Honor Thy Father Part 20

"On your business card," Krieger continued, "did you represent yourself to be a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering?"

"Yes sir," Torrillo said, quietly.

"A Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering?"

"Yes."

"A Ph.D.?"

"Yes."

"What does the Ph.D. mean that you were representing yourself to be?"

"I don't understand your question," Torrillo said. "I told you it was a doctorate, doctorate t.i.tle."

"In what?"

"I don't see where it makes any..." Torrillo caught himself, and said, "I didn't have any specific goal in mind. I didn't give out any cards, by the way. I thought it was a bad ploy to use. I had them with me, but I never represented myself as anything."

"Did you have offices in 1966 and 1967 at 15 Park Row?"

Phillips stood to say, "In view of the witness's last answer, I again object to the admission into evidence of this."

"Overruled."

"Did you have offices in 1966 and 1967 in 15 Park Row?" Krieger repeated.

"I had an office in a suite of offices."

"Did you have an office at the San Jeronimo Hilton at San Juan, Puerto Rico?"

"Well, I had set up temporary--I had set up a temporary room in a hotel in San Juan."

"When?"

"In '66 and '67."

"Forhow long?"

"Oh, on and offfor a period of about four or five months."

"Do you recall when?"

"Do I recall--I beg your pardon?"

"Do you recall when you had this office in Puerto Rico?"

"In the early part of '66, the middle six months."

"The early part of '66?"

"Yes."

"And that was when you were in syndications and real estate and mortgages and so forth?"

"Trying to get into that. I was involved with it, but I wanted to go in on my own."

"And you felt representing yourself to be an electrical engineer and a doctor of something or other would help you?"

"Yes."

Soon Krieger decided that the time had come to see what he could learn about the circ.u.mstances surrounding Torrillo's arrest on March 14, 1968, right after Perrone's murder.

"Now Mr. Torrillo, the first law enforcement officials to whom you spoke about the matters concerning which you have given testimony on direct examination were the New York police, isn't that so?"

"Yes."

"And that was after March 14, 1968, was it not?"

"After March 14," Torrillo repeated, seeming somewhat confused.

"March 14, 1968," Krieger said.

"Well, I didn't hear the first part of your question, Mr. Krieger."

"That was after March 14, 1968?"

"What was after March 14?"

"That you spoke to law enforcement officials for the first time concerning the matters about which you have given testimony here on direct examination."

"Yes."

"And those law enforcement officials were New York City police?"

"Yes."

"And you were speaking to them in relation to a problem that you had?"

"Objection, Your Honor," said Phillips.

"Sustained," said the judge.

Krieger shook his head and, turning toward the judge, said, softly, "I make an offer here on motive, Your Honor, and bias."

"All right," said the judge.

But Phillips said, "Your Honor, I object to these remarks of Mr. Krieger's."

"Don't make statements in the presence of the jury," Judge Mansfield said. "If you wish to take it up you may take it up at the sidebar."

Krieger and Phillips, together with Notaro's lawyer, Leonard Sandier, gathered at the side of Judge Mansfield's bench.

"Yes," said the judge to Krieger, "what is your offer?"

"On March 14, 1968, Your Honor, this witness was arrested, I believe, at his home in the County of Queens by police officers from the New York City Police Department. That after his arrest he was interviewed at length by the CIB [Central Intelligence Bureau of the New York City Police Department], officers from the CIB; that those officers turned over the results of the interview to the postal inspectors or to various officials of the United States government; and that his position in regard to the credit card came about through those interviews. And I would like to show to this jury, that he [Torrillo] was motivated by his own sense of self-preservation for the criminal charges brought against him and so he testified as to these events."

"I don't quite see any motivation," Judge Mansfield said. "How can there be any connection between the two?"

Krieger, not wishing to be too accusatory at this point, said, "There doesn't have to be a connection."

"No, but what would motivate him to lie about this?" asked the judge. "How could it help him in connection with the charges that were against him then?"

"To get the charges dismissed," Krieger said, in a manner implying simple logic.

"The charges that were against him, Your Honor," interjected Phillips, "were trumped-up charges. About twenty police officers came to Mr. Torrillo's home the day after Mr. Perrone was killed and they arrested him on three phony charges, such as possession of heroin on the basis of some white powder that he had in his garage, and I am going to ask the court for a ruling directing Mr. Krieger not to ask any questions with respect to that particular arrest because the charges were dismissed. They were trumped-up charges, and the police came in because of all the confusion about Perrone."

"Came in as a result of what? what?" Krieger asked, suspiciously.

