Russell Bufalino

Russell Alfred Bufalino (; born Rosario Alfredo Bufalino, ; October 29, 1903 – February 25, 1994) was an Italian-American mobster who became the crime boss of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Italian-American Mafia crime family known as the Bufalino crime family, which he ruled from 1959 to 1994. He was a cousin of attorney Bill Bufalino, the longtime counsel for Jimmy Hoffa.

Early years Bufalino was born on October 29, 1903, in Montedoro, Sicily, to Angelo Bufalino and Cristina Buccoleri. settling in Pittston, Pennsylvania, working as a coal miner. With his mother and siblings, Bufalino entered the United States through the Port of New York in December 1903. After his mother died in 1910, he returned to Sicily again. At the age of 14, Bufalino moved to Buffalo, New York, where he became a criminal during his teenage years. On August 9, 1928, he married Carolyn "Carrie" Sciandra, who came from a Sicilian Mafia family. Bufalino worked alongside many Buffalo mobsters, some of whom became top leaders in the Buffalo crime family and other future Cosa Nostra families along the East Coast of the United States. These relationships proved very helpful to Bufalino in his criminal career. Family and clan ties were important to Sicilian-American criminals; they created a strong, secretive support system that outsiders or law enforcement could not infiltrate. A significant friendship was with his first boss, and fellow immigrant from Montedoro, John C. Montana.

In the early 1920s, Bufalino started working with Joseph Barbara, another upstate New York bootlegger in Endicott, New York. Bufalino later moved to Kingston, Pennsylvania in 1940.

On November 14, 1957, powerful Mafiosi from the United States and Italy convened at Barbara's estate in Apalachin, New York. Cuba was one of the Apalachin topics of discussion, particularly the gambling and narcotics smuggling interests of La Cosa Nostra on the island. The international narcotics trade was also an important topic on the agenda. The New York garment industry interests and rackets, such as loansharking to the business owners and control of garment centre trucking, were other important topics on the Apalachin agenda.

A local state trooper named Edgar D. Croswell had been aware that Carmine Galante had been stopped by state troopers following a visit to Barbara's estate the previous year. A check of Galante by the troopers found that he was driving without a license and that he had an extensive criminal record in New York City. In the time preceding the November 1957 meeting, trooper Croswell had Barbara's house under occasional surveillance. That made Croswell suspicious, and he therefore, decided to keep an eye on Barbara's house. When the state police found many luxury cars parked at Barbara's home they took down license plate numbers. Having found that many of these cars were registered to known criminals, state police reinforcements came to the scene and set up a roadblock. Many Mafiosi escaped through the woods surrounding the Barbara estate.

The police stopped a car driven by Bufalino, whose passengers included Genovese, Joseph Civello, Simone Scozzari, and Frank DeSimone, at a roadblock as they left the estate; Bufalino said that he had come to visit his sick friend Barbara. All those apprehended were fined, up to $10,000 each, and given prison sentences ranging from three to five years, however, all the convictions were overturned on appeal in 1960.

In the 1950s Bufalino was under frequent surveillance by the FBI. He and his associates were tailed when they travelled to Cuba in 1956, here they met Santo Trafficante Jr., staying there for a month. Bufalino had interests in a racetrack and in a casino near Havana, later confiscated by Fidel Castro after the Cuban Revolution. He and his associates were forced to hide away $450,000.

In 1972, after singer Al Martino had the role of Johnny Fontane in The Godfather stripped from him and given to Vic Damone, he went to Bufalino, his godfather, who then orchestrated the publication of various news articles that claimed director Francis Ford Coppola was unaware of producer Albert S. Ruddy's having given Martino the part. Damone eventually dropped the role because he did not want to provoke the mob, in addition to being paid too little.

In 1977, Bufalino was indicted on extortion charges after Jack Napoli, who was in the Witness Protection Program, testified that Bufalino had threatened to kill him for failing to pay a $25,000 debt to a jeweller in New York. On August 8, 1978, Bufalino was convicted and sentenced to four years imprisonment for his part in the extortion attempt.

Bufalino was released in May 1981 but was indicted again, this time for conspiring to kill the witness, Napoli. The main prosecution witness, Jimmy Fratianno, said that he and Michael Rizzitello had been asked by Bufalino to kill Napoli in 1976.

In popular culture Bufalino is portrayed by Joe Pesci in Martin Scorsese's 2019 film The Irishman. Pesci was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.

The Quiet Don: The True Story of Mafia Kingpin Russell Bufalino by Matt Birkbeck was published in October 2014 by Berkley Books.