Honor Thy Father Part 24

"The government is ready for sentencing, Your Honor," said Phillips.

"Defendant ready?"

"Defendant Bonanno is ready, Your Honor," said Krieger.

"Defendant Notaro is ready, Your Honor," said Robert Kasanof, a large dark-haired man who was filling in for Sandier.

"Is there anything the government wishes to say with respect to sentence before sentence is imposed?" asked Judge Mansfield.

"No, Your Honor," said Phillips. "I am sure Your Honor has a full presentence report in this matter and the government has nothing to add to that report, Your Honor."

"All right," said the judge, "let me take the two defendants seriatim." Nodding toward Bill, the judge said, "Mr. Bonanno, will you please stand."

Bill stood, smoothing out the back of his jacket, seeming calm, unconcerned. He appeared considerably overweight, perhaps 235 pounds, and his face was round and full. His dark wavy hair, as always, was carefully combed, precisely parted.

"Is there anything that you wish to say or that you wish to have your attorney, Mr. Krieger say, or both of you want to say before sentence is imposed by the court?" asked the judge.

"No, I haven't anything to say," Bill answered. "Mr. Krie-ger has something."

"Do you know of any reason whatsoever," the judge asked, "why sentence should not be imposed at this time?"

"None that I know of, Your Honor," said Krieger, standing. Then, after he had confirmed that the judge had denied all the postverdict motions made by the defense, Krieger said: "Your Honor, I wish that Salvatore Bonanno could appear before you today in reality facing a sentence which would be unaffected or uncolored by really a life which has been stark. I know that the pretrial applications and various relief which was afforded to the defendant during the course of this trial had disclosed a rather unhappy and unfortunate history, at least over the last ten years, Your Honor, concerning this defendant. On the one hand there has been publicity of his allegedly running a criminal empire where he is dealing in untold fortunes, and yet the government has through its investigations, both legal and illegal, found out that there were times when he could not pay his own telephone bill. The government knows that the roof over his family's home was lost from just nonpayment, foreclosure. The government knows that he is living basically on the largesse of other members of his family.

"The government also knows, and I don't know if this has ever turned up in a presentence report, but it cannot really be contradicted-at the time of his father's kidnaping, alleged kidnaping, the government, in an effort to locate his father, placed IRS liens in a comparatively large amount against both the father and the son. Joe Bonanno at that time owned a piece of property in Tucson, Arizona-it was income property, it was paying him a good few thousand dollars a year in income up until that time. The government liened it, took the proceeds; and despite repeated applications to apply the proceeds to the payment of the mortgage to prevent a foreclosure, so that if the government's lien was upheld the government could at least obtain the value of the property rather than just see the property go through foreclosure and have both the defendant and the government ousted of any benefits of the property, the government stubbornly saw to it that foreclosure was had and neither the government was paid the taxes due, nor did the defendant receive any income from that property. The property was subsequently obtained by the city of Tucson through eminent domain, and it is my understanding that the amount received by the fortunate mortgagee would have been sufficient to pay off a considerable portion, if not all, of the tax lien levied against the defendant.

"Your Honor," Krieger said, "this is the sort of thing which has haunted him. His family-I am referring now to his wife and his four children-have paid an enormous amount just through their blood a.s.sociation with Salvatore Bonanno and I don't think that the price which has been exacted from them is truly founded upon criminal activity as such. It has been founded upon reputation. Salvatore Bonanno, realistically, appears before the court as the dog who has been given a bad name and has been beaten for it.

"I do not think-and I say this most advisedly-that the problem which faces the defendant today is one necessarily of his own design and his making. In the eavesdropping logs which Your Honor permitted me to hear prior to trial, there was one statement made there by an uncle [Labruzzo] which I think best sums up the situation insofar as Salvatore Bonanno is concerned. His uncle, who is now dead, is quoted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as saying, in substance, 'This poor kid, Bill, he was going to college, he was making something out of himself, and they destroyed him.'

"I don't know, Your Honor, as to whom the 'they' attaches, but I do know that Salvatore Bonanno is a person of intelligence and of attainment and a person whose life has literally been destroyed for one reason or the other. I don't think that the real reason which attaches to his own self-destruction is one of criminal propensity as such.

"This credit card situation of which he stands convicted before the court-and I think that it would be most advised to say that the indictment was obtained in large measure as a result of the rejection of Salvatore Bonanno's explanation of the circ.u.mstances which gave rise to the possession and the use of the credit card, the indictment does not speak of the type of criminal activity which demands a quarantine of the defendant from the community.

"It does not speak of the sort of activity where the public screams for protection, Your Honor," Krieger said, his voice rising. "I think that in the vernacular the defendant stands before you convicted of having committed a white-collar crime and, having been convicted of a white-collar crime, Your Honor, I most respectfully state to the court-and I suggest to the court that he should be sentenced-in conformity with people who have been convicted of white-collar crimes, and not being sentenced on the basis of his being Salvatore Bonanno."

The judge interrupted, saying, "Let me check a few facts that are in this presentence report prepared by the Probation Department." Turning to Bill, the judge said, "Mr. Bonanno, this report shows that you are thirty-seven years old, is that right?"