"Let me say this," Judge Mansfield cut in, "I think that you are going too far afield into collateral matters. You may bring out anything that has to do with a prior statement or a prior conviction, but I don't think that I'm going to get off on a wild-goose chase as to whether or not a charge that was ultimately dismissed against him was dismissed because he had furnished the police information that incriminated Bonanno and Notaro. It seems to me that this is too remote, too flimsy, inadequate, and, in the absence of a greater showing than what you made here, I sustain the objection."

"Your Honor," Krieger persisted, "I have an application to the court, and in the interest of that application let me rephrase or restate my offer because I think that Your Honor may make a ruling partially upon a misapprehension of the thrust of my argument. Number one, Your Honor, particularly in light of what Mr. Phillips has just said, at least twenty officers came to this man's apartment, and apparently he has no prior criminal record, I have no knowledge of any prior criminal record, and he is put into the most fantastically pressured situation in regard to trumped-up charges, as Mr. Phillips categorized this. These charges were dismissed, according to the transcript in Queens County, in October [seven months after Perrone's death], after he had testified before the grand jury. If, as a result of the pressure of these trumped-up charges, he testified in this fashion, I am, I respectfully submit, under Wigmore, under McCormak, under Gratheks, under Lester, ent.i.tled to bring out circ.u.mstances which might have motivated him to testify in a fashion favorable to one side or to the other. The test, Your Honor, which Your Honor has indicated in your previous ruling, is a much more stringent test than the one which the cases indicate."

"You have the right," the judge said, "to ask the witness the straight question whether or not, in making any statements with respect to any of the defendants or Perrone, he was motivated by any desire to escape any prosecution by any law enforcement authority. I will permit that, but what I will not permit is to go into the collateral issue of whether the dismissal of the other charges was due to the inadequacies of the government's evidence in those charges or because he furnished some useful information. If he went into that I would end up by trying the other cases, so I have ruled, and that's my ruling."

"But, Your Honor," Krieger continued, "I don't intend to go into that portion of it."

"The government will then want to go into it in order to show that those charges couldn't possibly have been sustained, and then we get into the trial of those charges, and whether the witness could have possibly been motivated by what are called specious charges. So, I have ruled."

Krieger turned and walked slowly back to the witness stand, and Bill Bonanno could tell from Krieger's expression that he was disappointed and dissatisfied. After five more minutes of cross-examination, Krieger told the judge that he had nothing further to ask Torrillo at this time, but he reserved the right to cross-examine him later in the trial on questions that might arise if Krieger could obtain the written notes or tape recordings that had been made by the police during their interviews with Torrillo after his arrest. While Phillips said he was uncertain that such material existed, the judge agreed that Krieger was within his rights to seek it if it did exist, and subpoenas were served on various individuals who had talked to Torrillo.

As the court recessed for lunch, Judge Mansfield directed that Torrillo return on the following day at 10:00 A.M. The remainder of the day's session would be devoted to other government witnesses, several of whom had been flown in from Arizona to testify against Bill Bonanno.

During the lunch recess Bill went to a telephone booth in the corridor and called his father in Arizona, saying that Krieger had done well but that it was impossible at this point to know how the jury was reacting. He spoke for only a few minutes, explaining that Krieger was waiting and that they were due back in court in one hour.

On the way out of the federal courthouse, several reporters greeted Bill by name and stopped to exchange a few words. Some of the reporters had come to court on that day to cover the bribery trial of the city's former water commissioner, James I.. Marcus, which was being heard on the ninth floor, two floors below fudge Mansfield's courtroom; and as they talked to Bill they wanted to know how his case was going, and they smiled and seemed conciliatory. The press is friendly in person, Bill thought, but they kill you in print.

The restaurant, a few blocks from the courthouse, was crowded, as were all the restaurants in the area at this hour, and Bill and Krieger had to wait standing for several moments. At various tables Bill recognized a few judges, defense attorneys, prosecutors, FBI agents, alleged mafiosi, convicts, court stenographers, bail bondsmen. They were all here having lunch in the same big room-the accused and the accusers. They were co-workers in the crime industry, they kept the wheels turning in the big gray court buildings in Foley Square where decisions were hammered out five days a week, supplying jobs for jail keepers and magistrates, barristers and bondsmen, providing news for the press and customers for restaurants-they all fed off one another.

