Donnie Brasco

by Joseph Pistone

  Frank ordered bottles of $70 wine. He talked with Lefty about various New York Bonanno people he knew, like our boss, Carmine Galante, whom he called by his nickname, Lilo. He had some education, wasn’t a “dese-and-dose” type.

  When he started telling us about an incident regarding a vending business in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he had a piece, his face and voice turned mean, and he put a fist on the table. He said he had been down there during the past week to collect his end. The guy with the business had put $45,000 in cash on the table. Frank said he swatted the money off the table and told the guy, “Wipe your ass with forty-five grand. My end is at least a quarter million.” He needed somebody like Lefty, he said, to take care of the vending business in Florida, straighten people out.

  I thought, This guy could lull you to sleep, but he is nobody to mess with.

  Out of the blue, Frank invited us to his home for dinner the next night, Saturday.

  When we left the restaurant, Lefty was ecstatic. “Donnie, you remember when we used to have to stand outside Sabella’s joint when Lilo was inside? We couldn’t even go inside the joint. He’d come out and he wouldn’t even say hello to you. Tony, in New York you can’t even sit at the same table with a boss. And here we’re sitting down with a fucking boss, and tomorrow night we’re going to his house for dinner. Tell him, Donnie, would this ever happen in New York? Never.”

  “He’s right, Tony,” I said.

  “But listen. He can be moody, nasty. Frank can be maybe Jekyll and Hyde, a man who can be a fucking animal. He don’t forget. He don’t like that guy from Rockford, that Phil, because he played him for a sucker once, years ago. That’s why the call to Rockford came through Chicago, for my introduction, because Chicago was hoping to heal that there between Rockford and Milwaukee.”

  “What do those guys in Rockford control, Left?” I ask.

  “That’s it, only Rockford. This guy here controls. He’s more in charge than anybody else.”

  “Even though those guys are older out there in Rockford?”

  “What do you mean, older? Age? There’s no age limit on this here. Mike says this guy’s the biggest man in the Midwest. He didn’t get what he’s got just by staying in Milwaukee. He owns Kansas City. Cleve land and Detroit belong to Frank. I just found that out. He’s on a plane every day. He stays here one, two days a week. This guy has a limousine he uses for his mother once a week to go to church. A 1978 limousine parked, Donnie. This town, there’s nothing you can do, you gotta go through him. He’s got every union.”

  “Does he ever come to New York for anything, Left?”

  “Once, twice a year, that’s all. In and out. Who he’s gotta see, mostly he goes to the West Coast, does his business out there. Like Vegas.”

  “Has Frank got any say back in New York?”

  “He’s got say all over the world. Mostly that’s all over this country. You kidding me? They got the Commission. They settle everything. He was on it. The last war, him and the Chicago boss kicked Joe Bonanno out. He knows all the bosses. When he used to go to New York, he’d go to the Old Man’s house, Gambino’s. Equal boss.”

  “How’s he get along with Lilo?”

  “They love each other,” Lefty says. “I’m a-scared of him sometimes. Tony, let him do the fucking talking. You just blend into the situation.”

  “I did something wrong?” Tony says.

  “You told that one guy at the table, ‘Where do you come from?’ That shook me up. They don’t like that. Never ask anybody where they’re from. Because, why you asking? You a cop? That got me fucking chilled to my fucking death. I’m glad that went over Frank’s head. Because he could turn around and say, ‘Who the fuck are you to ask my friends where they come from?’ God forbid you get into a conversation.”

  “Okay,” Tony says. “Now I know. I’m learning.”

  “Lemme tell you something, Tony. By next summer you’ll be so polished in the underworld field that you won’t need me. And I’m gonna turn around and say I’m very proud of you. But we ain’t talking about that. Tony, we gotta emphasize to Frank that we’re getting spots for machines, we’re going after routes, taking over companies, easing other guys out. You can’t be lax in this field. That’s a tough guy there. Not somebody like that mutt, Anthony Mirra. He’s got a real empire here, Frank has. So far the people are very nice. You know that Steve DiSalvo, Frank’s guy you met at the table? I’m impressed by him. He’s got almost as many hits as I do.”