"Yes, sir," Bill said.

"And that you have had three years of college-I think it was Tucson University or the University of Arizona?"

"That is correct," Bill said.

"Now it also shows a prior record," the judge said. "First, a three-year suspended sentence in January of '62, and rest.i.tution, jury fees totaling $2,248 on a charge of bad checks, I guess insufficient funds on checks."

"One check, Your Honor," Bill said.

"One check?"

"Yes, sir."

"It also shows," Judge Mansfield went on, "upon your refusal to testify as to the disappearance of your father here in the Southern District of New York, you were held in civil contempt for a period of from March 2 to June 8, 1965, and that you later testified and were released."

"That is correct, Your Honor," said Krieger.

"It also shows," the judge said, scanning the doc.u.ment, "that in November-the end of November of 1966, in Montreal, Canada, you were picked up in a car charged with driving without registration, and that there were two cars-in one of the other cars were Louis Greco, Vito De Filippo, and [Peter] Magaddino, and in the other car were Carl Simari, Peter Notaro, and Pat De Filippo, and that revolvers were found in Simari's car and that Notaro and the others pleaded guilty to possession of weapons and were sentenced to two days and deported, and you were ordered deported on December 1, 1966."

"That is not quite correct, Your Honor," said Bill.

"In what respect then is it inaccurate?"

"In the matter of the detention-my detention-I was picked up in a restaurant and that is all I know about it. After that I pleaded in the court there in Montreal for failing to have a valid registration card, which was in the glove compartment of the car, but in order to facilitate the deportation I agreed to plead guilty so that we could facilitate the deportation."

"The next charge," the judge continued, without commenting on Bill's response, "is that on September 21, 1968, you took a rifle out of the trunk of an automobile, loaded it, and pointed it at a police officer who apparently had been following you. This apparently was done on more than one occasion and you were with Peter Notaro and one Tony Mustakas at the time. You were charged with possession of a deadly weapon with an attempt to a.s.sault and were fined $150."

"That is a rather odd one, Your Honor," Krieger interjected, "because the defendant was tried in absentia on a misdemeanor and it is impossible to really explain the legal circ.u.mstances behind that, but certainly if anyone points a rifle at a police officer he is going to be fined more than $150-that is, if the court so believes it."

"Well," the judge said, skeptically, "I don't know what happens down in Arizona when you do that. Maybe you don't get as stiff punishment as you would in some other urban communities. Is there any basic dispute about the substance of the facts and the fine?"

"No," Krieger said, "the fine is correct, Your Honor. The defendant has always denied doing that. The issue as to whether it was done was, as far as this defendant is concerned, an absolute falsehood."

"All right," the judge said, looking down at the doc.u.ment again, "there is also a statement here to the effect that in 1968 when you went to Arizona, using the credit card that is the subject of the present prosecution, you rented a car in New York, reregistered the car in Arizona, after it was repainted, new plates and new ignition were put into the automobile. You then stopped paying the rental bills, disposed of the car, rented another car, and never paid the bills on that car."

"That is not true, Your Honor," Bill said quickly. Then, amending his statement, said, "Part of it is not true."

"Well, what part is not true?"

"The automobile that was leased here in New York was leased by the company that I was a.s.sociated with," Bill said. "I drove it to Arizona and the car was never repainted, the keys were never changed on it, and I was advised in Arizona that you could interstate the car. By that I mean the the state of Arizona would allow you to have Arizona plates. In fact, they preferred that you have Arizona plates, and that is all that was done. The bills were being paid from the New York office. The person who leased the car, I believe Your Honor will remember, Mr. Sam Perrone, is now deceased. That was an unfortunate accident," Bill said, pausing. "That is all I know about the car. The leasing company also, by the way, Your Honor, was notified as to where the car was and they were also notified as to what they wanted done with the car."

"Well," the judge said, "before I pa.s.s sentence in the case of the defendant Bonanno, I think I will first hear from Mr. Notaro and his counsel. Let me state that in this report with respect to Mr. Bonanno there is a reference to the fact that his father is reputed to be a former Mafia chief in charge of one of the Mafia families, and I in pa.s.sing sentence give no consideration whatsoever to that statement. As far as I am concerned, guilt is personal and I do not take into consideration the charges or rumors with respect to people or their parents, relatives, wives, or like."

"Yes, Your Honor," said Krieger.

Then focusing on Peter Notaro, who stood erect with his gray hair slicked back, Judge Mansfield asked, "Mr. Notaro, do you know of any reason why sentence should not be pa.s.sed on you at this time?"

"No, Your Honor."

"Is there anything you wish to say or you wish to have your counsel-your counsel is changed, I see-Mr. Kasanof say, or both of you want to say at this time before sentence is imposed by the court?"

"I have nothing to say, Your Honor," Notaro said.

"Mr. Kasanof?"

