by Bruno, Joe
The five men took the elevator to the sixth floor. While one man stood guard at the elevator, the other four men burst into Mr. Weinstein’s office. They ignored the $7,500 sitting on the table, and they opened fire on Officer De Castillia, nine years on the force and a married father of a young girl. Officer De Castillia was hit six times in the chest, and he died instantly.
The four men walked calmly back to the elevator and joined their cohort, who was guarding the elevator operator, Louis Sella. Sella took the five men to the ground floor. He later told the police that the men had exited the building, walked calmly to a parked car, got into the car and fled the scene. When the police arrived minutes later from the station house just two blocks away, the killers were nowhere to be seen. Sella described the five men as “early to mid-twenties, with dark skin and dark hair.” Sella said the men were all “very well-dressed.”
The police figured that since no money had been taken, this was a planned hit on Officer De Castillia. On August 30, 1930, Galante, along with Michael Consolo and Angelo Presinzano, were arrested and indicted for the murder of Officer De Castillia. However, all three men were soon released due to lack of evidence.
On December 25, 1930, four suspicious men were sitting in a green sedan on Briggs Avenue in Brooklyn. Police Detective Joseph Meenahan just happened to be in the area. He spotted the men in the sedan, drew his gun, and he approached the sedan cautiously.
One of the men shouted at Meenahan, “Stop right there copper, or we'll burn you.”
Before Meenahan could react, the firing commenced from the green sedan. Meenahan was shot in the leg, and a six-year-old girl walking nearby with her mother was seriously wounded. The driver of the sedan had trouble starting the car, so the four men leaped from the sedan and tried to escape on foot. Three of the men managed to flee the area by jumping on a passing truck. But the fourth man slipped as he tried to get onto the truck, and he was apprehended by the wounded Meenahan.
That man was Carmine Galante.
When Meenahan brought Galante to the station house, a group of detectives, angry that one of their own had been wounded, started to give Galante the “police station tune-up.” Despite getting his lumps, Galante refused to give up the identities of the three men who had escaped.
Galante was subsequently tried and convicted as one of the four men who had robbed the Lieberman Brewery in Brooklyn. On January 8, 1931, Galante was remanded to Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. He was later transferred to the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, where he remained until his release on May 1, 1939.
While Galante was in prison, he was given an IQ test that revealed he had an IQ of only 90, which, even though Galante was well into his 20s, equated to the mental age of a 14-year-old. It was also noted that Galante was diagnosed as having a “neuropathic psychopathic personality.” A physical evaluation showed that he had a head injury contracted in a car accident when Galante was 10-years-old, a fractured ankle when he was 11, and that Galante was showing the early signs of gonorrhea, probably incurred at one of the many brothels controlled by the mob.
In 1939, after he was released from prison, Galante was again given sham employment at his old job at the Lubin Artificial Flower Company. In February of 1941, Galante obtained membership in Local 856 of the Longshoreman’s Union, where he ostensibly worked as a “stevedore.” However, Galante very rarely showed up for work; one of the perks of being connected to the Mafia.
There is no record of the exact date, but Galante was inducted as a made member of the Bonanno Crime Family in the early 1940s. Despite the fact his boss was Joe Bonanno, at the time the youngest Mafia boss in America, Galante, all throughout the 1940s, performed many hits for Vito Genovese.
While Genovese was in self-imposed exile in Italy (he was wanted on a murder charge and flew the coop before he could be arrested), Genovese became fast pals with Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Mussolini had a stone in his shoe in America called Carlo Tresa. Tresa was causing Mussolini much agita by incessantly writing anti-fascist sentiments in his radical Italian-language newspaper, IL Martello, which was sold in Italian communities throughout America.
Genovese sent word back to America to Frank Garofalo, underboss to Joseph Bonanno, that Tresa had to go. Garofalo gave the Tresa contract to Galante, who shadowed Tresa for a few days to determine the best time and place to whack him.
