Carmine the Snake

by Frank DiMatteo

  Smith’s accent betrayed him as originally Bostonian, when he said the investigation was called Operation Star Quest, a three-year federal investigation in which an undercover FBI agent used a yacht to entertain the mobsters. The agent posed as a purchaser of stolen goods and, aided by a hot female companion, recorded the men on the yacht discussing illegal activities.

  Carmine was still adjusting to freedom, and was again a wanted man. To the government’s chagrin, however, Carmine was tipped off by Jerry Capechi of the New York Post that a bust was imminent—so he went into hiding, at first staying at a hotel out on the eastern tip of Long Island, a place owned by Nick Monte, proprietor of Carmine’s favorite restaurant. While there, Carmine had meetings with his brain trust: Gerry Lang, Donnie Shacks, and Anthony Scarpati. The Garfield Boys had grown up and become middle-aged men, but the cast of characters remained largely the same. They discussed whether Carmine should turn himself in, and if he did who should pay his bail.

  First to be arrested was Scappi, who was arriving at his Bensonhurst home in the passenger seat of a red Cadillac when he was nabbed by two FBI agents. Scappi stepped out of the car with hands up, and the driver squealed out of there and made his escape, the passenger door still swinging open.

  A week later, however, Gerry Lang was arrested, then Tommy DiBella. William French Smith held press conferences to announce he was taking down “the entire leadership of the Colombo family.” The captured Colombos were arraigned before U.S. District Judge Robert Carter.

  Carmine remained mobile, staying with a guy nicknamed Frankie Highway for a few days, then below a restaurant. He gained access to some of the tapes that would be used against him in what would come to be known as the Colombo case. They were recordings of Colombo bigs, including Lang, discussing Colombo family business. In addition to the stuff on the yacht, there were tapes recorded with a bug in the Casa Storta Restaurant, on 21st Street near Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn. The bug was placed on the ceiling directly above the boys’ regular table.

  Carmine was in prison when the tapes were made, but his name did come up in incriminating ways. The thought of capture was terrifying. Being on the lam and transient was stressful. It was like trying to run a floating crap game. He needed a more permanent hiding place, so Carmine took up residence in his cousin’s attic in a private house in Wantagh, Long Island.

  The cousin was Katherine Russo DeChristopher, sister of Mush. Katherine’s husband since 1973 had been Fred DeChristopher, a guy born in East Boston, but raised in the Navy Yard section of Brooklyn. His dad was a Pinkerton detective, but Fred left school after the seventh grade, before joining the Navy at age seventeen and serving in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Fred started out legit, working for his dad in plastic heat sealing. The business went kaput in 1963, and Fred switched to selling insurance. It was around this time that he met Mush Russo, met him through Mush’s friend, the famous pro wrestler Antonino Rocca, who was hanging around because he worked in the ring with Lenny (Luca Brasi) Montana.

  Mush, Fred learned, was a guy who could be helpful if you had trouble with your union. Through Mush, Fred met Carmine and came to understand the power of Carmine’s organization.

  Fred had been one of the guys to hang around in Nestor’s. According to DeChristopher, they called it “Junior’s headquarters.” Also hanging out or floating in and out were brother Allie Boy (after he got out of prison but before he went on the lam), Hugh McIntosh, Mush, and Scappi, of course, Sally Albanese, and John Minerva.

  All sorts of stuff went down there, stolen items for sale, shylocking, numbers. DeChristopher knew Mush to be a guy who always had a lot of irons in the fire. Fred once asked Mush if he wasn’t worried about the feds cracking down on loansharking. Mush told him feds don’t do loansharking, that was state, and the state needed two corroborating witnesses, which was always hard to get. Fred had an office only a few doors away from Nestor’s. He was the treasurer for a chapter of Joe Colombo’s Italian-American Civil Rights League with offices also on Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn.

  DeChristopher remembered a time back in the late 1960s when Colombo had a rule not to drive on the Gowanus Expressway through Red Hook because of Gallo snipers. Even during the spring of 1971, there was concern. Carmine and Fred remembered the block party they threw that season to raise money for Colombo’s civil rights cause, and how they had guys with rifles on the roof for that, too, just in case the Gallos attacked. DeChristopher married Katherine Russo on December 28, 1973, and they moved into Mush’s old house in Farmingdale on Long Island, while Mush moved to Old Brookvale.

  Point is, Fred had been around, he married Carmine’s first cousin, and Carmine had no reservation about crashing at Fred’s house now that he was on the lam. Fred said he could have his daughter’s attic room. She just got married and didn’t need it. Carmine took a look at it and laughed. It was nicely furnished . . . for a teenage girl: single bed, white furniture. Every square inch was as adolescently frosty as a princess tiara. Carmine had everything moved out and ordered new furniture for his new attic digs.

  Going into hiding at the same time was Gerry Lang, who grew a beard as a disguise but was nonetheless picked up quickly in Brooklyn.

  * * *

  By 1985, whether true or not, it was the common perception that Carmine Persico thought murder a suitable solution to any business problem. There was no glitch in the system, large or small, that couldn’t be alleviated by bumping a guy off and burying him in a shallow grave. That was the man’s reputation.

  So you have to wonder what Steven Piazza, owner of a Brooklyn moving company, was thinking when he received the great honor of marrying Carmine’s daughter, and then slapped her around when she didn’t listen. Reports of the physical abuse allegedly made their way to Carmine, who already didn’t like Piazza because he was into drugs and prone to flapping his lips. Carmine allegedly instructed Little Allie Boy—who would be convicted in this case years later—to take care of it.

