Final Confession
Page 22
Back in Chicago, Phil made the rounds, thanking friends and taking care of many of his legal and illegal ventures. “It was toughest saying good-bye to Augie and Mari,” Phil recounted. “We’d become very very close and that was very difficult.”
On the plane returning to Boston, Phil Cresta started planning how to wrap up the last piece of his still-unfinished business. It was too late to off Kelley or DeLeary, but there was one other guy who had ratted on Cresta who was still at large. Maybe some kind of atonement could be demanded of him.
20
Settling Scores
PHIL GOT OFF THE PLANE at Logan around five o’clock on the afternoon of April 15, 1974. He grabbed a cab and directed the driver to Fenway Park, one place every cab driver knew how to get to, regardless of where he was originally from. Cresta walked down Yawkey Way but did not go into McGrail’s. Instead he headed into the Fenway Motor Inn parking lot, got in Bobby’s car, which he’d borrowed, and drove to Mattapan.
As he drove, he thought of nothing but how many times Ben Tilley had screwed him or attempted to screw him, especially since Phil had “stolen” his gang and become successful while Tilley had remained small-time. The more Phil thought about it, the more convinced he became that all the bad things that had happened to him had started with Tilley: his betrayal of the Kay Jewelers job … Tony and Angelo in the can … and Phil’s likelihood of joining them.
Phil was getting worked up more and more. Now he was thinking of how his own failure to get rid of DeLeary and Kelley wouldn’t have mattered if Tilley hadn’t talked. Phil’s almost-perfect method of hiding from the feds had been ended by this last betrayal. Phil would most likely go back to the last place on earth he wanted to be—and Tilley would remain free. Was that justice? Tilley didn’t deserve freedom.
As Phil drove down Blue Hill Avenue, just as he and Angelo had done years before, it did not enter Phil’s mind that he had no proof for or against Tilley’s guilt. Like his father, when Phil Cresta Jr. was angry he acted.
He parked his car and headed into the Brown Jug. Phil forced a big smile when he saw the man he had come to see. Ben Tilley was standing at the bar.
Tilley saw Phil about the same time Phil saw him. There was fear in Tilley’s eyes as Phil walked over to him.
But when Phil got close to his nemesis, he extended his hand and said, “Ben Tilley, how the hell are ya?”
Tilley was caught off guard by this gesture of friendship and he instinctively extended his own hand, which Phil grabbed and shook.
Phil asked if he could buy Tilley a drink.
“Sure, a Seven and Seven,” Tilley said, now beginning to lighten up.
Phil continued to buy Tilley drinks and Tilley continued to throw them down. As the man got drunker, Phil, who was drinking only beer, became more sober, more focused on the job at hand.
Braggart that he was, Tilley spun story after story of his recent coups, which Phil knew to be false or embellished. Phil continued to laugh and ply Tilley with whiskey. The drunker Tilley got the more obnoxious he got, and the more Phil wanted to strangle him right there in the Brown Jug. Finally Cresta managed to steer the conversation around to cars.
He talked in glowing terms about his gold Bonneville, and he waited for Tilley to take the bait. Slurring his words, Tilley loudly said, “There’s only one kind of car for me and that’s a Cadillac. That’s all I ever drive, yes sir. I’ll take a Cadoo any day.” “I’m partial to gold cars,” Phil said, “how about you?” “Green, that’s always my color. Yes sir, get a new one every year, but I never change the color or make.”
Ha! Phil thought to himself. He really never does change! Still bragging, still drinking, still driving a green Cadillac, like he was when he spoiled our Kay Jewelers job. And still ratting people out!
At about one in the morning Phil told Tilley he had to go to the bathroom and he’d be right back. By that time Tilley thought Phil Cresta was one of his closest friends.
Phil headed in the direction of the bathroom, which was by the front door, but when he got there, he went outside instead. No one saw him leave. He headed to the parking lot and immediately spotted a new-model green Cadillac. He reached into his coat pocket and brought out an object that shone in the moonlight.
Phil dropped his cigarette and rolled under the Cadoo, shined a small flashlight on it, and within thirty seconds he was out from under the car and back on his feet. He brushed himself off, looked around, and headed back into the bar.