On January 11, 1943, Tresa was walking along Fifth Avenue near 13th Street, when a black Ford sedan pulled up alongside him. The Ford stopped and Galante jumped out, with a hot gun in his hand. Galante blasted Tresa several times in the back and in the head, killing the newspaper editor instantly. Amazingly, Galante was seen by his parole officer fleeing the scene, but due to the wartime rationing of gasoline, the parole officer was unable to follow the black Ford containing Galante and the smoking gun.
No arrest was ever made in the Tresa slaying.
In 1953, Bonanno sent Galante to Montreal, Canada to take control of the Bonanno Family’s interests north of the border. Besides the very-lucrative Canadian gambling rackets, the Bonannos were heavy into the importation of heroin, from France into Canada, and then into the United States – the infamous French Connection.
Galante supervised the Canadian drug operation for three years. But in 1956, the Canadian police caught wind of Galante's involvement. Not having enough evidence to arrest Galante, they instead deported Galante back to the United States, classifying Galante as “an undesirable alien.”
In 1957, Genovese called for a big summit of all the top Mafioso in America, to take place at the upstate New York Apalachin residence of Joseph Barbara, a captain in the Buffalo crime family of Stefano Magaddino. In preparation for this meeting, on October 19, 1956, several New York crime bigwigs were summoned to Barbara's home to go over the guidelines of the proposed meeting; the prime purpose of which was to anoint Genovese as the Capo di Tutti Capi,” or “Boss of all Bosses.”
After the meeting ended, Galante, driving back to New York City, was nabbed for speeding near Birmingham, New York. Because his driver's license had been suspended, Galante gave the police a phony license. He was immediately arrested and sentenced to 30 days in prison.
However, the tentacles of the Mafia also reached right into the police department in upstate Birmingham. After a few mobbed-up New York City lawyers made the right phone calls to upstate New York, Galante was released within 48 hours.
However, a state policeman, Sergeant Edgar Roswell, took note of the fact that Galante had admitted to the police that he had stayed the night before at the Arlington Hotel as a guest of a local businessman named Joseph Barbara. This prompted Roswell to pay special attention to the Barbara residence in Apalachin, New York.
On November 17, 1957, at the insistence of Don Vito Genovese, Mafia members from all over America made their way to the Barbara residence. These men included Sam Giancana from Chicago, Santo Trafficante from Florida, John Scalish from Cleveland, and Joe Profaci and Tommy Lucchese from New York City. Galante's boss Joe Bonanno decided not to attend, and he sent Galante instead.
Sergeant Roswell took note of the fact that, on the day before, the nearby Arlington Hotel had been booked to the rafters with suspicious-looking out-of-towners. Roswell asked the right questions at the hotel, and he was able to confirm that the man who made the reservations for these men was Joseph Barbara himself. Roswell drove to the Barbara residence, and he spotted dozens of luxury cars parked outside, some with out-of-town plates.
Roswell called for back-up, and in minutes, dozens of state troopers arrived with guns drawn. The troopers raided the Barbara residence and chaos ensued.
Men wearing expensive suits, hats, and shoes bolted from the house. Some were immediately arrested, and others made it to their cars and drove off the property before roadblocks could be put in place by the police.
Several Italian gangsters jumped out of the house windows, and they hightailed it through the thorny woods. One of these me
n was Carmine Galante, who hid in a cornfield until the police had left the Barbara residence. Then Galante made his way back to Barbara's home, and he made arrangements for safe passage back to New York City.
The next day, when the news of the raid on Barbara's house hit American newspapers blowing the lid off the misguided idea that the Mafia was a myth, Galante went into the wind, or in mob terms, he “pulled a lamski.”
On January 8, 1958, the New York Herald Tribune wrote that Galante had run to Italy to hook up with old pal Salvatore “Lucky” Luciano, who was in exile in Italy after serving nine years in an American prison on a trumped-up prostitution charge. Another report said that it was not Luciano Galante was with, but rather Joe “Adonis” Doto, another mob boss in exile. On January 9, the New York Journal American said Galante was not in Italy, but in Havana, Cuba, with Meyer Lansky, a longtime member of the National Crime Commission who had numerous casino interests in Cuba.
