by Lamothe, Lee
“At that time, most of the people were dead. There weren’t any people to challenge,” said Frank Lino, a Bonanno captain. Massino—and federal indictments—had cleared away some potential competition, particularly from the Zips. Sal Catalano, as street boss of the Zips in New York, had once been seen as a possible contender. At one point during Rastelli’s incarceration, Catalano had been elevated to the position of acting boss of the family, a move that probably drew considerable heat from other bosses, if not officially from the entire Commission.
“They were looking to make him boss and I think they were pushing Phil Rastelli aside, but he couldn’t be [boss] because he was already made in Italy,” Vitale said. “You can’t have allegiance with two—you are either all Italy or all United States.” The issue of how Sicilian Men of Honor would fit into the American Mafia was still causing problems. The rule Vitale spoke of, however, seemed to apply only to holding the top post, as boss, because plenty of Zips in America and Canada had been inducted into the Bonanno Family as soldiers and elevated to captain. Any remaining claim Catalano might once have had evaporated when he was sentenced to 45 years in prison for his part in the Pizza Connection case in 1987. Another Zip who had ambition, street smarts and charisma, Cesare Bonventre, had been killed in 1984, on Massino’s orders, on the eve of the Pizza Connection arrests.
As for Gerlando Sciascia, he, like Catalano, had been made in Sicily, apparently precluding him from contention. After helping Massino to orchestrate the purge of the three captains and becoming wealthy through the Sixth Family’s drug trade, Sciascia had also been sidelined for five years, the time between his arrest in Canada for the drug conspiracy and his acquittal on the charges in New York in 1990. After a jurer was bribed and Sciascia walked free, however, he tried to pick up where he had left off. Six months after his acquittal, an FBI report noted: “It is believed that Sciascia continues to be an active and influential figure in the narcotics trade.”
As long as he could ply Sixth Family drugs, Sciascia seemed content to remain near the top echelons of Bonanno Family power, having the ear of Massino and Vitale, while retaining his zeal for selling narcotics. Sciascia seemed to be a key supporter of Massino’s bid to take over the Bonanno Family, suggesting that the Sixth Family approved of where New York was going. Sciascia’s place in the Bonanno Family seemed secure under the new administration. The Sixth Family’s previous deal with Massino to topple the three captains and keep the drugs flowing remained in effect.
“He was well respected,” Vitale said of Sciascia. “I liked George. George was a good man.” And yet Sciascia seemed ill at ease.
In July 1991, just weeks after Massino was named the official boss, Sciascia, along with his wife and daughter, applied for permanent resident status in Canada, sponsored by his son, Joseph, who was a Canadian citizen. Sciascia seemed to be wearing out his welcome in New York.
“George would speak his mind, if he had anything on his mind. He believed in our life. If he felt something was wrong, he would tell you,” Vitale said. Sciascia, for example, had taken a dislike to Anthony “TG” Graziano, a Bonanno veteran who had served as captain and consigliere, because he thought Graziano was using illicit drugs.
Sciascia, Vitale and Graziano had a meeting to discuss family business in which TG appeared glassy-eyed, unfocused and unsteady on his feet. After Graziano left, Sciascia turned to Vitale, stunned.
“TG is a captain,” Sciascia said in alarm to Vitale. “You’re supposed to be representing your family and you’re walking around high? You’re going to other, outside, families and making a fool of yourself? It reflects on the family,” he said. “Every time I see this guy, he’s stoned,” Sciascia griped, an odd complaint from one of the biggest drug dealers in New York. Vitale said he would bring it up with Massino. Sciascia said he certainly would as well. Graziano, one of Massino’s favorite underlings, had a friend in the boss, however. Massino looked into it. Graziano said he was on prescription medication for a stomach ailment and not dipping into street drugs, swearing: “On my children’s eyes, I’m not getting high.” Massino bought the explanation. Sciascia still kept his distance, and their animosity festered. Sciascia had also apparently found himself in a dispute with Marty Rastelli, brother of the old boss, Philip Rastelli. Marty felt that he was owed money by Sciascia, who refused to acknowledge the debt. When Marty pressed the matter, Sciascia spurned him in no uncertain terms, screaming: “You got nothing coming. I’m going to war tomorrow, if you want to.” Sciascia was making more people nervous.