When Tilley saw Phil walking toward him, he shouted, “Hey, Phil, did everything come out all right?” and began laughing.
“Yeah, Ben, everything came out just fine.”
Phil bought Tilley yet another Seagram’s 7 and 7Up, and watched as he downed it. Phil couldn’t believe anyone could drink that much and still be standing.
Ten minutes before the tavern’s two A.M. closing time, Phil told Tilley that he had to be getting home. Tilley slurred, “Phil, let me buy you one drink before you go?” Phil declined, saying it was his night to buy. He ordered one more drink for Tilley and a beer for himself, which he never touched. Tilley, who still had three drinks on the bar, turned to Phil and said, “Where’d ya get so much money? What’d you rob, another armored car? Or was it a bank this time?”
The bartender came over and asked Tilley if he was all right. “Sure, I’m fine. Right, Phil?”
“Right, Ben,” Phil said. He turned to the bartender and asked if Tilley really would be all right driving home like that. The bartender, who didn’t recognize Phil from the last time he’d been there, some six years before, said, “Oh sure, God takes care of drunks and Irishmen, and Tilley happens to be both.”
“I was just worried about him,” Phil reiterated.
“Don’t worry, pal. He leaves here almost every night like that and he always makes it home.”
Phil tipped the bartender and left.
In his car, Phil waited another half hour until just about everyone had left the bar. Finally, at 2:25 A.M., Ben Tilley staggered out and just made it to his Cadillac. Phil watched as he fumbled about, trying to get his keys in the ignition. Once he had the car started, Tilley left rubber getting out of the parking lot. He headed right into traffic on Blue Hill Avenue and barely escaped a head-on collision. Phil followed him, hoping that Tilley wouldn’t get arrested.
Continuing up Blue Hill Avenue past American Legion Highway, Tilley took a left at Franklin Park. He was traveling at a high rate of speed as he passed the golf course. Phil followed the man’s car as it went past Shattuck Hospital and headed onto the bridge that would take its driver into Jamaica Plain. As Tilley was accelerating down the bridge, Phil could tell from the way the car handled that the brake line he’d cut in the parking lot had now let go completely. Tilley continued to pick up speed. At the bottom of the ramp, at the head of the Arborway, he swerved to the right, careened off a parked car, hit a tree, flipped over, and came to rest on the Arborway.
Phil headed back to the Fenway Motor Inn, assuming that Tilley was dead. But the next day he scanned the papers, and there was no report of a car crash on the Arborway.
Phil phoned the Brown Jug and asked the bartender if he had any news on Ben Tilley. “Yeah, but it’s not too good,” the bartender said. “Is he dead?” Phil asked. “No, but he’s close to it.” “Do you know what hospital he’s at?” Phil asked with just the right note of sadness. “Carney,” Phil was told.
Phil had nothing to worry about. The next day Ben Tilley died without ever regaining consciousness. The hospital’s death report listed his death as the result of severe trauma to the head. The police report said that Ben Tilley died as a result of a car accident on the Arborway at 2:35 A.M. on April 16, 1974. Both reports were true, in a sense. But in Phil’s opinion Ben Tilley also died because he had a big mouth—and he opened it when he shouldn’t have.
Phil later said, “I feel no remorse for Tilley. I felt sorry for his family, but he tried to take me down on at least ten different occasio
ns. I did what I had to do.” On April 18, 1974, the Boston Globe ran a story on page thirty-four in which the reporter wrote, “Benjamin J. Tilley, 64, of Mossdale road, Jamaica Plain, died at the Carney Hospital in Dorchester Tuesday, following an automobile accident in Mattapan. He lived in West Roxbury before moving to Jamaica Plain ten years ago. For several years he was involved in the contracting business in Allston, but retired five years ago.” The article went on to list the Tilley family members and the arrangements for the funeral. Ben Tilley’s death is still listed on the books of the Boston Police Department as an accident. But Ben Tilley’s death was no accident. It was what the wise guys call a payback.
