As Asaro watched his cousin tell the stories of their criminal lives together, he seethed. Asaro may have been elderly, but his flinty eyes still seemed menacing and angry behind his glasses. Throughout the trial he would mutter to no one in particular or else badger his attorneys to be more aggressive. There was also someone else in court who found Valenti’s appearance on the witness stand infuriating: his son Anthony.
An obese man, Anthony “Fat Sammy” Valenti showed up on the first day of his father’s testimony and from the back of the courtroom seemed to glare at the witness stand. Mob aficionados had always remembered the scene from The Godfather: Part II in which the Sicilian brother of the mobster Frankie Pentangelie was brought to Washington to not so subtly intimidate his brother from giving incriminating testimony during a congressional hearing. Prosecutors would occasionally raise the issue of familial pressure during trials as a way of keeping some spectators out of a courtroom, even though a witness’s freedom would depend on truthful testimony. But there was no evidence that the younger Valenti had any reason for showing up in court other than to see for himself his father’s testimony. Confronted by a print journalist, Anthony Valenti would remark, “I have nothing to say,” although when TV news reporter Mary Murphy caught up with him outside the courthouse he relented and admitted that it was distressing to see his father testify.
While Lufthansa and the Katz murder were the marquee acts in the case, Valenti described numerous other crimes from the witness stand that he and Vincent were involved in, sometimes together. The alleged crimes Valenti regurgitated on the stand went as far back as the 1960s and were as recent as 2010 and 2013. Under federal law, a racketeering conspiracy required proof of only two criminal acts over a ten-year period. But because of statute-of-limitation issues, the prosecutors had to try and link Vincent to the enterprise—in this case the Bonanno crime family—within five years of the date of his indictment in January 2014. If they were able to show such a recent connection, then Argentieri and company would be able to link Vincent with being part of a Bonanno crime-family enterprise, which went all the way back to the murder of Paul Katz in 1969 and Lufthansa in 1978.
So while he was on the witness stand for the government, Valenti talked about other allegations facing Vincent, which had nothing to do with Lufthansa. There were charges involving an arson in 1980 at the old Afters club location, which Valenti said was burned because it was going to become an African-American nightclub. Also spelled out by Valenti were abortive attempts to rob armored cars in 1984 and 1986, as well as the robbery of a FedEx truck carrying gold salts, which when put through a chemical process would have produced about $1 million in actual gold metal. Through the 1980s and 1990s, Valenti said there were numerous extortion attempts, illegal gambling, and in 2013 he and Asaro squeezed about $4,000 from a Bonanno crime family associate who was loansharking without permission. Such was the convoluted code of ethics of the Mafia. But the variety of crimes charged made for testimony that at times seemed confusing, disparate, and unconnected.
Yet it was Vincent’s loansharking operation, said Valenti, that had direct ties back to the Lufthansa heist. Vincent’s lending grew in terms of dollar amounts, which Valenti recalled stemmed from Lufthansa money. Through the 1970s and 80s, there were loans to a variety of borrowers ranging from local businessmen to Vincent’s relatives, according to Valenti, who said it was his job to collect weekly from those who were in debt. Loansharking can be pernicious because not only are the interests exorbitant but payment of the so-called points charged did nothing to reduce the overall loan principle, which had to be paid separately.
Michael Zaffarano, the Times Square porn king, made a great deal of money from adult films and from his buildings along Broadway, which he leased to peep show operators, X-rated book stores, and bath houses. While his buildings were nothing to rave about, they churned out steady cash, and the properties were increasing in value as the prospect of urban renewal grew. Yet, even Zaffarano and his son John found that they had to borrow from Vincent, remembered Valenti. Both Zaffaranos paid back their loans but, according to Valenti, that didn’t stop Vincent from pulling a bit of a scam with them, even if they were relatives.
When Michael Zaffarano died in February 1980, both Valenti and Vincent went to the funeral. While it might seem poor etiquette to talk business in such a setting, Vincent had no qualms about raising with Zaffarano’s son John the subject of his father’s old loan—which had already been paid.
