Coffey’s investigation of the Westies was not the first time he found himself ahead of his time. When he was a young detective in the Manhattan district attorney’s squad he got a hunch that paid off with some significant arrests within a year or two but because of bureaucratic resistance took ten years to come to complete fruition. It was a case that began on the streets of Little Italy and ended in the inner sanctum of the Vatican.
III
COFFEY, JOE COFFEY
Detective Joseph J. Coffey sat ramrod straight in a hard-backed chair directly in front of the wide, highly polished desk of his boss Frank Hogan. He was more frightened than at any time in his career. At his left sat his immediate supervisor, Inspector Paul Vitrano, who was only slightly more relaxed.
It was February 12, 1972, and Coffey had served in the famed Rackets Bureau of Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan for five years. During that time he had built a reputation as a dogged, tough, incorruptible lawman. Though on the force for only eight years, he already had a reputation as a cop who would sink his teeth into a case and not loosen his grip until the bad guy was behind bars. It was a reputation not unlike Hogan’s, and Coffey was proud to be thought of in the same vein.
Hogan was the undisputed czar of the New York State Criminal Justice System. While his authority covered only New York County, the borough of Manhattan, his reputation and record of success had earned him national stature. Throughout the world of law enforcement he was known affectionately as “Mr. DA.”
It was Hogan who plucked Police Officer Coffey from the ranks of the elite Tactical Patrol Force for duty in his detective team and took a fatherly interest in the young cop, guiding his career into the detective ranks.
Technically detectives assigned to work in the district attorney’s office in each of the five boroughs were New York Police Department cops and were under the command of the chief of detectives. But in practice the DA called the shots, and in Hogan’s case his clout outweighed the police commissioner’s.
Cops call higher-ranking officials who help their careers “rabbis.” A New York City cop could have no greater “rabbi” than Frank Hogan.
And that’s why Joe Coffey was so scared. He was about to lie to “Mr. DA,” about to gamble with his career because he had a hunch that had to be pursued.
Vitrano, the textbook image of a detective supervisor, did most of the talking. He and Coffey had agreed to tell Hogan a totally fabricated story in order to convince the district attorney to use his influence to get the police commissioner to agree to let Coffey follow a Mafia hoodlum to Munich, West Germany.
The New York Police Department had a hard-and-fast rule against such travel. The last time they had let a cop leave the country on an investigation was in 1909. That cop was Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino and he too was following a Mafia lead. They called it the Black Hand in those days. Petrosino’s investigation began in the Little Italy section of Manhattan, and it ended in Sicily, where he was murdered by Black Hand assassins. That was enough for New York City police brass. They tried something once and it ended in disaster. Why try again?
The parallels between Coffey’s current investigation and the mission that led to Petrosino’s death were too similar for Vitrano to expect out-of-the-country approval for Coffey.
Coffey had been trailing a Little Italy mobster named Vincent Rizzo for two weeks. Rizzo was a “made guy” in the Genovese crime family—he owed his allegiance to the family godfather, Vito Genovese, and he had at least one murder to his credit.
He was known as a big earner in the family, bringing in huge amounts of money through such criminal activities as extortion, drug dealing, counterfeiting and running a phony travel agency, which used forged and stolen airline tickets, for the mob.
Coffey’s interest in Rizzo grew out of a case involving the attempted takeover of the New York Playboy Club by a group of mobsters. Until the DA’s office broke up the racket, the mob had successfully extorted money from the management and, through blackmail, turned several of the “bunnies” who worked there into drug-using prostitutes whose earnings went directly to the Genovese family.
One of the key figures in that case did business with Rizzo. It was while following him that Coffey and his partner, Detective Larry Mullins, realized that Rizzo was more powerful and influential in the Mafia than they had previously believed.
