After the U.S. Congress, in a rare show of sanity, repealed the failed Volstead Act, rum runners everywhere needed to find new jobs. Already, from the 1920s, they had resorted to the more regular and disciplined work of gaming and lending—or “policy” operations. They also sold drugs, robbed, and extorted and subverted labor unions. They ultimately assumed a “superficial air of legitimacy by entering the licensed bar and restaurant business,” as the FBI noted.
From 1930 through 1950, the national LCN rose to ever-greater prominence and political power, as did Joseph “J.L.” Lombardo, who maintained his poise as a nobleman. He lived modestly, and dressed soberly: his one concession to flashiness was a left pinky ring with a pearl gray star sapphire. Branching out into respectability, he bankrolled the opening of the “sumptuous” Pine Tree farms stables in the rural town of Framingham, 30 miles west of the North End.
There, with his two brothers, he bred racing horses. Conveniently, the farm also doubled as a safe meeting house for friends and associates from as far as Chicago and New Orleans. Under the eyes of dour bodyguards, mobsters gathered every month to “more or less cut up the pie,” as mob associate Vinnie Teresa pointed out.
(Note: Vinnie deserves his own book. For our purposes now, we’ll just note he was the nephew of Dominic “Sandy” Teresa, who remained J.L.’s bodyguard and driver — at least until Sandy tired of being insulted as a blockhead for holding so low a position in the outfit. Eventually, Sandy’s tendency to pull knives on his tormentors resulted in his dismissal.)
J.L. and his brothers continued their gaming enterprises through World War II. Given his profession as horse breeder, Lombardo spent every day at the grand old Suffolk Downs racetrack in East Boston. He made more money than he could spend by fixing the horse races there, Vinnie claimed. Lombardo’s organization also handled betting layoffs for New England and other parts of the country. With his brothers, Lombardo even bought into a fishing fleet, thinking it a sound investment during the war years.
At World War II’s close, he sold the ships off — J.L., like many Italians of his time, was a cautious man, and not given to tempting fate.
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