Natale Evola
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Natale "Joe Diamond" Evola (pronounced "ay-voh-LAH") (February 22, 1907 – August 28, 1973) was a New York mobster who briefly became boss of the Bonanno crime family.
Natale Evola was born in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn to parents Filippo and Francesca Evola, natives of Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily. Natale Bvola had two brothers (Paul and Joseph Evola) and three sisters (Anna Evola, Josephine DiBarloto, and Mamie Grazzo). Natale Evola never married and lived with his mother in Bay Ridge.[1]
Evola's arrest record would eventually include coercion, possession of gun, and federal narcotic law violations. Evola was heavily involved in narcotics trafficking and in labor racketeering in the Garment District of Manhattan.
Evola was a close associated of Joseph Bonanno, the original boss of the Bonanno crime family. In 1931, Evola served as an usher at Bonanno's wedding.[1]
In 1957, Evola was identified at the infamous Apalachin Meeting in Apalachin, New York and later charged, along with twenty other organized figures, for conspiracy; however, the case was later overturned. In 1959, Evola and Vito Genovese of the Genovese crime family were charged with conspiracy to distribute narcotics. Following family boss Joe Bonanno's retirement in 1968, Evola reportedly became the boss of the family. Heavily involved in the trucking industry in the Garment District, Evola cooperated with crime family leaders Genovese and Carlo Gambino of the Gambino crime family.
On August 28, 1973, Natale Evola died of cancer at Columbus Hospital in the Bronx.[1] He is buried in Calvary Cemetery in the Woodside, Queens section of New York.
References
- ^ a b c Gage, Nicholas (August 31, 1973). "Natale Evola, Mafia Figure, Is Dead at 66". New York Times. Retrieved 17 March 2012.
External links
- The American "Mafia" - Natale Evola
- Natale "Diamond Joe" Evola at Find-A-Grave
- Attendee Profiles At The 1957 Apalachin Mob Confab By Mike La Sorte