"If Your Honor please," Kasanof said, "Your Honor is in a position, actually, of having a clearer picture of the trial, which I did not try, Your Honor, than I do. Mr. Notaro testified and I am quite confident that having observed him as a witness Your Honor will have come to some conclusions about him, what sort of person he is, about his capacity, about his relationship to the offense charged, his relationship to the codefendant and what relative roles, a.s.suming, as I must at this point, that the jury's verdict-addressing myself entirely to the question of clemency-their relative roles, their relative culpability. And if guilt is personal, and I am sure it is, Your Honor, Mr. Notaro has suffered because of things that have been said about him, things said about people who he knows.

"He now lives in Arizona. He is not employed, Your Honor. His wife is employed. She works two jobs. He has a young daughter attending the University of Arizona. His wife is required to work as a waitress at two different jobs because he has found himself virtually unemployable because of things that have been said about him.

"I think, Your Honor," Kasanof continued, "judging him in the context of this case and having an opportunity to have seen and heard him, I would prefer then to reserve further remarks to anything that Your Honor would have to say. I would make a motion similar to that made by counsel for the codefendant that if there is any material in the probation report on which Your Honor is to rely, that it either be disclosed to counsel in camera or, following Your Honor's practice with the codefendant, to give us an opportunity to meet it."

"Is there anything you want to add to that, Mr. Notaro?" asked the judge.

"No, Your Honor."

"Let me ask a few questions. The presentence report shows that you are fifty-six years of age, is that right?"

Before Notaro could reply, Kasanof remembered something he had forgotten a moment before, and he said: "Your Honor, let me say that there was some significant question about who was in which car and where what weapons were recovered [in Montreal, November 1966], and that case was disposed of by a plea with the antic.i.p.ation of a prompt deportation from Canada."

"Well, that may be," said the judge. Then, turning to Notaro, he asked, "But are you now saying you were not guilty of the charge, but that you pleaded guilty in order to be deported in a hurry? Is that about what you are saying?"

"It is not far," Kasanof interjected. "There was a close question there, Your Honor. I don't think that it is a major matter. I am trying to give Your Honor a fair picture of what had transpired."

"I am only trying to make sure that in pa.s.sing sentence I am not being influenced by any misinformation, that is all," said Judge Mansfield. "I don't think-let me add quickly-that the Probation Department would ever consciously put anything in that was a misstatement, but I want to make absolutely sure."

"I am sure they wouldn't," Kasanof quickly agreed, "and that is not the thrust of my remarks. The defendant tells me that the car in which he was there were no weapons. In the other car, which was in proximity, there were, apparently, some weapons. All of the partic.i.p.ants were charged together and they all pleaded guilty and were promptly thereafter deported."

"Now I also see," the judge said, looking at the doc.u.ment, "that it shows as pending this case down in Tucson charging conspiracy to obstruct justice, but I understand that has ended with an acquittal?"

"Yes, Your Honor," said Notaro.

"Is that the same case?" the judge asked, referring to the one in which Notaro and the elder Bonanno had been charged by the FBI with plotting to get Battaglia's sentence reduced in Leavenworth prison.

"That is the same case," Kasanof said. "That was a jury acquittal on the direct merits."

"All right," the judge said, putting the doc.u.ment aside, and looking at the men who stood before him and also at the spectators in the courtroom. "I have given quite a lot of thought to this. And with respect to the defendant Bonanno you stand convicted on fifty-five counts of three different crimes, conspiracy, and then the use of the Diners' Club card, and, finally, perjury before the grand jury. With all due respect to what your counsel has so eloquently said on your behalf, I don't think that you are a victim of circ.u.mstances.

"You have had a relatively good education," the judge said, speaking slowly, directly at Bill. "You have had comforts provided you in your youth, and there is hardly any excuse for the type of conduct of which you were found guilty here. This was a case where you didn't just yield to a pa.s.sing temptation but over a period of time engaged in pretty extensive fraudulent use of this card. There is no indication of any economic compulsion. You are not the product of a ghetto. I don't see that because of the family relationships to which Mr. Krieger referred you were under any great handicap that required you to use these cards. You could have gotten a job. There was no need to do what you did.

"Furthermore," the judge continued, as Bill stood thinking that the sentence was going to be a long one, "the record shows that this, apparently, is not exactly an isolated use. You have used another card of Levine, the evidence in the case showed, and then there is this reference to the use of the rental car, which you say was paid for, but I don't know whether it was completely paid for. You also have a prior record of pa.s.sing a bad check and your conduct in the use of a weapon as charged and of which you were found guilty, as well as the circ.u.mstances surrounding your being in Montreal, all indicate a proclivity toward antisocial conduct.

"I have given a lot of thought to it," the judge repeated, as the tension was building within Bill, his mind racing with antic.i.p.ation, though his face showed nothing, "and I have decided, after listening to counsel, that the sentence in the case of the defendant Salvatore V. Bonanno is that it is adjudged that he be committed to the custody of the Attorney General or his authorized representative for a term of four years on counts 1 through 55, the sentences to run concurrently. In addition it is adjudged that the defendant pay a fine to the United States pursuant to his conviction on count 1 of $10,000. That is the sentence of the court. The fine is a committed fine."

