by Lamothe, Lee
Vito did not seem surprised by the news, or even by the early morning interruption. He was cooperative, at all times acting the gentleman. His wife remained composed. Poletti accompanied him to his bedroom to allow him to dress. Vito picked out a camel-colored turtleneck, dress pants and a sports jacket, eschewing a tie, apparently aware that ties are removed from prisoners before being placed in police cells for fear they will be used to commit suicide. Within 15 minutes, Vito was inside an unmarked police car with the pair of detectives and on his way to a police holding cell.
After his booking, Vito was whisked to court; the discretion with which he was removed from his home had by now evaporated. Word of the arrest had spread quickly in Montreal and it was with lights flashing and sirens wailing that a convoy of police cars sped past a growing sprawl of television cameras and newspaper photographers who jostled for a better view of the captured don. At his perfunctory three-minute appearance in Montreal’s large, modern courthouse that afternoon, a tanned Vito listened somberly to his lawyer, Loris Cavaliere, who asked the judge for more time to study the U.S. government’s extradition papers. Outside court, Cavaliere described his client as “very confident” and said a decision had not yet been made on whether to seek bail while fighting extradition. Vito was then promptly returned to his cell.
Vito was the only Canadian arrested that day. In New York, however, FBI agents, state and city police were moving through the city’s boroughs arresting 26 people accused in 15 murders and murder conspiracies. It was a concerted effort to strike hard at the Bonanno Family, the culmination of considerable effort to eradicate one of the most famous of the Five Families of New York.
The U.S. government’s first target had been Vito Rizzuto.
BROOKLYN, DECEMBER 31, 2003
Three weeks earlier, on New Year’s Eve, 16 members of a grand jury in New York’s Eastern District courthouse met and concurred with the prosecutor’s allegations, outlined in a seven-page indictment, that Vito Rizzuto—alone—should be charged with a racketeering conspiracy.
“At various times the defendant, Vito Rizzuto, was a soldier or associate in the Bonanno Family,” the indictment alleged, stating that from February 1, 1981, through December 2003, Vito engaged with others in a pattern of racketeering activity affecting interstate and foreign commerce, namely the murders of the three captains. The indictment was then neatly signed by the jury foreman and the case against Vito assigned the court file number 03-CR-1382, a file that would later swell to magnificent size. An arrest warrant was issued against Vito that same day, signed by a Brooklyn judge who also issued a limited unsealing order, allowing the government to provide the indictment to the relevant U.S. and Canadian authorities for the purpose of pursuing Vito’s arrest and extradition. The arrest warrant commanded any authorized police officer to arrest Vito, but no officers got a chance to see it, let alone act on it. The warrant and indictment were immediately placed in a white 10-by-15-inch envelope, sealed, labeled U.S.A. v. John Doe and filed in court with instructions that it not be listed on the court’s public docket. Prosecutor Greg Andres then left to enjoy his New Year’s festivities.
Soon after the holiday, Nicolas Bourtin, an assistant United States attorney, finished drafting the “Record of the Case for the Prosecution,” a 13-page typed document that in concise, clearly worded and numbered paragraphs outlined the allegations against Vito and revealed the existence of four confidential cooperating witnesses, each a former member or associate of the Bonanno Family who was prepared to take the stand and testify against him. The document was a necessary start to the potentially lengthy extradition process. Bourtin had to convince Canadian authorities—both judicial and political—that there was enough evidence against Vito to merit removing a Canadian citizen from his home and sending him to face American justice. In Canada, with its generous Charter of Rights and Freedoms and firm institutional culture of providing numerous safeguards and multiple legal appeals, it is not always an easy task or quick process.
Bourtin gathered the evidence together and began to explain the rudiments of the case against Vito.
