Mob Star

by Gene Mustain

  Angelo discussed the Little Pete situation somewhat more frankly with Gene. They debated asking Neil to ask Paul to back off, as a “favor” to the crew.

  Angelo said John had suggested telling Neil that merely “chasing” Little Pete—kicking him out of the Family—was as good as killing him. But, as Angelo told Gene, this approach had a downside:

  “The only thing that your brother made sense [on] was, we ask [Paul] for [that] favor, suppose something happens to us …?”

  “We …”

  “… we’re using a favor up.”

  Gene didn’t like any of it. “Whatever happens, whatever the outcome is with Little Pete, it’s not good for us.” He knew if the favor weren’t granted, a contemporary example for drug dealers would be set; if it were, the favor box would be empty. In any case, Gene said Mark Reiter and Arnold Squitieri should be warned immediately. If they get fingered, they better hide, fast. Meantime, “all of us” should get out of the “business” within six months.

  Gene also bemoaned having to ask an aging Dellacroce to intercede with Paul; he was used to a more aggressive underboss.

  “It’s a different story now,” Angelo explained. “It’s Paul … him and Chin [Gigante] made a pact. Any friend of ours gets pinched for junk … they kill ’em … they’re not warning nobody, not telling nobody because they feel the guy’s gonna rat. And your brother says he meant that for Neil.”

  A few days prior to a final Commission meeting, Angelo and Gene discussed the dilemma again—in bitter, defiant terms that suggested a fatal collision someday. Both were fearful and contemptuous of Castellano and made clear their anxiety about killing someone for what the bugs indicated they were doing.

  Gene said he could “take a guy out, a worm” because “I understand the rules,” but Little Pete should not be killed because “there’s a hundred guys that got passes” in similar situations. Gene did not want to be a babania “cop.”

  “So what do I got to do … become a cop? … [I]f I nail this guy, I gotta go become a cop because … they’ll nail anybody that steps out of line [and] I’m on order to kill them.”

  In light of the “conflicting stories” about the extent of Tambone’s involvement, Gene wondered how the Gotti crew would appear to others if it “killed a fuckin’ dear friend of theirs.”

  Gene was wondering a lot. He said Castellano, who inherited control of profitable labor-union rackets from Gambino, was against drugs only because “he never had to struggle for a quarter in his life.”

  Angelo noted that his heroin contact, Edward Lino, had recently “declared” himself off the record on drugs to Neil.

  Gene’s response to this news was remarkable for its irony—a soldier whose Family regarded labor unions only as places to plunder now recommended a union. For Family soldiers. “More guys like us should all come forward. All of them … they should all do that. I wish they would start a fucking union.”

  Once organized, the soldiers should boycott all other operations: bookmaking, loan-sharking, whatever. Then, Gene added in his own ironic way, union racketeering is all the Caesars would have left—“because that’s all they got, and [even those] will go [eventually].”

  Angelo said he meant to tell Neil this: “I don’t know what John Gotti wants to do, but I’m gonna tell you what me and Gene Gotti want to do, and this kid, Johnny Carneglia … Anybody that we have with us, we’re looking to take off record with us. As of now. Forget about Little Pete.”

  “Between you and me,” Gene replied, “if this guy gets hurt, you listen to me, Paul becomes more hard-nosed about it. We could start wars … we can’t turn the tide on everything.”

  Gene’s last remark brought out the Brutus in the forum of Angelo, who said: “Maybe it’s time to turn the tide.”

  No tapes of John Gotti saying what he wanted to do were made; his exact role is unknown, except to a silent few. There were hints from others’ lips, however, that he wanted the Pope to back off, too, though he wasn’t as outspoken as his best friend and most influential brother.

  The Tambone tension arose during a period of brotherly tension, as Gene illustrated in a remark to Angelo later that same day: “I’m not basin’ my life around him. I’m not basin’ my life around his fuckin’ gambling.”

  The day before Angelo and Gene’s second heart-to-heart talk, Angelo told Edward Lino that Chin Gigante might reverse himself and oppose Paul on the Commission; the former boxer had a soft spot for Tambone. This was a seemingly harmless forecast, but in speaking of Commission business to an unmade man, Angelo was violating a Family rule against even mentioning the Commission to anyone but soldiers. It was a major infraction, committed on FBI tape, and it would have devastating consequences throughout the Crime Capital.

