by Luke Waters
“This Valentin? No problem, Luke. We’ll get him for you,” our resident tough guy predicted with relish as I passed on the details, his appetite for flight and fight clear to see. Danny Rivera had never let me down in all the years we’d worked together, and five days later Carlos Valentin was arrested by Bronx VFS at 345 50th Street in Brooklyn, literally two minutes’ walk from the bodega where he’d used his welfare card.
We established that the woman our witnesses believed was our shooter’s sister was actually Valentin’s girlfriend, Chrissy Moran. Her statement broadly corroborated the evidence of others outside the apartment that day, which put Abisay Rivera totally in the clear, or so I thought.
Zevon might have given up on pinning charges on PO Rivera, but his boss, a Captain Armstrong, was more determined. Zevon told me that Armstrong contacted ADA Ed Talty at the Bronx DA’s office and said that he still suspected that Abisay may have driven her brother to Brooklyn after the murder. The details suggested otherwise, and I explained that the information from T-Mobile showed Valentin’s phone following the path of the subway line to where the VFS found him, which pointed to him fleeing by train rather than in a car.
Armstrong’s attitude was pretty commonplace amongst members of the Rat Squad, who usually wanted to put you in the picture until the facts counted you out of it.
Maria Rivera’s case on the assault charges was assigned to ADA Melissa Beck, who agreed that she’d stabbed the Blood in self-defense. If Maria, not Valentin, had pulled out the pistol, she may well have beaten that charge, too. But the law is very strict on felons taking guns to knife fights, and when the case came to trial eighteen months later Carlos Valentin was convicted of manslaughter.
Whenever he does get out, the probation service will be waiting to drop a warrant on him and send him right back inside for breaking his parole on the initial drugs sentence.
The Man will always catch you, even if it’s sometimes on the rebound.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
BE AFRAID, SCOOBY DOO
Sometimes all it takes is modern technology and a modern cowboy to locate a perp, but I never could have imagined that it would take two years, three police departments, three federal agencies, a luxury cruiser, a helicopter, a private jet, and millions of dollars to find one particular man … and that this would be the starting point of my final case in the NYPD.
*
November 26, 2009, eight p.m. Middle America collapses in front of the TV for a sacred annual tradition that’s just as beloved as sweet potatoes, Snoopy specials, and kids impersonating the Pilgrim Fathers—a three-hour fix of padded collisions suitable for all the family, courtesy of the gladiators from the National Football League.
All over New York pumpkin pie is pushed aside as the Giants on the road in Colorado seek to annihilate the home team, the Denver Broncos. It’s the first Thanksgiving fixture between these two teams in almost a decade. This year’s prime-time show even has an added edge not usually permitted on network television as the Denver coach Josh McDaniels swears on air. “All we’re trying to do is win a fucking game!” The network broadcasters are dumbstruck, and a million moms scramble for the mute button. “We apologize for ever airing anything like that, absolutely,” their red-faced executive producer Eric Weinberger says in the media postmortem. “Especially on Thanksgiving.”
Just off Creston Avenue in the Bronx, the Giants’ game is kicking off as a black Honda Accord pulls up to the curbside in front of a local clothing store: Boutiqua 31. The engine is running and the driver watches anxiously as his passenger, a black Hispanic male aged about thirty, jumps out and draws a handgun. He pulls the trigger repeatedly, emptying the entire magazine into the people standing by the window, sending other passersby scattering like skittles as they dive for cover.
It’s all over in less than ten seconds. The gunman jumps back into the getaway car, which pulls away in a belch of smoke and a squeal of rubber, leaving three victims bleeding to death on a blanket of broken glass.
*
Detectives from the 52nd Precinct got word later that the shooter’s likely boss, Levit “Scooby Doo” Fernandini, was spotted cruising around the neighborhood in the Honda just as the football fans sang along to “The Star Spangled Banner.” Levit was engaged in a battle of wills with other local drug lords for sole control of the multimillion-dollar cocaine and marijuana market operating on these corners. Outside Boutiqua 31—a known front for dealing—Julio Rodriguez (forty-five), Segundo Trinidad (fifty-five), and Carlos Lorenzo (twenty-five) lay motionless in a pool of blood while officers out of the 52 and EMS responded to the 911 calls flooding the switchboard. In cop terminology, all three vics are “likely”—likely gangsters or likely to be shot, you could say either.
Life, like professional sports, is all about hanging tough and beating the odds. Julio Rodriguez managed to beat them this time. But Trinidad and Lorenzo succumbed to their injuries, leaving us with a double homicide, an attempted murder, and a perp who would most likely go to ground. That’s how it usually worked out, but I’d soon learn that my final case would prove far different from any I’d investigated up to that point in my career.
The shooter was soon identified as Hector “Hec” Garcia, a five-foot-nine-inch, twenty-six-year-old Bronxite of Puerto Rican extraction, who had just gotten out of federal prison for dealing drugs just yards from where he’d murdered his two latest victims. His years inside had taught Hector a lesson: if you are going to risk doing the time, make sure that the crime pays.
