Garden State Gangland

by Scott M. Deitche

  But Bruno was not as adamant that the legalized casinos be beneficial to the organization. He was a cautious boss who kept the made members in the crime family to a manageable number and retained a tight rein on what his soldiers were involved with, making sure it wasn’t too high profile to attract law-enforcement attention. Bruno could dish out violence if needed, but killings only brought additional heat from the law, a lesson his successor had failed to heed. We know what Bruno’s feelings about Atlantic City were because he testified about it before the State Commission of Investigation. He was compelled to do so because, had he continued to refuse cooperation with the SCI’s investigation, he would have been returned to Yardville. He had previously been released in 1973, after spending three years there for contempt and refusing to testify before the grand jury. Now, faced with additional time, Bruno capitulated.

  In June of 1977, Bruno started testimony in front of the commission, with a public hearing held on August 8. With four lawyers at his side, Bruno started by telling the commission of his job, working for a vending operation run by Long John Martorano, a crime-family associate who also was a major methamphetamine dealer.[18] Investigators asked him about a meeting with Gambino boss Paul Castellano in Valentino’s Restaurant in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and whether it pertained to doing business in Atlantic City:

  Q: Did You discuss in Valentino’s doing business separately in Atlantic City?

  A: I don’t know what you mean by “separately.”

  Q: Well, did he tell you what business he was going to go in, perhaps, and you tell him what business you were going to go in?

  A: I don’t recall it, but I don’t know what his intentions are. I have a pretty good feeling about what my intentions are with Atlantic City. Would you want me to tell you that?

  Q: What are your intentions with Atlantic City, Mr. Bruno?

  A: Stay away from it. That’s my intentions . . . I got nothing to do with Atlantic City as far as gambling’s concerned. I’m not interested in any hotels; I’m not interested in any casinos, directly or indirectly.[19]

  Though it could be argued that Bruno was merely placating the commission with his protestations that he had no intention of moving into Atlantic City, it seemed like that was indeed his plan, apart from expanding the vending business that he was involved in with Martorano. Reports started coming in of Gambino family members staking claim to businesses in Atlantic City and investing in properties. Bruno’s dismissal of Atlantic City fed the growing dissatisfaction other members in the crime family already had about the way he was running things. There was a feeling among them that he was really only out for himself and that his reluctance to declare Atlantic City Bruno territory would cost them all. That, and other factors, ultimately sealed his fate.

  Bruno was called before the SCI to testify several more times, the final occasion being on March 20, 1980. The next evening, on March 21, Bruno was eating at Cous’ Little Italy, a well-known Italian restaurant in South Philadelphia, owned by another crime-family member, Thomas DelGiorno. After a meal of Chicken Sicilian and a few cups of coffee, Bruno gave word for Long John Martorano to drive him home; but Martorano was unavailable. Instead, a young Sicilian named John Stanfa drove the boss back to his house, a few miles from the restaurant. As the car pulled up in front of Bruno’s house, Stanfa used his controls to lower the passenger-side window, and a gunman walked out of the shadows and up to the car. The man had a shotgun in his hand and blasted away at Bruno’s head, taking out the don who had ruled the Philly mob, and South Jersey, for decades.

  Bruno’s murder set in motion a chain of events that would both decimate and reshape the New Jersey–underworld landscape and lead to a war for control of the Philadelphia mob that left a trail of bodies and scores of convictions of the top leaders of the Philly mob. In the immediate aftermath of Bruno’s hit, the top spot was quickly filled by Bruno’s underboss, Phil Testa. And he was about to step into pop-culture history, Jersey style.

  1. The building is now the Bonanza Gift Shop.

  2. Oscar Goodman, personal interview with author, Las Vegas, Nevada, December 3, 2016.

  3. Lane Bonner and Terrence Doughterty, ELSUR Logs, 1/15/63–1/18/63, electronic surveillance logs, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami Field Division, 1963.

  4. Commission of Investigation of the State of New Jersey, Report for the Year 1972 of the Commission of Investigation of the State of New Jersey to the Governor and the Legislature of the State of New Jersey (Trenton: State of New Jersey Commission of Investigation, 1973), http://www.state.nj.us/sci/pdf/annual3-1972.pdf.

