by Bruno, Joe
Coonan had a huge frog in his throat. “No, of course not.”
Castellano went into a dissertation as to why Ruby Stein was such a valuable member of his organization and why Stein’s death was such a terrible blow to all the men seated at this table. Then Castellano looked right into Coonan's eyes and said, “Jimmy, did you or any of your people have anything to do with this terrible thing; this murder of our good friend Ruby Stein?”
Coonan tried to look sincere.
“No,” he quickly said. “We didn't have nuthin' to do with that.”
“Are you sure?” Castellano said.
“Yes sir, without a doubt.”
Castellano then got to the meat of the conversation. He asked Coonan if he knew the whereabouts of Stein's little black book.
Coonan said, “I don't even know what youse are talking about.”
Castellano raised his voice just a bit.
He said, “That book has millions of dollars’ worth of loans in it; shylock loans. There are people here who need that book.”
Coonan shrugged, “Wish I could help you, Mr. Castellano. But I don't know nuthin' about Ruby's death, or no black book.”
Coonan then heard from Castellano's lips what he had dreamed about for years. “Alright Jimmy, this is our position. From now on, you boys are going to be with us; which means you got to stop acting like cowboys - like wild men. If anybody is to be removed, you have to clear it with us. Capisch? Everything goes through Nino or Roy. You have our permission to use our family name in your business dealings on the West Side. But whatever monies you make, you will cut us in 10 percent.”
After dinner, Castellano and his crew took Coonan and Featherstone to the nearby Vets and Friends Social Club. There Castellano told them the real reason he wanted their alliance.
“If you are ever called to Brooklyn, you come, no questions asked,” Castellano told them.
Coonan and Featherstone correctly understood this to mean that they and their Irish crew from Hell's Kitchen would be a secret hit-squad for Castellano; especially when non-Italian shooters were needed. Again, this did not go over well with Dellacroce, who was old-school enough to know that Italian Mafiosi do not associate with Irish criminals, whom they felt were overly violent and not trustworthy. The man Dellacroce was grooming for further advancement in his crew, John Gotti, did not like this Irish liaison too much, either.
In 1979, 35-year-old Columbian Gloria Olarte went to work for the Castellanos as a housemaid. At the time, Paul Castellano was 64-years-old and his wife Nina was a very attractive 60-years-old. But that didn't stop Paul Castellano from having roving eyes. Soon, he started an affair with Olarte right in front of his wife's eyes and also in front of his daughter Connie who was living nearby. Whenever his wife and Connie went out shopping, Castellano made sure they had enough cash to spend so that they wouldn't return home anytime soon.
At first, Castellano's advances were just petting and simple kissing, and soon Olarte began to wonder why Big Paul had not consummated their relationship. It seemed that at the time Olarte made her way into the Castellano household, Castellano, due to a diabetes condition, had not had an erection in four years. That problem was taken care of when Castellano had “the operation”: a penile implant that would make him able to have intercourse with his young housemaid.
His affections for Olarte were obvious to the crew members who visited Castellano for business meetings and were also obvious to his wife. Gambino family members began talking about Castellano behind his back; about how he was disgracing his wife by prancing his young housemaid in front of them at their “White House” meetings.
The FBI had wanted to plant a bug in Castellano's house for many years. Through conversations they overhead from bugs planted in other mob hangouts, the FBI had ascertained that when men came to visit Castellano to discuss family business, these meetings always took place in a little dining nook in the kitchen. There is some dispute as to whether Olarte herself, realizing that Castellano's affections for her were waning, told the FBI where to plant the bug. But on March 17, 1983, while Castellano was on a Florida vacation with Olarte and his trusted aide Tommy Bilotti, the FBI decided the time was ripe to plant the bug. The only problem was, Castellano's wife was still on the premises.
When Nina Castellano finally left the house at around 5 p.m., a team of FBI agents disguised as gardeners, sanitation workers, and telephone installers went to work.
