On this day in 1934, in New Jersey, a future capo for the Genovese Crime Family was born. John Barbato, or Johnny Sausage as he was unfortunately referred to, was a distant relative to Frank Sinatra’s first wife, Nancy, as well as being a distant cousin to Frank Costello.

He became an associate in the 1940’s, and then sometime in the late 1970’s he became a made man in the family. He was sentenced in 2005 after admitting to his participation in an organized crime family but he did not name the Genovese family or acknowledge being a capo.

He was released from prison 3 years later in 2008, at the age of 74.

On this day in 1934, in the state of New Jersey, the man who would go on to become one of the Genovese Crime Family's more colourful capos drew his first breath. John Barbato, known throughout the underworld by the rather unflattering nickname "Johnny Sausage," would carve out a long and largely successful career in organised crime, navigating decades of FBI pressure, internal family politics, and the ever-shifting landscape of the American Mafia.

Barbato's connections to the world of power and influence ran deeper than most. He was a distant relative of Nancy Barbato, the childhood sweetheart who became Frank Sinatra's first wife, and perhaps more significantly in mob circles, he was a distant cousin to Frank Costello — the legendary "Prime Minister of the Underworld" who had served as one of the most powerful bosses in American organised crime history. Whether these familial ties helped open doors for the young Barbato is difficult to say with certainty, but they placed him firmly within a network of individuals who understood how influence operated on both sides of the law.

Barbato became an associate of the Genovese family during the 1940s, a period when the broader structure of the Five Families — shaped significantly by Lucky Luciano's reorganisation of the American Mafia in the early 1930s — was still consolidating its grip on New York and New Jersey. It was a time when the lessons of the Prohibition era, the era of Al Capone's headline-grabbing reign in Chicago, had already taught organised crime the value of operating with greater discipline and discretion. Barbato clearly absorbed those lessons well, eventually earning his bones as a made man in the Genovese family sometime in the late 1970s, rising ultimately to the rank of capo.

His careful approach to secrecy was evident even in his legal downfall. In 2005, Barbato admitted in court to participating in an organised crime family, yet pointedly refused to name the Genovese organisation specifically or acknowledge his role as a capo — a final act of loyalty to the code of omertà that had governed his life for decades. He was released from prison in 2008 at the age of 74, having served three years.

Johnny Sausage may never have commanded the same headlines as the bosses he served under, but his decades of quiet loyalty to the Genovese family stand as a testament to how the American Mafia sustained itself through generations of federal prosecution and public scrutiny.