They watched Rizzo’s constant street corner meetings with known mob figures and his occasional dinners with higher-ups in the Gambino organization. Along with his connection to the Playboy Club scheme, documentation of Rizzo’s daily activities enabled the cops to convince a judge to approve a wiretap on the telephones in his main hangout, a sleazy bar on the Lower East Side called Jimmy’s Lounge. In addition, on several occasions Coffey went into the bar in the undercover role of a steamfitter stopping for a drink or two on his way home after a day of back-breaking manual labor.
On February 11, 1972, the cops, crowded in a steamy, smoke-filled basement room not far from Jimmy’s Lounge, where the wiretap was being monitored, heard something that really surprised them. Vinnie Rizzo, the barely literate child of the New York slums, who spent his working day wheeling and dealing in the world of low-life strong-arm men and degenerate gamblers, was overheard speaking to Lufthansa Airlines and ordering an expensive package deal to Munich. Rizzo would be staying a week at the brand-new Palace Hotel overlooking the site of the 1972 Olympics, scheduled for that summer.
Besides its seeming out of character for Rizzo to make such a trip, Coffey was also intrigued by the fact that Rizzo booked the trip legitimately, not through the mob’s phony travel agency of which he had a majority share. It appeared he did not want anything to go wrong with this trip.
Every instinct Coffey had developed as a cop, plus the knowledge that was an ingrained part of his streetwise upbringing in the tenement neighborhoods dominated by the Third Avenue El, told him that he had to find out what Rizzo was going to do in Munich.
Back at the DA’s office he passed on the information to Vitrano, who was just as amazed. Neither man could guess a reason why a guy like Rizzo would step so far out of his comfortable corner of the underworld.
“One thing is for sure,” Coffey told the inspector, “he’s not going skiing. The only skiing this guy ever did was on the icy sidewalks of Avenue B when he ran from the truant officers.”
Vitrano agreed with the assessment that it must be something big, something that would eventually end up in Frank Hogan’s jurisdiction. But both men knew that they would never get permission to go Germany on just the hunch of an Irish cop. So they agreed to lie to Hogan.
The two concocted a story. They knew Rizzo had a history of being involved in arms deals with South American drug dealers. So it would not appear too farfetched, they decided, if they told Hogan that Rizzo had spoken on the phone about going to Munich to set up an arms deal for the Protestants in Northern Ireland. The weapons, they would argue, would probably be used against the IRA and other Catholic factions. Knowing Hogan’s sympathies lay with the Irish Catholics, they thought that was their best chance of getting him to influence Police Commissioner Patrick Murphy to override the “Black Hand Rule.”
Coffey knew that he was taking a big risk. If Hogan didn’t care as much about Northern Ireland as he and Vitrano thought he did, they were back to square one. If he caught the lie, the two were headed for the night beat on the West Side piers.
Joe had reason to be scared as he sat in front of the imposing district attorney. But the DA seemed to buy the story and promised to speak to Commissioner Murphy. It was Friday and Hogan said he would try to have an answer by Monday. At any rate they had two weeks before Rizzo was booked to leave. In the meantime he suggested Coffey begin to liaison with the police in Munich.
Coffey assumed with his characteristic confidence that he would get permission. He wanted to time his trip so that he would arrive before Rizzo. That would give him the opportunity to install a listening device in the hoodlum’s
room and a tap on his telephone. In New York he knew both tasks would be routinely approved by a judge, based on just cause provided by investigators. He expected the same procedure in Germany. He would bring his notes and copies of the wiretap requests already used in the Rizzo investigation.
That evening, filled with energy, he raced home to Levittown, a suburb on Long Island famed for being the first mass tract development in the U.S.
He was not looking forward to telling Pat that he was going out of town for at least a week and maybe longer. For most of the time Rizzo was under surveillance in Manhattan, the wife of Joe’s regular partner, Larry Mullins, had been ill. Coffey was forced to follow Rizzo around town by himself and stake him out for long hours. He was working as much as twenty hours a day and had not seen his children, Joseph, Steven, and Kathleen, for about a week.