The “gardeners” drugged the Dobermans who were standing guard inside the fence, by throwing drugs-infested steaks over the fence for the dogs to consume. Then FBI “techies” disabled the burglar alarm, allowing three more “techies” to pick the door locks and then enter the Castellano residence. Two Sanitation trucks blocked the entrance to the street, and the FBI agents in the trucks disguised as sanitation workers were under orders to stop Nina Castellano, by any means necessary, from returning to the house until the bug was planted and the FBI agents were safely out of the house.
Once inside the house, the agents went directly to the kitchen nook. By the kitchen table sat a chrome lamp near Castellano's high-backed chair, which he always sat in during mob meetings. The agents removed the base of the lamp, and replaced it with an identical base that contained a microphone and a power pack. They placed the lamp back in its original position and quickly exited the house. Their stay inside the Castellano residence lasted only 12 minutes. Once safely outside, the FBI “techies” re-activated the burglar alarm, so that when she returned to her home, Nina Castellano would be none the wiser.
This bug became a treasure trove of information for the FBI.
(The FBI was, under law, supposed to stop listening when the conversations being recorded involved inane personal matters. But that was not always the case.)
Within a few days, the Feds heard Castellano boasting to one of his associates, “No one comes to Staten Island unless I say so.”
For many years, the FBI suspected that the Gambino Crime Family had their greedy tentacles deep into labor racketeering, especially in the construction business. Castellano confirmed this fact when he was recorded saying to one of his captains, “Our job is to run the unions.”
However, the most incriminating conversation was recorded when Castellano was at a sit-down with his chauffeur and right-hand man Tommy Bilotti, and Gambino “collection agent” Alphonse “Funzi” Mosca. Gloria Olarte could be heard hovering in the background, certainly listening, and sometimes interjecting innocent remarks into the conversation. According to the book Mafia Dynasty, by John H. Davis, the conversation went like this:
Castellano: He gotta pay. And he gotta be clued in. Over two, forget about it. He sits out. That's club. Under a deuce, we talk. Maybe he gets some. But he pays the two points. First. None of this “you'll have it in a few days” bullshit.
Mosca: You want I should talk to the fat guy? (Genovese Family Boss Fat Tony Salerno)
Castellano: Talk to the fuckin’ president for all I care. Just get me my money.
Bilotti: I don't see where this fuckin’ guy should get nothing. We set it up. We did all the work.
Castellano: If you're calling the fat guy, call the Chin (Salerno's Underboss Vincent “The Chin” Gigante).
Gloria: Mister Tommy. You finish all the cookies?
Mosca: So he takes it for six-million-nine. Cody says take it for six-seven-fifty. Something like that. Plus some jobs.
Castellano: Twelve men. Fifteen days.
Bilotti: Yeah, twelve. Fifteen.
Castellano: And the money comes up thirty percent. We do things on our own. We gotta think of our own. Tell it to the fat guy. Tell Chin.
Mosca: It might get a little raw.
Castellano: It does, it does. What are they going to do, sue me?
The FBI was able to decipher exactly what this conversation meant. The subject of discussion was the construction of a midtown Manhattan skyscraper. Castellano was instructing his men to approach Salerno and Gigante to make sure Castellano
got his proper cut of the money being skimmed off the top, and to confirm the number and duration of the no-show jobs his men would get.
The bug in the Castellano residence lasted four months. During this time Castellano was heard discussing how he was controlling the construction business, the meat packing business, and the labor unions; specifically the Teamsters, the painters union, and various unions related to the restaurant business. Castellano let the Feds know he was also involved in the pornography business, as well as stock frauds, and insurance frauds.
These tapes decisively revealed to the Feds that there were two factions within the Gambino Family, each of which had no use for the other. Castellano had the support of Bilotti and his cousin Tommy Gambino, who controlled the garment center in Manhattan. While the other faction was led by Dellacroce, and Dellacroce's “favorite son” - John Gotti.
One of Gotti's underlings was Angelo “Quack Quack” Ruggiero, a rotund, boisterous man who got his nickname because he couldn't stop talking; on the phone, or in places that were most likely bugged by the FBI. When Ruggiero was arrested in a big heroin deal, Castellano was incensed that any of his men would dare to sell “babania,” which was forbidden in the Gambino Family and supposedly throughout the American Mafia.
