SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1956, BINGHAMTON, NEW YORK
After Galante was indicted, odd things started to happen. On Saturday, October 27, 1956, Captain Chris Gleitsmann and a junior sergeant in the police department of West New York, New Jersey, drove three hours in a police car to see Croswell and his partner Vincent Vasisko at a Binghamton substation. Captain Gleitsmann offered to pay Galante's fine and “consideration” for the officers if they would release Galante. A prepared Croswell showed the police captain Galante's hideous criminal record, and told him they weren't going to intercede. “Now that it is all over, what did they send you up here with?” Croswell asked. Gleitsmann held up one finger. “Do you mean a thousand dollars?” said Croswell. “Yes,” he replied.12
A few days later, a state assemblyman called the local district attorney to check if he could “do something” for Galante.13 Next, Galante's lawyer tried bribing the judge. “Brother Galante wanted to do something useful for the youths to compensate for his poor boyhood himself,” the judge recounted. Galante's lawyer offered to give $500 to any boy's charity of the judge's choosing, if he imposed no jail time. The judge threatened to punch the lawyer, and he sentenced Galante to thirty days.14
The instincts of the state police were right. Lilo Galante was in Binghamton in October 1956 to attend the national meeting of the Commission. After checking into their rooms at the Arlington Hotel, the Bonanno Family representatives attended meetings at Joe Barbara's estate in nearby Apalachin. On his way out, Galante traversed the dirt roads of Apalachin until reaching Route 17, where he opened the throttle and sped east to Brooklyn.15
OCTOBER 1957, ESTATE OF JOSEPH BARBARA, APALACHIN, NEW YORK
“Gang Lord Anastasia Is Murdered,” read the Binghamton Press on October 25, 1957.16 The beautiful, raven-haired Mrs. Josephine Vivona Barbara was worried. Her husband had been in New York City on the same day Anastasia was shot. Now fifty-two years old, Joe Barbara had had a major heart attack in January 1957, which nearly killed him. “Have you read or heard about the Anastasia murder?” she asked her husband. “Yes,” he replied in English. Seeing the housekeeper, Joe switched over to Italian, and then they went to the bedroom to finish the conversation in private.17
As we saw earlier, the assassinations of 1957 led to a national meeting of the Cosa Nostra. Stefano Magaddino persuaded Cosa Nostra leaders to hold the meeting at his friend Joe Barbara's fifty-eight-acre estate in Apalachin. In 1947, Barbara had built his English-manor-style stone house on a hill at 625 McFall Road, a secluded, dead-end road. The meeting was set for Thursday, November, 14, 1957.18
Barbara busily prepared for the meeting. On November 5, he placed a big order with Armour and Company in Binghamton: 207 pounds of prime-cut steak, 20 pounds of veal chops, and 15 pounds of deli meats.19 “All the people who mattered from the whole country had been invited,” recalled Bonanno. “Everyone was talking about the Big Barbeque at Apalachin.”20
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1957, PARKWAY MOTEL, VESTAL, NEW YORK
On the afternoon of Wednesday, November 13, the twenty-one-year-old Joseph Barbara Jr., who had dropped out of college to help out his father, was sitting in his office at the Canada Dry bottling plant in Endicott. The phone rang. It was Joe, Sr.: some friends of ours needed rooms. Like a good son, Joe Jr. drove to nearby Vestal to make reservations at the Parkway Motel.21
In a bit of cosmic timing, Sergeant Edgar Croswell was also due at the Parkway Motel that afternoon. Someone had written a bad check to the proprietors, who called the New York State Police. Ed Croswell had been promoted to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) of the state police, an elite plainclothes unit in charge of investigating felony crimes. He was now also a divorced bachelor living at the Vestal police barracks, where he kept “pretty much to himself” and stayed busy with the investigative work he liked so much. He rounded up Trooper Vasisko and, both in plain clothes, they headed over to the motel to investigate the bad check. Around 3:30 p.m., while standing at the front desk with the proprietor Mrs. Helen Schroeder, Croswell recognized Joe Barbara's son driving up to the motel parking lot.22
Croswell decided to eavesdrop on the kid. “We have checked on his father's activities for many years and it is just interesting sometimes what you can hear if you step out of sight when someone is around,” Croswell explained. The lawmen ducked behind the wall dividing the front desk from the living room of the proprietor, who acted as if all was normal.23
Joey Barbara walked in and made reservations for three rooms for Wednesday, November 13, and Thursday, November 14, to be charged to his father's plant. When the proprietor asked the young man to register the guests’ names, he said he did not know their names, as the rooms were for “a Canada Dry convention.”24