It is times like these that strain relationships between cops and their wives, but Pat Coffey had always been understanding. In 1959, when Joe got out of the army, he returned to a job at Western Electric. The following year he and Pat married. One year later Kathleen was born. In 1962, hanging on to his childhood dream, Joe took the civil service test for New York City police officer. He passed, finishing near the top of a long list.
Almost immediately the department called to offer a place in the Police Academy. Since he was working at a job with great potential in the computer field, he declined. Another baby was on the way and he was concerned he would not be able to raise a family on a cop’s salary. However, he asked to be kept on the list for the next round of hirings.
In 1964 the department called for the third time. This was his last opportunity. If he declined he would be taken off the list forever. He would never get the chance to avenge his father.
“I liked the computer business and I knew that someday it could be a financial bonanza, but I had not forgotten my boyhood dream. I still wanted to be a cop,” Joe remembers.
He talked for hours with his young wife about what he should do and found her 100 percent supportive. She encouraged him to do what would make him most happy. “The family will be fine. Don’t worry,” she said.
So with Pat’s support Joe Coffey quit a $12,000-a-year job with Western Electric and became a recruit in the New York Police Department for half the money.
Pat Coffey learned early that she was not going to see a lot of her police officer husband. She not only accepted that life but learned to find her own satisfaction in it. Joe often shared the details of a case with her, and she would not hesitate to offer an opinion. When he said he was following Vinnie Rizzo to Europe, she picked up on the same inconsistencies in Rizzo’s behavior that her husband sensed and understood why it was necessary. She said she would help him pack when the time came and assured him the family would be fine while he was away.
“I never could have had the kind of career I had without Pat’s help,” Coffey says. “I was able to pursue leads and meet people at times when other cops were home with their families. It’s not that I loved my family any less. I just seemed obsessed with my work. Even when I coached football and basketball in the Levittown community leagues, the other coaches knew I might show up late or not at all for the games. It bothered me to take the time from my kids, but I felt I was doing important work.”
Coffey was restless all weekend and arrived at his office early Monday morning. About an hour later, Hogan summoned him and Vitrano to his office.
The DA told the two nervous cops that he agreed Rizzo should be followed to Munich. An arms deal to Northern Ireland was serious business and should be stopped if possible. He said he was surprised a punk like Rizzo had that kind of international connection but the possibility could not be overlooked. He approved sending one man to Munich.
“He told me that he could budget only $1,000 for the assignment and that I’d better come back with something worthwhile,” Coffey remembers. “He probably knew I wanted to go so badly I would have paid for the trip myself. As far as results go? Well, I was always a hunch player and I was sure this was a solid one.”
On February 24, two days before Rizzo, Coffey left for Munich. He had been working hard during the preceding days, researching German law regarding wiretaps and learning it was similar to New York’s, requiring judicial approval based on police information. He also learned that Rizzo was the suspect in the extortion of a German citizen, a fact that made the Munich police even more anxious to help.
He hoped the eight-hour flight would give him a chance to catch up on the rest he had been missing, but once aboard the Lufthansa plane he remembered that he was afraid of flying. He had forgotten his fear during the exciting preparation for the trip, but once he sat down in the seat he began to sweat. He could not sleep on the flight, and no amount of airline booze made him forget he was flying thirty thousand feet above the cold Atlantic Ocean.
When he landed in Munich, Coffey was hung over, tired, and starting for the first time to feel some apprehension about his mission. He was not feeling much like the globetrotting secret agent he was trying to portray.
“I was really exhausted, not in any shape to begin such an important investigation, but I figured I could get to my hotel, shower, and shave before hooking up with the local police,” he remembers thinking.
His plan was dashed by the efficiency of the Munich Police Department. Two Munich detectives were waiting at the customs gate to meet him. Quickly they bypassed the lines and, within minutes of his arrival, were driving him to the police presidium (headquarters) in the center of the city. There, waiting for him with a big smile and a shot of cognac, was Klaus Peter, the detective who would work directly with him.
