About: Parnell Edwards

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An Entity of Type : owl:Thing, within Data Space : 134.155.108.49:8890 associated with source dataset(s)

Edwards was born in the South Bronx, to parents from North Carolina and Northern Virginia. He was said to have been chubby at 5'8", 285 pounds, but became muscular from his visits to prison. He was a bodyguard to Muhammad Ali. He met mobster Tommy DeSimone as a struggling blues-rock musician, singer and songwriter on Queens Boulevard sometime during 1967, earning money as a street performer. At the time DeSimone was selling stolen Rolex watches. DeSimone began to think of Edwards as a "brother" and the two became close friends. Around this time, DeSimone adopted the same integrationist stance later adopted by Colombo crime family mobster Joe Gallo and Gallo associates, believing that Italian organized crime should work with black organized crime to increase power and profits.

Attributes	Values
rdfs:label	Parnell Edwards
rdfs:comment	Edwards was born in the South Bronx, to parents from North Carolina and Northern Virginia. He was said to have been chubby at 5'8", 285 pounds, but became muscular from his visits to prison. He was a bodyguard to Muhammad Ali. He met mobster Tommy DeSimone as a struggling blues-rock musician, singer and songwriter on Queens Boulevard sometime during 1967, earning money as a street performer. At the time DeSimone was selling stolen Rolex watches. DeSimone began to think of Edwards as a "brother" and the two became close friends. Around this time, DeSimone adopted the same integrationist stance later adopted by Colombo crime family mobster Joe Gallo and Gallo associates, believing that Italian organized crime should work with black organized crime to increase power and profits.
dcterms:subject	Lucchese Crime Family Black Mobsters Associates Murdered Mobsters Lufthansa Heist
abstract	Edwards was born in the South Bronx, to parents from North Carolina and Northern Virginia. He was said to have been chubby at 5'8", 285 pounds, but became muscular from his visits to prison. He was a bodyguard to Muhammad Ali. He met mobster Tommy DeSimone as a struggling blues-rock musician, singer and songwriter on Queens Boulevard sometime during 1967, earning money as a street performer. At the time DeSimone was selling stolen Rolex watches. DeSimone began to think of Edwards as a "brother" and the two became close friends. Around this time, DeSimone adopted the same integrationist stance later adopted by Colombo crime family mobster Joe Gallo and Gallo associates, believing that Italian organized crime should work with black organized crime to increase power and profits. Edwards and DeSimone became involved in credit card fraud and carjacking with Henry Hill. Edwards later moved to East Harlem after becoming an associate of the Vario Crew. Edwards was a heavy drug user, smoking marijuana before moving on to heroin and cocaine. As a child growing up he was a fan of jazz, jump blues and gospel. Growing up, his interest in music increased and he learned to play the acoustic guitar. As Edwards got older his tastes turned to Fats Domino, Clarence "Frogman" Henry, Frankie Ford, Irma Thomas, The Neville Brothers and Dr. John. When rhythm and blues became outdated he listened to Ray Charles, Sam Cooke and James Brown and started performing blues-rock. Edwards worked the nightclub circuit and was hired on occasion by Burke for performances at Robert's Lounge from 1967 to 1978, and by Hill at his night club The Suite as a regular performer from 1967 to 1972. Edwards formed a band called Grand Central Station in the early 1970s. He relied increasingly on organized crime rackets as a means of making money following his introduction to the Vario Crew by DeSimone.

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