“The government will establish Rizzuto’s association and membership in the Bonanno Family and his role in the conspiracy to murder, and the murders of, Indelicato, Giaccone and Trinchera through, among other evidence, the testimony of a cooperating witness, the testimony of law-enforcement officials, the testimony of an organized crime expert, surveillance evidence, crime scene evidence and the testimony of the medical examiner,” Bourtin wrote. In the document, prepared weeks before any of the arrests, the names of the cooperating witnesses were concealed—Sal Vitale, for instance, is disguised as CW#1, short for the first “cooperating witness.”
Bourtin then attached two photographs of Vito—one taken at the Giuseppe Bono wedding and the other a recent mug shot originally provided by Canadian authorities—some crime scene photographs from the recovery of Sonny Red’s body and the intriguing FBI surveillance photograph of Vito leaving the Capri Motor Lodge with Gerlando Sciascia, Joe Massino, the Bonnano boss, and Giovanni Ligammari, their Zip ally. These pictures were offered as evidence that Vito associated with known gangsters and, more importantly, placed him in New York around the time of the murders. Also, as supporting documents, Bourtin included an autopsy report from the 1981 examination of a body unearthed on Ruby Street, and a certificate, signed by Sonny Red’s son-in-law, identifying the deceased. These confirmed that at least one of the people Vito was accused of killing was in fact dead and, more to the point, dead as a result of three gunshot wounds to the face, chest and back.
Bourtin then attached a cover letter, dated it—January 5, 2004—and signed it with graceful swoops at the top of the N and the bottom of the B. That very day, the package was received by the Canadian government, along with a diplomatic note, only the third such communication between America and Canada of the new year. Traditionally these inter-governmental communications take on the formal air of a wedding invitation: “The Embassy of the United States of America presents its compliments to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and has the honor to request the extradition of Vito Rizzuto from Canada,” it begins.
Later, a superseding indictment—a fresh set of charges that replaced the original one—was issued, adding 26 names to Vito’s original indictment in case 03-CR-1382.
MONTREAL, JANUARY 2004
On Monday, January 12, eight days before Vito was to be arrested, Sergeant-Detective Poletti was quietly watching Vito’s house when a gray 2002 Mercedes ML500 pulled out of the driveway at 9:15 p.m. Poletti followed it a short distance, and while the car was waiting to turn from Antoine-Berthelet Avenue on to Gouin Boulevard West, he pulled his own car close. Turning his head quickly toward the Mercedes, Poletti saw that Vito was indeed its driver. Two days later, at 10:31 a.m., Benoît Poirier of the Montreal police watched a blue Jeep Grand Cherokee, registered to Vito’s wife, pull out and away from the driveway. The officer radioed the news to his colleague Josée Poitras, who picked up the tail and followed the Jeep until the officer similarly confirmed that Vito was inside, driving alone. Then, 23 minutes later, Réal Lepine watched Vito park the Jeep and enter an office building on St-Laurent Boulevard.
The stepped-up surveillance of Vito was not accidental. By the second week of January, a select few members of the Montreal police had been told of the U.S. government’s intention to have Vito prosecuted in New York. In anticipation, officers in Montreal started keeping closer tabs on him, watching for signs he might be preparing to flee, confirming he still lived at his longtime residence and appraising the relative difficulty or danger of an arrest. Surveillance officers set up outside to watch Vito’s house, although it is difficult to imagine that their vigil went unnoticed on a street where many neighbors are so close to the Rizzutos.
If Vito, who is an extremely astute man, did not catch on to the increased attention being paid him by police, his concerns for his future must have been heightened courtesy of
the press. As early as February 2001, Vito would have learned, if he did not already know it, that American authorities were convinced he played a hand in the murders of the three captains. In a large investigative profile of Vito in Canada’s National Post, the FBI’s incriminating photograph of Vito, Sciascia, Massino and Ligammari leaving the Capri Motor Lodge was detailed. As well, excerpts from a confidential FBI report, alleging that Vito was involved in the shooting, were also revealed.
Vito’s own sources may have also alerted him to possible trouble coming from New York. A year earlier, the arrests of Joe Massino and Sal Vitale likely raised a red flag. Shortly after the arrests of the top two Bonanno bosses, Vito boarded a plane with his wife and left Canada for two weeks abroad, destination unknown.