“At Mickey Zaffarano’s funeral, what, if any, discussion did you have about the loan?” Argentieri asked Valenti.
* * *
“Vinnie told his son, John Zaffarano, that his father owed us a hundred-thousand dollars,” replied Valenti.
“Was that true?”
“No.”
“Had Mickey Zaffarano already paid back that loan?”
“Yes.”
Valenti went on to explain that the younger Zaffarano agreed to pay back his father’s previously repaid loan again at two percent, or two points a week. But that wasn’t the only financial hook Vincent had in the Zaffarano porn empire. John Zaffarano, administrator of his father’s estate had to keep up the Times Square area property and continue to run the adult-film side of the business. For instance, the marquee on the façade of the well-known Pussycat Theater needed to be refurbished and for that, according to Valenti, John Zaffarano took out additional loans from Vincent. So, some of the Lufthansa loot appears to have gone to help publicize on the theater’s marquee the exploits of the 1980s porn stars de jour.
With the elder Zaffarano’s death, Vincent appeared to have become the major Mafia connection for the Times Square sex business of his old crime captain. Disputes would arise in the porn trade and for that Vincent was the man John Zaffarano turned to for help, said Valenti. One of the biggest female porn stars of that period dubbed by some the “Golden Age” was Marilyn Chambers, the blond former Ivory Soap model who went on to make her livelihood in films that the public clamored for. Her 1972 debut was in the movie Behind the Green Door, followed by other hard-core features, including the 1980 film Insatiable.
According to Valenti, Michael Zaffarano had a deal before he died that Chambers would make ten films although she was also working with other producers. In approximately 1982, a sit down was arranged between John Zaffarano and Valenti with two producers allegedly tied to the Gambino crime family who Chambers was working with in California. As a result of the meeting, Chambers was released to work with Zaffarano who ultimately had a change of heart and didn’t use her in any films, said Valenti. For the trip, Valenti said he got nothing in terms of compensation but Vincent did. (After years of drug and alcohol abuse, Chambers crossed over into legitimate films but continued to work in porn. She died of a cerebral hemorrhage in April 2009 at the age of fifty-seven.)
By the mid-1980s, the porn industry was gravitating away from films in theaters to videotape. Consumers could get their pleasure by viewing cassettes in their own homes. This meant that at least some of the Zaffarano empire, the theaters, was heading to obsolescence. But to the rescue came the plans of New York State and New York City to turn the “Great Blight Way” around 42nd Street and its environs into something more upscale, family oriented and world-tourist friendly. This would turn out to be a gold mine for the Zaffarano family, not to mention some others in the mob.
The rush for development of Times Square and the surrounding neighborhood pushed property values higher and higher. By 1985, developers were ready to give the Zaffarano estate an enormous sum for the block of property the dead mobster had once owned. This was all business and it came at the right time. The city was ready for a big change, and the Pussycat Theater and sex shops were going to eventually give way to things like the Disney Store, Ghirardelli chocolate, and the Marriott Marquise.
With all of the competing interests, it took a great deal of finesse to make the deal work. One of the city’s most experienced real estate brokers, Robert Shapiro, re
membered working for months on the Zaffarano land parcels, a deal that was complicated by a number of pending commercial leases, including some housing businesses owed by Genovese crime family captain Matthew “Matty the Horse” Ianniello. Being a well-known gangster, Ianniello was constantly under scrutiny. His federal conviction in 1985 by the office of then-Manhattan federal prosecutor Rudolph Giuliani further complicated things because Ianniello wound up owing the federal government a great deal of money.
In interviews in 2015, Shapiro related to the author that eventually he was able to pull together a $18.5 million deal for the property. Included in it was the Pussycat, some gay steam baths, Ianniello’s bar known as Mardi Gras, and some peep shows. Most of the money went to John Zaffarano and his mother, who were the beneficiaries of the estate. Ianniello’s leases also had value, but since he owed $750,000 in forfeited funds to Giuliani, that money went directly to the federal government, Shapiro remembered.
