Surviving the Mob

by Dennis Griffin

  Extorting the dealers was primarily a one-man operation for Andrew. But stealing car parts, he often worked with other neighborhood youths.

  “Some of the kids I stole with were already associated with organized-crime crews and several more of us got involved later. I made many good friends back then and I thought we’d be friends for life. But shit happens and in some cases, it didn’t work out that way. And some of those I was closest with died before their time.”

  In those early days, Andrew and his buddies weren’t proficient at stealing whole cars. Instead, they robbed parts.

  For example, Mercedes Benz used Becker digital radios. They were a hot item. The thieves smashed in a window, ripped out the radio, and ran. Andrew’s next-door neighbor, Rocco Corozzo, nephew of Gambino capo and Andrew’s future boss Nicholas Corozzo, had a buyer for the radios who took all they brought him and paid between $150 and $200 a set.

  “We were having fun and the guys in the street crews left us alone. We were just kids and they didn’t make us kick anything in to them. Whatever we made was ours. It was all coming in and nothing had to be paid out.”

  But even criminals like Andrew can experience economic tough times. In the case of him and his friends, youth, inexperience, and greed were contributing factors, as well as unanticipated business interruptions.

  “Sometimes when we had a lot of money in our pockets, we got a little lazy. We stopped stealing for a while and blew what we had buying stuff and partying. We were young and weren’t thinking about saving. When we realized we were almost out of cash, we got off our asses and went back to work.

  “I even screwed myself by taking so much from the dealers I was shaking down that I put some of them out of business. By the time they made their payment to me and bought product, they weren’t making enough profit to stay in business. When one of ’em went away, it might be a few weeks before someone stepped in to take his place and I could get to the new guy to explain the cost of doing business.

  “And then there were supply interruptions. When the dealers didn’t have anything to sell, they weren’t making any money and they weren’t paying me. Depending on the reason for the interruption, it could last days or weeks. That meant I had to steal more to get through the dry times.

  “But I learned a lot and knew I needed to make some changes. I had to work smarter and expand my criminal activities to earn more. Instead of shaking down the dealers for money, I started shaking them down for product and set up my own network of dealers. And instead of just stealing parts off a car, I took the whole thing. I wanted to get into the chop-shop business and start making some real money.”

  3

  Making Connections

  Andrew was ambitious and made a commitment to advance his criminal career. He dropped out of school to allow himself more time on the streets. However, before he fully implemented his bold plans, an event took place that had unintended consequences. Although it resulted in his first arrest, it also brought him to the attention of Gambino crew boss Nicky Corozzo and catapulted him from an unaffiliated street tough into the world of organized crime.

  In November 1982, Andrew and a friend learned that a couple of neighborhood boys working in a bagel shop at East 81st Street and Flatlands Avenue were stealing up to $1,500 a week from the place. Andrew and his pal saw this as an opportunity to make some easy cash.

  “The owners weren’t around that much, especially at night. The night-shift workers made the bagels, served customers, and handled the cash register, pocketing a lot of the money for themselves. Both were in their late teens. The word was that they had serious gambling problems and needed the money to pay off their gambling debts.

  “My buddy Tommy and I figured we might as well cut ourselves in on the action. We told them we wanted four or five hundred a week or else. They said okay and didn’t resist at all. They started making their payments right away with no problem.

  “But the first sign of trouble came quick. This neighborhood guy named Mike Yannotti had a talk with Tommy and me. Mike, who was known on the streets as Mikey Y, was a couple years older than us and was already connected with Nicky Corozzo’s crew. He had a reputation as a tough guy and he was. In fact, I met a lot of dangerous guys over the years and in my opinion, Mikey Y was the most dangerous of them all.

  “Mike told us that the bagel-shop guys we were shaking down owed Nicky Corozzo a lot of money from gambling. If we continued making them pay us, they couldn’t pay him too. We better back off.

  “After that conversation, Tommy and I had to make a decision. We were a little pissed off that we were told to stop the shakedown without being offered some other way to replace that income. We said to hell with Nicky Corozzo; we weren’t backing down.”

  That decision would probably have led to another less friendly visit from Mike Yannotti. But something else happened first.

  A couple of weeks later, one of the teens got caught by the owners of the bagel shop with his hand in the register. He told his boss that Tommy and Andrew had forced him into stealing the money and giving it to them. The owners called the cops, then headed across the street to the park where Tommy and Andrew hung out to confront them.

  “At that time we carried brass knuckles. When the brothers grabbed us, the knuckles came out and the fight was on. We beat one of them up pretty good. I think he ended up needing about a hundred stitches in his head. During the heat of things, a cop grabbed me from behind and spun me around. Tommy and I threw the brass knuckles, but the cops found one set of them. We were arrested, taken to the station, and charged with assault. We were never charged or even questioned about the extortion scheme.”

  Andrew hired a lawyer who argued that the owners initiated the fight. In fact, Andrew and Tommy pressed assault charges against them and the whole thing ended up in a draw. All charges were dropped and everyone walked away clean.

  After that, Andrew started spending more time with Mikey Y and some other guys in Corozzo’s crew. Even though he wasn’t part of them yet, they did a lot of stealing and some other things. They all made money, some of which went to Nicky.

