The Mob and the City
Page 19
Around the same time, Dominick “The Gap” Petrilli, ironically, was informing on Gene Giannini. “The Gap is back. He got picked up in Italy for something and made a deal with the junk agents,” warned Anthony “Tony Bender” Strollo, a lieutenant of Genovese. On December 9, 1953, three assassins murdered Petrilli at a bar in the Bronx.97
In July 1958, Cristoforo Rubino became another informer to fall before testifying against Mafia drug traffickers. A week before he was to testify before a grand jury investigating Vito Genovese and other traffickers, Rubino was shot dead on a Brooklyn sidewalk.98
In May 1962, Profaci Family dissident Larry Gallo disclosed to the FBI the existence of “The Commission,” one of the most explosive secrets of the Cosa Nostra. Gallo revealed that “JOSEPH PROFACI, THOMAS LUCHESE [sic], CARLO GAMBINO, and VITO GENOVESE were due a high degree of respect and were members of the leadership group called ‘The Commission.’”99
We know there were other early informers whose names remain hidden behind black marker in redacted FBI files. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) bars the disclosure of deceased informants, even if they passed away fifty years ago. But the truth has a way of rising to the surface. Former FBI agent Anthony Villano said he knew of a dozen “member sources,” including “a couple names that would shock both the public and the LCN.”100 In coming years, we may be surprised by which Men of Honor betrayed each other to the feds.
Myth Number Three: “There's No Retiring from This”
The last major myth is that wiseguys could never leave the life. “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in,” Michael Corleone laments in The Godfather Part III. “You took an oath. There's no retiring from this,” Tony Soprano tells a soldier who wants out in The Sopranos.101
Except that many wiseguys did retire. As of the 1950s, Joe Valachi testified that while there were two thousand active members in New York City, there were also “about 2,500 or 3,000” men who were “inactive members.”102 So, who were these thousands of erstwhile mafiosi who had left the life? They fall roughly into two categories: (1) businessmen, and (2) old men.
Some mafiosi found more profitable work outside crime. Take William Medico of Pittston, Pennsylvania. Medico grew up in the same Sicilian neighborhood as mob boss Russell Bufalino. He joined Bufalino's northeastern Pennsylvania family, and he was arrested several times in this youth. Then, something unusual happened: he became a successful businessman. He built Medico Industries, Inc., into one of the biggest heavy-equipment companies in Pennsylvania, even fulfilling defense contracts for the United States Army.
While Bill Medico continued to associate with the Bufalino Family, he was preoccupied with his legitimate business. In November 1957, Medico let his cronies borrow a company car to drive to the Mafia meeting in Apalachin, but he did not bother attending himself. After Apalachin, Medico agreed to be interviewed about his business by FBI agents, who found nothing illegal. Unlike Paul Castellano's business interests, the government identified no racketeering activities associated with Medico Industries or the heavy-equipment industry in general. Bill Medico was never again charged with a crime. The wiseguy had more or less gone legit.103
Many more simply aged out of the life. When Salvatore Falcone reached his seventies he retired to Miami, Florida, like thousands of other elderly snow birds. Informants said that “due to advanced age and ill health, he has been replaced by his brother JOSEPH FALCONE of Utica, New York.” The FBI noticed that after Joseph “Staten Island Joe” Riccobono entered his seventies, he “sort of retired” to the status of “an elderly statesman.” Meanwhile, the aging mafioso Minetto Olivere left the Milwaukee Family for California, where he “retired and manages the local American-Italian Club in San Diego.”104
Even a turncoat could leave if he was no longer a threat. At the end of his memoirs Vita di Capomafia (“Life of a Mafia Boss”), Nicola Gentile renounced “my active life as a member of the honorable society,” saying he was leaving as “a lonely and embittered old man.”105 Although the Mafia considered killing him, they let him die in poverty in rural Sicily. “The rules of the Cosa Nostra aren't always carried to the extreme,” explained Antonio Calderone.106
Such were the lives of wiseguys.
I kept thinking of the mess I was in, and I couldn't help longing for the days when I was just a kid mouthpiece, making lots of money as a shyster in the magistrate's court.
