The Corporation

by T. J. English

  Even without their prime suspect in custody, Ojeda and the others continued to build their case. Already, some startling evidence had been uncovered. At Idalia and Ernestico’s apartment in Opa-Locka, the investigators confiscated a trove of tape recordings that Ernesto had made before he was killed, phone conversations with various criminal associates, including Chino Acuna, José Miguel Battle, Charley Hernandez, and others. The detectives had not yet been able to identify all the voices on these taped phone calls, and the conversations were in code to a point where it wasn’t always possible to understand what was being talked about, but there were some extraordinary exchanges.

  One conversation was between Ernesto and his mother in Cuba. The cops sat in the office of the state’s attorney Henry Adorno and listened to the voice of Ernestico.

  “Listen, Mami, did you receive the telegram I sent you?” Ernestico asked his mother.

  “Yes,” said the mother, “and I waited for the phone call, and I went to call you on the nineteenth. I sent you a telegram yesterday. Didn’t you receive it today?”

  “No, no. But none of that matters. How you are feeling is what’s important.”

  The mother knew from having spoken with Ernesto Sr. that Ernestico was being hunted by killers.

  Ernestico explained, “You know, Mami, remember I spoke with you on the fourth of December? Thirteen days afterwards, on December seventeenth, they made an attempt on me . . . It’s a phenomenon, you know. The seventeenth of December, Saint Lazaro Day. I was born that day, you know. But you don’t have to worry. I’m just telling you so that you know, okay?”

  “Yes. Imagine that, Ernestico.”

  “So pray for me. A lot. And play for me a lot of buemba, because they are playing a lot of buembas on me over here, you hear me?”

  Buemba is a vernacular word for a spiritual ritual common in Santería referring to sainthood. In Santería, a saint can be either a positive spirit or one with bad intentions, depending on the buemba.

  “I got a fucking war over here with some saints,” said Ernesto to his mother.

  “And the names,” she asked, “don’t you know them?”

  After some prodding, Ernestico gave his mother some names that she could use in her buemba. He was telling her that should he be murdered, these were the people who had done it. He gave her the actual birth names of Tati and Monchi, the hit men associated with Omega 7. And then he said, “Here’s another one, write this down. José Miguel Battle. Do you understand? José Miguel Battle.”

  “Battle?”

  “Battle. B-A-T-T-L-E. José Miguel Battle. And now, listen, another one. Julio Acuna.”

  “Julio Acuna.”

  “Yes. My war is with these saints.”

  Ojeda, along with other detectives and the prosecutor, listened to this taped conversation and marveled. It was as if the victim were speaking from the dead to identify his killers.

  Charley Hernandez was a name that had come up in their interviews with Idalia. Charley was on the tapes too, speaking in code about how he had been given a contract by Battle to kill Ernestico. Idalia filled in the blanks, telling them about Charley staying with them in Miami and then hatching a scheme to supposedly kill Ernestico for money. She told them how Charley cried at the prospect of killing his best friend, how the two men had said goodbye to one another at the train station and vowed to reconnect somewhere down the line.

  So the Miami detectives knew that Charley Hernandez was a key person of interest. But they had no idea where he was. Until Detective Ojeda received a phone call from Detective Kalafus that changed the direction of their investigation.

  Ojeda and a fellow detective flew to New York City. As Ojeda remembered it in a deposition years later, “On April 23rd, 1977, we left Miami and arrived at LaGuardia Airport. We were met at LaGuardia Airport by Detective Kalafus, who took us to a horrible hotel in New York City.”

  That night, at the office of Sam Mandarin in the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office in New Jersey, Ojeda and his partner met Charley Hernandez. Ojeda liked what he heard. Charley was a talker, and he directly linked Ernesto to Battle. Right away, the Miami detectives realized that with what Charley was giving them they could make a murder conspiracy case against the Godfather, whether Chino Acuna was ever found or not.

  The detectives made arrangements for Charley Hernandez to be transported to Miami. It was a tricky negotiation, with one jurisdiction handing off a coveted witness to another, but it was believed that the case against Battle could only be made in Dade County, where the murder took place.

