Johnny Dio
Giovanni Ignazio "John" Dioguardi, known as Johnny Dio, was an American organized crime figure and a labor racketeer. He is known for being involved in the acid attack which led to the blinding of newspaper columnist Victor Riesel, and for his role in creating fake labor union locals to help Jimmy Hoffa become General President of the Teamsters.
Childhood and early criminal career
John Dioguardi was born on April 29, 1914, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, and brought up on Forsyth Street in Little Italy, to Giovanni B. Dioguardi and Rose Plumeri, both immigrants from Baucina, in the Province of Palermo, Sicily. He was the eldest of three brothers, including Thomas and Frank J. Dioguardi. His father was murdered in August 1930 in what police called a mob-related execution. Dioguardi's uncle, James "Jimmy Doyle" Plumeri, was a member of the gang run by Albert Marinelli and his patron, Charles "Lucky" Luciano, head of the rapidly forming Genovese crime family. Dioguardi was introduced to organized crime at the age of 15 by his uncle. At the time, labor racketeering in the garment district was controlled by Luciano and Tommaso "Tommy" Gagliano, head of the Lucchese crime family. Plumeri, John Dioguardi, and brother Tommy were working for both gangs. He also associated with hitmen and labor racketeers Louis "Lepke" Buchalter and Jacob "Gurrah" Shapiro.With Plumeri and another gangster, Dominick Didato, Dioguardi established and ran a protection racket in New York City's garment district. He was arrested several times between 1926 and 1937, but never brought to trial. For a time in 1934, Dioguardi was executive secretary of the Allied Truckmen's Mutual Association, an employer association, and represented the employers during a strike by 1,150 Teamsters in September 1934. In March 1937, Dioguardi was arrested on charges of extortion, conspiracy, and racketeering, He pleaded guilty and received a three-year prison term in Sing Sing.
After his release from prison, Dioguardi moved to Allentown, Pennsylvania, where he established a dress manufacturing plant. He later sold the plant, and set up a dress wholesaler operation in New York City. Dioguardi also dabbled in stock investing, real estate, and trucking.
Dioguardi later returned to New York to live again on Forsyth Street. He married Anne, and had two sons, Philip and Dominick, and a daughter, Rosemary, who died in infancy. Philip and Dominick later became soldiers in the Colombo and Lucchese crime families, respectively.
Labor racketeering in the 1950s
In 1950, Dioguardi returned to labor racketeering. He was appointed Regional Director of the United Auto Workers-AFL, and received 12 charters for paper locals in the garment industry. Criminals formed the membership of the paper locals, and Dioguardi demanded money from employers who wished to remain union-free and extorted cash from unionized employers who wished to avoid strikes and other labor troubles. Dioguardi was arrested for extortion in July 1952. Meanwhile, New York state officials charged Dioguardi with tax evasion. Although Dioguardi was never convicted for this labor racketeering incident, he was removed from his post in February 1953 by the UAW-AFL and ejected from the union in April 1954.In the midst of the 1952-54 labor racketeering scandal, Dioguardi was charged with tax evasion. New York state tax officials charged that Dioguardi had taken a bribe when selling his Pennsylvania dress factory, and failed to report the bribe as income. Dioguardi denied the charge, but he was found guilty in March 1954 and sentenced to 60 days in prison. This conviction, rather than the allegations of labor racketeering, was the basis used to remove him from his UAW-AFL position.