After lunch, which was barely digestible, Bill returned to the courtroom; and soon there was the rap of the gavel, the arrival of the judge, and the first of a half dozen witnesses who would testify during the afternoon. The first witness, a co-owner of a c.o.c.ktail lounge in Tucson, testified that he had accompanied Peter Notaro to a Tucson travel agency where Notaro, at Bill Bonanno's request, ordered five Montreal-Tucson airplane tickets to be billed to Torrillo's card. The second witness was the travel agent who booked the reservations with American Airlines, and the third witness was the man behind the counter at the Tucson airport who identified Peter Notaro as the individual who signed for the tickets in Torrillo's name. The government's witnesses also included a secretary from the Southern Arizona Bank, who testified that Notaro had opened an account there under the name of Peter Joseph; and a Long Island mailman who said that he had delivered letters in the past to the Bonanno's East Meadow home that were addressed to Carl Simari and also to William Levine. Among the mail addressed to Levine, who had occupied and owned the East Meadow house before selling it to Bill Bonanno, was a Mobil Oil credit card that Bill had occasionally used at gas stations, paying the charges through 1967 until July 1968, by which time Bill had left New York and had moved West. Since July 1968, according to another government witness-a Mobil Oil credit representative who had been flown in from Missouri-the Levine account was currently $329.90 in arrears. But the next witness, William Levine himself, a genial middle-aged man, testified under cross-examination that he had no qualms about Bill's using the Mobil Oil card because Levine had never requested the card, did not know it had been sent to the East Meadow home, and felt no responsibility for its use-the card had apparently been mailed by Mobil, unsolicited, to many people in the hopes of luring them to Mobil gas stations. Levine also admitted that when he sold the East Meadow property to Bill that the mortgage payments continued to be made under the name of Levine, with Bill's money; and Levine had also allowed the lighting and heating to be paid by Bonanno under Levine's existing account. Bill's home telephone number during those years, which was unlisted, was under the name of William Levine.

The government's parade of witnesses continued to appear during the next day, and among them were three Tucson attorneys who had handled legal matters for Bill in the past but who now were in New York for the government to refute statements that Bill previously made to the grand jury-statements contending that, after he obtained Torrillo's card from Perrone, he consulted with the Tucson attorneys about the legality of using it since he was then having some second thoughts; and, according to Bill's grand jury testimony, the attorneys told him in substance that as long as Torrillo knew that Bill was using the card and had given his permission, there was nothing illegal about it.

One after another, the attorneys took the stand, were sworn in, and were questioned by a.s.sistant United States Attorney Phillips. The first attorney, Garven W. Videen, who had represented Bill on two tax cases in Arizona, told Phillips emphatically that Bill had not consulted with him about Torrillo's card. The second attorney, William E. Netherton, who was Bill Bonanno's representative in 1968 when Bill was charged and convicted with exceeding the speed limit by five miles, conceded that Bill may have asked him about Torrillo's card. "It strikes a chord," Netherton recalled, during cross-examination, "it strikes a chord." But Netherton, when further questioned by Judge Mansfield, said he could not "recall specifically" a conversation in which he had told Bill Bonanno that it was all right to use a card in another man's name.

The third attorney, Joseph Soble, who had represented Bill in various matters in Arizona beginning in 1961, admitted to having met with Bill and Hank Perrone in Tucson in February 1968-a month before Perrone's death-and having told Bill at that time to be careful about using Torrillo's card because "it could be a forgery problem," to which Bill had replied in essence, according to Soble, that there was nothing to worry about because Torrillo owed Bonanno approximately $3,000, and "that was the way it was going to be taken care of." Soble also testified that Bonanno later in 1968 charged about $500 in airplane tickets to the account of Soble's law firm, which Bonanno had attributed to an office mix-up, but which had nevertheless angered Soble, had caused "strong language" between the two men, and had ended their long social relationship. Soble added in court that while no one in his firm had paid for those tickets, and while he was not sure that the tickets had ever been totally paid for, he did admit to hearing about a partial payment.

As Bill Bonanno sat listening to his former attorneys testifying against him, his reactions varied between bitterness and frustration, dejection and a sense of betrayal. He was most frustrated because now in court he could not defend himself against their versions of the past, could not differ with them, remind them of things that they had not told the court. He was forced to sit silently, revealing no emotion, as the government sought to prove its perjury counts against him with the help of Tucson men who had once been his defenders and friends. Bill found it extremely difficult to appear unemotional at this point in the trial-he felt somehow that he had been deceived, used, sold out, and he suddenly had a vision of himself as the star of a sardonic and satirical showing of This Is Your Life This Is Your Life, a production in which his old friends and a.s.sociates were a.s.sembled to tell him in public what an abominable person he was.