Croswell and Vasisko decided to check on Joe Sr.'s activities. The staties first went by the plant; they saw nothing unusual. Around 7:00 p.m., they drove by the Barbara estate and saw sleek automobiles in the front parking lot. They ran the plates on their Teletype machine back at the substation: a 1957 pink Lincoln belonging to James La Duca of Buffalo, a 1957 black Cadillac registered to Alfred Angelicola of New Jersey, and a 1956 blue Pontiac belonging to Patsy Turrigiano, a Barbara associate whom Croswell once arrested for operating an illegal still. Given the presence of the moonshiner, Croswell called Kenneth Brown and Arthur Ruston of the Treasury Department's Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Unit's office in Binghamton, with whom he had been working in monitoring Barbara's men.25
Around 9:00 p.m., a 1957 blue Cadillac registered to Buckeye Cigarette Service Co. of Cleveland, Ohio, pulled up to the Parkway Motel. When Mrs. Schroeder asked the occupants to register their names, they declined, assuring her that “Mr. Barbara would take care of it.” The men were, in fact, John Scalish, boss of the Cleveland Family, and his consigliere John DeMarco, a convicted extortionist. The pair belonged at the meeting. Scalish and DeMarco were always making new partnerships in the Midwest and beyond. The Cleveland Family was among the first to develop interests in the new casinos in Las Vegas, providing protection for a share of the skim.26 The Clevelanders retired to their rooms.
They had no idea they were being watched.
THURSDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 14, 1957, THE ASSEMBLY
The big day arrived. On Thursday morning, November 14, 1957, Joseph Barbara Sr. rose early, dressed in a crisp white shirt and dark business suit, and walked down to the kitchen, where Mrs. Barbara was cooking breakfast for some attendees who'd stayed in guest bedrooms. At 8:00 a.m., Joe Barbara enjoyed breakfast with his houseguests, chattering away in Italian. Although the weather was dreary and overcast, spirits were high among the old friends.27
Beginning at 9:00 a.m., dozens of muscular, late-model American automobiles rumbled onto Barbara's property, and wiseguys started piling out of the cars. “Good morning, how do you do? Glad to see you,” said Barbara as he welcomed the men with hearty handshakes. “How are you feeling?” the guests asked their host. “How is the family?”28
They came from all over America. With the leadership turmoil in their ranks, the New York families sent high-level delegations, totaling eighteen men or about a quarter of the attendees. Reflecting its position as host, upstate New York had the most attendees, with twenty-two men. Meanwhile, roughly thirty out-of-state mobsters had come from across America and even from Cuba. They came from Boston, Havana, Kansas City, and Los Angeles. Barbara and his men acted like airport shuttles, picking up those flying in on Mohawk Airlines at the Tri-Cities Airport.29
The goodfellas enjoyed themselves. In Barbara's garishly huge living room (it had seven davenport sofas), fifteen mobsters played pinochle, their cash piling up on the card tables. Smaller groups gathered in Barbara's office, in guest bedrooms, and in the summer house. John Montana of Buffalo did not arrive until close to noon; he told Barbara his “car had broke down” and was “sorry for being late.” Manny Zicari was in charge of cooking steak sandwiches at the outdoor barbeque behind the front garage. The mafiosi helped themselves to cold cuts,
fruit, and cake at the outdoor buffet. They were having a great time.30
THURSDAY AFTERNOON, NOVEMBER 14, 1957, THE DRAGNET
In the early afternoon, Mrs. Barbara retreated to the breakfast nook with her housekeeper Marguerite Russell. Around 12:40 p.m., she saw a strange car in the front parking lot. Vasisko was at the wheel while Croswell and Treasury agents Brown and Ruston took down license plate numbers. “There's the state troopers,” exclaimed Mrs. Barbara as she stared out the window.31
The dozen or so mafiosi standing at the outdoor barbeque behind the garage had already spotted the strange car driving up and down McFall Road. They migrated to the parking lot to watch the lawmen. Decked out in silk suits, gold watches, and pointy dress shoes, the assembled men “looked like a meeting of George Rafts,” described Croswell.32
Overwhelmed, Trooper Vasisko backed the car out of the driveway and drove down McFall Road to regroup about half a mile from Barbara's house. Croswell radioed for reinforcements: “I requested Sergeant Kennedy to get us all the uniformed men that he could down there in a hurry.” The troopers set up a roadblock by parking their car at the base of the dead-end McFall Road. Shortly after setting up the roadblock, one of Barbara's men Ignatius Cannone drove past them on his way to Barbara's house.33
At 1:15 p.m., the mafiosi in Barbara's house sent down Bartolo Guccia, a Barbara associate who ran a local fish business, to trawl for more information. The troopers recognized Guccia's truck and let him pass. The fishmonger drove past them a little way, then suddenly spun around and went back up the hill to Barbara's house. Minutes ticked by tensely….