—Mob lawyer J. Richard “Dixie” Davis (1939)
I have in mind that I was originally advised by Rosen that the Mafia or anything like it in character never existed in this country. I have been plagued ever since for having denied its existence.
—FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (1970)
On the evening of Saturday, December 7, 1929, the Tepecanoe Democratic Club was throwing a dinner in honor of Magistrate Judge Albert H. Vitale at the Roman Gardens restaurant in the Bronx. Al Vitale had been a party hack before being appointed to the city magistrates’ court, which gave him jurisdiction over criminal proceedings. The fifty guests included not only an NYPD detective, criminal defense lawyers, and bail bondsmen, but also mafiosi Daniel Iamascia, Joseph “Joe the Baker” Catania, and his brother James Catania. It was just another evening among cronies in the Tammany Hall legal machine.1
Except on that night, other gangsters decided to crash the party. At 1:30 a.m., seven gunmen marched into the dining room and relieved the fifty guests of $5,000 in cash and jewelry.2 When news of the robbery—and Judge Vitale's sordid guests—hit the papers, the media frenzy forced a bar association inquiry into his links to gangsters. Vitale acknowledged being acquainted with Ciro “The Artichoke King” Terranova, whom he “regarded as a successful business man.” He also admitted receiving a $19,000 “loan” from none other than Arnold Rothstein (over $250,000 in 2013 dollars). In all, Vitale made $165,000 during his four years on the bench (over $2.3 million in 2013 dollars), which he attributed to “fortunate investments.”3
Following a trial on judicial misconduct charges, on March 13, 1930, the State Appellate Division removed Vitale from the bench. Yet Vitale thrived in his career as a private lawyer. During a federal trial in 1931, a witness testified that a gangster had bragged, “Vitale is my friend and can reach any judge in New York, even though he is not on the bench.”4
The Mafia families maintained their power by neutralizing law enforcement in New York. They started with payoffs to crooked cops and judges. When that did not work, mobsters turned to criminal defense lawyers, the so-called mouthpieces for the mob. The Cosa Nostra also flourished because the Federal Bureau of Investigation was on the sidelines during the mob's ascent. A recently discovered handwritten note by J. Edgar Hoover, along with accounts by FBI agents, may finally explain Hoover's position on the Mafia.
CROOKED COPS
As we have seen, the Mafia's first line of defense was corrupt cops. Not every cop was dishonest. But before the Mafia even existed, from the 1890s Lexow Committee hearings to the 1972 Knapp Commission report on police corruption, there was a tradition of bribe taking and extortion by the NYPD.5 The Cosa Nostra attained quasi-immunity from local police. “Wiseguys like Paulie [Vario] have been paying off the cops for so many years they have probably sent more cops’ kids to college than anyone else,” explained Lucchese family associate Henry Hill.6 When narcotics detective Robert Leuci tried to investigate Al “Sonny Red” Indelicato's crew, Leuci's sergeant came by with an ex-federal narcotics agents to warn: “These [Indelicatos] are good people, they've done the right thing before…. You better think about what you're doing.”7
Wiseguys were so entrenched in Gotham that even honest police were largely resigned to them. “During his police career, my father had known his share of mobsters. With his Bronx squad commanded pals, he often went to Joe Cago's [Joe Valachi's] Lido restaurant,” recalled the son of an honest Irish cop. Absent a murder charge, or case requiring inside information, “even honest cops, for the most part, looked the other way.”8 When NYPD detective Frank Se
rpico tried to break up a numbers shop, a Genovese Family caporegime intervened: “What kind of guy are you? There're other honest cops, but at least they honor the contracts,” said the goodfella.9
CORRUPTION IN THE COURTHOUSES
Even good cases against mobsters could die behind the scenes. In Chicago and Atlantic City, Al Capone and Enoch “Nucky” Johnson built ties to Republican political machines. In New York, the mob's links to labor unions and the Tammany Hall Democratic machine had a strong, if subtle influence on judges and the District Attorney's Office. Mafiosi Vince Mangano and Joe Bonanno had “political clubs” for a reason. “To be behind bars means one thing in his underworld society: You're in because you're stupid and you don't have any influence,” recounted James Horan, an investigator for prosecutors Thomas E. Dewey and Frank Hogan.10 “In those days we were practically immune from prosecution,” confirms Henry Hill. “See, the local politicians needed the rank and file of our unions…[and] we hardly had to worry about the courts, since Paulie [Vario] made judges.”11