He had recently been promoted to lieutenant in Levit’s organization, which was turning over around a hundred million dollars a year importing and dealing marijuana and coke. If you were to give Señor Garcia an official title, it’d be described as a communications troubleshooter, and he took this title literally. The Creston Crew gang was engaged in a hostile takeover, and Hec was the man chosen to deliver Levit’s message—this usually came down the barrel of a 9mm pistol.
Five days before Thanksgiving, Levit’s lieutenant had attempted to take out Clive Woolery, who worked for a Jamaican gang on the corner of Jerome Avenue and 193rd, close to St. James Park. It was where the second graders on the swings had been replaced by dealers pushing coke to the thieves and prostitutes who had claimed the streets as their own. Woolery was lucky and in follow-up interviews identified Hector as the man who’d tried to murder him. But in this neighborhood shootings are almost run-of-the-mill unless someone dies, so the squad detectives added the investigation to their other cases, little realizing that they had stumbled on a major criminal conspiracy.
But now we had two bodies, Woolery would have made it three, and if any more piled up the media would start to take note and the NYPD Brass would be on the phone to Lieutenant O’Toole demanding to know what the hell was going on.
Twenty hours later our suspect took it up another level. Ronaldo Perez sat at a traffic light, which seemed to be taking forever to turn green. He was on his way to St. James Park to meet some addicts who wanted to score. He sat drumming his fingers on the wheel and didn’t spot the man approaching the car. He didn’t see the pistol being raised and didn’t even realize that he had been shot until the wave of pain attacked every fiber in his body and he heard the sound of his own voice screaming in agony. Hector hopped into a waiting Accord, which was driven off at speed by James “Mint” Rivera. This time, though, there was a police car in pursuit.
Lights flashing, sirens screaming, several RMPs quickly responded to the borough-wide alert, starting a high-speed chase which continued right through the Bronx for several miles, putting kids and pedestrians at risk. It ran up into the next county, where a Westchester Police Department cop who had joined in the hunt was hospitalized from his attempts to block the assailant’s car. The driver and passenger bailed out and made good their escape, but left a raft of evidence tying them to the hit. Hector Garcia’s prints were found inside the Honda and on the spare magazine for his pistol, which he had left on the floor. The gun he’
d dumped out the window as they’d sped through Yonkers was also recovered, so it seemed that we had an open-and-shut case. All we needed to do now was find Hector Garcia. It couldn’t be that difficult, could it?
*
“Luke, how do you like taking this over? This … what’s-his-name … Garcia? Yeah. Hector Garcia. Three-time loser. This asshole is a problem. Unfortunately, he’s our problem. You know what? I think we have a RICO case here,” Lieutenant O’Toole mused, shifting his weight in his seat and leaning forward to hand me the case folder. “Get a task force together. Bring the feds in if they are interested. They have the manpower, and the money, and it’s our turf, so cooperate. Put your other cases to one side, and concentrate on this until you get this bastard’s nuts in a vise.”
RICO refers to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which came out of congressional hearings in response to Mob control of gambling in the 1950s and 1960s and was passed into law under President Richard Nixon in 1970. It covers twenty-seven federal and eight state crimes, encompassing everything from bribery to loan-sharking and prostitution committed in the preceding ten-year period. The beauty of RICO is that, like the Triggerlock cases I worked on when I first came to Homicide, it’s a federal statute and it assumes that everyone involved is acting as part of a criminal enterprise. In past decades it has been used to great effect against organizations as diverse as the Hell’s Angels and the Catholic Church.
The next day I called the feds, or to be specific the assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jessica Masella, and set up an appointment. AUSA Masella was a sweetheart soccer mom off-hours, but on the clock was fast gaining a reputation as a courtroom killer. Determined, dedicated, and diligent, she would not even consider taking a case unless she believed she would win. Her confidence was typical of federal prosecutors who were recruited from the front ranks of the top law schools in the country.
Masella was based in the Criminal Division, or the Gang Unit, as we call it on the Job, out of the Silvio V. Mollo Federal Building in downtown Manhattan—which also houses the Secret Service and the U.S. Marshals Service. So a couple of days later, accompanied by O’Toole and Detective Victor Gomez, who’d caught the original shootings, we headed downtown.
We got quickly down to business and Jessica Masella listened intently as I outlined what we had on the case so far. O’Toole added his comments, and she paused for a moment to think through her options. The woman was spoiled for choice. It was clear that the drugs were being taken across state boundaries, and we had reason to believe our coke was coming through Puerto Rico—most of the gang had close family links there and it acted as a crucial conduit into the U.S. mainland for the South American cartels. The Creston Crew’s weed probably originated in Mexico, which meant the ATF, the DEA, and of course the FBI would all be interested in chasing down our killer and his accomplices.
All of these agencies would go on to play a key part in this investigation but the attorney suggested that the Bureau, as the FBI is known, should play the lead role.
“Luke, do you know Roberto Riveros? Or Brandon Waller? They are with Group C-30 in the FBI. Excellent field agents. I’ve worked with these guys before, and the more I think about what you have here, the more I feel it’s something we can work on together. I think we should set up a meeting with them and hear what they have to say, but I can tell you now that this is tailor-made for RICO and our office.”