THE MCFALL ROADBLOCK
Inside the house, Vito Genovese was stewing. This was supposed to be his coronation as boss. Vito had always wanted the meeting held in Chicago. Now, Barbara's man was saying the police had blocked the road. Don Vito was not about to go traipsing through the woods. To hell with that, Vito was leaving the way he came. The drivers went outside to start their engines.34
At 1:20 p.m., Barbara's local man Emanuel Zicari drove down the road in the first automobile with an unfamiliar passenger. Uncertain what to do, Croswell initially let Zicari pass the roadblock, but then he abruptly changed his mind. “We hadn't completely formulated our plan as to what we were going to do, and I also knew Zicari,” Croswell later testified, explaining the chaotic situation. He decided to radio Sergeant Kennedy to pick up Zicari's car on the highway and identify his passenger. It was Dominick Alaimo, a union representative (and secret caporegime in the Bufalino Family) from Pittston, Pennsylvania.35
At 1:25 p.m., the next car to roll down the hill was a power-packed, black 1957 Chrysler Imperial. At the wheel was Northeast Pennsylvania boss Russell Bufalino. New York boss Vito Genovese was in the front passenger seat. Piled in the back were the members of the Philadelphia delegation, including boss Joe Ida, his underboss Dominick Oliveto, and Genovese's underboss Gerry Catena. The state police instantly recognized Bufalino, a notorious racketeer. They frisked all the men, finding no weapons. When Croswell asked Bufalino what he was doing at the house, Bufalino responded with what became a familiar refrain: “Barbara had been sick, so he came up here and brought some friends and had gone up to visit.” Don Vito told them only his height, then asked the troopers whether he had to answer any of their questions. “No, you don't have to answer them,” a trooper replied. “Well, I would rather not,” Genovese said defiantly.36
The next two cars were driven by Barbara men, Nat Cannone and Patsy Turrigiano. Since they were locals like Zicari, they were allowed to pass the roadblock and report voluntarily to the Vestal substation.37
By then reinforcements from Troop C had arrived. Croswell immediately sent them off to patrol for the runners. Twenty state police troopers set up a dragnet around Apalachin. Meanwhile, Croswell focused on the McFall roadblock. Throughout that afternoon and evening, cars carrying mobsters sporadically came down the hill.38
New York boss Carlo Gambino was riding in a 1956 Lincoln chauffeured by his caporegime Paul Castellano, himself a future boss of the family.39 Riding in the car with them was Armand Rava, a bitter holdover from the Anastasia regime (Gambino would have Rava killed a few weeks after Apalachin). Following them was Gambino's consigliere, Joseph “Staten Island Joe” Riccobono. Although this was supposed to be Carlo Gambino's coming out party, this is not what he had in mind. The low-profile Gambino, who had always eschewed the public spotlight, would soon be introduced to all of America under banner headlines.40
It must have felt like déjà vu for New York boss Joseph Profaci and his underboss/brother-in-law/chauffeur Joseph Magliocco. In December 1928, Profaci and Magliocco had been arrested together with twenty-one other mafiosi at the Statler Hotel in Cleveland. Prior to Apalachin, the ’28 Cleveland conclave had been the largest Mafia meeting to be disrupted by police. Almost thirty years later, Profaci and Magliocco were being hauled off to another stationhouse for questioning about another meeting. Their caporegime Salvatore Tornabe was also caught at the roadblock.41
The Lucchese Family of New York was represented at Apalachin by three high-ranking lieutenants. Consigliere Vincent Rao departed alone in his 1956 Cadillac Coupe. Caporegime John “Big John” Ormento of East Harlem—the most significant narcotics trafficker in the country—was caught at the roadblock as well in his black ’57 Chevy convertible. Caporegime Joseph “Joe Palisades” Rosato, a racketeer in the garment district, was also netted at McFall Road.42
Before the DeCavalcante Family took over, northern New Jersey was treated as a satellite of the New York families, and its attendees reflected this relationship. Anthony Riela, a member of the Bonanno Family in Essex County, New Jersey, provided rooms at his cheap airport motel for out-of-town delegates with flights in Newark. Meanwhile, the elder statesmen of the Apalachin meeting was sixty-nine-year-old, Sicilian-born Charles Salvatore Chiri of Bergen County, New Jersey.43