  Frank Balistrieri, alone, drove us to his house in his black Cadillac. Lefty gave me a look—he couldn’t believe a boss would go anywhere alone, let alone drive himself.

  On the way Frank told us, “I’ve got a good crew, but they’re older, kind of set in their ways. I could use some younger guys that I could trust to take over a couple of my clubs and other businesses. Younger guys would be able to relate to the ways of today’s business world.”

  “If you need anything done,” Lefty pipes up, “Donnie and Tony can do it. You can trust them. They’re good with people. They’re at your disposal, Frank, if you need them.”

  It was only about a ten-minute drive to his lakefront Colonial-style home. The people from the night before were joined by Frank’s brother, Peter. Peter was a little taller, less intense than his brother, the boss. “I wouldn’t be in his position for all the tea in China,” he said. “I couldn’t take the heat.”

  We were introduced to Frank’s wife. She and another lady did the cooking and serving.

  Frank sat at the head of the table, Lefty at his right hand. The women didn’t sit with us, just served. It was a fine five-course dinner with veal as the main course. Bottles of Château Lafitte wine were continuously replenished on the table. Later came Louis XIII brandy.

  Frank talked about the old days. At one time he owned seven clubs in downtown Milwaukee and promoted boxing matches, many of which were setups, fixed. He said that when he travels nowadays, he flies by private jet and does not move in or out of major airports, and that he always travels under an alias—currently “Lenny Frank.”

  The mood got warm and relaxed. But Conte and I had to maintain concentration and composure, choose our words and actions carefully so as not to offend. This was a boss’s house.

  On the next evening, Sunday, there was to be a big “Icebreaker” banquet to kick off the Italian Golf Tournament, a charity event. He said he had not attended for several years because he was enemies with the guy who once headed the committee, Louis Fazio. “But now he’s dead,” Frank said. “Five times thirty-eight.” He laughed, but it was no joke. Thirty-eight, as in caliber. So he planned to attend this banquet as a surprise and “have some fun.” He invited us to come along as his guests.

  His brother Peter said, “I owe some aggravation to some people too. I wouldn’t mind throwing a scare into some of them.”

  Lefty smiled. “A little violence never hurt anybody,” he said.

  Our group arrived late at the Grand Ballroom of the Marc Plaza Hotel for the Icebreaker Banquet.

  When we appeared in the door, the maître d’ and the chairman of the banquet committee came running over, full of apologies to Frank that there was no table ready for him—they had not known that he was coming.

  There were no empty tables, and everybody had started eating their fruit cocktails. Waiters started scurrying around. People were already looking at us and whispering. Obviously they knew who Frank Balistrieri was. There was a table right in front of the stage where they would have the ceremonies. The maître d’ told these people they would have to move to accommodate us. Nobody complained. A new table was set up for us. Then they brought us in and sat us down. Waiters were all over us, two or three catering to our table alone.

  After the meal a steady stream of people came over and paid homage. “Frank, you’re looking good.... Nice to see you here, Frank....” I had never seen anything like this. It was unreal.

  Frank played his power to the hilt. “This is Leftie and Donnie, my good f
riends from New York. This is Tony, my good friend from Baltimore....” He would introduce these people to us, then immediately ignore them and resume talking to us, leaving them standing there with the color draining from their faces.

  Carmen Basilio, the former boxer and one of the guests of honor, and Johnny Desmond, who sang at the event, came over to be introduced.

  After the ceremonies were over, Frank said, “Let’s go over to the snitch’s place.”

  That was the Peppercorn, a lounge and restaurant in the downtown Athletic Club. The Peppercorn was operated by a guy Frank said he hated “because he’s a snitch.”

  The place was jammed, mostly with people who had come over from the banquet. We stayed in the bar. More people came over to pay their respects to Frank.

  Frank and Steve DiSalvo started telling us about stool pigeons.

  “There’s so many fucking stool pigeons,” Steve says, “that you can’t kill them all. You need Castro’s army to kill all the stool pigeons in Milwaukee. Around here, how you can tell the stoolies is, they all have remote starters in their cars.”