The Kings County (Brooklyn) courthouse in South Brooklyn was especially compromised by organized crime. In the 1940s, state special prosecutor John Harlan Amen obtained the removal of a Brooklyn magistrate judge for bribery, and the forced resignation of the District Attorney William Geoghan. (Geoghan's replacement William Dwyer himself fell under suspicion for failing to convict Albert Anastasia).12 The Brooklyn courthouse's corruption continued through the 1960s. “Deals were made, cases sold—that courthouse was a marketplace, not a hall of justice,” said undercover detective Robert Leuci. “A defendant with money had a better than fifty-fifty chance of buying his way out of any kind of case.”13 Leuci built corruption cases for the United States attorney, including a bribery conviction of Edmund Rosner, a prominent defense attorney caught on tape paying cash for secret court documents.14
Even New York's old coroner's office, which employed the medical examiners who investigated causes of death, had corruption problems. “The coroner's office was an important one for a political machine to control. It was a place where a case could be fixed or disposed of early, before public outcry could build up,” explained coroner George LeBrun. A corrupt coroner could botch a case for others to exploit. “Even when a prosecutor went ahead and obtained an indictment, a skillful defense lawyer could make good use of the coroner's verdict in raising a question of reasonable doubt in the minds of a trial jury,” said LeBrun.15
The New York State Joint Legislative Committee on Crime conducted a study of felony arrests of organized crime figures between 1960 and 1970 in the courts around New York City. The study found that 44 percent of indictments against mobsters were dismissed before trial compared to only 11 percent of all indictments. Furthermore, of 536 organized crime figures arrested on felony charges, just 37 were sent to prison—less than 7 percent.16 The rap sheets of mafiosi typically have many charges, but relatively few convictions and little prison time. Before 1959, Anthony “Tony Ducks” Corallo was charged with felonies eleven different times, but he was convicted only once and spent a total of six months in prison. Alex Di Brizzi was arrested twenty-three times on charges ranging from bookmaking to felony assault, but he got away with fines and suspended sentences through 1958. We will never know how many of these cases were fixed.17
“MOUTHPIECES FOR THE MOB”: CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEYS
When all else failed, and a major felony was set for trial, mafiosi turned to criminal defense attorneys to talk them out of trouble. The New York bar had had criminal defense specialists since the notorious firm of Howe & Hummel was put on retainer by Frederika “Mother” Mandelbaum, Gotham's biggest fence.18 Starting during Prohibition, gangsters relied more and more on criminal defense lawyers or “mouthpieces,” as the goodfellas called them. These “mouthpieces for the mob” became essential to the New York Mafia.19
The Mob Temptation for Lawyers
Mobsters were unlike most clients. They often led intriguing lives on the edge of infamy. Defense lawyers knew the complications—and temptations—of representing gangsters.
Samuel S. Leibowitz was one of the finest criminal defense lawyers (and later federal judges) of the twentieth century. During Prohibition, he obtained acquittals of Al Capone and Vincent “Mad Dog” Coll among other gangsters. Although Leibowitz made no apologies for providing a zealous defense, he knew the hazards of representing gangsters. “The doctor uses all the skill and scientific knowledge at his command, yet takes every precaution not to become infected by the germs of his patient,” described Leibowitz. He expanded on his colorful analogy:
Figuratively speaking, I made it my business to don a “white gown” to avoid exposure to antisocial germs. The regrettable fact is that a few specialists in this field neglected to distinguish between their professional obligations and their social life and made the mistake of not wearing a “white gown” any of the time. At the end of the legal day's work they hobnobbed on intimate terms with their virulent clients and thus brought disgrace on themselves and dishonor on a noble profession.20
When Washington lawyer Edward Bennett Williams took on Frank Costello as a client, he was fascinated when Costello took him to the Copacabana and introduced him to celebrities and bookmakers. However, Williams learned to keep his mob clients at arm's length. “You need me. I don't need you,” he told them.21 Florida defense attorney Frank Ragano regretted getting too close to clients like mafiosi Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante. “My gravest error as a lawyer was merging a professional life with a personal life,” said Ragano. “I gradually began to think like them and to rationalize their aberrant behavior.”22