  5. State of New Jersey Commission of Investigation, Report for the Year 1974 of the Commission of Investigation of the State of New Jersey to the Governor and the Legislature of the State of New Jersey (Trenton: State of New Jersey Commission of Investigation, 1975), available online at https://dspace.njstatelib.org/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10929/17136/5annual1974.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.

  6. Asbury Park (NJ) Press, “Las Vegas a Roller Coaster to Late Shore Rackets Boss.” January 13, 1980, 90.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Anthony Russo’s collection of cats was a nod to his past as a cat burglar—where he allegedly got the nickname, Little Pussy.

  9. Asbury Park (NJ) Press, “Juror Ousted after Talk with Defendant,” May 3, 1980, 12.

  10. US Senate, “(b) Northern New Jersey.”

  11. Jonathan Van Meter, The Last Good Time: Skinny D’Amato, the Notorious 500 Club, and the Rise and Fall of Atlantic City, 1st ed. (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 136.

  12. Special Agent in Charge, Philadelphia, Angelo Bruno, FBI Airtel 6/22/62, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1962.

  13. Richard C. Ross, Nicodemo Dominick Scarfo, Newark, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1973.

  14. J. Robert Pearce, Angelo Bruno, Aka Angelo Bruno, Analore (True Name), Ange, Russo, special summary report, Philadelphia, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1961.

  15. (Newark, OH) Advocate, “Boardwalk Possible Center of Crime,” December 9, 1976, 30.

  16. "Casino Policing Questions Unanswered," Asbury Park (NJ) Press, December 12, 1976.

  17. Sherry Conohan, “Russo Tapes Tell of Mob’s Atlantic City Casino Tie-Ins,” Asbury Park (NJ) Press, February 11, 1980, 2.

  18. Martorano was shot on January 17, 2002, by two gunmen outside his home in Philadelphia. He drove to his doctor’s office with shots to the arms and chest. He died of his injuries on February 5, 2002.

  19. State of New Jersey Commission of Investigation, Ninth Annual Report of the Commission of Investigation of the State of New Jersey to the Governor and the Legislature of the State of New Jersey. Trenton: The Commission of Investigation of the State of New Jersey, 1978. http://www.state.nj.us/sci/pdf/annual9.pdf.

  Chapter 13

  South Jersey War

  New Jersey’s favorite son, Bruce Springsteen, opens “Atlantic City,” a song off his album Nebraska, in a way that may be enigmatic to casual listeners unaware of their historical context.

  Well they blew up the Chicken Man in Philly last night

  Now they blew up his house too

  Down on the boardwalk they’re getting ready for a fight

  Gonna see what them racket boys can do.[1]

  But for those who were around the Philadelphia/South Jersey area in 1981, the meaning is crystal clear. The Chicken Man was Philip Testa, boss of the Philadelphia Mafia. And they did blow him up one night. Testa was killed when a bomb went off as he walked up to his house at 3 a.m., the morning of March 15, 1981. Testa was coming home late, and, as he walked through the door, a bomb made of nails was detonated, sending literal shockwaves through the neighborhood. The device had been set off remotely from a van parked across the street, which was driven by Rocco Marinucci, driver for Testa’s underboss, Pete Casella.

  Testa’s demise was a pivotal point in a series of events that had started almost exactly one year prior and for the next decade would envelop not only the streets of South Philadelp
hia but also South Jersey and Atlantic City. The 1980 killing of Angelo Bruno was the incident that really set the wheels in motion, and the planning for the hit had taken place in New Jersey. Bruno’s death had been the result of simmering resentments shared by his underboss, Testa, and consigliere, Tony Caponigro. Much of their frustration had to do with Bruno’s allowing the Gambino family into Atlantic City, a territory many in the Bruno family—including Nicky Scarfo, who had operated in the city for years before gambling had been legalized—thought was rightfully theirs and not up for sharing, especially with a New York family. But a bigger reason Testa and Caponigro stewed may have been the drug business.