LOWER MANHATTAN, MAY 1992
The spring of 1992 brought yet another crisis to the Bonanno Family, and Sal Vitale reached out to Sciascia for help, although it looked more like a test of loyalty than anything else. The Bonanno Family’s long-term scams in the circulation department of the New York Post, a tabloid that enjoyed splashing sensational mob stories across its pages, were falling apart. Several Bonanno soldiers and associates had been on the payroll of the Post but did little or no work, an arrangement overseen by Robert Perrino, the newspaper’s delivery superintendent. When an electronic bug was found in Perrino’s office and the mobsters learned of a New York State Police investigation into their shenanigans, they feared that Perrino, who was more white-collar crook than hardcore gangster, would not hold up under the pressure.
“They felt that he would blow the whistle on the whole operation,” Vitale said. “He could do a lot of damage.” It was decided that Perrino had to die. Vitale and Anthony Spero met to discuss the situation while Massino was in prison.
“George is always volunteering shooters from Montreal. Let’s put him to the test and let him take care of it,” Spero said. Over coffee, Vitale put the idea to Sciascia.
“I will get you two shooters from Montreal,” Sciascia quickly promised. The reception to the plan in Montreal, however, does not seem to have been enthusiastic. One suspects that Montreal mobsters quickly dismissed taking such a risk when their drug franchise was not under threat. There seemed little interest in doing New York’s dirty work just to gain brownie points. At a subsequent meeting with Vitale at the Stage Diner on Queens Boulevard, Sciascia got around the awkwardness by presenting an alternative plan.
“Instead of me getting shooters from Canada, Montreal—it’s hard to come across the border—use Baldo,” Sciascia said, presenting Baldassare Amato, one of the Zips, who had been Cesare Bonventre’s right-hand man and who had come to New York through Canada. Amato was a Bonanno soldier but, according to the Bonanno Family structure, was in the crew of Louie Ha-Ha, who had assumed control of Bonventre’s crew after he was killed. Despite the breach in mob etiquette—Sciascia offering another captain’s soldier—Vitale approved of the replacement. (It was a breach that did not sit well with Massino, who later told Vitale off for letting Sciascia disrespect Amato’s captain that way. It showed how the Zips continued to work together outside the official hierarchy of the family, a situation that was increasingly upsetting to Massino.) The murder of Perrino was scheduled to coincide with Vitale’s son’s birthday party, and the underboss opted for fatherly, rather than family, duties, and asked another gangster to stand in for him at the murder. It fell to Michael “Mickey Bats” Cardello to walk Perrino to his death.
Perrino was the son-in-law of Nicky Marangello, a former Bonanno underboss, but if Perrino felt that pedigree protected him from Bonanno bloodletting, he grossly overestimated gangster sentimentality; he was last seen on May 5, 1992, leaving his daughter’s house and heading for a meeting with mob associates. Perrino was shot as planned; Frank Lino, however, was not impressed by the abilities of Amato, the shooter. When Lino and his crew came to clean up the body, they found Perrino was not quite dead, and another gangster had to stab him before the body was taken away for disposal, Lino said.
“Next time your shooter leaves a body,” an annoyed Lino later told Vitale, “make sure it’s dead.”
Although they took a pass on killing Perrino, the Montreal-based mobsters of
the Sixth Family did get involved in one scheme Vitale put to them, although Vitale was only acting as a middleman for the DeCavalcante Family, a Mafia organization based in New Jersey. Vitale had by this time been inducted into the Bonanno Family after his work in the messy Bonventre murder, and Massino had made him his underboss. It was as the Bonanno underboss that Vincent “Vinny Ocean” Palermo—the acting boss of the DeCavalcante Family—solicited Vitale’s help in reaching out to the Bonanno men in Montreal. Vito Rizzuto, Gerlando Sciascia and Joe LoPresti had socialized with members of the DeCavalcante Family in the past. The boss of the family, John Riggi, his consigliere, Stefano “Steve” Vitabile, and leading captain, Giuseppe “Pino” Schifilliti, had all attended Giuseppe Bono’s 1980 wedding.