Teamsters paper locals scandal
Dioguardi's association with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters was a long one. He became acquainted with New York City Teamsters leaders Martin T. Lacey and John J. O'Rourke in 1934, when Dioguardi represented the employers in a trucking strike. Dioguardi was involved again with the Teamsters by 1954, when police suspected him of involvement in a protection racket run by several Teamsters locals aimed at trucking employers. His ties soon deepened. He met in a New York City hotel room with Midwestern Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa and plotted to help Hoffa oust Teamsters General President Dave Beck. Between November 29 and December 15, 1955, Dioguardi obtained charters from the Teamsters for seven paper locals. O'Rourke, a Hoffa ally, was planning to challenge Lacey for the presidency of the 125,000-member New York City Teamsters Joint Council. Winning control of the delegate-rich Joint Council would significantly boost Hoffa's chances of ousting Beck, and might lead other large, important joint councils and locals to join a Hoffa bandwagon. O'Rourke fought to have the "Dio locals" admitted to the Joint Council, and a major political battle broke out in the international union over admitting the new unions. After a deadlocked election, the seating of the "Dio locals", the unseating of the "Dio locals", a grand jury investigation, several rulings by President Beck, and a successful lawsuit by Lacey, Lacey withdrew from his re-election bid and O'Rourke was elected president of the Joint Council. Although more paper locals established by Dioguardi petitioned for membership in the Joint Council, the Teamsters dismantled nearly all the "Dio locals" by mid-1959.McClellan Committee revelations
Beginning in 1955, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate Committee on Government Operations began holding hearings into labor racketeering. Senator John L. McClellan, chair of the committee and chair of the subcommittee, hired Robert F. Kennedy as the subcommittee's chief counsel and investigator. Dioguardi became an object of the subcommittee's inquiries in March 1956. Initially, the subcommittee limited its investigation to the "Dio locals" scandal.On January 30, 1957, the United States Senate created the Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management. The select committee was directed to study the extent of criminal or other improper practices in the field of labor-management relations or in groups of employees or employers. Membership was derived from the two standing committees, the Committee on Government Operations and the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare. The Select Committee continued to focus on Dioguardi's activities. In February 1957, the Select Committee released Federal Bureau of Investigation wiretaps which showed Hoffa and Dioguardi allegedly discussing the establishment of a paper local to organize New York City's 30,000 taxi cab drivers and then use the charter as a means of extorting money from a wide variety of employers. Testifying before the Select Committee, Hoffa claimed that the tapes only showed that he wanted the best organizer in the city to work on the taxi organizing campaign, and that he could not have engaged in conspiracy because Dioguardi was not a member of the Teamsters union. The Select Committee accused Hoffa of being behind the "Dio locals", and of arranging for a $400,000 loan to the graft-ridden International Longshoremen's Association in a bid to take over that union and gain Teamsters control of the waterfront as well as warehouses. Dioguardi, who by this time was in prison serving time on bribery and conspiracy charges, was paroled by a federal court in order to testify at the Select Committee's hearings. The Select Committee developed evidence that the UAW-AFL had paid Dioguardi $16,000 to leave the union but he wouldn't, and that even after his ouster Dioguardi had maintained effective control over his UAW-AFL paper locals for nearly a year. Michigan Governor G. Mennen Williams testified that, when he was director of the Mennen toiletries company, Dioguardi asked him for a $15,000 bribe in order to call off a 1951 strike. In a two-hour appearance before the Select Committee, Dioguardi invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 140 times, and refused to answer any of the committee's questions. The Select Committee's evidence was further undermined when one of its star witnesses against Dioguardi was found to be mentally incompetent.
A notorious and iconic photograph of Dioguardi was taken at the time of his testimony. As Dioguardi was leaving the committee hearing room, a crowd of press photographers gathered around him. Dioguardi attempted to flee so that his photograph would not be taken. United Press photographer Stanley Tetrick raced ahead of Dioguardi to take a photograph. International News Photos photographer Jim Mahan snapped a photograph of a snarling Dioguardi, cigarette dangling from his mouth, pushing Tetrick out of the way with one hand and his other clenched in a tight fist. Dioguardi also screamed, "You sons of bitches, I got a family!" The photograph was widely published in American newspapers, and became an iconic image of Dioguardi, mafioso in general, and the way in which chic dress and charm conceal brutality and thuggery. The image is also a widely known symbol of Teamsters union corruption.
Role in Victor Riesel acid attack
In the midst of the Teamsters paper locals scandal, Dioguardi was indicted for planning the acid attack on crusading newspaper columnist Victor Riesel. At 3 a.m. on April 5, 1956, an unknown assailant threw a vial of acid into Riesel's face as he left a late-night interview at Lindy's, an attack that left the journalist permanently blind. The FBI identified Abraham Telvi as the assailant in August 1956, but Telvi had been murdered on July 28, 1956, by mobsters for demanding an additional $50,000 on top of the $500 he had already received for the crime. On August 29, 1956, Dioguardi was arrested for conspiracy in the Riesel attack, pleaded not guilty, and was released on $100,000 bond even though prosecutors later publicly linked him to the Telvi murder.Dioguardi was tried separately for the attack on Riesel. Joseph Carlino, the Dioguardi associate who had hired Telvi to attack Riesel, pleaded guilty on October 22, and prosecutors severed Dioguardi's trial from the others. Carlino later testified that Dioguardi had ordered Gandolfo Maranti to find a hitman and identify Riesel, and that Maranti had contacted Dominick Bando to assist him in finding the hitman. Maranti and Bando were found guilty.
Conspiracy charges against Dioguardi were later dropped despite the convictions. Dioguardi's attorney delayed the trial for nearly five months with motions. When the trial finally began, Carlino and Miranti recanted their pre-trial statements and courtroom testimony, claiming they did not know who had ordered the attack on Riesel. By September 1957, the government no longer sought to prosecute Dioguardi for the attack.