SOMETIME BEFORE HIS TRIAL Phil Cresta met several times with a former acquaintance, the infamous James “Whitey” Bulger, who, knowing his day to run would come, listened carefully to all Phil had to say about how he had managed to hide. Their marathon sessions would pay off many years later—for Bulger.
On April 21, 1974, two prisoners at Walpole State Prison each received a letter. Inside each envelope was Ben Tilley’s obituary from the Boston Globe. Although there was no return address on either letter, both prisoners knew who had sent the clipping and what its significance was. They knew that their friend and mentor Phil Cresta was back in town and thinking of them, though he had never visited either of them in prison. “I just didn’t want to see them behind a glass partition,” Phil said. “I hated everything about Walpole, and I wasn’t going to go there until they dragged me.”
That was exactly what the state intended to do.
PROCEEDINGS AGAINST Philip J. Cresta Jr. were set to begin on June 19, 1974, in Suffolk County Superior Court. Before the trial got started, however, Assistant District Attorney James Sullivan telephoned Phil’s attorney, Al Farese, and asked if they could meet in Sullivan’s office at Pemberton Square. Farese, who called Phil, was baffled by Sullivan’s request for a meeting.
When they met, Sullivan got right to the point and offered to plea-bargain the case. If Phil would plead guilty to the charge of armed robbery, Sullivan told Farese, the state would recommend a term of not more than seven years and not less than five.
Farese was so pleased with the offer, he called Phil from a pay phone nearby, the one in front of the Steaming Kettle on the corner of Cambridge and Court streets.
Phil listened to the offer and said to Farese, “Tell Sullivan to stick it up his ass.”
Farese was shocked. He reminded his client that he could be facing up to forty years in prison if convicted.
“Why are they offering this kind of deal?” Phil asked.
Farese told him that the only thing he could figure was that it had to do with Red Kelley. By that time Kelley had become the poster child for the state. He had testified in a number of high-profile cases in which he’d rolled on former associates. And he was seen by some lawyers as having about as much credibility as a boatload of used-car salesmen. Farese speculated that the state was leery of trotting him out once again in what was sure to be another high-profile case.
“That rat bastard,” Phil said angrily. “I want him to look me in the eye when he’s on that stand. I want to see what he has to say.”
Farese advised Phil to think it over. “Listen, Kelley had no problem taking the stand and turning on Patriarca,” he said. “He’s certainly not going to have any problem sending you away for forty years either. Please think about this and call me back.”
“No deal. Tell Sullivan we go to trial as planned.”
“Are you positive, Phil?” Farese asked.
“Absofuckinglutely,” Phil replied.
His family and friends pleaded with him to take the seven years and not look back. But Cresta had accepted his mistake of thinking he could control Kelley, and the result of that mistake: his partners being sent to prison and his own eventual capture. He was adamant about going to trial.
“Nobody around me could understand why I didn’t take the plea,” Cresta recounted. “But I just couldn’t. Angelo and Tony were doing twenty-five to forty, and they wanted me to do a seven-year bit? If I went to trial and beat it, that was one thing, but I couldn’t take a plea and do seven while they were doing twenty-five–to–forty bits … I never told Farese or anyone else why, but I just couldn’t do that. Being a man of honor, which was something Red Kelley had no idea about, was a lot more important to me than anything else. So I told Sullivan to get it on and let the chips fall where they may.”
Phil knew there was a chance he’d win. None of those now in prison—Angelo, Tony, Diaferio, Merlino, and Roukous—would testify against Phil. DeLeary didn’t know him from Adam. Kelley, and Kelley alone, was the state’s only chance to put Cresta anywhere near the Brink’s job that had led to sentences for all the other participants.
Phil had read the transcript of Angelo and Tony’s Brink’s robbery trial and knew every word Kelley had said against them. Cresta prepared his lawyer for what to expect. He’d take his chances.
The high-profile trial of Phil Cresta, the last Brink’s robber to be tried, got under way in Suffolk County Superior Court on June 19. Attorney Al Farese and Assistant District Attorney James Sullivan settled on a jury made up of three women and thirteen men, all of whom would be sequestered for the length of the trial and for deliberation and disposition. James C. Roy was the presiding judge.