In April 1958, it was somehow leaked that Galante was now back in the United States and living somewhere in the New York area. The local law went to work, and in July, Galante was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics while he was driving near Holmdale, New Jersey. He was charged with taking part in a major heroin deal, one of many drug deals Galante had been involved with throughout the years. Also arrested in the case were Vito Genovese, John Ormento, Joe Di Palermo, and Vincent Gigante.
Galante, again making use of his cadre of New York attorneys, was released on $100,000 bail. Galante's lawyers were able to delay further legal proceedings for almost two years. It wasn't until May 17, 1960, that Galante was formally indicted, and again released on bail.
On January 20, 1961, Galante's trial finally began. The judge, Thomas F. Murphy, revoked Galante's bail, ordering Galante to be put right into the slammer.
However, Galante's luck held up when, on May 15, a mistrial was declared. It seemed the foreman of the jury, a poor chap named Harry Appel, a 68-year-old dress manufacturer, had the misfortune of falling down a flight of stairs in a building on 15th Street in Manhattan. After the medics arrived and Appel was taken to a nearby hospital, it was determined that Appel had suffered a broken back. No one had seen Appel fall, nor did the hurt and frightened Appel say that anyone had pushed him.
However, although they had no definite proof, law enforcement believed that Appel had been pushed by a cohort of Galante's, with a warning not to say anything to anybody, and they would allow Appel and members of his family to live.
Galante, now feeling alive and chipper, was released from prison, secured by a bond of $135,000.
Alas, all good things must come to an end.
In April 1962, Galante's second trial commenced.
At the trial, there was a bit of mayhem in the courtroom, when one of Galante's co-defendants, a nasty creature named Tony Mirra (who was said to have killed 30-40 people) became so unhinged that he picked up a chair and flung it at the prosecutor. Luckily for the prosecutor, the chair missed him and landed in the jury box, forcing the frightened jurors to scatter in all directions. Order was restored to the court, and the trial proceeded, which was bad news for Galante and for Mirra.
Both men were found guilty, and on July 10, 1962, Galante was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Mirra also was sent to prison for a very long time. It is not clear if any additional time was tacked onto Mirra's sentence for the chair-throwing incident.
Galante first was sent to Alcatraz Prison, which was located on an island fortress in San Francisco Bay. He was then moved to the Lewisburg Penitentiary, in Leavenworth, Kansas, before serving the final years of his prison term in the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia. Galante was finally released from prison on January 24, 1974, full of fire and brimstone and ready to get back into business. However, Galante was to be on parole until 1981, so he had to be careful not to keep a high profile.
Unfortunately, being in the background was not in Galante's makeup.
While in prison, Galante made it known that when he got out he was going to take control of the New York Mafia by the throat.
The accepted head of the five New York City Mafia families at the time was Carlo Gambino, the head of the Gambino crime family. Gambino was shrewd, and generally quiet and reserved. Gambino was well-respected for his business acumen and for his ability to keep peace amongst his own family, as well as the other Mafia families. However, Galante had no use for Gambino or his method of doing business. Galante told a cohort in jail, that when he hit the streets again, he would “make Carlo Gambino shit in the middle of Times Square.”
By the time of Galante's release, his boss Joe Bonanno had been forced to “retire” and was living in Tucson, Ariz. The new Bonanno boss was Rusty Rastelli. But since Rastelli was in the slammer at the time, Galante took over as the “street boss” of the Bonannos. Still, Rastelli was considered the boss of the Bonannos, and he was none too happy about how Galante was strutting his stuff on the streets of New York City.
Galante took the unusual step, and not appreciated by other Bonanno crime family members, of surrounding himself with Sicilian-born Mafioso, like Caesar Bonventre, Salvatore Catalano, and Baldo Amato. These men were derisively called “zips” by the American Mafia because of the quick way they zipped through the Italian language. These zips were heavily involved in the drug trade and in direct competition with those in the Genovese Crime Family, which was run by Funzi Tieri, every bit as cunning and vicious as Galante.