  A couple of months later in early 1983, Andrew met Nicky in person. At that time Nicky hadn’t been made an official capo yet. He was an acting capo. Nicky and his friend Leonard DiMaria ran the crew together as co-captains. Andrew already knew Lenny. He’d taken his daughter to the high-school prom and hung around with his nephew. But he’d never met Nicky before.

  “They used to hold meetings at a private social club every Tuesday and Saturday. The meetings started around eleven in the morning and went until four or five in the afternoon. The crew members and others they did business with attended.

  “One Saturday morning, I was riding in a car with some of the crew. I knew they had to go to the meeting, so I told them to drop me off and I’d see ’em later. One of the guys said that Nicky mentioned they should bring me along. So I went.

  “When we got to the club, I was introduced around. Everybody socialized while Nicky conducted business in another room. He called in his people one at a time. In private he told them what he wanted done; they let him know if they needed something from him. If he had a job that involved more than one guy or the entire crew, he called them all in at once.

  “Nicky approached me around mid-afternoon and took me into the other room. He said he’d heard a lot about me and knew I was acquainted with his nephews. I was doing some good things. ‘You’ve got a friend here,’ he said.

  “Then he told me that if I ever needed anything to come to him. If I needed stolen merchandise disposed of, come to him. If somebody was giving me trouble, come to him. Whatever I needed, come to him.

  “After that he told me about the Tuesday and Saturday meetings. I’ll never forget what he said. ‘These meetings are important. You’ll meet a lot of people and make a lot of friends. Some of them may need your help sometime. Think of it as going to school. You’ll learn valuable lessons here, so don’t miss. If you miss, you’re not bei
ng a good friend.’

  “When I left the social club that day, I was officially part of Nicky’s crew. I was an associate of the Gambino organized-crime family.”

  NICKY AND LENNY

  Who were these men whom Andrew describes as co-captains of his Gambino family crew? The following is a brief look at their backgrounds and status around the time Andrew became affiliated with them.

  Nicholas “Nicky” Corozzo was born in Brooklyn, New York, on March 17, 1940. His brother Joseph “Jo Jo” Corozzo joined Nick in his affiliation with the Gambino family and rose to be the criminal organization’s consigliere. Nicky’s son-in-law, Vincent Dragonetti, also reputedly became a Gambino associate. And his nephew, Joseph Corozzo Jr., later became involved with the family as a high-profile defense attorney. In the early 1980s, Nick was a chief rival to John Gotti and the two men despised each other. The politics of the situation prevented Nick’s official advancement to capo.

  Lenny DiMaria was a year younger than Nicky. The close friends shared the leadership of a Gambino street crew as unofficial capos. In 1981 Lenny was arrested on federal charges of possession of contraband cigarettes. Convicted at trial, he was sentenced to serve 10 years in a federal prison. However, he remained free pending an appeal.

  The case was argued in the Second Circuit on November 23, 1983, and decided on February 6, 1984. The conviction was affirmed and Lenny had to surrender and begin serving his sentence. Thus, for most of Andrew’s time with the crew, he was under the control of Nicky Corozzo.

  Andrew believes Lenny’s forced absence from the crew had an adverse affect on his life.

  “Lenny was approachable. He was down to earth. You could talk to him about personal things, like if you were having trouble at home. But Nicky wasn’t like that. He was in gangster mode all the time. Everything had to be done according to protocol. You had to be very careful of what you said to him. He sometimes took things you told him as signs of weakness. And Nicky didn’t want any weak members in his crew.

  “Lenny was popular with guys from other crews, but a lot of them didn’t like Nicky. Even while he was in prison, guys asked me what we heard from Lenny and how he was doing. They only asked about Nicky as an afterthought. Lenny was much more personable, no doubt about it.”

  4

  Up and Coming

  After becoming a member of Nick Corozzo’s crew, Andrew refocused on enhancing his budding criminal career.

  He knew that stealing cars to sell whole or as parts could be a lucrative business. He also knew that in order to get started, the thieves needed enough space to operate and the skill to dismantle multiple brands of vehicles. Equally important, they had to know what vehicles and parts were in demand and how much money they would bring. And it was critical to have a client base to assure the rapid turnover of inventory.

  Andrew decided to take advantage of his newfound connections to get his education in the car-stealing business from an accomplished professional.

  “I figured I might as well learn from the best, so I hooked up with an older guy named Anthony Gerbino. Anthony’s street name was Beansy and he was affiliated with the Gambino’s Roy DeMeo crew. At the time they ran the biggest stolen car ring in the country. Anthony and I quickly developed a teacher-and-student relationship and became fast friends in spite of the age difference.”

  It was the right choice for Andrew. He learned quickly and by mid-1983, the 17-year-old had become one of the premier car thieves in New York City.

  THE CAR BUSINESSES

  In the parlance of Andrew DiDonato and Anthony Gerbino, “drop-off” meant the delivery of a vehicle that had been ordered by a customer. Automobile junk yards and body shops were on their list of clients, as well as other thieves and private individuals.

