Mob Star_ The Story of John Gotti Part 10

12.

DYING IN A STATE OF GRACE.

IN 1975, THE ACTING CAPTAIN of the Bergin crew wasn't acting like a man out on bail for murder. John Gotti went about his and the Family's business as though nothing had changed.

He was moving up fast and there was no time to waste-he might have to go to prison for the killing of James McBratney. Looking for the best possible deal, Source Wahoo said, "Carlo and the capos chipped in" and hired Roy M. Cohn to help Johnny Boy out.

Cohn was one of the best-known and most powerful lawyers in New York. His client list was eclectic: leading businessmen, politicians and entertainers, the Roman Catholic Church, and several Family leaders, including Aniello Dellacroce.

The McBratney case had seen a few major developments since Gotti, Angelo Ruggiero, and Ralph Galione were arrested. For one thing, Galione, age 36, had been ambushed and murdered in the hallway of his Brooklyn apartment building early one morning.

Angelo had gone to trial without Galione, had gotten a hung jury, and was now facing a retrial with Gotti, who had been apprehended later. In the first trial, witnesses for Angelo had said he was in New Jersey the night McBratney died. Cohn knew the hung jury meant the prosecution might want to deal down the charges against both Angelo and Gotti. He sent feelers to the authorities on Staten Island and once again Gotti wound up with a great deal.

He and Angelo, whose earlier defense was that he wasn't even in the state at the time, pleaded guilty only to attempted manslaughter. It meant time, but not heavy time. At a hearing on June 2, 1975, Cohn made it all sound so n.o.ble: "After a long and difficult reflection and discussion ... realizing the jury did in fact sharply disagree at the last trial ... we nevertheless did determine that the interest of justice would be served in the acceptance of a plea."

Now the District Attorney's Office on Staten Island did Gotti another favor. As a pre-sentence investigation was being prepared by the Probation Department, the D.A. declined to attempt to cla.s.sify him as a persistent felony offender, though he was-and it might have meant a longer prison term.

A probation officer who interviewed Gotti noted the D.A.'s action on another confidential report prepared for the judge who was to sentence him. In this report, the officer gave Gotti's account of the McBratney incident and his account of Gotti, which was not flattering.

Gotti told the officer he didn't know Galione was armed and that he merely came to the aid of his friends when they began tussling with McBratney. Gotti would say something similar in 1984, when he and a friend were accused of a.s.saulting a refrigerator mechanic in Queens: He was only helping his friend.

"The defendant showed no remorse for his involvement and appears to take his [presumed] incarceration as one of those things," the officer wrote.

Gotti said he was not connected to any organized crime group. He had worked day-to-day jobs as a construction worker since his release from Lewisburg, but had no doc.u.mentation. He said he was a gambler who won most of the time and that his in-laws would help out his family while he was in prison again.

The probation officer didn't buy any of it. He wrote, "Prior investigations indicate the defendant is irresponsible and has exhibited a criminal pattern of behavior since 1958. [He] has found theft and other antisocial and illegal behavior more profitable and desirable than gainful legitimate employment."

Understandably, the officer was gloomy about Gotti's future. "This defendant is an individual of average intelligence who has not met his family's needs and it appears that he has embarked upon an amoral type of existence to the exclusion of all other responsibilities. The defendant's prognosis is extremely poor and there is no indication that he has made any attempt to reform."

Gotti did not care what the probation officer said. What was important was what the judge said.

"Four years," Judge John A. Garbarino said on August 8. Gotti knew that this was likely to mean two, and it would. He would do less time for a body on the floor at Snoope's Bar than he had done for hijacking $7,691 worth of women's clothes at JFK Airport.

Gotti now entered the crisis-p.r.o.ne New York State corrections system, which guards more inmates than the entire U.S. Bureau of Prisons. He would do most of his time in the Green Haven Correctional Facility, 80 miles north of Howard Beach. Green Haven was one of three prisons for the state's most recalcitrant and recidivist criminals. One who went in at about the same time was Johnny Boy's friend, Willie Boy Johnson, who had been sent away for armed robbery in Brooklyn.