Galante had a minor setback, when in 1978, he was arrested by the Feds for “associating with known criminals,” which was a violation of his parole. While Galante stewed in prison, he began ordering his men to kill mobsters in the Genovese and the Gambino crime families who were cutting in on Galante's worldwide drug operation. With Carlo Gambino now dead (from natural causes), Galante figured he had the muscle to push the other crime family bosses into the background.
From prison Galante sent out the message to the other bosses, “Who among you is going to stand up against me?”
On March 1, 1979, Galante was released from prison and walking on air because he truly believed the other crime bosses were afraid of him. Like Vito Genovese, Galante envisioned himself as “Boss of All Bosses,” and it was only a matter of time before the other bosses cowered before Galante and handed him the title.
However, Galante underestimated the might and the will of the other Mafioso bosses in New York City.
While Galante swaggered around the streets of New York City, the other bosses held a meeting in Boca Raton, Florida, deciding Galante's fate. At this meeting were Funzi Tieri, Jerry Catena, Paul Castellano, and Florida boss Santo Trafficante. These powerful men voted unanimously, if mob peace was to exist on the streets of New York City, Galante had to go. Rastelli, who was still in jail, was consulted. And even the aged Joe Bonanno, living in Arizona, was asked if he had any reservations at his former close associate being hit. Both Rastelli and Bonanno signed off on Galante's murder contract and Galante's days were numbered.
On July 12, 1979, it was a hot and sticky summer afternoon, as the 69-year-old Carmine Galante's Lincoln pulled up at 205 Knickerbocker Avenue in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. For more than 50 years, Knickerbocker Avenue had been the turf of the Bonanno crime family, and over the years numerous mob sit-downs had taken place in one of several storefronts on the block.
Carmine Galante stepped out of the Lincoln, and then he waved goodbye to the driver, his nephew James Galante. Carmine Galante was wearing a white short-sleeved knit shirt, and as was his custom, he was sucking on a huge Churchill cigar.
Galante strutted inside the tiny restaurant, and he was greeted by Joe Turano, the owner of Joe and Mary’s Restaurant. Galante had made this visit to meet with Turano and with Leonard “Nardo” Coppola, a close associate of Galante’s, over some undetermined mob business.
At approximately 1:30 p.m., Coppola strolled into the restaurant, accompanied by zips Baldo Amato and Cesare Bonventre, who were cousins and from the sam
e village as Galante's parents, Castellammarese del Golfo.
By this time, Galante and Turano had already finished their meal, so while the three newcomers sat inside and ate their lunch, Galante and Turano slipped outside into the backyard patio, and they sat under a yellow-and-turquoise checkered umbrella. After Coppola, Bonventre, and Amato finished dining, they joined the other two men outside. Galante and Turano were smoking cigars and drinking espresso coffee laced with Anisette (only tourists and non-Italians drink Sambuca).
Galante was sitting with his back to a small garden, while Amato sat to his left and Bonventre to his right. Turano and Coppola sat on the opposite side of the table, their backs to the door leading to the restaurant.
At approximately 2:40 p.m., a four-door, blue Mercury Montego double-parked in front of Joe and Mary's Restaurant. The car had been stolen about a month earlier. The driver, wearing a red-striped ski mask, stepped out of the car and stood guard, holding a .3030 M1 carbine rifle menacingly in his hands. Three other men, also wearing ski masks, jumped out of the car, and they jogged into the restaurant. The killers sped past the few startled diners who were still eating lunch, and they rushed into the patio area.
As they entered the patio, one masked man said to the other, “Get him, Sal!”
The gunman called “Sal” began firing a double-barrel shotgun several times at Galante, propelling Galante, as he was rising from his chair, onto his back. Galante was hit by 30 pellets, one knocking out his left eye. Galante was probably dead before he hit the ground, but his cigar was still stuck tightly between his teeth.
As Galante was being shot, Joe Turano yelled, “What are you doing?”
The same gunman turned to Turano, and with the shotgun pressed against Turano's chest, he blasted Turano into eternity.
Coppola jumped up from the table, and either Amato, or Bonventre (it's not clear which one did the shooting) shot Coppola in the face, then five times in the chest. Coppola landed face down, and the killer with the shotgun blasted off the back of Coppola's head.