  Conte had recently put a remote-control starter in his car.

  Frank said he couldn’t understand how people could turn against their own. “No witness ever lived to testify against me.”

  Steve says to me, “I been trying to get Frank, instead of running his own book, to charge all the other bookies in town $1,000 a week just to operate. Because it’s a pain in the ass with so many stoolies, a headache. Let them run their book, charge them, and leave your own guys out of it. You can’t get anybody good to run the book anymore.”

  Frank said that the guy who ran his day-to-day gambling operation the previous year didn’t tend to business. “I don’t want to have to look over somebody’s shoulder all the time. I need somebody I can trust.”

  “Donnie can do it,” Lefty jumps in. “He worked with me in my bookmaking operation, he can handle it, he knows what he’s doing.”

  Frank looks at me. “You interested?”

  “Sure I’m interested.”

  Frank grabs Lefty’s arm. “Let’s talk.” They go away to a small table.

  As a connected guy but not a made guy, I could be loaned out from one family to another. Lefty would get a cut of whatever I did, and he knew how big this guy’s bookmaking business was.

  Not only would I be handling the bookmaking for the mob boss of Milwaukee, but I had the chance to get inside the skimming operation in Las Vegas. At casinos controlled by the mob, money is skimmed right off the top as the mob’s share. Balistrieri had the responsibility of collecting that skim money and distributing it to the other mob families involved around the country.

  It was a sensational opening for me. But I couldn’t do it. I knew that instantly. The largest part of Frank’s bookmaking operation was football. The football season lasts about twenty weeks. During that season the These surveillance photos were taken outside the Toyland Social Club in New York, the headquarters of Bonanno family underboss Nicky Marangello and a key meeting place for top members of the Bonanno crew.

  bookmaking operation goes on seven days a week. We were now entering August, and football season was about to start.

  Special agent Joseph Pistone, operating undercover as jewel thief “Donnie Brasco,” is shown in New York’s Little Italy in 1977. Agent Pistone’s operation was so secret that even the FBI surveillance team thought “Donnie Brasco” was an associate of the Bonanno family. As Agent Pistone infiltrated higher levels of La Costra Nostra, surveillance teams became part of his operation to document evidence against the Mafia and to protect his life. Many of the photographs on these pages are FBI surveillance shots taken without his knowledge.

  Underboss Nicky Marangello, who went by nicknames “Nicky Cigars,” “Nicky Glasses,” or “Little Nicky,” controlled the numbers and other gambling operations for the Bonanno family.

  Capo Mike Sabella (left) with one of his top soldiers and hitmen, Benjamin “Lefty Guns” Ruggiero. Ruggiero became “Donnie Brasco‘s” Mafia partner.

  Tony Mirra (right), one of the most feared of all Bonanno soldiers, talks with Marangello. Mirra eventually became jealous of “Donnie Brasco‘s” rising influence, and wanted him dead.

  Lefty Ruggiero arrives at a street-corner meeting with soldier Jerry Chilli (in glasses).

  Tony Mirra (back to camera) and Joey D‘Amico (left) meet with two of the most important “zips,” Caesar Bonventre and Sal Catalano (right). “Zips” were Sicilians imported to set up a huge heroin-smuggling ring operating through pizza parlors-an operation that became famous as the “Pizza Connection” case.

  From left, Al Walker, big Joey Massino, an unidentified companion, and Tony Mirra. Massino eventually was put in charge of the zips, and became the heir apparent to ailing Bonanno boss Philip

  “Rusty” Rastelli.

  Agent Pistone as “Donnie Brasco” relaxes at poolside at the Tahitian Motor Lodge in Holiday, Florida, in July 1980 with Dominick “Sonny Black” Napolitano, the top-ranking Bonanno captain.

  Lefty Ruggiero emerges from a Florida motel on his way to case a potential bank job in St. Petersburg.

  Bonanno boss Carmine Galante lies in a pool of blood, his cigar still clenched in his teeth, after being shotgunned to death in an ambush at a Brooklyn restaurant on July 12, 1979. As a result of the execution, Rusty Rastelli became the new Bonanno family boss, and Sonny Black was elevated to top captain.