Gotti and Johnson and 1,700 other hard-core convicts were jammed into lockups built for 1,200 prisoners. The yard, the mess hall, and the cells were segregated along ethnic lines. Guards were inexperienced and poorly paid. Tensions ran high. In 1976, two inmates were murdered and prison officials announced a shakedown; literally dozens of homemade weapons, a.s.sorted drugs, and bottles of liquor were confiscated.

Gotti swept floors once in a while, lifted weights, attended cla.s.ses in Italian culture, played cards, and survived. Even if he was able to wind down at night with a dry martini, it was a h.e.l.lish way to throw away two years of his life. The thought of going away to such a prison was too much for some men. Salvatore Ruggiero, Angelo's brother, was such a man.

Salvatore was not as rugged as his brother, and not as interested in the Family, although he was a hijacker and was interested in money. Source Wahoo met him in the early 1970s. In 1974, he reported that Salvatore also was in the real estate business with Anthony Moscatiello, who leased the Cadillac that Gotti was then driving and who later became a kind of accountant for the Bergin crew. Wahoo said Salvatore had ama.s.sed $500,000 worth of Long Island properties.

Two months later, Wahoo said Salvatore had decided to make his money grow by going into another business, the babania babania business. business. Babania Babania was a Family word for heroin. Soon Salvatore was making a lot of trips to Florida and spending money like an oil baron; several years later, the crew still talked about a party he held aboard a yacht and the $70,000 he spent providing food, booze, entertainment, and girls for his guests. By May 1975, Salvatore was a millionaire and had been indicted as a large supplier of heroin for the drug addicts of Harlem. was a Family word for heroin. Soon Salvatore was making a lot of trips to Florida and spending money like an oil baron; several years later, the crew still talked about a party he held aboard a yacht and the $70,000 he spent providing food, booze, entertainment, and girls for his guests. By May 1975, Salvatore was a millionaire and had been indicted as a large supplier of heroin for the drug addicts of Harlem.

Angelo admired his younger-by-five-years brother and his deal-maker charms. "He coulda been anything he wanted in life," he once said. "A doctor or lawyer. This kid, he could sit down with anybody."

Salvatore did not want to sit in prison, so he went into hiding just before he was indicted; at the time, he also was under investigation in a tax-evasion case. He learned that he might be indicted in the heroin case while watching a television news report at his summer home in the Hamptons. Angelo was later overheard on tape talking about his brother's decision to become a fugitive: "[Sal] said, 'Listen, I'm gettin' indicted on income tax. I'm goin' on the lam.'"

"'For what? Income tax,' I said."

"He said, 'Angelo, listen. I got a feelin' somethin' else is comin' down.'"

"I said, 'Don't go home. Don't go no place. Get in the f.u.c.kin' wind.' And that's what he did."

Salvatore kept a stash of cash-$500,000-for such a purpose. He told Angelo, "I don't care if I'm broke, 'cause I'm not goin' to be broke. In case anything happens, I take the five hundred thousand dollars, the two kids, my wife, and I go."

Angelo's brother got into the wind before the heroin indictment was returned; as he predicted, he also was indicted on an income-tax charge, as was his wife, Stephanie. In between, he also was indicted in a hijacking case. By 1977, when John would leave Green Haven, Salvatore was wanted on three federal warrants. Only a few people knew where he was, and sometimes he wasn't far away, not from the Bergin and not from babania. babania.

In 1976, Source BQ 11766-OC, Source BQ for short, began appearing in FBI files, and proved helpful right away. He told his control agent, Patrick F. Colgan, the Bergin crew had recently grabbed $150,000 worth of frozen lobsters from the wrong fishermen; the company that owned the lobsters was owned by another Family.

The crew wisely decided to return the seafood, but Source BQ alerted Colgan, who alerted the hijack squad, who arrested two men as they left a warehouse to throw back the lobsters. With Gotti away, the semiretired Carmine Fatico had to be called in to smooth things over in a sitdown with the other Family.

Two months later, Source BQ tipped off the FBI to another hijack-of 2,555 mens' suits, but these were peddled before the FBI could do anything. After he was arrested and decided to talk to the FBI, Matthew Traynor also talked about hijacks the crew pulled while its unofficial leader was away.

Besides hijackings, Gene Gotti, the new unofficial leader, looked after his brother's interests in another way, Traynor said-a way that required a dose of John's now-famous verbal ferocity.