  On April 30, FBI Special Agent Arthur Ruffels called on Tambone to warn him he might be killed. Little Pete tuned in the Angelo channel for another weather bulletin.

  All clear now, Angelo said.

  Angelo had just come from a mercy mission to Neil’s. Neil had told him to do with Little Pete whatever he wanted, it was now okay with Paul. Despite the speculation about Gigante, the Commission had deadlocked again. In a test case, the High Court of the Families couldn’t issue a drug-dealing opinion—because the Family with the tiebreaking vote had been expelled for it.

  Even so, Neil had left no doubt where he stood, Angelo said. If anyone around him—Angelo, the Gotti brothers, even his son Armond—got involved in narcotics, Neil would kill them, unless there were extenuating circumstances, such as a police frameup.

  Angelo informed Little Pete what his punishment would be. He would have to lie to Frank DeCicco, who was then in the Pope’s corner, and say he never touched heroin, only money. He would have to endure “a riot act” from John, but this would be only “a formality.” After that, Little Pete would have to stay away for at least six months, although he would be able to have coffee with Angelo. Occasionally.

  As he put out the Tambone fire, Angelo stoked his own. Edward Lino, the unauthorized recipient of Commission updates, was suspected of supplying only part of the fuel.

  “Did you get an answer on these, uh, Quaaludes?” Angelo asked Lino on April 26.

  “Yeah.”

  “Could you do anything if I got ‘H’?”

  “Yeah, I got a few good guys handling poppy.”

  “Call my brother, call him collect.”

  20

  FOUR SOULS ON BOARD

  ON MAY 6, 1982, across the George Washington Bridge in New Jersey, fugitives Salvatore and Stephanie Ruggiero awoke in the suburban home they had secretly leased and prepared to drive to a local airport to catch a 10 A.M. flight to Orlando.

  In addition to Florida, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, the couple had hidden out in Columbus, Ohio, for two of their seven years on the run. Lately, they believed the Garden State was as safe as any other. Salvatore, who had used the name Stephen Terri, had made several flights to Florida recently. He always flew in a Learjet he leased with a drug partner, Alfred Dellentash.

  Dellentash had wanted the plane this day for a flight to the Bahamas, but deferred to his partner. Salvatore, age 36, wanted to size up a fast-food franchise near Disneyworld that he was thinking of adding to his babania empire, or so Dellentash later said.

  “Okay, time en route—two hours,” the Lear pilot told the Teterboro Airport tower prior to takeoff. “Four souls on board.”

  Pilot George Morton, age 38, had flown Salvatore south many times, usually on short notice, like today. Sheri Day, age 24, a last-minute substitute, was the copilot. He had 7,000 hours of flight time, she 1,550. The Lear “was flown only in conjunction with Mr. Dellentash’s business,” a federal document says.

  It was a beautiful day to fly. The forecast was for clear skies all the way, and once the Lear climbed to 41,000 feet the Ruggieros had 700 square miles of unobstructed viewing along the curvature of the Atlantic seaboard. The couple had contemplated surrendering, but Michael Coiro was unable to ne
gotiate agreeable terms, so they stayed in the wind. With three homes and piles of cash—for Christmas, Sal had given family members $50,000 in Kruggerands—life wasn’t so bad, although the couple’s two kids were being raised a little differently than other children.

  Near noon, it was time to begin the descent toward Orlando International Airport. The Lear was over the Atlantic 35 miles southeast of Savannah, Georgia. Morton radioed the federal air-traffic control facility in Jacksonville, which gave him permission to descend to 39,000 feet. He disconnected the Learjet N100TA’s automatic altitude hold and begin flying manually.

  “One hundred tango alpha descending now,” copilot Day told the Jacksonville tower. A tape of this transmission later revealed a high-pitched sound in the background.

  In the cockpit, Morton and Day were startled by the sound and two red lights indicating problems with cabin pressure and Mach overspeed. The second warned that the Lear was going too fast for the descent pattern.

