Carmine John Persico Jr. (Italian: [ˈkarmine ˈpɛrsiko]; August 8, 1933 – March 7, 2019), also known as "Junior", "The Snake" and "Immortal", was an American mobster and the longtime boss of the Colombo crime family in New York City from 1973 until his death in 2019.

[5] No one was ever charged in the Anastasia killing, and there is an alternative theory that gunmen from the Patriarca crime family of New England performed the hit.

Gallo survived a strangulation attempt in the Sahara club of East Flatbush by Persico and Salvatore "Sally" D'Ambrosio after a police officer intervened.

[11] In early 1963, Persico survived a car bombing and his enforcer Hugh McIntosh was shot in the groin as he attempted to kill Larry Gallo.

[20] Both law enforcement and the Mafia assumed Gallo had organized the hit; he had built ties with black gangsters while in prison and, upon his release, threatened to start another gang war unless he received $100,000 compensation.

[21] On November 11, 1971, Persico went on trial in state court on 37 counts of extortion, usury, coercion, and conspiracy, all stemming from a loan-sharking operation out of a Manhattan fur shop.

On April 7, 1972, Joey Gallo was shot and killed by Persico gunmen as he was celebrating his birthday at Umberto's Clam House in Manhattan's Little Italy.

[24] Looking for revenge, Albert Gallo sent a gunman from Las Vegas to the Neapolitan Noodle restaurant in Manhattan, where Yacovelli, Alphonse Persico, and Gennaro Langella were dining one day.

[25] After this assassination attempt, Yacovelli fled New York, leaving Persico as the new boss,[26][27] with Perisco himself coordinating the suppression of the Gallos.

Persico designated Alphonse as acting boss with support as underboss from Gennaro Langella and Carmine's other brother, Theodore.

On August 11, 1981, Persico pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge of attempting to bribe an IRS agent from 1977–78 while in federal custody.

On October 26, the FBI began a national manhunt for Persico,[36] and soon named him as the 390th fugitive to be added to their Ten Most Wanted list.

[37] Persico hid in the home of his brother in law and minor mob associate Fred DeChristopher, in Hempstead, New York.

The FBI concocted the fake "manhunt" to shield DeChristopher, who would later provide damning testimony against Persico as a key witness for the prosecution.

[38] Persico, the only head of a mafia family to ever make the Ten Most Wanted list, later autographed one of the posters for an FBI agent.

[39] According to Colombo hitman and FBI informant Gregory Scarpa, Persico and Gambino boss John Gotti backed a plan to kill the lead prosecutor, and future New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani in late 1986, but it was rejected by the rest of the commission.

His co-defendants vehemently disagreed with this decision, and the judge warned Persico that he would be waiving "incompetent counsel" as the grounds for an appeal.

In his book Five Families, Raab noted that Persico was only 53 years old at the time of the commission trial, making him by far the youngest boss in New York.

[51] In June 1987, Persico ordered acting boss Joel Cacace to kill lawyer William Aronwald, a retired prosecutor who had allegedly been disrespectful to the Mafia.

In 1988, he dissolved the panel and named Victor "Little Vic" Orena, a loyal capo from Brooklyn, as temporary acting boss.

[55] Knowing that Little Allie Boy would be 40 years old by the time he was paroled, Persico wanted to ensure that his son would be able to inherit the family's riches as soon as he was released.

[56] By 1991, Orena had become disgruntled with the current leadership scheme and was tired of the constant stream of orders that he received from Persico in prison.

[57] On June 20, Sessa took a five-man hit team and parked on the street close to Orena's residence on Long Island, waiting for his return home.

On November 18, 1991, the Third Colombo War started when Orena lieutenant William Cutolo sent a hit team to try to kill Scarpa, a Persico loyalist, in Brooklyn.

[61] In December 1992, Orena was convicted of racketeering and murder and was sentenced to life in prison, dissolving his belligerent faction and leaving the Persicos in control again.

The recently released Alphonse was facing new federal charges that threatened to send him back to prison, and the Persicos were worried about Cutolo seizing control of the family.

[64] On December 20, 2001, Alphonse Persico pleaded guilty to the loan-sharking charges, accepted a 13-year prison sentence and agreed to forfeit $1 million.

In March 2010, the Reuters News Agency reported that Carmine Persico had been socializing in prison with convicted swindler Bernard Madoff.

[71] The New York Post further reported that Persico loved to play pinochle and bocce with other mobsters and regale them with stories from his past.

By Raab's estimate, Persico's "deceitful schemes" led directly to 70 of his fellow mobsters and associates being sent to prison, as well as 12 deaths.