“He knew we had Montreal,” Vitale said of Vinny Ocean. “When the United States put embargoes on Persian rugs, Canada does not have an embargo. If we buy them in Canada, he had a buyer in Manhattan that would buy all of the rugs off us.” A cross-border rug pipeline was quickly set up.
“We send people to Canada to buy Persian rugs and smuggle them across the border,” Vitale said. An associate of the Montreal gangsters who was nominally involved in the carpet scheme said the perpetrators in Canada thought it hilarious to be involved in moving something so benign across the border. They developed an ongoing joke about it, a short skit that imagined one of them being caught red-handed at the border with the carpets: “I said I was a rug smuggler, not a drug smuggler,” the joke went. They drew great hilarity from simply replacing “rug” for “drug” in any number of ways: rug cartels, rug trafficking, rug mules … it was as if the puns alone were worth the risk. But, of course, it was the illicit profit that was the true draw. The scheme was surprisingly lucrative, as the appetite of Manhattan’s wealthy residents for the opulent rugs was nearly insatiable. Vitale’s cut as a middleman between the Canadian and Jersey gangsters was about $20,000, he said.
Despite the success of this penny-ante scheme, the deterioration in the relationship between the Bonanno administration and the Sixth Family leadership was becoming more acute. To head it off, Massino sent men north to talk with Vito.
MONTREAL, JULY 1991
It was agreeable weather in Montreal on Canada Day, 1991, with a cooling breeze, hardly a cloud and no hint of rain. As a day for baseball, it approached perfection. The bright sky, however, did little to lighten the sour mood of fans inside Olympic Stadium. Starting on that holiday Monday and continuing for most of the week, the New York Mets swept the Montreal Expos four games straight, the close of an 11-game losing streak. For a group of tough visitors from New York City sitting in the stands, the Mets’ victory was cause for celebration, another boost during a raucous trip to Montreal that included the city’s famously daring strip clubs and wild discos.
Despite the banalities of their itinerary, however, this was not the usual group of tourists and their convivial hosts in Montreal were also extraordinary: emissaries from the Bonanno Family, sent by Joe Massino, had come north to talk business with their Canadian friends. Anthony Spero, the Bonanno consigliere, headed the group of goodwill ambassadors for this visit north. Joining him was Frank “Curly” Lino, Frank “Big Frank” Porco and at least two other New Yorkers. The visit went unnoticed at the time, but when details the group’s alleged itinerary was revealed more than a decade later, it would cause a sporting scandal in New York and a political scandal in Canada.
The gangsters enjoying the baseball at the Olympic Stadium snagged their tickets from Mets pitcher John Franco, considered one of baseball’s great closers and a New York sports icon, said Lino. The Brooklyn-born left-hander even had the gangsters visit with him in the clubhouse, according to statements Lino made to the FBI. Several of the mobsters also went out on the town with members of the Mets, Lino said. Such a party would be memorable for the mobsters, as Franco was the standout player in the series. When news emerged in 2004 that Franco and his colleagues had socialized with gangsters, it was greeted with concern in professional baseball circles, where fraternization between professional athletes and those involved in bookmaking and illegal gambling is highly frowned upon. When the media went to Franco for comment, confirmation or denial, his response was ambiguous: He declined to address “the specifics” of Lino’s allegations but said he was “proud to be an Italian-American and have lived my life in a respectable fashion.” Later that year, the Mets did not renew his contract and he signed for a year with the Houston Astros. The gangsters met others in Canada, as well. When details of Lino’s other allegations later emerged, it made the brouhaha over John Franco pale in comparison.
This Canada Day weekend visit was not Frank Lino’s first visit to Montreal to speak with Vito on behalf of the Bonannos. More than a decade earlier, just a couple of months after the 1979 murder of Carmine Galante, Lino had been sent to Montreal along with his captain, Bruno Indelicato—the son of Sonny Red and one of Galante’s killers—and Thomas “Tommy Karate” Pitera, another soldier in Bruno’s crew.