Castellano immediately called Gotti on the carpet, and he reamed Gotti a new one, saying, “Listen Johnny, you got to prove you weren't involved.”
Gotti knew this meant if Ruggiero was indeed guilty of selling dope, and if Gotti knew about Ruggiero's involvement, it was a death sentence for both men.
Soon, Castellano discovered from lawyers involved in the case that Ruggiero had been caught on secret recordings bragging about several drug deals. Castellano demanded that Ruggiero turn over the tapes to him, and when Ruggiero refused, Castellano (on tape) went berserk, threatening to do bad things to both Ruggiero and Gotti. This is when the FBI decided to lower the boom on “Big Paul.”
On March 25, 1985, FBI agents Andris Kurins and Joseph O'Brien made a trip to Castellano's “White House,” and the told Castellano he was being arrested on RICO charges (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act). Castellano seemed quite confused when he heard the charges, because he fully didn't understand the implications of RICO.
Under the RICO Act, a person who is a member of an enterprise and has committed any two of 35 crimes—27 federal crimes and 8 state crimes—within a 10-year period, can be charged with racketeering. The RICO Act “allows for the leaders of a crime syndicate (family) to be tried for the crimes which they ordered others to do or assisted them to do, closing a perceived loophole that allowed someone who told a man to, for example, commit murder, to be exempt from the trial because they did not actually do it themselves.”
Those found guilty under the RICO Act can be fined up to $25,000 and sentenced to 20 years in prison per racketeering count.
So Castellano, at the moment of his arrest, oblivious to the fact that his house had been bugged for more than four months, did not realize the scope of the indictment he was about to face. According to Kurins and O'Brien, Castellano first heard of the taped conversations recorded in his house on the federal car radio, while the two Feds were transporting Castellano from the “White House” to the “Big House.”
After hearing the news on the radio, Castellano told the two Feds he suddenly felt ill, and would they please stop the car at a drug store to buy him some Tums and a candy bar for his diabetes, which was suddenly making his head swim.
However, Castellano was not the only mob bigwig arrested that day.
Under the direction of Rudolph Giuliani, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, as the cuffs were being put on Castellano, they were simultaneously putting the cuffs on Gambino Underboss Aniello Dellacroce, Fat Tony Salerno, the head of the Genovese Crime family, Lucchese boss Tony “Ducks” Corallo, Columbo boss Carmine Persico, and Rusty Rastelli, the acting boss of the Bonanno Crime Family.
Giuliani went so far as to arrest 82-year-old Bonanno Family patriarch Joseph Bonanno at his home in Tucson, Ariz. It seemed that Giuliani was astounded and overjoyed after reading Bonanno's recent autobiography “A Man of Honor,” in which Bonanno admitted things about the “Sacred Society” that no made man had ever dared utter.
In addition to the RICO charges, Giuliani hit Castellano with an additional 51 charges stemming from the murders and stolen car ring perpetrated by Roy DeMeo's crew. (Rumors were that before Castellano was arrested on RICO charges, he heard from his law enforcement moles about the impending DeMeo-related indictments. Feeling that DeMeo, facing life in prison, was not the type of man to do his time quietly, Castellano ordered the murder of his most proficient murderer. DeMeo's own crew did the honors; stuffing DeMeo’s frozen body into the trunk of a car for the police to find.)
Through an FBI informant close to John Gotti (code name Wahoo – later discovered to be longtime Gotti pal Willie Boy Johnson), the Feds found out that Castellano, because of the internal strife in the Gambino Family, was planning to whack Gotti and his entire crew. Gotti, cognizant of this fact, started to make plans to do away with Castellano first. The only person stopping Gotti from doing what he wanted was Gotti's boss Dellacroce, again an old-schooler, who would never sanction a hit on his own boss. This obstacle was removed on December 2, 1985, when Dellacroce finally succumbed to the ravages of cancer.
With the coast now clear for him, Gotti sought permission from the other mob bosses to whack Castellano before Castellano whacked him. Vincent “The Chin” Gigante issued a firm “No” to Gotti. But the other mob bosses, not liking Castellano too much, shrugged their shoulders and basically said, “Do what you got to do.”