On March 2, 2003, not long after a Bonanno informant had notified his lawyer, John Mitchell, that he no longer required his services because he was now cooperating with the government, again by coincidence or by design, Vito left Canada, this time flying alone on a Skyservice jet and arriving back in Montreal eight days later. He was soon on a plane again, on a March 21 flight with Cubana de Aviación to Havana with his wife, where they stayed for about six weeks, according to Customs declarations filed with Canada Border Services Agency. Police sources suspected that Vito chose Cuba for this trip because he was aware that Cuban and American officials do not cooperate well together, and his presence there might insulate him from any U.S. prosecution. Government authorities, however, do not work as quickly as one might think.
Vito had long been back in Canada when, on January 14, 2004, in utmost secrecy, Irwin Cotler, then Canada’s Minister of Justice, authorized Canadian officials to proceed with arresting Vito. But an arrest needed to be coordinated with the FBI. Despite the secrecy attached to these developments, a week before Vito and his co-accused were set to be arrested, a surprising item headlined “Eyeing Canadian Club” appeared in the New York Sun and on the popular organized crime Web site, www.ganglandnews.com. Jerry Capeci, a noted New York organized crime reporter and columnist, had been tipped to the FBI’s interest in Vito.
“Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn are looking north and eyeing the reputed Mafia boss of Canada in the grisly 1981 murders of three Bonanno capos,” Capeci’s January 15, 2004, exclusive began. The veteran mob-watcher quoted unnamed law enforcement sources about their interest in the “wealthy Bonanno capo,” who was compared in the piece to John Gotti. Capeci clearly had solid sources; his scoop was published on the same day that the Eastern District grand jury returned a sealed, and supposedly secret, 20-count superseding indictment against Vito and his New York co-accused. The story, however, escaped the notice of Canadian investigators. The day of its appearance, a story on the American interest in Vito was being prepared by a reporter in Canada, who called police officials and confidential sources for comment and confirmation. Investigators were thrown into panic, asking if a copy of Capeci’s story could be faxed to them immediately. The confirmation was then published coast-to-coast in Canada. Two stories, one on each side of the border, had been published that might have alerted Vito. American and Canadian officials, who had been planning a coordinated sweep of all of the men indicted in both countries, faced a quandary: if they did not move quickly to arrest Vito, he might flee to Cuba, where he could well be out of their reach. On the other hand, if they moved early against Vito, they risked warning his alleged co-conspirators in New York. After much hand-wringing, investigators decided that surveillance on Vito should be stepped up considerably, but they would stick to the schedule and not move against him. This decision would be reevaluated if investigators turned up evidence he was preparing to flee.
Vito, however, had no interest in running.
NEW YORK AND MONTREAL, JANUARY 20, 2004
As Poletti and Milano knocked on Vito’s front door in Montreal to arrest him, approximately 150 FBI agents, New York State Police investigators and New York City Police detectives were making similar calls across New York. Officials to the south were likewise flush with success. Most of those named in the indictment were picked up, early and easily, when officers arrived at their homes and known haunts on the morning of January 20, 2004.
The mood of the American authorities was one of jubilation as the indictment against 27 accused Bonanno gangsters—including much of the family’s leadership—was finally unsealed and announced to the media.
Roslynn R. Mauskopf, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, called the arrests “the broadest and deepest penetration ever of a New York City-based organized crime family.” It was not a point drawing contradiction.
“The entire leadership, acting leadership and virtually every criminal leader in the Bonanno Family stands either convicted or under indictment. With unprecedented access to the inner workings of the Bonanno Family’s administration, we had front-row seats, listening as these career criminals described murdering innocent victims in a desperate effort to salvage their crumbling criminal enterprise,” Mauskopf said.
Raymond Kelly, commissioner of the New York City Police Department, as a policeman rather than a lawyer, put it more succinctly: “The Bonanno Family [is] an endangered species.”
