| rdfs:comment | - Born Giuseppe Maria Barbara in 1905 in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Barbara immigrated to the United States in 1921, along with an older brother called Carlo, settling in with relatives in Endicott, a small town to the east of Binghamton, and getting a job in one of the numerous shoe factories scattered across the region. Barbara began his criminal career by setting up a house of prostitution and was soon working as a hitman for the Buffalo crime family in Buffalo, New York. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1927. He was a suspect in the 1931 murder of Calomare Calogaro, who was shot dead in Wyoming, Pennsylvania. A few months later, police found a Thompson sub machine gun in Joe's car, which had apparently been used in a recent gangland shooting in New York City. In 1933, he
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| abstract | - Born Giuseppe Maria Barbara in 1905 in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Barbara immigrated to the United States in 1921, along with an older brother called Carlo, settling in with relatives in Endicott, a small town to the east of Binghamton, and getting a job in one of the numerous shoe factories scattered across the region. Barbara began his criminal career by setting up a house of prostitution and was soon working as a hitman for the Buffalo crime family in Buffalo, New York. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1927. He was a suspect in the 1931 murder of Calomare Calogaro, who was shot dead in Wyoming, Pennsylvania. A few months later, police found a Thompson sub machine gun in Joe's car, which had apparently been used in a recent gangland shooting in New York City. In 1933, he was again arrested and investigated in a double underworld killing. One of the victims, before he died, actually named Barbara as the man who had shot him. In 1933, he was yet again a suspect, this time in the brutal, torture murder of Sam Wichner, a Scranton bootlegger. Barbara was a suspect in the murders of Edward Weiss and Joseph Morreale and also in the killing of Scranton crime boss John Sciandra, whom he succeeded as boss. After his conviction for illegally purchasing 300,000 pounds of sugar (intended for the manufacture of bootleg alcohol), Barbara entered the soft drink distribution business. In the post-Prohibition years, he gained control of the beer/soft drink distribution in the Binghamton, New York region. He bought a 58 acre (24 hectare) estate in the rural town of Apalachin, New York. He was the father of Joseph Barbara, Jr.
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