Later in the afternoon, in response to a subpoena issued on behalf of Krieger requesting the right to read the tape recordings or written notes of the interviews that the police had with Torrillo following his arrest, three members of the New York City Police Department appeared in court with transcripts of two lengthy sessions with Torrillo-the first was conducted on June 25, 1968, the second on July 9, 1968. While the police department was initially reluctant to release the transcripts of the two taped interviews, Judge Mansfield determined that the defense attorneys had a right to read those portions relating to this case; and immediately after the material was made available, Krieger and Sandler quickly read it, reread it, and underlined those paragraphs that they would use in their continuing cross-examination of Don Torrillo.

What they hoped to prove to the jury was that Torrillo had somehow been intimidated by the police into changing his story about the card being lost to its being stolen by Perrone and Bonanno; and in return for his cooperation, Torrillo would be spared the legal penalties of hara.s.sment that he could otherwise antic.i.p.ate from law enforcement authorities. If the defense could prove this or even if it could suggest this to the jury, it still might not help the cause of Bonanno or Notaro; and yet Krieger and Sandler were as convinced now as they had been before the trial began that their only chance of success was in destroying Torrillo's credibility as a witness.

So Torrillo was called back to the witness stand, and Krieger, reading from the transcripts of Torrillo's interviews with the police, proceeded to question the witness about what he had said and what had been said to him. Torrillo appeared timid on the stand now, his hands clasped tightly in his lap; and among the spectators in the courtroom, he could see Detective Frank Goggins and Sergeant Robert J. O'Neil, two of the men who were quoted on these transcripts. Detective Goggins and Sergeant O'Neil sat grim-faced in the second row.

"Do you remember this?" Krieger asked, pacing slowly before the jury, holding a copy of the transcript in his right hand, "do you remember making this statement?"

"Which page?" demanded Phillips, who had a duplicate copy at his table.

"Thirty-nine," said Krieger, who then quoted from a pa.s.sage in which Torrillo was being interrogated by Sergeant O'Neil.

SERGEANT: I realize your position, see, but don't feel that I don't know what your role is. Naturally, you don't want to get involved.TORRILLO: Well, see, when you tell me that you are not going to see the Diners', that's what I'm worried about because I signed an affidavit that I...SERGEANT: Let me be very basic. We could arrest you right now. Do you understand what I'm saying to you? There is a report in...that it's stolen or lost. I'm not interested in that, that is a very small part in the fiction. I want those people...I want to put them in jail. I want to send them away. Do you understand what I mean? Now, I'm not saying you are going to get on a stand. I told you this before...but maybe there is something you can do for me, you can tell me and put me in an area where I can get these guys. Right? Do you understand what I'm trying to say to you? Enough of your hedging here.TORRILLO: The only thing that I hedged about was the Diners' Club card. You know that involves a lot of money.SERGEANT: Allow us for knowing a little bit, will you please, because there is a couple of things you said here, and I'm not coming back at you and finding fault with a couple of your statements. But I know you haven't told me the whole truth. And you are either putting yourself in a good light or you don't want to deviate from your blank relationship with them....

"Your Honor!" Phillips said, standing in court, "I object at this point. I don't see any inconsistency whatsoever."

"Yes," Judge Mansfield agreed, turning to Krieger, "I fail to see that you have established any relevancy of this on cross-examination. It fails to show anything inconsistent with what the witness has previously testified. I'm referring to this last question and answer."

"Well," Krieger said, "if Your Honor please, I respectfully submit that this shows the motive of this witness to fabricate the story."

"I object to the speeches by Mr. Krieger," Phillips said quickly.

"Well, it is in before the jury now," thejudge said, mildly piqued. "I will allow it to stay."

Krieger continued to question Torrillo and to quote from the transcripts for nearly a full hour; and in one transcript Sergeant O'Neil was quoted as telling Torrillo, at the end of a day's interrogation: "We'll see you at another date....As a matter of fact, to show that it is not one-sided, if we can do you a favor, and maybe we can..." And Torrillo responded: "Look, I will tell you anything, Mr. O'Neil, anything, because I haven't committed any crime, so I'm not worried. Do you understand?" The sergeant concluded: "As a matter of fact, I have you on the credit card, you realize that?"

"Your Honor," Phillips said, "I object to that statement by the sergeant. That's no question. There has been no answer in response to that."

"Let's see whether there is a response," Judge Mansfield said. And nodding to Krieger he added, "All right, read the response."

"I am going to, Your Honor," Krieger said, and turing back to Torrillo he continued, "And you are responding, '...that was the only thing I was worried about, but I leveled with you because you put it to me in such a way that I had to level with you, you see. I didn't know from'-something inaudible-'if they come all I can do is pay. I'm trying not to, you know.' "

Krieger stopped reading, and asked Torrillo: "Do you recall that?"