Bill, almost breathless, had been waiting for more years to be added on, and when the judge turned to Notaro, Bill could barely conceal the sense of relief that he felt, the ecstatic and grateful realization that it would be four four years and not years and not ten ten as he had almost become resigned to and not the lifetime in prison that had been predicted for him by some people he knew. Four years!-he thought, trying to concentrate on what Judge Mansfield was saying to Notaro: "... it seems to me that there are different influences in your case. You didn't have the advantages that the defendant Bonanno had. You have had a fairly hard life. You haven't had the education, and the part you played in these crimes was, without minimizing the crimes, a relatively minor part. You were going along-and I have no doubt well aware of what was being done. You, as I recall the evidence, partic.i.p.ated in obtaining airline tickets at the Tucson Airport from the American Airlines representative there by signing the name of Torrillo, and using his card.... There was evidence that you had opened up an account under 'Peter Joseph,' as I recall it. After considering the whole picture and the fact that your record is limited to this one instance in Quebec, the sentence of the court will be that you are committed to the custody of the Attorney General or his duly authorized representative for a term of one year, and you are adjudged to pay a fine to the United States in the sum of $1,000." Notaro lowered his head slightly. He was neither pleased nor disappointed; he had thought that there was a chance of an acquittal, but he accepted the judge's verdict and was relieved that the situation, the suspense, and was finally over. as he had almost become resigned to and not the lifetime in prison that had been predicted for him by some people he knew. Four years!-he thought, trying to concentrate on what Judge Mansfield was saying to Notaro: "... it seems to me that there are different influences in your case. You didn't have the advantages that the defendant Bonanno had. You have had a fairly hard life. You haven't had the education, and the part you played in these crimes was, without minimizing the crimes, a relatively minor part. You were going along-and I have no doubt well aware of what was being done. You, as I recall the evidence, partic.i.p.ated in obtaining airline tickets at the Tucson Airport from the American Airlines representative there by signing the name of Torrillo, and using his card.... There was evidence that you had opened up an account under 'Peter Joseph,' as I recall it. After considering the whole picture and the fact that your record is limited to this one instance in Quebec, the sentence of the court will be that you are committed to the custody of the Attorney General or his duly authorized representative for a term of one year, and you are adjudged to pay a fine to the United States in the sum of $1,000." Notaro lowered his head slightly. He was neither pleased nor disappointed; he had thought that there was a chance of an acquittal, but he accepted the judge's verdict and was relieved that the situation, the suspense, and was finally over.

"Your Honor," Krieger said, "I have a notice of appeal here in the courtroom which I would request my client file immediately upon leaving Your Honor's presence. I would also ask on his behalf, Your Honor, for a fixation of bail pending appeal. The defendant presently is at large on a surety bond in the sum of $15,000,1 believe it is, Your Honor. There has never been any problem whatsoever in the defendant's appearance here in response to the court's directions and in response to the mandates of the court and, needless to say, he was here for sentence, Your Honor."

"Your Honor," said Phillips, "I take it that the same application is made on behalf of Mr. Notaro?"

"Yes, sir," said Kasanof.

"I would like to address myself to both applications at this time," Phillips said. "The government opposes the applications for the following reasons: Your Honor has just imposed a substantial prison sentence on Mr. Bonanno and also, Your Honor, on Mr. Notaro. Although Mr. Bonanno has appeared every time he was required to do so, this prison sentence does substantially increase the likelihood that he will not appear at the time that he is required to start serving the sentence..."

The judge, however, disagreed and he said he would continue the defendants in their present bail on two conditions: "First, if there comes to the attention of the court any indication whatsoever that they are threatening, expressly or impliedly, any third persons or witnesses, the government may immediately apply for an increase in bail pending appeal; secondly, I do so on the condition that there will be a diligent prosecution of the appeal so that we do not find, as I have found in some cases, that years go by before the adjudication of the court ever become effective."

The defendants and their attorneys expressed agreement, and after the judge dismissed them, they thanked him and left the courtroom. In the corridor, newspaper reporters asked Bill what he thought of the sentence, but before he could reply Krieger stepped in to say that there would be no comment and that the decision would be appealed. While they questioned. Krieger further, Bill pressed the elevator b.u.t.ton and stood waiting with Notaro. Notaro smiled and seemed satisfied, and although he said nothing, Bill was sure that Notaro held no ill feelings toward him because of the credit card case. Notaro was not a complainer. As the judge had said in the final remarks, Notaro's life had not been easy; and Notaro, who had long ago adjusted to that fact, was not the sort of man who would be shattered or disillusioned by a higher authority's verdict that he should spend a year in jail.

As the elevator arrived, Krieger quickly left the reporters and departed behind Bill, Notaro, and Kasanof. It was after one o'clock, and they decided to have a leisurely lunch and a few drinks, and as they walked down the stone steps of the federal courthouse they were almost in a festive mood. It was over, the dreaded case was over, and Bill admitted to Krieger that the judge's sentence could have been a lot worse. Krieger quickly agreed and was pleased that Bill was looking at the brighter side of the situation. Krieger was also appreciative of Bill's expressed grat.i.tude for the legal efforts that had been made; Krieger was fond of Bill personally, and while he knew that the sentence could have been harsher, he still felt that four years was a heavy price to pay for what he considered a $2,400 misunderstanding. While the case might be reversed on appeal, Krieger was not optimistic, and so he was relieved that Bill seemed prepared for jail.

