American gangster and national president, during its heyday (1918–28), of the Unione Siciliane, a Sicilian fraternal organization that by World War I had become a crime cartel operating in several U.S. cities and active in robbery, prostitution, labour-union extortion, and other rackets.

Yale graduated from youth gangs to bootlegging and rum-running during Prohibition and took on murder contracts as a sideline; he was reputedly the imported gunman who held Dion O'Bannion's hand while cohorts shot the Chicago mobster. Yale himself was finally killed driving his car on a Brooklyn street as another car drew alongside, machine guns firing. Al Capone allegedly ordered the execution, suspecting Yale of a liquor hijacking. Yale's funeral was grandly enacted, with a $12,000 casket and 28 trucks of flowers.