“We went to see, you know, [about] a closer relationship with the Montreal faction,” Lino said of that first visit. The Bonanno administration seemed to recognize Montreal’s value and feared that the murder of Galante, who had retained close ties to Montreal and was often referred to in New York as the head of the Montreal crew, might have alienated the Canadian wing. One night in a restaurant during that trip, Bruno introduced Lino to Vito Rizzuto, saying Vito was a soldier in the Bonanno Family. He was also introduced to several other men, whom he described as “a crew” of members in “the Canadian faction of the Bonanno Family.” Bruno, Lino and Tommy Karate stayed in Montreal for several days and during their visit they saw Vito four or five times. While there, Joe LoPresti, who knew the New Yorkers through his work arranging heroin sales with Sciascia, told Lino that Vito “was very powerful in Canada.” (It was a curious delegation. Less than two years after this first visit, Indelicato and Lino would be the two survivors of the deadly ambush of the three captains at the hands Vito and his Montreal colleagues.)
Lino was asked to return to Montreal in 1991, a decade after the captains’ purge. The second visit, the one in which the New Yorkers enjoyed their baseball win over the Expos, featured a larger and more important entourage that carried a more urgent message. The New Yorkers seemed to be politely received in Montreal this time around as well. Vito and LoPresti escorted them around the city’s sites and famous nightlife, Lino said. Between the nightclubs and the baseball, however, there was serious business to be discussed and, as is often the case with mafiosi, much of it was done over dinner. As a formal welcome for the Americans, Montreal’s gangsters threw a feast in their honor.
“[Lino] remembers meeting with a group of Canadian Bonanno members at a catering hall,” says an FBI report prepared in December 2003 when FBI Special Agents Christine Grubert and Jay Kramer secretly debriefed Lino after he agreed to cooperate with the government. “At this meeting, the Canadian Bonannos were informed of Massino’s new position as boss of the Bonanno Family,” the report says.
The date of the visit to Montreal was a little fuzzy for Lino: “While we were there I saw Joe LoPresti. I didn’t pay attention what year it was, it was ’91, ’88, ’89. It’s no big deal to me.”
Lino insisted LoPresti was at the meetings in Montreal. Lino would have remembered him since he was one of the few Montrealers Lino knew. LoPresti had been in Lino’s bar in New York many times and Lino recognized him easily when photographs of LoPresti were later shown to him. If the Bonanno entourage came with news that Massino had been made the new boss, and LoPresti was there at the time, it means the excursion to Montreal took place after Rastelli’s death, on June 24, 1991, but before LoPresti’s murder, on April 30, 1992.
This, in turn, means that—if Lino is to be believed—the visit likely occurred during the four-game series between the Mets and the Expos, from July 1 to 4, 1991. (There was only one other Expos-Mets series in Montreal between the time of Rastelli’s and LoPresti�
�s deaths, an April 17 to 19, 1992 match-up in which the Mets took two of the three games. This would have been almost a year after Rastelli’s death but only 11 days before LoPresti’s murder. This alternative date is tantalizing, since it is so close to LoPresti’s death that it leads to speculation that the Montrealer committed some indiscretion during the meetings, or that the New Yorkers brought news or a complaint against him that needed addressing. It is, however, likely too long after Rastelli’s death. It did not take a year for Massino to install himself in the job and he likely did not wait long afterwards to reach out to Canada.)
The Sixth Family’s party in a Montreal catering and banquet hall was quite an affair, with the closest of the Rizzutos’ friends and family invited. It was a dinner for “made members” only, Lino told the FBI in one of his debriefing sessions, meaning that outsiders and associates were not a part of the festivities. Lino also spoke of the Montreal visits, with less precision, under oath in a Brooklyn courtroom.
“We met with George [Sciascia], Joe LoPresti, Vito Rizzuto. We had a dinner with about 30, 40 people,” Lino said in court. LoPresti and Sciascia would have been busy during the dinner; as the only two who knew everyone from both cities, they would be preoccupied with introducing the diners to one another. Introductions are important to mobsters. They are carefully constructed and carefully observed. As a secret society, it takes three mobsters for any two of them to officially meet, according to Mafia tradition. A member cannot reveal his membership to anyone outside the fraternity, so he cannot announce to a stranger, even one he is pretty certain has also been made, that he is an inducted member. Only a third made man can formally introduce two other made members to each other; the third person must confirm to each that the other has also been inducted into the Mafia.