Both Sources Wahoo and BQ had said many times that John had become a secret owner of a discotheque on Northern Boulevard in Queens; it was the nightclub that "Son of Sam" killer David Berkowitz followed one of his victims home from one night. According to Traynor, the main owner of the disco fell behind on a debt to John, which prompted a visit from Gene, the fearsome-looking Rampino, Traynor, and others-most of whom were armed. Traynor said Gene told the owner he would get "whacked" unless he made good. Traynor said that the Bergin men never paid a cover charge or for their drinks when they visited the nightclub.

Traynor said that he also made a few more cocaine runs to Florida on Peter Gotti's behalf. He said Gene was present when Peter gave the Florida merchandise to three men in Cono the Fisherman, the Maspeth restaurant where John would be arrested for the Romual Piecyk a.s.sault. Peter gave Traynor $1,500 and a quarter-ounce, seven grams.

"Here're some sc.r.a.pings for you," he said, according to Traynor.

Traynor said he also shared the proceeds of a burglary with Richard Gotti, who gave him a tip about Fortunoff's, a store on Fifth Avenue known for its expensive merchandise. He said a friend of Richard's was an "alarm man" and if Traynor smashed the display window, he would have a "safe three minutes" to grab the merchandise and run. He would and he did, with gold chains he later sold for $1,500. He said he paid Richard $200 for the alarm tip.

On October 15, 1976, Carlo Gambino, who looked more like a lovable uncle than a crime boss, lay in his bed in Ma.s.sapequa on Long Island. In a half-century of crime, he had spent 22 months in jail, for operating a half-million-gallon whiskey still in Philadelphia. Now he was 74 years old and frail from three heart attacks that had successfully thwarted the government's attempts to deport him. He asked to see a priest, was given the last rites of the Catholic Church, and then died "in a state of grace," according to the Reverend Dominic A. Sclafani.

In the obituary columns, Gambino also was identified as a former consultant in SGS a.s.sociates, a labor consulting firm, whose clients included the owners of the Chrysler Building, a New York landmark. He was preceded in death by his wife, the former Kathryn Castellano, and survived by three sons and a daughter. He had sent one son, Thomas, to a private school to be educated with the future shah of Iran and the future dictator of Nicaragua.

Thomas Gambino and his brothers owned many trucking and manufacturing firms operating in the midtown Manhattan garment district, where most of the wardrobe of America's women was designed and produced. The Gambino and Luchese Families had dominated the district since the 1930s. Joe N. Gallo, the Gambino consigliere, consigliere, was the major force in the Greater Blouse, Skirt and Undergarment a.s.sociation, a trade group that negotiated contracts with the district's 700 employers. By controlling the a.s.sociation and the trucking companies, the Families controlled the price of clothing and the lives of thousands of frequently exploited workers. was the major force in the Greater Blouse, Skirt and Undergarment a.s.sociation, a trade group that negotiated contracts with the district's 700 employers. By controlling the a.s.sociation and the trucking companies, the Families controlled the price of clothing and the lives of thousands of frequently exploited workers.

Over the next few days, the newspapers ran many stories on Carlo Gambino's possible successors. Aniello Dallacroce was the most popular choice; Paul Castellano was hardly mentioned. In fact, however, Dellacroce was in jail and Castellano was already in charge; like the nation, the Families move fast to replace a fallen leader.

Carlo had pa.s.sed the word that he wanted Cousin Paul to replace him. Consigliere Consigliere Gallo and crew leaders such as James Failla and Ettore Zappi immediately gave Castellano their allegiance. But like John Gotti a decade later, Castellano did not officially become boss until a few weeks later, after Dellacroce got out of jail on Thanksgiving Day. Gallo and crew leaders such as James Failla and Ettore Zappi immediately gave Castellano their allegiance. But like John Gotti a decade later, Castellano did not officially become boss until a few weeks later, after Dellacroce got out of jail on Thanksgiving Day.

The transfer of power presaged another. Paul, too, was under federal indictment, accused of running a loan-sharking ring that charged 150 percent vig. His nephew, who had worn a wire in Paul's presence, was the chief witness. A cousin of Paul's had already pleaded guilty. The case went to trial November 8, three weeks after Carlo had pa.s.sed away.