I had no problem with working with any feds Masella suggested, and O’Toole agreed, so another meeting was arranged with the duo who I would get to know very well over the following two years.
Special Agent Brandon Waller was the GI Joe of our operation, an expert in tactical situations who enjoyed nothing more than a shoot-out or an armed standoff, cut from the same cloth as my old pal Danny Rivera of the VFS.
Rob Riveros, who was of Chilean extraction, was more laid-back but just as sharp as his colleague and was equally intrigued by what we laid on the table.
When I put forward the NYPD’s view it was clear that we were all on the same page—which is very important with interagency task forces, where egos and territorial jealousies can ruin any chance you have of success—and we all shook hands on the deal. Operation Creston Avenue Takedown, as it was officially designated, was now up and running.
There was only one thing left to do: deputize me as a de facto fed. And on May 10, 2010, already a seventeen-year veteran of the NYPD, I was presented with my new credentials.
*
The feds had the funding, manpower, and technology which would help to crack this case, but in addition to our own significant resources we had something that they lacked: local knowledge; and even better, we had a snitch. In fact we had probably the best snitch I ever worked with, a confidential informant who could give us chapter and verse on how Levit’s organization was structured and operated, since he helped set it all in place.
Our CI was a parolee who had approached Detective Murphy from the 52 telling him that he was willing to provide the NYPD with invaluable intelligence on more than two dozen of Levit Fernandini’s coconspirators, so Murphy introduced him to Detective Gomez and myself.
Our source, whom we code-named “Little,” had been a member of the gang for years, but had become increasingly worried by their readiness to turn to violence as a first resort and was disgusted by the beatings he’d watched Levit and his lieutenants dole out to other members for relatively minor indiscretions.
Levit was also infamous for shooting people on a whim; concerned that he might be next, our snitch had cut his ties. His replacement was Hector, the man we were now searching for.
Little’s decision to finally pluck up the courage to leave the organization was prompted by his boss’s reaction to his complaints about another of his lieutenants, Angel “Julito” Diaz, a career criminal with twenty-seven convictions for robbery and gun possession. The inappropriately named Angel had become unpredictable, inflicting beatings on other members of the organization without permission, and Little feared either a coup or another murder, which would bring unwanted police attention to their activities. Little approached Levit and suggested that he show leadership by sorting the situation out.
Levit listened, thought it over, and agreed. He decided to delegate, so he clasped Little on the shoulder, looked him in the eye, and ordered his right-hand man to put a bullet in the back of Julito’s head. Little refused. Their relationship was never the same.
What is utterly clear is that Levit Fernandini was despicable, dangerous, and without any moral inhibition—to this day we don’t really know how many people he sent to a premature grave.
In 2007 the head of the Creston Crew was arrested for shooting at a rival dealer named Daniel Negron four times in a dispute over drugs, money, and territory. It’s actually very difficult to shoot someone with a pistol unless you are standing close by and they are standing still, so the bullets failed to find their mark. Negron survived and initially identified the man who had pulled the trigger, before suddenly changing his mind, retracting his earlier statement, and assuring the squad DTs that he had just remembered that it wasn’t his old pal Levit who had tried to turn him into a sieve after all. The case against Fernandini collapsed, and he was released to carry on his dealing and killing, but it was only in one of my chats with Little that the real story emerged.
He explained that the gang leader effectively bought his way out of an attempted murder charge by giving Negron twenty grand to smooth things over between them, but the really chilling part was that Fernandini later confided to his lieutenant that he deeply regretted the move. Not the attempted murder, Little was quick to emphasize, but his decision to pay off Negron for his silence. Levit was just sorry he hadn’t simply strung him along and finished Negron off with a fresh magazine, saving himself the twenty G’s.
Little and I had countless face-to-face chats, and from the first meeting I was impressed with what the man had to offer. I quickly completed th
e paperwork necessary to sign him up as a CI, keeping Masella up to speed, and called in Agents Waller and Riveros on the following interviews.
Confidential informants get paid, some as much as a grand a week, tax-free, from our specially earmarked budget, and the department actually has shopping lists of what they will pay for. To Bronx Homicide a gun is worth about a hundred dollars. A kilo of coke is more valuable, maybe netting a snitch a thousand dollars. You can get me an AK assault rifle? The rate goes through the roof, into thousands. Crime may pay, but preventing it does, too.
Intelligence is crucial to police work. The Job has very strict procedures for dealing with registered confidential informants, meaning that Little’s details were only shared with myself, O’Toole, and the CI section of the NYPD. To this day I cannot reveal his real name, or even write it down, nor can I tell it to a judge. Our man was assigned a code—in this case CI 007 000115—and a code name.
Our new recruit, who had chosen his own code name “Little,” had made a smart move deciding to switch from dealing drugs to selling information about other people dealing drugs. He knew very well that putting a major player like Fernandini behind bars for life would make him safer; it would also pay.
Well spoken and articulate, the only really obvious clues to Little’s criminal past were his numerous tattoos. If his life had taken another turn he would probably have made a good cop, or indeed an excellent federal agent, asking the questions instead of answering them.