Shapiro was certain that none of the money went to the mob and strictly speaking that was true: the purchase price poured directly to the Zaffarano estate or the federal government. But according to Valenti, his cousin Vincent had other plans, impelled by a sense of entitlement for the way he had helped out Zaffarano over the years. Resentful over what he had to fork over to Giuliani, Ianniello also felt that he should get something from the Zaffarano estate. As Valenti remembered things, Vincent and Ianniello started pressuring John Zaffarano for a cut of the real-estate deal.
“Being that John sold the business, Matty wanted a million dollars that he felt he would lose with John selling the properties. So he wanted a million dollars,” recalled Valenti.
There was then the inevitable sitdown called and that led to be a big breach of mob protocol. Ianniello turned up at the Manhattan restaurant RSVP and was fully expecting Vincent Asaro to take part. Instead, Valenti showed up with another man, and Ianniello was peeved.
A big silver-haired man and a decorated World War Two veteran with a neck that seemed to merge directly with his head, Ianniello was not a man to be trifled with. Though facing various illnesses, he could be very intimidating, even as a senior citizen. Ianniello let Valenti and his associates have it.
“Get out. Leave,” said Ianniello, who was on the verge of blowing his stack.
“He was really angry that Vinnie didn’t show up. It was like disrespectful,” said Valenti.
In the mob, a powerful captain like Ianniello was to be shown respect in a sitdown by the presence of another mobster of similar rank sitting across the table in the dispute. By not showing up, Vincent had slighted Ianniello, said Valenti.
With his tail between his legs, Valenti trooped back to Queens and told Vincent about what Ianniello said. At that point, Vincent said he would take care of it and did later on. Valenti said that in a meeting John Zaffarano was told he had to pay the million dollars to Ianniello. Zaffarano didn’t want to fork that over but eventually did, said Valenti.
With his nephew flush with cash from the Times Square deal, Vincent saw some opportunity for himself. Harkening back to all he had done for the late Mickey Zaffarano businesses, Vincent told his son that he was also due a million dollars, remembered Valenti, adding that the young man thought it was a joke. But Vincent wasn’t joking and Valenti said that his cousin sent him down to Florida where a now-relocated Zaffarano finally paid $400,000.
The demands for a cut of the Times Square real estate were painted by the government as attempts by Vincent to extort John Zaffarano, who was later called to the witness stand to testify for the government. Referring to Vincent as “My cousin Vinny,” John Zaffarano was a reluctant witness and admitted he didn’t want to testify. While contradicting Valenti on the amount of the payments, Zaffarano did say he forked over $750,000 to Ianniello and gave Vincent $400,000.
Zaffarano was fuzzy on some of the details, claiming that in the years of the property deals he had a substance-abuse problem and had trouble remembering things. He agreed that Vincent had helped him negotiate with Ianniello and said that he gave money to his entire family. He wasn’t the most convincing witness for an extortion case, but Zaffarano’s testimony in the grand jury had been enough to get Vincent indicted in the first place. Along with everything else being said on the witness stand, the cumulative effect might still prove to be trouble for cousin Vincent.
Valenti’s testimony was proving to be a very important part of the government’s case. But he also would be useful in explaining some of the hundreds of tape recordings he had made of Vincent and that Argentieri and company figured would be the coup de grâce to seal the defendant’s fate. Valenti had been able to lull his cousin Vincent into a false sense of security so that they talked about anything and everything. From alleged crime in progress to nostalgia for the old days of the Mafia. There were hundreds of hours of tapes, and while not all of that would be played for the jury, the prosecution cherry picked what it thought was the best. Not only did the recordings seem incriminating, but they also made Asaro look bad in the eyes of some of his associates. He bad-mouthed people he was supposed to show respect for and bemoaned his miserable lot in life. Vincent Asaro may have hauled in hundreds of thousands of dollars—even millions of dollars—from a life of crime as described by Valenti. But in the end he portrayed himself in his own words as one step above a “brokester,” a friendless gangster on the scrap heap.