  Radar instruments later showed that shortly after the alarm was sounded, the Lear pulled out of its descent and climbed sharply to 41,000 feet, where it began to descend again. At 37,000, it shot back up, and then down again, like a paper airplane tossed across a room. Morton had lost control.

  For the next minute, at an increasingly steep angle, the plane with four terrified souls on board plunged in the wind toward the sea until it struck water nose first at shattering speed. Parts of the plane and its victims were recovered two hours later in placid waters. An investigation suggested that the cockpit alarms came from a malfunctioning instrument, causing Morton to make unnecessary adjustments that brought on the fatal dive.

  The tragedy had many consequences, which soon surfaced on the bugs in a house now stricken with grief and greed.

  Only three weeks earlier, another plane Dellentash leased had been seized in Mississippi with 1,000 pounds of pot aboard. Now, in New York, Dellentash was contacted and told he’d lost a plane and a partner. He in turn called Angelo and within hours, Angelo, Gene, and John Carneglia arrived at Sal’s hideout and, says the FBI, removed all valuables and evidence linking the dead man to them or to drugs.

  The next day, Michael Coiro, mulling semiretirement in Florida, flew up from the Sunshine State to console Angelo and help him clear up Salvatore’s affairs. He chatted briefly with Frank DeCicco at Angelo’s house.

  “Gene found the … heroin,” Coiro said.

  Meanwhile, Source BQ told the FBI the news. Agents got a warrant to search the already sanitized home for drugs and evidence of Salvatore’s assets, which the government hoped to seize as the proceeds of an illegal enterprise. Agents began serving grand-jury subpoenas on the Gurino brothers, Sal’s in-laws, and others.

  The bugs overheard Angelo saying how difficult it was accepting his brother’s death because the body was in “fuckin’ pieces.” He added: “If he would have been shot in the head and [they] found him in the streets—that’s part of our life, I could accept it.”

  A memorial service was held in Howard Beach at Angelo’s mother’s house. Afterward, Angelo said his late younger brother “had a pretty good, nice sendoff. I mean, my whole fucking family [and] … all the wiseguys in my Family were there.”

  Source Wahoo checked in May 10. He said Angelo—who had scheduled a secret rendezvous with Salvatore for that day—was making arrangements for the welfare of his brother’s children.

  Angelo was making many arrangements. On May 11, he and another man discussed Sal Ruggiero’s “last load”: six kilos of pure heroin that had previously arrived from Florida. “. . . [H]e gave me three” and “I’ve already sold half-another,” Angelo said.

  On May 12, as he agreed to sell part of the last load for $240,000, Angelo told the buyer that he was not new to the business and was continuing his brother’s “thing.”

  “I have to, I, you know, I got to keep doing it.”

  In the afternoon, Angelo got together with Gene and Michael Coiro to discuss the grand jury’s interest in Salvatore’s assets.

  “They’re going to think [Salvatore’s] empire was turned over to me … now [that] I’m taking over,” Angelo said.

  “They gotta prove it,” the lawyer said.

  “We keep our mouths shut, they’re gonna say nothing,” said Gene. “But see if this gets around that we’re just talking like this, they’re definitely going to put it [together].”

  This same day, Coiro said John Gotti was angry at him for not visiting him since coming up from Florida. As Coiro told the story, Gene became incredulous.

  “So I said, ‘John, I was over there [at Angelo’s] where I thought I had to be, doing what I had to do. I didn’t know you were unaware of what was going on.’”

  “You believe he’s unaware of all this, huh?”

  “I figure he knew about it, Genie.”

  Coiro said he explained to John that he knew it was “my duty and obligation” to visit John first—then Angelo and Gene—when he came to town. But he figured John would realize “at a time like this” Coiro would have to stay by Angelo.

  Coiro said he tried to explain “you don’t stand on the ceremony that we had before, that you expect me to come and see you first.”

  “So what did he say about that?”

  “He said … that we’re leaving him out. We’re doing everything without him.”

  “Why didn’t he come where we were? Where were we? We were somewhere we weren’t supposed to be?”

