There was not only the oily, greasy work involved in taking the cars apart, but a lot of paperwork was necessary in order to track the dismantled parts. Time and labor were also involved in handling large, heavy, or bulky parts like engines, real axle assemblies, bumpers, and fenders. So, stealing cars was relatively easy. Disposing of entire cars without a trace was extremely difficult.
Mob bosses didn’t want anything to do with it. Most of them had no automotive knowledge or skills, which take time to learn. And they were not knowledgeable of prices for parts of various cars – information that would be necessary in order to sell them. Distribution was also an issue. Most parts were sold on an individual transaction basis.
Stealing cars and distributing stolen parts became the work of skilled individuals or small theft rings. Big crime bosses were content to leave these small players alone.
Thomas James (T.J.) Coletta grew up in the same rough neighborhood as his nemesis, Detective Jake Pisano, although Coletta was ten years older. Unlike Pisano, Coletta took the path of criminal activity starting at a very young age. Coletta was always large for his age, and he took full advantage of that fact in fights and petty theft crimes. He was a bully in every sense of the word. He started his crime life in the fourth grade, taking lunch money from kids coming to school. By the age of eleven, Coletta had formed a small gang of kids who followed his instructions taking, and reselling everything from school supplies to items they had stolen from stores.
At eleven, Coletta had the first of many run-ins with juvenile authorities. If he thought another kid had turned him in, that kid would be severely beaten. Coletta served several short sentences in juvenile detention facilities before he was thirteen. His detention experiences only served to hardened his resolve and teach him better skills at being a criminal. Some of the contacts he made in detention schools and later in prison would become longstanding friends and eventually lieutenants in his crime organization many years later.
At fourteen, T.J. committed his first murder – the brutal killing of another rival gang member. Although suspected of involvement, T.J. was never arrested or even questioned for this crime because of lack of evidence. As he grew older and physically larger, his crimes became more serious and more brutal. By the time he was eighteen, Coletta was imposing a hulk of a man – about 6'4" and weighing 325 pounds. Proceeds from the sale of stolen goods provided weapons, and the Coletta’s gang was not opposed to using those weapons. Coletta managed to attend three years of high school, which was interrupted multiple times by court ordered terms in detention facilities for assorted theft crimes and violent acts against other gang members.
Growing up, there was another side of Coletta that generally went unnoticed. At a very young age, he was particularly astute at understanding auto mechanics and how cars operated and could be repaired. Before and during high school he had part-time jobs helping out at various garages, tuning and repairing cars, and he became quite good at it. The senior mechanic at one of the garages Coletta worked once said to the owner, “This kid is amazing. Once he hears the engine running, he can tell you what’s wrong and the parts needed to fix it. He’s right 95% of the time. He knew what the car needed before I put any testing instruments on the car.”
Coletta’s mechanical interests ultimately lead him to building racing engines for customers when he was not involved in crime activities. His knowledge of cars also led him to his ultimate crime game; establishing and running what became the largest auto theft ring in the South.
By the time Coletta reached high school age, his real ambition in life was to become an organized crime boss. During one of his detention terms, he was introduced to an older prison detainee. This person seemed to have some connections with the mob. Coletta, when he wanted to, could be friendly and affable, and he cultivated a relationship with this other inmate.
Eventually that relationship set him up with a meeting with one of the lower level organized crime bosses in the city. The meeting with the crime boss went well and within a few weeks Coletta became a contract enforcer for the mob. His reputation as a brutal and loyal enforcer grew within the crime family. Most of his assignments were enforcement of loan sharking debt obligations to the mob when a customer hadn’t paid or couldn’t pay. Coletta didn’t care if he had to break the legs of a senior citizen, female, or child to get the job done. On some enforcement jobs, he would also destroy the interiors of a retail store to make a point. Coletta was paid for his work by the mob as an independent contractor. Because of his large size and flamboyant style, he was easy to identify, and several arrests were made following his enforcement activities which carried short prison terms.
His dirty enforcement activities as a contractor paid well, but Coletta wanted more. When he got out of prison after serving a six-month sentence, he made several strong pleas to the mob to become a permanent, anointed member of the crime family and share in their overall proceeds. The mob politely declined. Their issue wasn’t that he didn’t do a good job, but rather his large physical stature and flamboyant style attracted a lot of attention. Attention was not something organized crime wanted. The mob wanted people who would do the dirty work, appear respectable, and blend in or disappear into the woodwork. After being rejected in his attempts to become a made man, Coletta decided he was no longer going to do the mob’s dirty work on a contract basis.
Coletta had an uncle on his mother’s side who owned two auto junk and dismantling yards on the outskirts of New Orleans. Today these yards would be called, “auto recycling centers.” The two yards were owned for many years by his uncle and were run as clean operations. His uncle was on good terms with all state and local authorities involved in the vehicle dismantling and bulk metal sales.
Coletta’s uncle saw T.J.’s problems as a youth and genuinely wanted to help. He knew his nephew had experienced a rough time growing up and was interested in cars. He thought it might do T.J. Coletta some good to be around a legitimate business, and he offered him a job.
