Maverick godfather, a former killer who dared to do things differently. But by taking on Mafia rules and fighting the FBI at the same time it was a battle he could never win. It is picking in the FBI building at police headquarters it was kind of stupid. You know you're not exactly dealing with the faculty at Harvard. Perhaps his biggest mistake was to find the world of civil activism more intoxicating than running a crime family. For a while he got away with it. He was using civil rights as a shield. In my opinion he was the fool. Fame would offer Joe Colombo no protection from a failure to obey the most fundamental Mafia principles. If he had followed the rules of the mob, particularly the mob bosses and stay out of the limelight. If he just operated business and bring money, he would never had a problem.