Vito’s precise position within the Bonanno Family created some confusion for authorities. Officially, they stuck to the formal nomenclature of New York’s Five Families and, since Vito was considered to be a made guy but one who never accepted the offer of being named captain, they adopted his rank as a mere Bonanno soldier. But his power, prominence and distinctive service clearly deserved more notation. In a press release, U.S. authorities hinted at his greater standing: “Bonanno Family soldier Vito Rizzuto, referred to by Canadian law enforcement and the Canadian press as the ‘Godfather of the Italian Mafia in Montreal,’ is the most influential Bonanno Family member in Canada,” the release says.
At a crowded press conference, the first name spoken by Pasquale “Pat” D’Amuro, assistant director-in-charge of the FBI in New York, was the name of the man he did not yet have his hands on.
“Among the many accomplishments of this investigation are the clearance of numerous homicides which were committed in the New York City metropolitan area over the past two decades and, with the arrest of Vito Rizzuto, the incarceration of the Godfather of organized crime in Canada,” D’Amuro said. More recently, the FBI posted a bulletin summarizing its key moves in controlling organized crime. In it, the bureau named Vito as one of its top three catches in the operation. The other two were the acting boss and acting underboss of the Bonanno Family: Anthony “Tony Green” Urso, who authorities say was the acting boss, standing in for Joe Massino while he was before the courts, and Joseph “Joe Saunders” Cammarano, the acting underboss filling in for Sal Vitale, who was likewise fighting a charge. The pair were said to have ordered the murder of Anthony Tomasulo, a Bonanno associate who was found wrapped in a body bag in the rear seat of his own car in May 1990 for refusing to pay a portion of the proceeds from his illegal joker-poker gambling machines to the Bonanno bosses.
Louis “Louie Ha-Ha” Attanasio, at one time an acting underboss, was also indicted that day, but when agents went looking for him they came up empty-handed. Louie Ha-Ha faced life in prison for allegedly shooting Cesare Bonventre in the back of the head while Vitale drove the Zip leader to his death. Louie Ha-Ha was enjoying the warm bayfront property of his winter home on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten. For almost a year he remained out of the government’s reach, reveling in an island law that protects permanent residents with a favorably short statute of limitations on crime, even murder. Local authorities, however, bowing to U.S. pressure, revoked his legal resident status on the grounds he gained it on false pretenses, apparently having declared he did not have a criminal record. He was then arrested and returned to New York, a move his lawyer, Larry Bronson, declared to be a “kidnapping.”
Seven alleged Bonanno captains or acting captains were also named in the same indictment, along with 16 Bonanno soldiers and associates, i
ncluding Vito’s fellow Zip and Sixth Family friend Baldassare
“Baldo” Amato. Baldo is accused of being the man who shot Robert Perrino, the superintendent of delivery at the New York Post, at the urging of Gerlando Sciascia, in lieu of bringing in Montrealers to do the job. Baldo’s second murder accusation is over the death of Sebastian “Sammy” DiFalco, an associate of Baldo’s. On March 17, 1992, DiFalco’s body was pulled from the trunk of his own car, found in the parking lot of a Dunkin Donuts in Queens.
Along with 15 other soldiers and associates, it was a significant haul, one that continued the government’s assault against the Bonanno Family. Between March 2002, and the unsealing of Vito’s indictment, the U.S. government had prosecuted more than 70 members and associates of the Bonanno crime family who were alleged to have been involved in 23 murders, murder conspiracies and attempted murders, government records show.
“In little more than one year, the government has dismantled successive administrations of the Bonanno Family. Today, virtually the entire family leadership of the Bonanno Family has been incapacitated, with only a few family captains remaining unindicted,” the government crowed in its 21-page press release announcing the sweep. The time frame the government boasted of—“little more than one year”—was, in reality, a gentle fraud. It ignored the fact that the law-enforcement efforts of several agencies at various levels of government and in two countries had been directed at the family for decades, almost fruitlessly, before these inroads were made.