When the nephew took the witness stand, he demonstrated a familiar condition-amnesia. He couldn't remember conversations he secretly recorded. No witness, no crime. "What happened here is that somebody got to this defendant," the a.s.sistant U.S. attorney complained to the judge.

The nephew was sentenced to two years in prison for criminal contempt. Paul Castellano had gotten off as boss just the way John Gotti would when Romual Piecyk forgot who a.s.saulted him. He'd beaten the charge.

Paul's coronation took place a few weeks later in a house on Cropsey Avenue in Brooklyn. The house was owned by Anthony Gaggi, a soldier soon to be a capo. Gaggi's nephew, Dominick Montiglio, lived upstairs. Montiglio was a thief and a loan shark and eventually became a drug addict. He later betrayed Castellano and Gaggi by testifying against them at the stolen-car trial.

Gaggi taped a gun underneath the kitchen table prior to the arrival of Castellano, Dellacroce, Gallo, Failla, and other Family leaders. He told Montiglio to take another automatic weapon and go to his upstairs apartment, which looked out on the driveway.

"If you hear any shots from the kitchen, shoot whoever runs out the door," Uncle Anthony said.

Guns weren't necessary. Paul didn't like them. He offered Dellacroce virtual control of the Gotti-Fatico money tree and other crews, as long as they avoided drug dealing. Castellano, who had driven Carlo Gambino to the Apalachin Conference, was reaffirming the drug ban as a plank in his platform. Dellacroce, a free man after four years in jail because of his tax conviction, accepted Paul's terms, just as he had accepted Carlo's terms twenty years earlier when Carlo took over for Dellacroce's mentor, Albert Anastasia.

"Paul's the new boss," Gaggi told Montiglio after the visitors left. The sitdown had lasted only 20 minutes, but long enough to plant the seed for a Family within a Family.

Back at the Bergin, the men antic.i.p.ated Gotti's release from Green Haven. Gene had been acting captain to the acting captain, but there was no doubt that John would take over as soon as he turned in his prison broom. Source BQ told the FBI on July 21 that Gotti was getting out in a week and the crew had bought him a new Lincoln. And, like a lot of crew members, Source BQ thought that Dellacroce was running the Family, and he told Special Agent Colgan this boded well for John Gotti.

Gotti got out on July 28, 1977, a little less than two years after he went into prison for the McBratney murder. After visiting Victoria and his quintet of happy children, he tried out his new blue and brown Mark V Lincoln, with New Jersey license plates, and found it satisfactory. At the Bergin, he hung a plaque that his former fellow inmates had given him during a party the night before his release.

The plaque read: To John Gotti-a Great Guy.

13.

JOHNNY BOY GETS HIS b.u.t.tON.

FRESH OFF THE DISABLED LIST, John Gotti reclaimed his position in the Bergin lineup, acting captain of what was still technically Fatico's crew.

Carmine Fatico was now 67 years old. Recently, he had been cheered up by a doubleheader sweep-he won both his loan-sharking cases. The first fell apart at trial after, on successive days, two alleged victims refused to tell what they had told a grand jury. One had worn a hidden microphone to a loan conference with Fatico, enabling agents to overhear him, but the meeting was not recorded and thus there was no way to rebut the man-and therefore no case.

"Justice prevailed, that's all," said Carmine as he left a Long Island courtroom with his dismissal.

Four months later, the second case ended similarly: The main witness said he had lied to the grand jury.

Carmine still wanted to lay low, however. He had been convicted in a hijacking case with his brother Daniel and the brothers Carneglia, and was awaiting sentencing. Carmine and Daniel had copped pleas, betting they would get probation rather than prison.

The Great Guy of Green Haven, antsy to climb the Gambino ladder after two years in the can, was hoping they would lose the bet, according to source BQ; Gotti believed he could step up faster if his one-time mentor was out of the way.

"Source spoke to John ... and he is actually hoping that both Faticos get jail time," Special Agent Patrick F. Colgan wrote after talking to BQ, who said Gene Gotti felt the same way. Jail time for the Fatico brothers would enable "the Gotti brothers to obtain more power and influence."