T.J. liked the idea and accepted his uncle’s job offer. His uncle’s business seemed to be doing well and growing, and Coletta applied himself to his work, learning all phases of the business. His uncle came to rely on Coletta more and more, and actually thought he had helped straighten Coletta’s life out.
Behind his uncle’s back, Coletta had other ideas.
Coletta kept all of his dirty deeds away from his uncle, always presenting a clean side of himself. He showed aptitude for learning the business and applying himself to hard work.
Coletta saw the fortuitous discovery of his uncle’s yards as a real gold mine. He learned how pink slips and white slips were issued and tracked by the Department of Motor Vehicles. He learned how the records in the business were kept as well as how the different phases of dismantling a car and selling the parts from the yard ran. He watched in detail the way cars were dismantled and saw how parts were inventoried, stored and sold to auto parts stores. He also learned how complete bodies of cars were crushed and sold for scrap metal. He tracked scrap metal pricing locally and nationally. Coletta’s criminal mind never stopped. He had clever ideas of how pink slips could be forged or modified and how white slips could be created from pink slip cars. When a car came in with a problem registration, Coletta took the lead at the yard for getting the problem resolved with Motor Vehicles department personnel. In this way, he learned what the authorities wanted to see and how the paperwork flowed. He even tested the system by making a few intentional typos on registration slips to see which ones would be picked up and which would get through. He was very good on the phone with regulators, vehicle authorities, insurance companies, and even the police department, if there was an issue about a vehicle’s ownership or theft record. T.J. also continued his racketeering efforts out of sight of his uncle.
Coletta had a flare for flashy cars. He loved Cadillacs and had owned one since he started driving. His flashy cars drew attention to him. Despite being rejected for membership in the real mob, Co
letta was determined to look and act like a mob boss.
He would ultimately achieve his goal, with the big houses, multiple Cadillac’s, custom-made suits, and other trappings of a mob boss. He would do so, like his mob counterparts, over the bodies of many of his victims. However, this wouldn’t happen for a number of years after he started working for his uncle. That job ended when Coletta went back to prison, this time for six years on manslaughter and accessory to murder charges. His time on the farm hardened and educated him further.
When Coletta got out of prison this time, he had a real plan and people set up to carry it out. His first task was to buy out his uncle’s two dismantling yards. Since junk yard ownership was regulated and approved by state authorities, Coletta knew that with his criminal record, he would never be approved. Coletta provided the money to a loyal front man with a clean record to own the yards on paper.
With the yards secured and under his control, he began putting the rest of his plan in place. Over the next several years, Coletta would bring together one of the largest car and parts theft rings in the country. This put T.J. Coletta as head of operations on rival footing in size and brutality as his organized crime mob counterparts. As his crime empire grew, Coletta loved living the part of mob boss he had aspired to, and he wasn’t shy about his flashy lifestyle. By now Coletta had backed off doing his own dirty work, leaving those details to loyal lieutenants and under bosses. Coletta didn’t know the name of Detective Jake Pisano.
But Pisano knew him.
13
Hanna and Langer arrived at the Ole Grille and took seats at a table just before Pisano arrived. Pisano came in and pointed his finger to another table at the back of the restaurant. The two waiting men quickly moved to the new table. The grille was quiet this time of day, with only one other customer drinking coffee at the counter.
Jake Pisano was a street-smart detective who grew up in one of the toughest Italian-Irish neighborhoods of New Orleans. From middle school through high school, he had to fight his way to or from school at least once a week. As a youngster, Jake always managed to stay away from several rival gangs who wanted him to become a member. To keep himself off the streets, he found Curley’s Boxing Gym in the neighborhood, not far from his house.
Pisano’s father had died in an industrial accident when he was three. Jake was raised by his Italian mother and grandmother. His mother worked three jobs, cleaning and cooking, to keep Jake and his two brothers fed and clothed. In order to use the gym facilities, Pisano would clean up and be available to spar with whoever needed a sparing partner. His sparing partners were often older and stronger than Jake. A police officer by the name of Jimmy Damond from the neighborhood also worked out at the gym and took a liking to the young Pisano. Jimmy coached Jake on technique and even organized a few amateur fights for him. Jimmy eventually met Pisano’s mother, and he became a close friend of the Pisano family. The kids called him Uncle Jimmy. Jimmy would sometimes take Jake to other gyms for boxing matches.
By the time he was in high school, Jake was a good enough boxer that he was noticed by one of the professional fight promoters around the gym. The fight promoter took Jake under his wing and arranged several fights. He would tell Jake he was on the road to becoming a successful professional fighter. To the promoter, Jake was really considered a “club fighter,” which meant that although he was good, he was generally outmatched in most fights. The fight promoter would tell Jake he was better than he really was just to get him to the next match.
Uncle Jimmy didn’t feel Jake was being treated right by the fight promoter. He didn’t say anything because he didn’t want to hurt Jake’s feelings.
Uncle Jimmy kept in touch with the family and continued to advise Jake when they were both in the gym. One day he asked Jake, “What are you going to do with your life?”