In the restaurant Bill called Rosalie from a telephone booth, and after he had relayed the news and had emphasized that the decision could have been worse, she seemed more cheerful-although as she listened she was crying. She was free to release her emotions now because the children were in school, it was midmorning in California. He said that he had a few legal details to complete with Krieger later in the evening and that he would return home on the following morning. Rosalie said that she would call Catherine and others and that they would have a large family dinner after he returned. She also said, reflecting further on the prison term, that he would be only forty when released and that all the children would most likely still be living at home then. He agreed, and he was about to add that there was the pending appeal to consider, and that he might also be free to spend the entire summer at home before having to surrender-but he withheld these comments; his conversation was undoubtedly being recorded, and he thought that perhaps one bonus accompanying his imprisonment was that the FBI would stop tapping his phone.

Saying good-bye to Rosalie, he returned to the table, where the men were laughing and finishing their first round of drinks. Bill picked up the Scotch that had been ordered for him, held it up in a sign of toast, finished it in two swallows, and ordered another.

He had dinner that evening in Brooklyn with the Di Pasquales, and on the following morning boarded a plane for San Francisco, pleased that the flight was not crowded. He preferred sitting by himself and not having to converse with anyone who might recognize him because his photograph had been in the morning editions of the News News and the and the Times Times. He thought that he looked better in the News News-his face was thinner, it was an older picture, and he was not wearing a hat as he was in the Times Times's photograph. The Times Times's picture had obviously been taken by a cameraman bending low, and it emphasized his jowly look, heavier face, and the shadows under his eyes. The News News also gave him a better play, a five-column headline reading COURT SLIPS YOUNG BONANNO A FOUR-YEAR TERM; while the also gave him a better play, a five-column headline reading COURT SLIPS YOUNG BONANNO A FOUR-YEAR TERM; while the Times Times's was a one-column head written from a more patriarchal viewpoint BONANNO SON GETS FOUR YEARS IN PRISON As the stewardess hung up his jacket, Bill sat against the window in the front row, alone, flipping through the pages of the Times Times, reading the international news, the financial section, the theater reviews, the sports page; but then he again folded the paper back and reread what had been written about him.

Salvatore V. (Bill) Bonanno, the thirty-seven-year-old son of Joseph (Joe Bananas) Bonanno, reputed to be a former head of a Mafia family here, was sentenced yesterday to four years in federal prison for his part in a scheme involving a stolen credit card....

31.

SPRING AND SUMMER CAME AND WENT QUICKLY, FOLLOWED by a melancholy autumn during which Bill expected at any moment to be told that he had two weeks left in which to surrender. His appeal had been rejected by the higher court-and he was not surprised to learn that Torrillo, after pleading guilty to the ninety-nine-count securities indictment, received a suspended sentence. Such were the vagaries of justice-Torrillo was a free man; David Hale, the FBI's bomber, was free; the Green Beret's a.s.sa.s.sin in Songmy was free; and Tucson's Charles Battaglia, who had allegedly tried to force a bowling alley manager into installing a vending machine, received ten years. It was a bizarre period, a time when the nation seemed pulled between its twin forces of violence and puritanism, balanced by hypocrisy, and perhaps that was one reason why Bill was unable to explain during the summer to his children, and to himself, why he was going to be spending four years in jail. by a melancholy autumn during which Bill expected at any moment to be told that he had two weeks left in which to surrender. His appeal had been rejected by the higher court-and he was not surprised to learn that Torrillo, after pleading guilty to the ninety-nine-count securities indictment, received a suspended sentence. Such were the vagaries of justice-Torrillo was a free man; David Hale, the FBI's bomber, was free; the Green Beret's a.s.sa.s.sin in Songmy was free; and Tucson's Charles Battaglia, who had allegedly tried to force a bowling alley manager into installing a vending machine, received ten years. It was a bizarre period, a time when the nation seemed pulled between its twin forces of violence and puritanism, balanced by hypocrisy, and perhaps that was one reason why Bill was unable to explain during the summer to his children, and to himself, why he was going to be spending four years in jail.

He was in one sense going to jail because, desperate for cash in 1968, and with the Banana War going badly and his life in danger (excuses he could hardly offer in his own behalf in federal court) he had done the expedient thing and not the wise thing in using Torrillo's credit card; but that did not fully explain why he would be going away for four years or why he had already been in and out of jails: there were other important, complex factors that had shaped him, had influenced what he had done and what had been done to him, and in order to explain these to his children he would want to explain his whole life, beginning with his birth in 1932 and the beat of the different drum to which he had marched during most of his maturity. He would want to explain his father's life, the spirit of that loving and destructive father-son relationship, the period and place in which it was set, beginning with his father's arrival in America during Prohibition, that glamorous, lush, lawless era in which fortunes had been made by men who might otherwise have labored all their lives digging ditches or driving trucks.