  In Miami, Charley was set up in a motel near the airport. The investigators brought him food and supplies. Over the next week, he led them to many of the locations he had been telling them about: apartments in Allapattah and Hialeah where he had stayed with Ernestico and Idalia; the home of the retired cop that he and Ernestico had burglarized; the apartment complex where Ernestico Sr. had been living; the motel where Charley stayed when he was in town to “murder” Ernestico.

  Concurrently, the detectives went about building their case. They tracked down and interviewed tenants at the apartment building where Ernesto and Idalia had lived in Opa-Locka. They sought to find the delivery boy who delivered groceries to the apartment, and discovered that he had only recently died in an automobile accident at the age of seventeen. The investigation was frequently interrupted by the fact that Ojeda and his partner were busy working other cases at the same time as this one.

  One of Ojeda’s open cases was the murder of Rolando Masferrer, a notorious gangster from the 1950s era in Cuba. Masferrer had been the leader of Los Tigres (the Tigers), a political assassination squad affiliated with the government of President Fulgencio Batista. After the revolution, Masferrer escaped from Cuba and became a political firebrand in Miami’s volatile anti-Castro universe. He published a newspaper titled Libertad, in which he called for the car bombing of his political enemies. On October 31, 1975, Masferrer was himself blown up by a bomb attached to his car.

  Political assassinations in the anti-Castro underground were like Mob hits. Everyone had a theory about who did it, but the cases almost always went unsolved. Ojeda felt that Masferrer had likely been killed by Castro spies in the United States. FBI agents working the case believed it had been done by rivals within the anti-Castro sphere, most likely the Novo brothers out of Union City. With little hard evidence, the case remained open.

  Another case that Ojeda became involved with was the murder of mafioso Johnny Roselli. On August 9, 1976, Roselli’s decomposed body was found stuffed inside a fifty-five-gallon steel drum floating in Dum-foundling Bay in Miami. The murder of Roselli was no small matter. Having partnered with fellow mafioso Santo Trafficante and the CIA in efforts to assassinate Fidel Castro, the mobster had been an underworld operative at a very high level.

  On June 24 and September 22, 1975, Roselli had been called to testify in front of the U.S. Select Committee on Investigations in Washington, D.C. Known as the Church Committee, because it was chaired by Senator Frank Church of Idaho, the committee had been unraveling, for the first time in public, Operation Mongoose and other anti-Castro efforts from the 1960s. Days before Roselli was scheduled to testify, one of his other partners in Operation Mongoose—mafioso Sam Giancana—was shot dead in the basement of his Illinois home. This murder had motivated Roselli to move from his homes in Los Angeles and Las Vegas and settle in Miami, where he felt he was safe.

  It was a logical assumption, as traditionally Miami was a safe haven for mafiosi. Mob hits took place in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and other places. Miami was where mobsters like Meyer Lansky came to retire, and no one in the underworld bothered them. Apparently Roselli was a special case. His testimony before the Church Committee had been so riveting and explosive, with many juicy details about the CIA-Mafia efforts to kill Fidel, that the committee had called him back for a third appearance on April 23, 1976. The date came and went and Roselli was nowhere to be found, until he was discovered
—to paraphrase the old Sicilian phrase—asleep with the fishes.

  Like the Masferrer murder, the Roselli case was one about which there were many theories and little hard evidence to secure an indictment, much less a conviction.

  Ojeda thought that one person who might know something about the murder was Santo Trafficante. How could he not know? Since he was the most powerful mafioso in the state, the murder could not have taken place without his approval. If someone had done that murder without his blessing, they would certainly wind up dead as a result.

  Trafficante was based in Tampa, but he had a house in North Miami, and he was there often. Ojeda simply went to the house and knocked on the door. Trafficante’s wife answered.

  Said Ojeda, “How are you, ma’am? My name is detective Julio Ojeda with the Dade County Public Safety Department. I’d like to speak with your husband, if he’s at home.”