  Sonny Black emerges from a motel coffee shop with Florida boss Santo Trafficante. The two forged a new alliance between the Bonanno and Trafficante families to share gambling and other illegal activities.

  Frank Balistrieri, boss of the Milwaukee family. Agent Pistone set up an alliance between the Balistrieri and Bonanno families in 1978 to share a Milwaukee vending-machine operation.

  Philip “Rusty” Rastelli ran the Bonanno family for several years from a cell at the federal penitentiary in Lewisberg, Pa.

  This early-morning surveillance photo shows the Motion Lounge in Brooklyn, Sonny Black’s headquarters. His apartment was on the third floor, his pigeon coops on the roof.

  Outside the Motion Lounge on May 14, 1981, the day Sonny Black gave “Donnie Brasco” the contract to “hit” a rival Mafia member. From left, Nicky Santora, Boobie Cerasani, Sonny Black, and Agent Pistone.

  On July 28, 1981, two days after Agent Pistone ended his undercover role, FBI agents (left to right) Jerry Loar, James Kinne, and Doug Fencl emerge from Sonny Black’s apartment after informing him that “Donnie Brasco” was an FBI agent.

  After the agents’ visit, Sonny Black went up to the roof, to his pigeon coops, where he often retreated to think in private. The revelation that the Bonanno family had been infiltrated by an FBI agent meant death sentences for those responsible for the unprecedented breach in Mafia security.

  Sonny Black summoned the top members of his crew to plan strategy regarding the stunning news about “Donnie Brasco.” From left: Boobie Cerasani, Nicky Santora, Lefty Ruggiero, Sonny Black.

  Lefty Ruggiero, Agent Pistone’s Mafia “partner” for five years, stands in the doorway of the Motion Lounge as the “Donnie Brasco” revelation sinks in.

  There was no way I could be away from home now for five solid months.

  By not turning it down immediately, I thought maybe I could milk a little more information out of them.

  After Lefty and Frank talked for a few minutes they came over. Frank said, “Okay, you get together with Steve next Tuesday. He’ll give you the whole rundown.”

  We left the Peppercorn at about two A.M.

  Lefty explained what he and Frank had talked about. “Frank says to me, ‘You know, if Donnie takes this, you gotta be responsible for him. You know the consequences.’ I says I definitely do. He says, ‘Once I put it on record, if this guy fucks up, you’re in trouble, not him. They don’t look for him. They look for you.’ So I says, ‘You don’t have to look far. I take the full responsibility.’ I told him you’re my bloo
d, Donnie, nobody had to worry about you.”

  Frank still had to call New York to get permission from our captain, Mike Sabella, to use me, and to go on record that Lefty was taking full responsibility if anything went wrong-such as if I was a snitch, or if I absconded with money from the book.

  “I shook hands with him,” Lefty says, “but that don’t count. He’s still gonna put it on record in New York. ‘Go ahead and make your phone call,’ I says.

  ‘I’d stake my life on the man.’ Tony, the responsibility I gave Donnie just now ... if he fucks up, I’m a dead man. New York City, they only call bosses to bosses. This boss here, he calls New York, he talks to a boss. If I get sent for, I don’t know what I’m getting sent for. They just say to come in. And I’d be getting killed for something I didn’t even know. I’ll tell you one thing. You two guys, you couldn’t have any opportunity like this nowhere. You got the world at your feet. They’re all afraid of him over here. They’re all fucking Hoosiers.“

  After Lefty went to bed I got hold of Conte right away. I said, “Tony, I just can’t do this.” He understood and said, “Donnie, you do what you’ve got to do. Don’t worry about it.”

  I called the case agent, Mike Potkonjak, and told him. He got in touch with Ralph Hill, the Assistant Special Agent in Charge in Milwaukee. Hill wanted to meet and talk it over.

  This all had to be handled immediately. I was going to have to tell Lefty the next morning, before Balistrieri called New York, or my credibility would be shot. I couldn’t meet with DiSalvo, get all the inside details, and then turn it down—I would look very much like a cop or a snitch.