Bill remembered the story of how his father-shortly after being chased out of Sicily by Mussolini and after sailing from Ma.r.s.eilles to Cuba-had settled in Brooklyn and. was offered a job as a barber by an uncle named Bonventre, an offer that Joseph Bonanno politely refused. If he had accepted it, the recent history of the Bonannos would doubtless be quite different today-Bill almost certainly would not now be going to jail; but if his father had accepted the job, he would not have been Joseph Bonanno, the vain, proud, unusual man that Bill had tried without success to emulate. Bill saw his father as a misplaced masterpiece of a man who had been forged in a feudalistic tradition but had been flexible enough to survive and prosper in midtwentieth-century America, albeit not in the manner of which Judge Mansfield would approve.

Judge Mansfield, the Harvard-educated son of a former mayor of Boston, saw the world through different eyes than did Joseph Bonanno of Castellammare del Golfo; and Bill remembered from his own recent trial in federal court the judge's words on the day of sentencing: There is hardly any excuse for the type of conduct of which you were found guilty.... You are not the product of a ghetto.... I don't see that because of family relationships you were under any great handicap.... you could have gotten a job There is hardly any excuse for the type of conduct of which you were found guilty.... You are not the product of a ghetto.... I don't see that because of family relationships you were under any great handicap.... you could have gotten a job...

Yes, Bill thought, I could have gotten a job-but doing what? After all the publicity that had been attached to the Bonanno name since the Kefauver hearings twenty years ago -a time in which Bill himself had been called out of a high school cla.s.sroom to be questioned by the FBI about the Mangano murder-he doubted that he could have gotten a job worthy of his intelligence; doubted, for example, that he could have joined the training program of a large American corporation and risen within the structure unless he had changed his name or had disowned his father. And, if he had done that, he would not have been Bill Bonanno, a son who deeply loved his father although recognizing that the relationship had been destructive; curiously, more destructive to him than it had been to his father, who had not spent time in jail, who had fewer legal problems than Bill, and was no doubt more cunning, more careful, stronger, more selfish perhaps, and less loving.

Joseph Bonanno, an orphan at fifteen, had been independent and self-reliant and had never had a father to answer to except in a mystical sense-his father, dead at thirty-seven, became an idealized figure preserved in a dozen sepia photographs and religious cards and in the exalted, reverential collections of Joseph Bonanno, recollections that were all part of his dated, idealized world rife with ritual and rigidity. Bill Bonanno had been lured into that world through the magnetism of his father, realizing too late that his father was a rare natural inhabitant of that demanding state of mind; and it was not surprising now, in the fall of 1970, that his father was one of that world's few survivors. Most of the powerful dons who had immigrated during the 1920s were now dead, decrepit, or very old, and their Americanized sons were too smart, or not smart enough, to replace them. Bill Bonanno was among the last of his generation to make the attempt, and he would not have tried had his father not been so successful and awesome, offering to Bill what appeared to be great opportunities and advantages, a status at birth that had seemed almost regal.

But now those times were past; and the government, continuing its crime-busting crusade reminiscent of Mussolini's successful anti-Mafia campaign in Sicily, disregarding civil rights as it invaded privacy and relied on shady informers, recorded a series of highly publicized arrests of mafiosi and reputed mafiosi, incarcerating many men who seemed ready for an old-age home. Before his own conviction, Bill had read in the newspapers that sixty-eight-year-old Gerardo Catena, alleged successor to the late Vito Genovese, was sent to jail for an indefinite term for refusing to answer questions about organized crime; and the sixty-seven-year-old New Jersey capo capo, Angelo De Carlo, a victim of FBI eavesdropping, received a two-year sentence and $20,000 fine for conspiracy and extortion. On his way to a federal penitentiary in Danbury, Connecticut, De Carlo shrugged his shoulders at reporters and said, "I've got to die sometime, so I might as well go this way."

Carlo Gambino, a sixty-seven-year-old don of one of New York's five "families," was surrounded and seized by FBI agents as he was with his wife and daughter-in-law in a car in Brooklyn, and he was charged with conspiracy to hijack an armored car carrying $3 million to $5 million in cash belonging to the Chase Manhattan Bank. The FBI's informant against Gambino was a veteran bank robber from Boston, John Kelley, who had been arrested in May 1969 for the $542,000 robbery of a Brinks truck in 1968 and who was awaiting trial in that case. Gambino was furious over the FBI's allegations, and after bail was set at $75,000 Gambino refused to let a waiting bondsman post bail, declaring: "I'll stay in jail-I'm innocent from this accusation and I won't put up five cents for bail." But after twenty minutes of persuasion by his son and his lawyer and after the tiny white-haired don popped a heart-stimulant pill into his mouth, he reluctantly signed the bail application.

In Miami, customs agents arrested Meyer Lansky, sixty-seven, the most prominent Jewish gangster in organized crime, for carrying in his suitcase, as he returned from Mexico, a quant.i.ty of Donnatal that he used for his nervous indigestion, but for which he did not have a prescription. Angelo Bruno, sixty-year-old don of Philadelphia and South Jersey, was jailed for an indefinite term for refusing to testify before the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation, and in New York it was reported, though not confirmed, that seventy-nine-year-old Frank Costello was forced out of retirement to help fill the Mafia's leadership vacuum.