Mob Lawyers
Other lawyers crossed over the line from professional advocate to partners in crime. J. Richard “Dixie” Davis left a white-shoe law firm in Manhattan for the excitement of representing Harlem numbers runners, whose defenses were paid for by high-level gangsters. Davis was by all accounts an excellent defense attorney. “Davis was a very bright, imaginative, twisted-minded, young man,” said Thomas E. Dewey, who faced him in court. By thirty, Davis had turned himself into a leading defense lawyer and married a Broadway showgirl.23
Then Davis crossed the line between defending his clients in court and helping them run the Harlem numbers lottery. Davis began hanging out with his top client Dutch Schultz, a trigger-happy gangster with links to the Mafia. Late one night, in a cheap hotel room, Davis witnessed Dutch Schultz put a gun into the mouth of one of his underlings…and fire. “I was scared. It is very unhealthy to be an eyewitness to a murder when a man like Schultz is the killer,” said Davis. “I kept thinking the mess I was in, and I couldn't help longing for the days when I was just a kid mouthpiece, making lots of money as a shyster in the magistrate's court.”24
Dewey brought an indictment against Davis to pressure him to testify not only against the gangsters but also against Tammany Hall district leader James “Jimmy” Hines. Hines had been providing protection to the Harlem numbers lottery by telling judges he got appointed to dismiss charges against Schultz's men. “Davis was nothing but an expendable and replaceable young lawyer. They could have found another one of those, but Hines was at the top,” explained Dewey.25 Davis's testimony ultimately helped convict Hines. Though he avoided a long sentence, J. Richard “Dixie” Davis was disbarred in 1937, his legal career over at thirty-two.26
Other attorneys dashed across the line to criminality. Frank DeSimone was literally a mob lawyer. He graduated from the University of Southern California School of Law in 1932, passed the bar, and practiced law in Los Angeles for the next twenty years. In that time, DeSimone quietly rose to become boss of the Los Angeles Mafia family. DeSimone developed contacts with the Lucchese Family of New York, and was called “the lawyer” by informants.27
Criminal defense attorney Robert Cooley became enmeshed in the world of the Chicago Outfit in the 1970s and ’80s. Mobsters called Cooley “the mechanic” for his ability to fix cases. “For the first eleven years of my legal caree
r, almost every day I gave out bribes—and not just to judges,” admitted Robert Cooley. He started socializing with mobsters, too. “Four times, I shared a last meal with a gangster before he went off to his death. Each one was calm and unsuspecting,” Cooley recounted. Sickened by the violence, Cooley became an informant for the government and testified as a witness against dozens of mobsters.28
Defense Lawyer Tactics: Playing the Identity Card
Most criminal defense attorneys did their work within the bounds of the law and were unrepentant about providing a zealous defense. Asked how he could represent accused mobsters, Bobby Simone cites the defense lawyer's creed: “The simple answer—the presumption of innocence owed every criminal defendant and the proposition that no one is guilty until and unless a jury, or in some cases a judge, says so after a fair trial.”29 Others argued that they were defending constitutional rights. “Strike Force attorneys and FBI agents acted like they were doing God's work, and therefore didn't have to play by the rules,” argued Las Vegas mob lawyer (and now mayor) Oscar Goodman. “That's not what the Constitution says, nor is it what the Bill of Rights is about.”30
The defense lawyer's tactics were not always pretty. A favorite tactic of some was playing the ethnic-identity card. Italian immigrants had often been grotesquely attacked as criminals by the press and politicians. The largest mass lynching in American history took place in 1890 in New Orleans when eleven Italians were hung by a mob after their acquittals and mistrials on charges of assassinating police chief David Hennessy. Modern defense lawyers, however, tried to portray hardened, wealthy mafiosi as nothing more than innocent ethnic martyrs. After a meeting of the Mafia was discovered in Apalachin, New York, in November 1957, attorneys for the mob attendees played the ethnic card aggressively.31 During the trial of the Apalachin attendees, the defense made this a central theme. “All these men are Italian. Is that why they are here in this courtroom?” asserted a defense lawyer at trial. “What's on trial here? The Sons of Italy?” another lawyer asked rhetorically.32