“Where am I going to go? I got no place to go,” said Asaro on one tape. It was a remark that he made years after fellow gangster James Tartaglione was overheard on another secret recording made in 2003 saying that Vincent might just be too poor to be in the Mafia life. Another day Asaro said on tape that he was an old man who had “good days, bad days,” who stayed by himself and wasn’t even aware of what was going on in the mob in his old neighborhood in Ozone Park.
Asaro also seemed like a vain man, fastidious about the way he dressed even if he was down on his luck. In a November 2011 conversation, he chided Valenti for wearing what looked like old sneakers. “I went through forty pairs of sneakers. You’re still wearing those,” said Asaro. “To me the way I look is very important.”
But some of the most suggestive tapes indicated that Asaro was aware of what had gone on in the Lufthansa heist. Some of what he said skirted very close to an admission about being involved in robbery. At one point, Asaro related on a recording in January 2011 how one of the alleged heist participants, Danny Rizzo, was so broke that he had even asked for $200.
“He’s still got money from . . .” said Valenti on the recording, referring to Lufthansa.
“No,” answered Asaro, relating how Rizzo said he was cheated.
Then in a February 2011 recording, Asaro again bemoaned his pitiful existence, one far from the glory days of the old mob scene.
“It’s life. We did it to ourselves. It is the curse of this fucking gambling,” Asaro is heard to say.
Everybody on the street seemed to know of Asaro’s compulsive gambling. Dollar bills flew out of his hands and toward the ponies as fast as he made them. If he earned a buck for every time he used an expletive as he recounted his bad fortune, Asaro would have had a healthy bankroll. On the tape, Asaro seemed wistful, taking stock of a life ill-spent and one in which he felt cheated.
“We never got our right money, what we were supposed to get,” said Asaro. “We got fucked all around. That fucking Jimmy kept everything.”
For those in the courtroom when the tapes were played, Asaro seemed in the latter recording to be admitting some involvement in the heist as he lamented getting shortchanged by Burke and being broke so many years later. “Asaro’s Voice on Recordings Seem Damning,” said the headline the next day on a story in Newsday.
Based on Valenti’s testimony, Burke seemed to have kept his hands on about $3 million in heist proceeds for the simple reason that many of the participants were killed shortly after the robbery. While not part of the evidence in the case, former Bonanno crime family captain Dominick Cicale co-authored an e-bo
ok in 2015 in which he claimed that years after Burke’s death, he and fellow Bonanno captain Vincent Basciano got their hands on money that Burke had secreted in a bank safe-deposit box. According to Cicale’s account, which law-enforcement officials greeted with skepticism, he and Basciano, as well as Burke’s son-in-law, mobster Anthony “Bruno” Indelicato, hatched the idea of getting the money over a December 2001 dinner at Rao’s Restaurant in East Harlem. The idea was to use the money for a cartoon film about a ferret named “Ferretina,” which was never made, said Cicale. Indelicato allegedly got access to the safe deposit box and took out hundreds of thousands of dollars in Lufthansa cash, claimed Cicale. But even if true that Burke left a cash-laden safe-deposit box, given his long history of crime, any funds could have been the proceeds of many other crimes.
* * *
Gaspare Valenti had been on and off the witness stand for over four days before Asaro’s main defense attorney Elizabeth Macedonio was able to take a shot at him through cross-examination on October 26. For legal experts, a good cross-examination can not only bring out contradictory statements from a witness but also suggest a person’s motives and prejudices for agreeing to testify—or cooperating with the prosecution. Valenti’s direct examination had laid out the Lufthansa heist, details of the Katz burial, and other crimes ascribed to Asaro in seemingly convincing detail. It was not only Macedonio’s job to cast doubt about Valenti’s stories but also show something of his character and motivation for turning on his old friend.
Valenti had made no secret that he was cooperating because he was broke, dispirited, and in need of a meal ticket for himself and his family. He told Macedonio from the witness stand that the FBI had been giving him $3,000 a month for support, and since 2008, when he first started to help the government, he had collected $178,000 from the agency. For years, prosecutors had used paid cooperating witnesses, something that wasn’t a secret to anybody. But in Valenti’s case, he certainly saw money as the prime, and perhaps only, reason for turning on Asaro.
The Big Heist Page 22