Bill Bonanno also read, as he awaited his notification to surrender, of the arrest in New York of thirty-five underworld figures that had been carried out as early as 6:00 A.M. by 100 men from the police department and the Brooklyn District Attorney's office. The arrested men, charged with refusing to testify after they had been granted immunity from prosecution by the Kings County grand jury, included the leaders of the dwindling dozen or so members still linked to what was once the 350-member Bonanno organization: Natale Evola, sixty-three, who had been a.s.sociated with the elder Bonanno for thirty years, and the ailing Paul Sciacca, who had recently relinquished the leadership of the faction he inherited from Caspar Di Gregorio-who, on the day after the raid, died of lung cancer, at sixty-five. Some of those sought in the raid could not be found-among them was Frank Mari, the man believed to have murdered Hank Perrone and to have led the Troutman Street ambush against Bill and who had been listed as missing and probably dead since September 1968.

Perhaps the individual who received the most attention from the police, the FBI, and the press during the summer and fall of 1970, and continued to receive it in 1971, was an affable, neatly dressed, short dark-haired man named Joseph Colombo, who, after being indicted by a federal grand jury in Brooklyn for income tax evasion (in the total amount of $19,168 between 19631967), was charged with criminal contempt by a Na.s.sau County grand jury in Long Island for refusing to answer questions about organized crime. At the same time, one of his four sons, twenty-three-year-old Joseph Colombo, Jr., was arrested by federal agents on charges of conspiring with other young men to melt United States silver coins, profiting because the face value of the coins was less than the intrinsic value of the metal. The government's case against the younger Colombo, which was again based on evidence from an opportunistic informer with whom the FBI had made a deal, may have been one of the more imprudent moves made by the government in its years of vigilant anti-crime crusading: the case suddenly boomeranged against the FBI, as the elder Colombo, who regarded his son as a legitimate young businessman who was being framed, organized a group of protesters to picket FBI headquarters at Sixty-ninth Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan, protesters who carried signs and shouted slogans claiming that law enforcement authorities were waging a vendetta against Italo-Americans, defaming an entire ethnic group of patriotic, law-biding Italo-Americans by using such words as "Mafia" or "Cosa Nostra." Spokesmen for the FBI countered by saying that the protest was a Mafia-inspired ploy designed to weaken the government's attack on organized crime, and the press quoted from government data in several articles identifying Joseph Colombo, Sr., as a member of the Mafia commission and as the head of the "family" once ruled by Joseph Profaci and Joseph Magliocco. Colombo had been a subordinate officer in the Profaci organization, the articles said, when the Gallo brothers led a revolt in 196061 and it was Colombo who had later arranged the concessions with the Gallos that had ended the feuding.

The press also cited Colombo as the man who in 1963 tipped off Carlo Gambino and Thomas Lucchese to Magliocco's murder plot against them, a plot that some reports stated was Joseph Bonanno's idea; and while it had not been carried out, Magliocco's position was in jeopardy, and after his fatal heart attack in December 1963 the Profaci "family" was taken over by Joseph Colombo, Sr. The elder Colombo's father, who was killed in 1938, was also described in the press as a onetime member of the Profaci organization.

Little was known about Joseph Colombo's boyhood except that he was born in Brooklyn forty-eight years ago-making him by far the youngest don of any importance-that he had attended two years of school at New Utrecht High, and that from 1942 to 1945 he had served as an enlisted man in the Coast Guard, being discharged with a disability allowance of $11.50 a month for a service-connected nervous disorder. After the war, he was arrested on several occasions on charges ranging from running c.r.a.p games to consorting with known criminals, and in 1966 he was among those arrested in the so-called Little Apalachin Meeting held at La Stella Restaurant in Forest Hills. He was also arrested later for dining in the House of Chan Restaurant in Manhattan in the company of Carlo Gambino and Angelo Bruno.

Colombo was connected with several legitimate businesses, the princ.i.p.al among them being his listed occupation as a real estate broker, with estimated annual earnings of between $30,000 and $40,000. But because he had allegedly lied about his criminal record when applying for his real estate broker's license, the government in 1970 brought a perjury indictment against him; this charge, however, together with the many others that were widely publicized, did not seem to hurt his popularity with hundreds of Italo-Americans who joined him and his sons on the picket lines night after night outside FBI headquarters in the summer of 1970. These protesters were the nucleus of a much larger organization that Colombo was helping to form, a militant pressure group called the Italian-American Civil Rights League.