  The wife invited Ojeda in, then she went and got her husband. Years later, Ojeda remembered, “Santo was very cordial. ‘You want coffee?’ I said, ‘Of course.’ He said, ‘Cuban coffee?’ He spoke in fluent Spanish. We talked about Roselli. He was very friendly. He said, ‘You know, I really like you. But you need to talk to Henry.’ Henry Gonzalez was his lawyer.”

  So Ojeda did talk to Henry Gonzalez. He said to Gonzalez, “Look, I’d like to take a statement from your client. Honestly, it’s a smart thing for him to do. Everyone from the FBI to the CIA will be on him about the Roselli murder. If he gives a statement, he can say, ‘That’s it. I gave my statement. I have nothing more to say.’ ”

  The lawyer agreed.

  Trafficante was concerned that no one see him giving this statement, not even other people in law enforcement. So the mafioso was brought to the First Union Building, the southernmost building in downtown Miami. They set up a table and stenographer in the garage, with fold-out chairs for Trafficante and his lawyer.

  Remembered Ojeda, “It was the first time anyone had taken a statement from Santo Trafficante. He was shrewd, extremely smart.” Trafficante gave away nothing useful.

  Ojeda came away from the incident believing that the Mafia boss was an impressive individual, even though it was almost certain that he had sanctioned the murder of his good friend and former partner in crime, Johnny Roselli.

  THE ANTICS OF CHARLEY HERNANDEZ HAD WREAKED HAVOC WITH HIS FAMILY. HIS young children knew very little of what was going on with their father, except that it was causing major disruptions in their life.

  Within weeks of Charley’s moving to Miami, Carol Negron, his common-law wife, received a visit from two men in suits, one of whom was Sam Mandarin from the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office. They told Negron that for their own safety it was likely her family would need to be relocated to Florida, where Charley was being prepped for a big trial. The investigators were introduced to the children—three girls and son Carlos—as Tom and Sam, friends of their father, who would soon be reuniting them with their dad.

  Carol and Kelly, the two oldest girls, were eight and nine. They didn’t really pay much attention until a few days later when Tom and Sam showed up at their school and removed them from class. They were told they were being taken home for lunch. At home, they saw that all their things had been packed up. Kelly, the oldest and most inquisitive of the girls, said, “What is this?” Tom and Sam told her that they were going down to the Jersey Shore for the weekend. It was all very strange, and young Kelly wasn’t buying it.

  What neither Kelly nor any of the other girls knew was that that morning, someone in a car had tried to snatch their six-year-old brother, Carlos, off the street. Carlos had escaped. The investigators believed it was Battle’s henchmen. Battle must have learned that Charlie was cooperating with authorities. The investigators told the children’s mother, “Your family is in danger. There’s no choice here. You cannot stay. You cannot run. Listen to us and we will protect you.”

  As the children readied to leave, they noticed that their aunt and grandmother were crying hysterically. They didn’t understand it. The aunt grabbed Kelly by the hand and said to her, “Kelly, take care of your sister.”

  The elevator was loaded with suitcases, so Kelly and Carol took the stairwell. In the stairwell, Kelly took her sister by the hand and said, “Something is not right here. We need to run.”

  It was a pivotal moment; these two young girls were about to have their childhood snatched away from them. They could run and live as feral animals in the street, or they could submit to their fate.

  Carol didn’t understand what her sister was talking about. “You’re scaring me,” she said. They continued down to the car. There, they were crowded into a van, four young kids, the mother, and two investigators.

  Once the van was under way, Kelly noticed that they were not going in the direction of the shore. “Where are we going?” she asked. Sam the investigator told her that there had been a fire at the Meadowlands blocking their route to the shore. They would have to take an airplane. Even to a nine-year-old, that sounded bogus. Then Kelly felt the gun of Tom the investigator poking into her side.

  “Why do you have a gun?” she asked.

  There was silence in the car. Tom said, “Well, in the United States of America you can have a gun. I choose to have a gun. It’s not breaking the law.”

  They arrived at Newark airport and boarded a commercial flight. The girls still believed that they were going to the Jersey Shore, though it seemed strange that these two men in suits and patent leather shoes were coming with them.

