Joseph Corrao

Joseph "Joe Butch" Corrao (1936-2001) was a New York City mobster, and member in the Gambino crime family. Joe Butch grew up in the life, with his father and uncle both being made members of the Gambinos, and all operating in Manhattan's Little Italy. His father, Vincent "Vinny the Shrimp" Corrao was a first generation immigrant from Trapani, Sicily. He was a capo, and in the 1970s Joe Butch came to inherit his father's crew, and become a close confidant of family boss Paul Castellano. In the 1980s, Joe Butch's own son, Vincent Corrao( "Vinny Butch"), named after his grandfather, became associated with the Gambinos and placed in the crew of John Gotti, Jr. ("Junior") and acting capo Bartholomew Boriello ("Bobby"); Vinny Butch would also later become a made-man in the family, and acting capo for his imprisoned father during the 1990s. He is a maternal cousin of Gambino crime family associate Augustus Sclafani and in-law to Mildred Russo, who was the mother-in-law of Augustus. It is unknown if he is a relative of Reverend Dominick A. Sclafani who administered Carlo Gambino's last rites. Mildred was a deputy clerk in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Little Italy Crew

Joe Butch's crew was involved in loan sharking, extortion, gambling, and other traditional rackets. Joe Butch owned several Manhattan eatiers, including Taormina and Cafe Biondo, both on Mulberry Street. John Gotti often frequented Taormina.

Joe Butch also had an interest in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn Bayside Fuel, which supplied heating oil to large housing complexes and homes in New York City. Bayside's owner Anthony Allegretti employed Corrao officially as a "salesman", however, when Mayor David Dinkins and his staff learned of Allegretti's connections to Corrao, he ordered the Housing Authority to strip the company of its contracts to heat the City's apartment buildings in 1993, costing the firm millions of dollars. Historically, the home heating oil business was traditionally corrupt, filled with truckers and fuel executives who skim by pumping air instead of fuel and split their profits with mobsters like Corrao.

Big Paul's assassination, indictment, acquittal, re-indictment, prison

On December 16, 1985, family boss, Paul Castellano was murdered on orders from capo John Gotti who succeeded him as boss. Corrao had not been involved in planning the murder, and was not originally happy with Gotti'a blatant violation of La Cosa Nostra's rules. Corrao was a key figure in the family because he, through associate Augustus Sclafani, had an FBI clerk on his payroll who kept the Gambinos aware of potential indictments. Eventually, on June 20, 1986, Corrao was indicted on federal racketeering charges along with family powers James "Jimmy Brown" Failla, former consigliere Joseph N. Gallo, capos Joseph Armone ("Piney"), Robert DiBernardo, and Joseph Zingaro, soldiers Thomas Agro, John "Handsome Jack" Giordano, Angelo Ruggiero, Anthony Vitta, and close associates George Daly, Louis Giardina, Julie Miron and Salvatore Migliorisi. Out of fear that Sclafani would talk, Joe Butch Corrao ordered his murder. Sclafani was murdered in Joe Butch's social club by family associate Joseph Watts, who shot him five times in the head, and left blood in a truck he borrowed from Dominic Borghese. Gotti was also furious with Sclafani for spreading a rumor that Frank DeCicco had been an informer. Frankie DeCicco ordered that as soon as Paul Castellano was killed, Sclafani had to be one of the first to go.

In 1987, Corrao was acquitted of these charges (Robert DiBernardo was shot to death on orders from Gotti, thereby removing another potential turncoat). Corrao remained a close ally of John Gotti, until the early 1990s when Corrao, who had diabetes, accepted a plea deal against the rule of family boss John Gotti, who then degraded Joe Butch, whose son Vincent Corrao was then the crew's acting capo. After being released from prison in 1998, Corrao, then a sick man, did not have much of a role in the family, although he ridiculed family boss Peter Gotti, showing him no respect, eventually dying of kidney failure in 2001.