Peter explained he had arranged with the Palace Hotel for a room two doors from Rizzo’s, where the cops could set up their own headquarters for the surveillance mission. Another room, two floors above, was reserved for Joe’s use.
“The Munich police assigned sixteen detectives to Peter and me, and they were all highly polished pros. Their manner was much more professional than the cops I usually came across in the states,” Coffey recalls.
The Munich police were very excited about working with the detective from New York. The Mafia to them was a legendary crime organization they believed to be more powerful than any police force. They had little contact with Mafia criminals, but were deeply interested in the efforts of their Italian, Dutch, and American colleagues who battled “La Cosa Nostra” on a regular basis.
Their enthusiasm rubbed off on Coffey. Some confidence and energy was just beginning to return to his tired body when Klaus Peter mentioned the major roadblock to proceeding any further.
“Of course you understand we’re not sure we want to set up this eavesdropping device,” Peter said.
“Why not! I thought you understood that was the basis of my trip. So far we’ve built our whole case on the wiretap evidence,” Coffey responded.
For the next few minutes, Peter patiently explained that the Munich police had not conducted a wiretap since World War II, when they were controlled by the Nazi Gestapo. While the law was on the books and judges seemed willing to approve such measures, police departments in Germany were trying hard to live down the Gestapo image. Peter said they could discuss it with the Munich police commander the next day. The laws may have been similar to the United States codes, but the postwar attitudes were quite different.
As drained as Coffey was, he was determined not to let another day pass without the okay for the telephone wiretap and the listening device. He wanted to be sure it would be in place before Rizzo arrived in his room.
For hours the cops argued the case. Peter was sympathetic but very protective of his department’s reputation. He explained that his men were experts in surveillance and routinely built solid cases without eavesdropping. But Coffey was adamant. He knew what he would have to take back to the states to build his case there. New York prosecutors wanted legally obtained tape recordings of criminals discussing their crimes. Juries in the United States loved the dra
matic dialogue and occasional confessions such tapes produced. Several times Coffey bluffed that he would just pack the whole thing in if he could not get wiretaps.
Finally Klaus Peter agreed to let Coffey make his argument to Reinhard Rupprect, director of the department’s criminal division and Peter’s boss. Six months later Rupprect would become world famous as the man who led the German police against the Arab terrorists who attacked the Munich Olympic Village and murdered Israeli athletes.
Coffey found Rupprect very understanding. He also was concerned about the flow of illegal arms to Northern Ireland. His cop’s instinct agreed with Coffey’s that it had to be a big deal to flush a lowlife like Rizzo out of the protection of his own neighborhood. He agreed to pass the police request for a bug and wiretap on to the proper judicial authority.
In the states this is where Coffey would have expected resistance. American cops were always anxious to bug suspects. Judges took on the responsibility of protecting the suspect’s rights and often refused the police requests. The Munich judge, however, spent only a few minutes reviewing the paperwork, and the electronic surveillance request was approved around midnight.
Coffey was exhausted. He turned down the Munich detectives’ invitation to drink some beers at their favorite hangout and returned to his hotel, not far from the police presidium. Too tired to even call Pat, he collapsed on the bed with his clothes on and slept soundly until the hotel operator woke him up at 7:00 A.M.
By 9:00 he was at Klaus Peter’s small office, chain-smoking and pacing. He was now bursting with energy, anxious to get up to the room the Palace Hotel had reserved for Rizzo to get the bug and the wiretap installed.
Peter showed up within a few minutes. He carried a small metal box which he handed to Coffey with the words, “I hate to see a good cop walking around naked. I thought you could use this.”
Joe opened the box and took out the Walther PPK. He had left his own gun in New York rather than deal with the tangle of paperwork necessary to carry it onto the airplane and into a foreign country. Peter had noticed he was unarmed and thought he could do something to make his new American friend a little more comfortable. A fan of spy novels, Coffey recognized the weapon as the same one used by the fictional James Bond.
The Coffey Files Page 8
