DiGregorio was born in
Trapani, Sicily, and immigrated to the United States from Canada in 1921. He was first married to the sister of
Buffalo crime family boss
Stefano Magaddino, and later remarried after her death.
The Banana War In October 1964, during
Joseph Bonanno's two-year absence, Bonanno soldier DiGregorio took advantage of family discontent over Joseph's son
Bill Bonanno's role to claim family leadership. The
Mafia Commission named DiGregorio as Bonanno family boss, and the DiGregorio revolt led to four years of strife in the Bonanno family, labeled by the media as the "Banana War". This led to a divide in the family between loyalists to Bill and loyalists to DiGregorio. In 1968, DiGregorio was wounded by machine gun fire and later suffered a heart attack. The Commission eventually became dissatisfied with DiGregorio's efforts at quelling the family rebellion, and eventually dropped DiGregorio and swung their support to
Paul Sciacca. In 1968, after a heart attack, Joseph ended the family warfare by agreeing to retire as boss and move to Arizona. As part of this peace agreement, Bill also stepped down as consigliere and moved out of New York with his father. == Death ==