The League, which hoped to do for Italo-Americans what the Jewish Anti-Defamation League had done for Jews and similar organizations had done for other minorities, was conceived as a national body that would appeal to a large percentage of the estimated twenty-two million Americans of Italian ancestry, an a.s.sumption that was initially greeted with skepticism by many Italo-American politicians and leading citizens. They recalled that previous attempts to unify Italo-Americans had failed or had proven to be ineffective, and they suggested that Italians were inherently individualistic, were not group-oriented, were so far removed from the melting pot and so integrated into the American mainstream that they no longer identified with, or wished to be reminded of, their ethnic past. Many of the Little Italys in large cities were disintegrating in the wake of modern construction, a new mobile society, the flight to the suburbs; and it was also pointed out that second-generation Italians were marrying non-Italians and that what remained of the traditional clannishness and what Lampedusa in The Leopard The Leopard referred to as a "terrifying insularity of mind" was now dying with the aging immigrants who had pa.s.sed through Ellis Island a half century ago, was dying with the Mafia. referred to as a "terrifying insularity of mind" was now dying with the aging immigrants who had pa.s.sed through Ellis Island a half century ago, was dying with the Mafia.

It was therefore astonishing to such theorists to read on June 29, 1970, that approximately 40,000 people gathered in New York's Columbus Circle on Italian-American Unity Day to proclaim their pride in their Italian heritage and express deep resentment at the press and law enforcement authorities that concentrated on the Mafia. The Mafia, some protesters said, was only a small part of organized crime, while other protesters said there was no Mafia at all-it was merely a creation of the media and the FBI. The gathering was attended largely, but not exclusively, by Italo-Americans; in the crowd were representatives from Jewish groups, black groups, who shared the view that the government's crime busters had gone too far with their hara.s.sing, their eavesdropping and stereotyping. Representative Allard K. Lowenstein of Na.s.sau County, Long Island, was cheered when he said, "Anyone who doesn't understand what America owes to Italy doesn't understand America." Harlem's Adam Clayton Powell told the crowd, "This nation is for all, not just the Wasps," and former New York Controller Mario A. Procaccino said, "Don't let anyone imagine that when looters, arsonists, and bombers are being coddled and treated like heroes, we are going to stand by and permit the smearing and hara.s.sment of innocent people whose sole crime is that they are related, friends, or neighbors, or just happen to be Italian-American." But the greatest applause came near the end of the program when the five-foot-six-inch, round-faced, unprepossessing figure of Joseph Colombo stood to tell the crowd: "This day belongs to you-to you the people." Then he added, with a simple directness that struck a responsive chord and loud cheering: "You are organized now, you are one. And n.o.body can take you apart anymore."

Colombo was not talking to people who necessarily justified the Mafia and loathed the FBI-in fact Colombo himself said he respected the FBI, called it "the greatest organization in the country" except when "they're framing our children and hara.s.sing our pregnant women"; Colombo's audience was rather part of America's silent majority, its hardhats, and World War II veterans, its civil servants, small-home owners, middlecla.s.s housewives who had apparently felt, more than was previously realized, acute embarra.s.sment and humiliation during the last decade over the enormous publicity given to gangsters with Italian names. And so, quite apart from any self-interest that Colombo may have had in turning the spotlight off the Mafia, he was expressing a desire shared by many thousands of citizens who had no personal stake in the Mafia, who had no relatives connected with it, but who also felt unconnected from the larger America that was the focus of their aspirations and ident.i.ty. They were voiceless, powerless, frustrated; most of them felt that they had been playing by the rules and losing. They were unrecognized by the thousands of Italo-Americans who had made it in America and who were climbing the social ladder behind the Irish; and the media, which was largely influenced by Jews and was very sensitive to anti-Semitism, was not nearly so sensitive to issues that the lower-middle-cla.s.s and middle-cla.s.s Italians considered prejudicial.

In Washington, there was only one senator of Italian origin; in the House of Representatives, only eleven of 435 members. There was not an influential Italo-American in the Cabinet or White House, and among the protesters in Columbus Circle listening to Colombo was one man carrying a sign announcing that there were no Italians on the city's board of education. While the federal government pa.s.sed laws to help the urban blacks escape substandard schools and ghetto housing, it would not be the legislators or newspaper publishers or network executives who would be personally affected by such legislation-the blacks would never move in large numbers into the white legislators' segregated neighborhoods or into their children's private schools or their country clubs. After the son of New Jersey Governor William T. Cahill-who had campaigned hard against organized crime-was twice arrested on marijuana charges, the governor supported a bill reducing the penalty for possessors of small amounts of marijuana, and this bill was pa.s.sed by the New Jersey legislature into law. But crimes committed by the sons of alleged mafiosi were vigorously prosecuted, and it was this belief that caused many people to sympathize with Joseph Colombo and to support his protest after his son had been arrested in what the elder Colombo denounced as an "FBI frame-up." And Colombo's characterization would eventually be substantiated in a Brooklyn federal court when, on the fifth day of the trial in which his son was accused of plotting to melt down silver coins into more valuable ingots, the government's chief witness-a former coin dealer named Richard W. Salamone-admitted that he had falsely accused the younger Colombo. Salamone told a startled courtroom that he had implicated him because the FBI, which was anxious to "get" the son, had promised to help Salamone recover $50,000 that he had lost in a business transaction, would help him find a job, and would return to him his confiscated pistol permit. The FBI's failure to back these promises influenced Salamone in recanting his previous testimony, although it would quickly lead to his arrest, and that of another government witness, after the jury acquitted Joseph Colombo, Jr.