Gotti was especially restless because Angelo and Gene had been made while he was away. But now that he and his new mentor, the powerful Neil Dellacroce, were out of jail and Paul Castellano had opened the membership book that Carlo Gambino had shut, crooked Johnny Boy would finally get straightened out.

No Gambino man has ever testified about the ceremony in which a.s.sociates are baptized as soldiers. Members of other Families have. Although some differences are likely, so are similarities.

"Jimmy the Weasel" Fratianno, a West Coast mobster, recounted his initiation while testifying at a 1980 trial. He described a room full of Family men and a table on which a gun and a sword formed a cross. Then: "They all stood up. We held hands. The boss said something in Italian. It lasted two or three minutes. Then they p.r.i.c.k your finger ... until blood draws. Then you go around and meet each member of the family. You kiss them on the cheek and you are a member."

Fratianno said the membership rules were then listed. "The first thing they tell you [is], you can't fool around with narcotics. Secondly, you can't fool with anybody's wife or their daughters or girlfriends. Third, they never kill an FBI agent or any officers because it creates too much heat."

By testifying, Fratianno was violating omerta, omerta, the code of noncooperation with the law originating in feudal Sicily. "You can't never divulge anything about the organization," he said. "You can't talk to any officials of any kind. You can't go to any grand juries and tell the truth. You can't take depositions ... They also tell you, 'You come in alive and go out dead.' There is no way out of the organization." the code of noncooperation with the law originating in feudal Sicily. "You can't never divulge anything about the organization," he said. "You can't talk to any officials of any kind. You can't go to any grand juries and tell the truth. You can't take depositions ... They also tell you, 'You come in alive and go out dead.' There is no way out of the organization."

Q.: What happens if you violate any of these rules?

A.: As a rule, they kill you.

Eight other men were inducted into the Gambino Family the same night as John, according to Peter Mosca, the son of Ralph Mosca, the Queens capo. Many years later, Peter was caught reminiscing about the night while in the company of Carmine Fiore, a Mosca crew member, and Dominick Lofaro, the secret state Task Force informer whose body wire helped agents record the conversation: MOSCA: The night I got straightened out, I met Johnny. He was with me. I was right behind him.

FIORE: They held it up for him. They were waiting for him to come home [from prison].

LOFARO: They used to make a lot of guys in those days.

MOSCA: Oh, it was good ... coming home that night. Oh, it was marvelous ... That night was nine.

Gotti's parole terms required that he have a job. Fortunately, the Bergin was located near the Arc Plumbing and Heating Corporation, which was owned by two brothers, old friends of his. In theory, Gotti now became a salesman for Arc, which would provide similarly helpful services for Angelo Ruggiero and his drug-fugitive brother, Salvatore.

Over the next several years, Arc Plumbing prospered. It won pieces of many substantial city contracts, including construction of the new police station for the 106th Precinct, which served Ozone Park and Howard Beach. Arc Plumbing secured other public jobs at city parks, housing projects, Shea Stadium, and the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadow.

At one point, the company was barred from doing business with the city for three years. Arc president Anthony Gurino failed to mention, when the company submitted its bid on the construction of a new city jail, that he and his brother Caesar were under indictment for helping Salvatore Ruggerio elude the law. This led to a hearing at which Anthony Gurino was asked what type of sales work Gotti did.

"What John does is point out locations," he said.

A month after John Gotti's release, Matthew Traynor made another cocaine trip to Florida for Peter Gotti. He was to meet a supplier in a Fort Lauderdale parking lot, but the police had been tipped off. The supplier got away, but Traynor was arrested. He was released in a few days and returned to New York empty-handed.

Traynor decided to go into banking. At gunpoint, on September 1, he withdrew $25,000 from a bank on Long Island. A few days later in the 101 Bar, Gene demanded a cut because he considered Traynor part of the crew, which was ent.i.tled to a tribute-"or you will be hurt or arrested."

Traynor handed over $10,000 and flew off to Las Vegas to spend $7,000 more.

A month later, Traynor was shot during another bank job and arrested. Recovering from his wounds, Traynor, an unmade man trying to help his case, decided to talk. The FBI opened a drug investigation on Peter, Gene, and John Gotti.