  Angelo Bruno had stood adamantly against drug dealing and trafficking in his own family. But many on the street felt this injunction was both holding them back from earning as well as hypocritical. The charges of hypocrisy stemmed from activity taking place just a stone’s throw from Bruno’s territory. While the Philly family was embroiled in an internecine war for control of the organization, the Gambinos, through their Sicilian wing, were quietly working in one of the largest heroin-distribution operations ever uncovered in the United States. And they were parked right across the Delaware River, in the township of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, an upscale bedroom community located less than ten miles from Philadelphia. They had moved there when Bruno was still alive, prompting many to speculate that the Philly Boss had been taking a cut from their operations. “The supposition in the organization was that they were giving him money that was drug money.”[2] Bruno even “allowed” Gambino operatives to open a disco and restaurant in Atlantic City, Casanova Disco. The Gambinos in Cherry Hill—Rosario, Joseph, and John Gambino—were essentially their own Gambino-family mini-crew. Distantly related to Carlo Gambino and his sons, the Cherry Hill Gambinos had been born in Sicily and were members of the Sicilian Mafia before they relocated to the United States.

  While the disagreement between Bruno and his administration could have been taken care of in a more diplomatic fashion, Caponigro believed that he had received proper guidance from the Genovese family as to how to properly resolve the internal dispute. What is generally known is that Caponigro drove into New York City and met with the Genovese family and told them of the problems with Bruno. They told Caponigro to take care of it. Construing that as a tacit go-ahead to murder his Boss, Caponigro set the wheels in motion that led to just that. Another version of the story deals with a two million dollar bookmaking operation Caponigro was running in Hudson County that had been coming up against members of the Genovese family. Caponigro had disputed with the Genovese in the mid-1970s; the story was that Funzi Tieri wanted to take over the bookmaking operation, and that had led to friction with Caponigro. So, later, when it came time to put into motion his power play against Bruno, Caponigro, not wanting to further ruffle any Genovese feathers, went to the family, and Tieri, to get their okay for a hit, telling them he was having trouble with Bruno. Again, he was supposedly told to “take care of the problem,” which he interpreted as a blessing to carry out the hit.

  Regardless of how it went down, after the Bruno murder the whole Philly underworld was on edge. Nick Caramandi saw Caponigro at a club a few weeks after the murder. Caponigro told him, “When I come back Monday, everything’s going to be under control. You’re gonna get down.”[3] The last part Caramandi took as referring to his possibly being formally inducted into the crime family. To Caramandi, and others around Caponigro, there was a sense that, whatever had happened with Bruno, Caponigro had been involved and that he was getting ready to make a play for a bigger role in the organization. But first Caponigro wanted to get with the Genovese in New York for a debriefing.

  April 17, 1980, was a Thursday. Tony Bananas Caponigro drove into Manhattan with his brother-in-law, and former bootlegger, Alfred Salerno, who owned a jewelry store there. Bananas and Salerno were picked up in Midtown by members of the Genovese family, where Bananas likely expected to be inducted as new boss of the Philly mob. But that didn’t happen. Some say it was a double cross by the Genovesi; others saw it as another internal power play. But what was clear was that Bananas hadn’t really had the Commission’s backing to kill Bruno. And killing a boss without permission is a cardinal sin in the Mafia. Despite his longevity with the organization, his earning power, and the respect in which crime families throughout the northeast held him, Caponigro’s unforgivable mistake meant a certain outcome.

  Early the next morning, on April 18, police discovered the nude body of Tony Bananas Caponigro, wrapped in a body bag and covered with cash, a sign of excessive greed. “He had been shot three times behind the right ear and once behind the left ear. Rope was tied around his neck, and most of the bones in his face were broken.”[4] Five hours after Caponigro’s broken body was found, a kid walking his dog found Salerno’s body, just a few miles away. Salerno was also wrapped in a body bag. His hands had been tied behind his back, and “he was shot eleven times, and a rope was tied around his neck.”[5] It was said that “Bananas had been shot so many times, his body was almost not identifiable. Then they had stuffed money into his mouth and other body cavities.”[6]

  The word spread quickly through the bars and social clubs of Newark and South Philadelphia. One associate recalled, “Joey Sodano came to my house and said, ‘Nobody has heard from Bananas in twenty-four hours.’ I said, ‘What does that mean?’ He said, ‘It means he’s gone.’”[7] Rumors also began emerging that Caponigro’s brother-in-law and companion on the fateful trip to New York, Alfred Salerno, had also been involved in the Bruno hit. It was a message from the Genovese—but also likely had been approved by Phil Testa, who, as Bruno’s underboss, moved in as boss.