  As they were landing, an announcement was made: Welcome to Miami.

  The children were startled. The mother said, “Surprise! We’re going on vacation.”

  They still did not know they would be seeing their father, until they disembarked into the terminal and there was Charley Hernandez down on one knee, arms wide open and a big smile on his face. On each side of their father were two men who looked the same as Tom and Sam, lawmen dressed for work.

  The three girls and the boy hugged their daddy, and thus began their life in Miami, which became more unusual with each passing day.

  At first it seemed as though it might be fun. They lived in a nice hotel with a big pool, which was where they spent most of their time. Tom and Sam tried to help them learn new names; they made a game of it. “Think of a name you always wanted, your favorite name.” Then the two agents trained them not to react if anyone called out their old names.

  It was a weird fantasy life. They were kept out of school. Kelly never finished fourth grade, and she was kept out of fifth grade.

  It was fun at the hotel, but one day Tom and Sam showed up and said, “Get out of the pool now. We have to go.” They told Carol Negron to get all the kids together. They would bring their clothes and belongings later. They had to go. A grandparent of one of the girls’ friends had called local authorities and said, “Something’s not right. My granddaughter has these girlfriends, they never go to school.”

  The agents loaded Negron and her family into a van. Years later, daughter Kelly remembered, “They drove us around for hours, all day and all night. They didn’t know where to put us. They took us to one of those two-story apartments you see in Florida, with a pool in the front. They put us on the first floor and said, ‘You’re going to stay here for the night.’ Until they could figure out what to do with this family. No extra clothes, no anything. They kept us there for a while. They told us we were vacationing. It was a surprise. Our father came home sometimes, but not every day. He was always in the company of other men who would sit outside; they never came in the house.”

  After a few months, the kids adapted. They were unaware that in July 1977, authorities in Florida were ready to make their move on José Miguel Battle. A warrant for his arrest was issued, though it wasn’t acted on immediately. Lawmen in New York and New Jersey followed him around for days, waiting for the opportunity to make the arrest.

  JULY 13 WAS A SEASONABLY WARM AND HUMID DAY IN MANHATTAN. BATTLE HAD JUST come from one o
f his bolita operation’s main offices on West 79th Street near Amsterdam Avenue. It was incumbent upon a bolita king to occasionally visit his minions at work—at least in the offices, where the money was kept. He rarely, if ever, visited the actual bolita holes where the bets were placed. It would be unwise for a banker or boss to be seen there; those places were sometimes under police surveillance. It would be like the CEO of a supermarket corporation visiting one of his retail outlets; it was unnecessary and would only diminish the CEO’s stature as his company’s great and powerful chief.

  Battle arrived at a restaurant in Washington Heights, located at 163rd Street and Broadway, and settled in for a meal. The investigators had been tailing him most of that day. Their entire operation was based on his not detecting the surveillance. It wasn’t until he was inside the restaurant that they alerted the other units.

  Detective Kalafus was the lead officer; he was executing the warrant on behalf of the Dade County Prosecutor’s Office. Detective Ojeda was on vacation and unable to attend the party, but there were police officers from Miami. One of them, a special guest, was Diego Mella.

  Mella was the cop who as a member of the Union City Police Department had arrested Battle and two of his brothers on illegal gun possession charges back in 1974. Mella had been so shocked to discover the depths of Battle’s influence with the police department and political structure in Hudson County that shortly thereafter he resigned as a cop. He moved to South Florida and joined the Dade County Public Safety Department.

  Late in the Ernesto Torres murder investigation, when Detective Ojeda and the others learned of Mella’s history in Union City, they arranged for him to be assigned to the investigation as part of the apprehension squad. Having Mella involved was a tip of the cap to the officer, and a middle finger to Battle.

  The cops waited until the Godfather finished his meal and walked out of the restaurant. On the sidewalk, he was surrounded by dozens of New York City police officers and Miami detectives. Kalafus served the warrant, and Mella was there to place the handcuffs on Battle.