In his opening arguments Sullivan outlined for the jury the same case that the state had presented five years earlier against Angelo and Tony, again denoting Kelley and DeLeary as the prosecution’s star witnesses.
Farese, in his opening, told the jury that Andrew DeLeary would testify that he’d never met or seen Phil Cresta. Farese argued that Red Kelley was a professional witness who would say whatever he was instructed to say by his handlers. “Red Kelley is a coward and a liar. He will be the only witness who’ll tell you that Phil Cresta was involved with the December 28, 1968, Brink’s robbery. Neither the Boston Police nor the FBI can stand here, in this court, and tell you that Phil Cresta was involved in the Brink’s robbery. Not one prosecution witness other than Red Kelley will stand before you and tell you that Phil Cresta was in any way involved in the Brink’s robbery. You will hear a mountain of information about a robbery that was committed on December 28, 1968. None of that information has anything to do with Phil Cresta.”
Testimony began the next day, June 20. District Attorney Sullivan’s witnesses, just as Al Farese had said they would, told the jury about the Brink’s robbery, but none of them placed Phil Cresta at the scene. The jury heard from Richard Haines, the guard who had been tied up inside the truck. Part of his testimony provided an inkling of Phil’s expertise and prowess as a keymaker. This is a partial transcript of Haines’s testimony:
DA JAMES SULLIVAN (Assistant District Attorney for Suffolk County): Mr. Haines, is this key, to the best of your knowledge, the same key that the thieves used to enter armored car number 6280?
RICHARD HAINES: Yes, sir, it is.
DA: How do you know that this is the key used in the robbery? Are there any identifying marks on it?
HAINES: “Yes, sir, there’s an F scratched on the bow of the key.
DA: Do you know what that F stands for, Mr. Haines?
HAINES: I would assume it stands for the front door?
DEFENSE ATTORNEY AL FARESE: Objection, Your Honor.
JUDGE JAMES ROY: On what grounds?
FARESE: That answer calls for personal knowledge, Your Honor.
JUDGE: Sustained.
DA: Do you know from your personal knowledge if that key with the F scratched in its bow opens the front door of armored car number 6280?
HAINES: Yes, sir, it does.
DA: Did you personally try this key in the front door of number 6280 at any time after the robbery?
HAINES: Yes, sir, I did.
DA: And this key [he held up the key] is without a doubt the key that let two armed, masked robbers into number 6280 on the night of December 28, 1968. Is that right, Mr. Haines?
The courtroom erupted in laughter. Judge Roy banged his gavel repeatedly, demanding quiet. Phil Cresta did not admit in court that he’d made that key, but he later said that it was one of the best picks he’d ever made.
After Haines left the stand, the DA paraded witness after witness, from Boston police detectives to FBI agents to MDC policemen, each of whom told his story about the Brink’s robbery. Then the jury heard from Andrew DeLeary.
DeLeary told about meeting Red Kelley and Angelo and about his $51,000 cut from the robbery.
After each prosecution witness finished his testimony Judge Roy would turn and say to Al Farese, “Mr. Farese, do you have any questions from this witness?”
Each and every time, Farese stood up and asked the same question—“Do you know this man?”—as he pointed to Phil Cresta. Each time the prosecution witness answered, “No.” Farese would then ask, “Have you ever seen this man before today?” And again each witness would answer, “No.” Farese would then say, “That’s all I have, Your Honor. Thank you very much.”
On June 24, all that changed. At nine A.M. a Suffolk County Superior Court officer led a man with glasses and white hair to the witness stand. The man looked as though he could be everyone’s grandfather. He was, in fact, a cold-blooded killer with a police record dating back to the 1940s. It had been sixty-six months since Phil had last seen Red Kelley, when they split the Brink’s money in a Brockton Holiday Inn room.
District Attorney Sullivan asked the man on the stand his name. “John Kelley,” he answered slowly. “Are you known by any other name, Mr. Kelley?” Again very slowly, the elderly man said, “Yeah. Red.”
“Do you know that man?” Sullivan asked, pointing to Phil Cresta. “Yes,” Kelley answered. “Do you know his name?” Again Kelley nodded.