  “I said, ‘We didn’t hide anything. We weren’t doing anything without you.’ I said, ‘Right now Angelo is very, very much upset.’”

  Coiro said John replied he understood Angelo was upset, but that Angelo and Gene were “leaving me to do all the work.” Coiro said John recalled that the day his Frank was buried, he had to attend a sitdown.

  At this, Gene’s voice rose. “What the fuck does he want? So he shouldn’t have went!

  “He was trying to say that Angelo should lay aside his grief.”

  “All I can say, Mike, is the man’s got some fucking pair of balls. And I’ll tell ya, the best guy to justify things. And it don’t make no sense. It makes ya dopey and stupid about anybody that leaves their own family [on the day of a burial].”

  During his career, Michael Coiro had blurred the line separating a lawyer from his clients many times, but now he would take a giant step across it.

  “If I get some money, will you hold it?” Angelo asked.

  “Yeah,” Coiro said.

  “Nobody is to know but us …,” Gene said. “You’re not our lawyer, you’re one of us as far as we’re concerned.”

  “I know it, Gene, and I feel that way … ”

  Over the next few days, the plot to sell Sal’s last load and conceal his assets thickened. Angelo and Coiro discussed inventing a story to hide cash that Sal had paid for real estate. Angelo met another man to discuss selling the property to someone for “two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, no conditions.” Angelo and Coiro urged three women—Stephanie Ruggiero’s mother and two other relatives—to take the Fifth Amendment before the grand jury.

  Stephanie’s mother, who had visited her daughter’s hideouts, was frantic. She feared the probe would jeopardize her husband’s police pension. The two men tried to assuage her anxiety, and Angelo’s.

  “Don’t worry,” Angelo said. “If your lawyer knows the law, he’s gonna tell you, ‘Don’t answer no questions.’ Unless they give you immunity.”

  As Stephanie’s mother pondered what to do, Angelo rambled on like the jailhouse lawyer he was:

  “[If] they give you immunity, you tell them, ‘I see my daughter every year’ … if they don’t give you immunity, take the Fifth Amendment … walk out and go home.”

  Later, when Gene was told what the two men had discussed with the in-laws, he asked Angelo:

  “You sure these people weren’t wired up?”

  “[If] they were wired up, they gonna get their heads cut off.”

  Angelo was in a nasty mood be
cause he had just been told—by one of his brother’s heroin partners—that Salvatore had made another half-million in the last year, and that some people who owed money to Sal were now saying Sal owed them.

  “My brother don’t owe a fucking person,” he growled.

  Angelo said Sal had made much more than that amount in the past year, and he would “wind up breaking a lot of guys,” if Sal’s debtors didn’t tell the truth.

  “I don’t want nobody lying to me,” Angelo told one of Sal’s couriers. “If I find out anybody’s lying … if they’re holding back from my brother … I promise you this. You are gonna die the same way my brother died—in pieces.”

  Summing up, Angelo demanded what he would soon try to hide from his “Uncle” Neil and their Uncle Paulie: “All I’m asking for is the truth.”

  Two weeks after Jack Conroy said John Gotti’s phone was tapped, Gotti went to Florida. Consequently, the FBI omitted his name from the list of people it was citing each month as targets of “oral interceptions.” Although he had not been taped talking about drugs, he was still named as a suspected member of a conspiracy to distribute heroin, cocaine, and “digs”—slang for the synthetic downer Quaalude. Maybe it was because Source BQ kept insisting to the FBI: “Ruggiero is Gotti’s main worker and a conduit for all information and money for him.”

  During this same period, BQ said: “Gotti is so powerful he has to do very little to maintain his position.” Source Wahoo, the man more friendly with Gotti, rarely gave reports implying any criticism. For instance, at the time of BQ’s report, Wahoo merely said that Gotti was being “groomed” to replace Dellacroce or even Castellano.

  Near the middle of May, Angelo doubted the completeness of Conroy’s intelligence. If he was only peripherally involved in a Southern District of New York investigation of someone else, Angelo wondered, why did it seem like he was being followed all the time? Angelo asked Michael Coiro to make inquiries about any investigations in the Eastern District, and on May 21, Coiro said forget about it.