  Fast-forward a year, and, after Phil Testa is blown up, Nicky Scarfo takes over the Philly family, seeking to gain complete control of all the family’s operations and quash any rebellion in the ranks. What followed was a bloody mob war that left over two dozen bodies on the streets of Philadelphia and South Jersey over the ensuing decade. The double-crosses, backstabbing, and out-and-out revenge killings were so bad that a number of high-level mobsters chose to defect to the government. While Scarfo and his crew mugged for the camera from his yacht in Fort Lauderdale, the FBI with state and local authorities were dismantling his enterprise from the inside out. Their focus was mainly on the Philly street rackets that Scarfo was bringing under his control, which included drug dealing, the racket Bruno had once prohibited that was now emerging as a major money earner, especially with the trafficking of methamphetamines and their key ingredient, P2P.

  The casino industry was on police radar along with Nicky Scarfo. Joe Salerno—a plumber who became embroiled in the (newly rechristened) Bruno-Scarfo family’s South Jersey operations—testified before the New Jersey Casino Control Commission that Scarfo “boasted that he ‘owned’ the union representing Atlantic City’s fourteen thousand casino workers, Local 54 of the Hotel [Employees] and Restaurant Employees and Bartenders International Union.”[8]

  Prosecutors at the time tried to downplay organized crime’s involvement in the casinos. It was after all, less than ten years after politicians and officials had assured their constituents that organized crime would have no involvement in any legalized casino industry in Atlantic City. It was alleged that in the early 1980s Scarfo controlled the union through the president, Frank Gerace. By 1982, the Casino Control Commission was actively trying to remove Gerace from the post. They produced a seventy-two-page opinion tying Gerace to Scarfo, alleging that Gerace had donated ten thousand dollars to a “pool of money that Scarfo and his defendants used to post bail”[9] when they were on trial for the murder of Vincent Falcone.

  In addition to his involvement in Atlantic City’s casinos, Scarfo reached out to elected city officials. His years in the town during its desolate days had given him a sizable network of contacts and associates he could turn to his benefit. And now that he was the big boss, his cache had grown far greater than what he had enjoyed as a mere street-level gambling boss
. The boon in casinos and resorts in Atlantic City made even the most “moral” of public officials susceptible to graft. In an undercover FBI operation, Atlantic City’s mayor from 1982 to 1984, Michael Matthews, was caught taking a ten thousand dollar bribe from an undercover operative posing as a Mafia member. Matthews was sentenced to five years in prison.

  During the Bruno-Scarfo family purge, the bodies were piling up, but there was still a need to make money, and the guys were out on the street, busy hustling, working the deals while always looking over their shoulder, waiting for the other shoe to drop. One of Scarfo’s South Jersey soldiers, Albert “Reds” Pontani, was long known to law enforcement, though he had kept a low profile through the early eighties, avoiding many of the internal family conflicts. In fact, many South Jersey soldiers were seemingly immune to Scarfo’s temper and subsequent hit-list designation. It may have been because they were out of his line of sight for the most part or could have been because they were earners. Reds was based out of Hamilton Township, just outside of Trenton, where he owned a trucking company. Pontani’s name first shows up on police radar in the early 1960s when he’s listed as part of Angelo Bruno’s family. Described then as a “rising young star” who “will try anything from robbery to rubouts at a price,”[10] by the eighties Pontani had amassed a criminal history that included kidnapping, burglary, assault, weapons offenses, and robbery. Pontani also inherited John Simone’s bookmaking operation after Simone’s death in 1980, and “The Pontani sports and numbers operation is active in Southeastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey.”[11]