“Become a professional fighter,” was the quick answer.
Over months of conversation, Jimmy convinced Jake that the fighting game offered little hope for his future and warned that if he continued, Jake would probably get his brains beat out by the time he was twenty. One day Jimmy suggested the Police Academy to Jake and said he may be able to help him get in if Jake was interested. Jake thought about it and finally took Jimmy up on his offer. Jake Pisano knew the streets and how to take care of himself. His vigorous training in the gym had taught him discipline and to diligently apply himself to the task at hand; Jake was in the gym before anyone got there in the morning, and he was still training after everyone else had disappeared in the evening.
When Pisano’s application to the Academy was accepted, he applied himself as diligently to his Police Academy schooling as he had to his fight training. Pisano graduated from the Academy with honors and immediately started working “Vice.”
Jake was a natural at police work. His youth, street smarts, and network of informants were advantages that got him into places older, more seasoned officers couldn’t infiltrate. He soon went into undercover work and penetrated an area of the racketeering arm of the local mafia. During his undercover work, he discovered some dirty cops, and his work lead to several major crime convictions of both criminals and dirty police officers. Over the course of his undercover work, he had been shot three times when his cover was blown. His department took him out of undercover work, promoting him to detective as one of the youngest officers in the NOPD history.
Jake had been assigned to head the undercover operation for the organized crime auto theft unit almost two years before Wade and Ed first met him. At that time, the Coletta gang had expanded into the largest auto theft ring in the city’s history. This crime syndicate had become a major problem to the city. Pisano had been able to connect the Coletta ring to some of the big organized crime Mafia bosses he had identified in his prior undercover assignment.
Jake Pisano lived knowing that he had a contract out on his life – ordered directly by the ranking crime boss in the city for his previous undercover work. Pisano’s persistent style did not allow him to approach his new auto theft undercover assignment lightly. The undercover men on his team were all hand picked. He required that each member not only be from the streets, but also well versed in auto mechanics and car parts. There was one member of his team who Pisano felt didn’t have enough knowledge about auto mechanics. Pisano sent him to Delgado Trade School to take two courses in auto repair.
His undercover team had its own section of the motor pool repair garage. The large room had engine and chassis parts taken from seized vehicles for the team to practice on. Pisano wanted his men to be able to take apart an engine and know how those parts went back together. He also wanted them to know the cost of the parts on the open market and the going prices for junk yard replacements. Pisano’s men had to be convincing in their undercover roles. He firmly believed that their lives would be at stake if they made a mistake in negotiating or in the mechanical lexicon used when dealing with the real criminals.
Hanna and Langer had never met Pisano or heard anything about his background or undercover operation. They were a bit surprised by his young age at their first meeting. Ed Langer’s face was still swollen and bruised from the beating he received from arresting officers. Hanna and Langer hadn’t spoken to each other since the night of the arrest. Neither man knew what this meeting was about or what would happen to them.
Pisano sounded relaxed and confident as he started talking. “You guys are probably wondering why I called the meeting. Both of you were arrested for auto theft, and Ed, you were also arrested for possession of an illegal weapon, resisting arrest, and assaulting a police officer.”
Langer and Hanna looked at each other, wondering where the surprising list of charges came from but said nothing. Pisano continued, “You could both serve long sentences at the ‘house’ with what we have now. The evidence is overwhelming. You were caught in the act. We have the hubcaps, the weapon, and the testimony of at least four arresting officers. Do you guys understand that?”
Both nodded.
“To show our good faith, we let you two go that evening and no paperwork has been filed for now. In other words, there is no police record on file yet for either of you. The way this works is we need information on the people you work for. We’re not interested in you guys but we’re interested in the ring you work for and how they operate. Do you understand?”
Hanna spoke up, “Sir, I don’t work for any ring.”
Pisano cut Wade off mid-sentence. “I know each of your stories. You were the driver and an integral part of the theft. It was your car that was used, so let me continue. I run an undercover operation for the NOPD on this theft ring. In order to get information we need, you’ll have to work undercover. Do the two of you know what that means?”
Both nodded again, but Hanna still had a puzzled look on his face and was about to speak. Before he could say anything, Pisano pointed at him and said, “I’m coming to you.” Pointing to Langer he said, “You work for the largest auto theft ring in the city. That ring has established ties with the mafia, and both groups are expanding into other states and even Central America.”
Langer responded, “But, sir, I only work for the two guys I report to. I don’t know anything about a large ring or organized crime.”
Pisano interrupted, “Langer you are small potatoes, and that’s how we want to keep it. We get our best information from lower level people who are expected to ask dumb questions. The two of you need to consider me as your parole officer. You have to look at your involvement here as working off the crimes you have committed. If you provide us with the information we need and things work out, we will forget the matter of your arrest and destroy the files we have on you. You go back to a normal life. If you can’t or won’t cooperate, I simply tell the arresting officers to turn your files over to the DA for prosecution. That is the way it works.”
Silent Sanction: A Novel Page 8
