As a boy on Manhattan's Lower East Side, John Dioguardi used to extort his spending money by tipping over pushcarts until harried street peddlers paid him to lay off. Payoffs got bigger later on, but essentially Johnny Dio remained a pushcart upsetter. Many a New York City 'trucking firm decided that it would be cheaper to slip a Dio mobster a few grand than to get stink bombs hurled into trucks or emery powder sneaked into motor oil. In recent years, armed with "paper local" labor-union charters obtained with the friendly conspiracy of Teamster Big Wheel Jimmy Hoffa, Dio collected wads...
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