The Patriarca Family of New England sent Frank Cucchiara, its consigliere from Boston. His boss Raymond Patriarca had good relations with the New York families, which agreed to give the Patriarca Family dominion from Boston to the Connecticut River. Cucchiara indeed was escorted by Natale Evola of the Bonanno Family of New York.44
From the South came Dallas boss Joseph Civello. Born in Louisiana, the tall, lanky Civello became a liquor-store owner and drug trafficker in Texas. He served six years in Fort Leavenworth for his role in a massive narcotics ring. After his release in 1944, he gradually rose through the ranks to become boss of the Dallas Family in 1956.45
Most delegates from upstate New York had driven their own automobiles to Apalachin, and so tried leaving by car on McFall Road. From Auburn, New York, the Monachino brothers, Patsy and Sam, had close ties to the Profaci Family. The Monachinos drove down in their 1957 Oldsmobile with Anthony “Guv” Guarnieri and Patsy Sciortino.46 Meanwhile, the much younger Valenti brothers, Constenze (age thirty-three) and Frank (age forty-six), of Rochester, New York, departed in a sleek, blue-and-white 1957 Chrysler Saratoga convertible. Poor Joey Barbara left in the least stylish vehicle, a company station wagon.47
Joseph Falcone was driving his older brother Salvatore Falcone, head of the Magaddino Family's interests in Utica. They brought their notorious enforcer Rosario Mancuso, a 235-pound thug who had a conviction for assault with intent to murder for a brutal beating he inflicted.48 The Falcones had an estimated 80 to 100 made men, and vice was so pervasive that Utica was nicknamed “Sin City of the East.”49 Croswell was later assigned to a probe of corruption in Utica. Using wiretaps, Croswell discovered that Deputy Police Chief Vincent Fiore was tipping off brothels and gambling houses to police raids, and he even supplied private protection to Albert Anastasia in Utica. Fiore was forced to resign and subsequently convicted.50
THE CHASE BEGINS
With troopers at the McFall roadblock rounding up friends of theirs, some attendees decided to take their chances on foot. About 1:45 p.m., Treasury Agent Brown saw about eight or ten men “in close single order fil
e walking from the back of the Barbara residence” toward the woods. About 2:00 p.m., Treasury Agent Ruston saw another “three or four men running across that open area” behind Barbara's house. The escape had begun.
Croswell directed Treasury Agent Brown and Trooper T. G. Sackel to go after them. To encircle the runners, they drove a police car southeast to McFadden Road, the next dirt road over on the other side of the trees. The lawmen got out of the car to hunt for the hoodlums.51
10–1: Joseph Barbara Sr.'s estate in Apalachin, NY, 1957. The majority of the attendees of the Mafia meeting were caught at the McFall roadblock. Other attendees were caught trying to escape through the surrounding trees and dirt roads. (Map by Ted Pertzborn)
Buffalo's Man of the Year
The first runner they caught was John Montana of Buffalo, New York. Brown and Sackel found Montana hopelessly tangled on a barbed-wire fence, his expensive coat enmeshed in the jagged metal. Worse still, Montana knew he was about to face a very public fall from grace. The Honorable John C. Montana was a former City of Buffalo councilman, successful businessman, and civic benefactor. In 1956, Montana was named Buffalo's “Man of the Year” by the Erie Club, an association of police officers. Behind his sterling image, Montana held a virtual monopoly on taxicabs in Buffalo, and he was second-in-command of the Magaddino Family of Buffalo, known as “the Arm” for its influence throughout western New York. Standing nearby Montana, in fact, was an out-of-breath Antonio Magaddino, his suit pants covered in burrs and mud.52
Sitting in the back of the police car, Montana tried desperately to salvage his reputation. He told Sergeant Croswell that he “knew many prominent people” and that if Croswell “would let him go back to get his car, he might be able to do something for me.” When that did not work, Montana tried to explain his presence: on his way to Pennsylvania, he had car troubles and coincidentally stopped by Barbara's home for some repairs.53
The Mob and the City Page 24
