers." On October 18, 2005, Barbato entered a

guilty plea In legal terms, a plea is simply an answer to a claim made by someone in a criminal case under common law using the adversarial system. Colloquially, a plea has come to mean the assertion by a defendant at arraignment, or otherwise in respons ...

, admitting to his participation in an organized crime family and two acts of extortion conspiracy. Although he admitted to membership in a crime family, he did not name the Genovese family or acknowledge being a capo. Observers of organized crime noted that there was little precedent for this type of admission, as it was contrary to the "rules" that

Mafia "Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...

members had formerly lived by. He was sentenced to two to six years in prison.

Release from prison

John Barbato was released from prison at age 74 on July 3, 2008.

References

External links

Lawrence Dentico Indicted - US Attorney's Office: Fourteen Arrested with Unsealing of RICO Indictment Against Genovese Crime Family Members, Associates
getnj.com
Federal Bureau of Prisons Inmate Locator Website
, bop.gov {{DEFAULTSORT:Barbato, John 1934 births Living people American gangsters of Italian descent Genovese crime family People convicted of racketeering Mafia extortionists People from Jersey City, New Jersey Criminals from New Jersey Gangsters from New York City

Career and NJ exclusion

Indictments and guilty plea

Release from prison

Further reading

References

External links