On December 16, 1985, after finishing a 2:30 p.m. appointment in Manhattan with his lawyer James LaRosa, Castellano decided to kill a little time Christmas shopping with his chauffeur Tommy Bilotti, before they went to their 5 p.m. appointment at Sparks Steakhouse at 210 East Forty-Fifth Street. At Sparks, Castellano and Bilotti were supposed to meet with Gotti and three other men. A table for six had already been reserved for 5 p.m. under the name “Mr. Bell.”
What Castellano didn't know was that Gotti had no plans to show up inside Sparks Steakhouse, but was, in fact, at this time in the passenger’s seat of a Mercedes driven by Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano. Gravano had parked the car at the corner of 46th Street and Third Avenue, where he and Gotti had one eye trained on the entrance to Sparks and the other eye on Third Avenue, waiting for Castellano's black Lincoln to make its appearance. On the street surrounding Sparks were anywhere from eight to 10 of Gotti's men; armed with guns and walkie-talkies, ready to take action.
At approximately 5:30 p.m., with Castellano now fashionably late, Castellano's Lincoln made the turn from Third Avenue onto 46th Street and parked in front of Sparks. As soon as Bilotti exited the driver's side, he was met by a hail of bullets, allegedly fired by Gotti henchman Tony “Roach” Rampino, rendering Bilotti quite dead.
As Castellano was exiting on the passenger side, he turned toward the street to see what all the commotion was about. Before Castellano could decipher he was soon to be a dead man, another Gotti shooter, allegedly John Carneglia, pumped six bullets into Big Paul, thereby ending the reign of Paul Castellano as the head of the Gambino Crime Family.
Cotton Club
THE BLACKS WERE ON THE STAGE.
THE WHITES WERE AT THE TABLES.
THE MOBSTERS WERE BEHIND THE SCENES.
AND SOMEHOW THE MAGIC TOUCHED THEM ALL
– Jim Haskins - “The Cotton Club.”
In the 1890s, Harlem was a land speculator's dream. The elevated railroad lines that had been extended to 129th Street in Manhattan had transformed the area from the hinterlands to what was called “The Great Migration.”
At the time, black families lived mostly in the area between 37th and 58th Streets, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. The upper crust of society viewed Harlem as the next step for the upwardly mobile, and as a result, splendorou
s townhouses costing thousands more than comparables downtown were being built as fast as the Harlem land could be purchased by speculators.
By 1905, however, the Harlem real estate market dropped through the floor. Land speculators were forced to face the fact that the townhouses had been built too quickly and the prices were far above what people were prepared to pay.
On the verge of bankruptcy, the land speculators used tactics that today would be illegal. They rented their buildings to black tenants, far above what they would charge white tenants. Then, in a frenzy to recapture their losses, the land speculators approached white building owners, and they told them if they didn't purchase their vacant buildings they would rent them out exclusively to blacks, thereby reducing the value of the white landowner's properties.
The white landowners didn't bite, so the land speculators made good on their promises. Whites began moving out of Harlem in droves, replaced by black families who had never lived in such a fine neighborhood. Black churches followed their congregations from the slums of Manhattan to the splendor of Harlem, and by the early 1920s, Harlem was the largest black community in the United States.
However, most blacks could not afford the high rents charged by the white building owners, so they took in tenants, resulting in two and sometimes three families living in a one, or two-bedroom apartment. Coinciding with the overcrowding of Harlem, came the influx of illegal enterprises, such as numbers running, houses of prostitution, and drug dealers. This was counteracted somewhat when prosperous blacks, mostly in the entertainment business, decided Harlem was where they could showcase their talents in a neighborhood filled with people of their own race.
Fritz Pollard, noted All-American football player, who made his money in real estate, moved to Harlem, as did fellow All-American football player Paul Robeson; destined to hone an outstanding career acting and singing on stage. They were quickly followed by famous singers like Ethel Walters and Florence Mills, and Harlem was ready for a renaissance equal to that of the glowing White Way on Broadway.