Frankie Yale
Italian American mob boss (1893–1928)
Francesco Ioele (Italian: [franˈtʃesko joˈɛːle]; January 22, 1893 – July 1, 1928), known as Frankie Yale or Frankie Uale, was an American gangster based in Brooklyn and the second employer of Al Capone.
Early life
Yale was born in Longobucco, Italy, on January 22, 1893, to Domenico and Isabella (née DeSimone) Ioele. He had an older brother, John, and two younger siblings, Assunta and Angelo. He and his family arrived in the United States c. 1900. As a teenager, Ioele was befriended by John Torrio, who ushered him into the Five Points Gang and groomed him for a life of crime. Shortly after Torrio left for Chicago, in 1909, Ioele "Americanized" his last name to Yale. Despite his medium height and chubby build, Yale was a fearsome fistfighter and thief. In 1910, at age 17, Yale and a friend, a wrestler named Bobby Nelson, severely beat several men during a fight in the Coney Island pool hall, which involved cracking pool cues and hurling billiard balls. One of his early arrests, in October 1912, was on suspicion of homicide.
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This entry incorporates text from “Frankie Yale” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.