  “We stole almost every night, doing drop-offs for neighborhood car shops and junk yards. We filled orders for DeMeo crew members too. One of them was Patty Testa, who was an auto-crime legend.”

  Testa ran a used-car dealership, Patty Testa’s Motor Car Service, and several of the vehicles they stole for him ended up on his lot with altered Vehicle Identification Numbers. Testa made a lot of money in the car business, both legal and illegal.

  “But when I got involved with Patty, the DeMeo crew was on its way out. Most of them were already under indictment. Patty himself got convicted on a federal racketeering charge in 1985 and went away for two years. When he got out, he switched to the Lucchese family.”

  Patty Testa was hit on December 2, 1992, murdered in the garage of his car lot. No one was ever charged for his killing.

  Depending on the make and model, Andrew and Anthony made between $300 and $500 per car when they filled orders for their drop-off customers. Their fee was relatively low per unit, but they made up for it in volume.

  “The way we worked the deliveries and getting paid was simple. The customers didn’t want the hot cars parked right in front of their businesses. We parked the vehicle a little way down the block and left the sun visor down to help the customer identify it. We made three or four deliveries a week to most of these places. They paid us weekly, rather than having to make personal contact on each delivery.

  “We had higher paying customers too. Two brothers on Staten Island, who lived a few doors away from Gambino boss Paul Castellano, dealt in exotic brands like Porsche and Ferrari. They paid us three grand per unit. It was a good relationship and we delivered a lot of cars to them. And it was an all-cash business, of course.”

  In addition to the drop-offs, Andrew and Anthony also stripped or chopped cars.

  “Stripping a car meant we took most of the parts, but the car could still be driven. We usually took the wheels and tires and replaced them with what we called baloney [used] tires, so we could move the car around. Chopping a car meant we took everything; there was nothing left. We used to joke that we turned a chopped car into a Pepsi can.”

  Like good entrepreneurs, Andrew and Anthony invested some of their earnings to expand their business.

  “We rented garages to dismantle cars and store inventory. For the parts business, we bought work trucks to make deliveries. Overall, General Motors makes—Olds, Caddy, Pontiac, and Chevy—were the most popular. And as the business grew, we brought in more people to help dispose of inventory. We had a scrap-metal guy, an engine guy, a glass specialist, and a tire and wheel man. We profited from every part of the car. Nothing went to waste.

  “And we had to have more thieves to help keep up with the orders. Mike Yannotti worked with us regularly. Another neighborhood guy named Albert Lattanzi stole with us.”

  Although there was good money in stolen cars and parts, another aspect of the business was even more profitable. Andrew refers to it as “the rebuildables.”

  “In the rebuildables business, we legally bought wrecked or recovered stolen vehicles dirt cheap. Then we went out the same night, stole the exact same car as we’d bought, and rebuilt the one we owned legally. Within a few weeks, we sold it at full book value. There was a small fortune to be made and we made it.”

  THE SHELL CHASE

  One incident from those days stands out for Andrew.

  One of his friends had an old Mercedes he was rebuilding and asked Andrew to steal a duplicate to strip for the parts. Anthony, Albert, and Andrew found the exact car, stole it, and brought it to Sally the Lip’s house on East 86th Street. By the time they were finished with it, all that was left was the frame and engine—no glass, mirrors, hood, trunk lid, or seats, not even the Nardi steering wheel. They put on a set of baloney tires so Andrew could drive the shell a few blocks away and leave it on the street.

  That night they crimped all the oil lines so no trail led back to the garage. Sally went to the corner and used a flashlight to signal the coast was clear. Sitting on an overturned milk crate and using Vise-Grip pliers to steer, Andrew drove the shell out of the garage, Albert following behind in the work car.

  “A kid with a Lucchese crew that lived in the neighborhood was also in the car
business and the Auto Squad knew it. The cops were watching his house that night. When I passed by, they got a look at what I was driving. I saw their lights come on and knew I had to make a run for it.

  “That Mercedes could fly with nothing on it and I was doing over a hundred real quick. I had no way to see where the cop car was, but I could hear the siren right behind me. I ran a couple of red lights and was coming up on Ralph Avenue, a major intersection. I decided to take a chance and run that red light too and see if the cops had balls enough to follow me. I said a little prayer and hit the intersection doing over a hundred. I just missed getting T-boned and made it through. Behind me I heard the screeching of brakes and knew the cop had run out of nerve.

  “I kept going a few more blocks and made a left on East Fifty-eighth. By this time the oil lines had exploded and the car was enveloped in a big cloud of smoke. I pulled over and left the car at the intersection of Avenue K and took off running. I saw a cop car coming toward me and ducked behind a telephone pole while they passed. When they got to East Fifty-eighth, they must have seen the cloud of smoke, because they turned and headed in that direction.

  “Just then Albert Lattanzi showed up in the work car. I ran across the street and jumped in. I think the cops who had just gone by might have caught sight of me running, but it was too late for them to do anything. We were already gone.

  “After we got a few blocks away, Albert reached over and felt my chest to see how fast my heart was beating. He said the whole scene was like something out of a movie. I guess maybe it was.”