  The thirty-two-year-old Piazza was last seen alive on June 6, 1985. His body was found on June 13, wrapped in plastic bags and stuffed into the trunk of his 1980 Cadillac, which was parked in the Nathan’s Restaurant lot on 86th Street, across the street from the Dyker Golf Course.

  * * *

  Twelve days after the indictments, the FBI announced that it was launching a nationwide manhunt for Carmine Persico Jr. Three of the other indictees—Donnie Shacks, John J. DeRoss, and Frank Melli—were also missing, but Carmine, as usual, was the headline.

  U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani was in charge for the government, a guy with tremendous leadership skills and a boner for wiping out the mob. He was Italian, obviously, and Catholic—and yet he had his eyes on national power. So, take out the mob. Proves to the world that he isn’t mob, see?

  Giuliani blamed the New York Post for the mess. Jerry Capechi’s article. The reporter called Carmine to ask for comment before he even knew he was in trouble. Damned suspicious, Giuliani said.

  The future mayor wasn’t alone in his opinion. The Justice Department was looking into it also. Somebody from the government had to have leaked the news to Capechi. Giuliani swore the leak had not come from his office.

  A reporter from the Times asked, “Rudy, do you have any idea where Carmine Persico is?”

  “He’s not at any of his usual haunts,” Giuliani said. To tell the truth, he added, he didn’t even know if Persico was still in the country. “He could be in Timbuktu,” Giuliani said with an elaborate shrug.

  The prosecutor in charge of the case, Bruce A. Baird, softened the focus, took the spotlight off Carmine in particular. “They are fugitives from justice and we are looking for them,” he said.

  * * *

  Unbeknownst to Carmine, he had picked the worst possible place to hide. Fred DeChristopher had been an FBI informant for years, making a deal to turn while facing a twenty-five-year prison term.

  The FBI couldn’t believe its good fortune. They knew where Carmine was going to be hidin
g before he even got there. But they decided not to take him right away. There were things to be learned.

  They announced the nationwide manhunt just to help Carmine relax and to protect DeChristopher’s cover. Meanwhile, Fred and Carmine found themselves having a good time, having long, deep conversations about nothing and everything.

  Carmine told DeChristopher that money was never going to be a problem because he had enough cash stashed away to last ten lifetimes. Carmine said he voted against a hit on Carmine Gal-lante. He talked about the old days, man, they were the best, and how he’d been a gunman at La Mafia’s Greatest Hit, Albert Anastasia in his barber chair. What a day that was. He could still feel the adrenaline pumping. He’d been a member of the “barbershop quartet.”

  While staying at his cousin’s, Carmine didn’t just lay around and get waited on. He had a function in the home: the house cook. Carmine loved to make pasta with a simple oil and garlic sauce.

  * * *

  On October 29, 1984, Judge Charles L. Brient held a bail hearing for the Colombo men they did have in captivity, they being former Garfields, Lang and Scappi, plus sixty-four-year-old Frank Falanga of Staten Island, and forty-eight-year-old Dominic Cataldo of Valley Stream, Long Island. At that hearing the prosecution argued that the men should continue to be held without bail because they represented a threat to the community and were a flight risk as well. Earlier in the month co-defendants Ralph Scopo of Queens, who was in the hospital, and fifty-seven-year-old Vito Pitta of Brooklyn, were arraigned and released on $300,000 and $500,000 bail respectively. Another man named on the indictments was Thomas DiBella, who was described as a “top leader” of the Colombos by one source and as “the group’s advisor” (i.e., consigliere) by another, was also in the hospital, and his lawyer Frank A. Lopez said he would appear in court for arraignment as soon as he was well enough to leave the hospital.

  On January 31, 1985, Carmine’s career as a crook might’ve peaked, for that was the day he cracked the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. His face lit up in a smile when he heard that news. The glow of pride faded somewhat when Carmine learned it was all a show to reinforce his belief that the FBI was clueless.

  * * *

  During Carmine’s time at the DeChristopher’s, he only left twice, once after Christmas dinner to go to a meeting in eastern Long Island with a couple of guys, including Donnie Shacks, to discuss just how much trouble he was in. They concluded he was fucked. At the beginning of February 1985, DeChristopher drove Carmine to his attorney’s house for a secret meeting.

  Carmine did receive visitors at the DeChristophers’, most frequently his son Allie Boy, who delivered legal papers for his dad to read. When Allie Boy came over, father and son would sit together at the dining room table and talk for two or three hours. DeChristopher didn’t listen in on the conversations but did hear Carmine say his son’s visits should be infrequent at most, because Allie might be under surveillance. Another visitor was out-on-bail Donnie Shacks, who came twice to the DeChristophers’ to visit the boss, once in December and a second time on the day of Carmine’s arrest. DeChristopher spotted Carmine’s good buddy Scappi hanging around outside his house, but the guy never came in. DeChristopher asked Carmine what he was doing out there and never received a good answer.

  * * *

  At 4:30 A.M., February 15, 1985, twenty federal agents and Nassau County police officers surrounded DeChristopher’s Wantagh home. An agent called the phone inside the house.

  DeChristopher answered: “Hello.”

  “Hi, is Junior there?”

  “Just a sec. Junior, it’s for you!”

  Carmine took the phone. “Who’s this?” he asked.

  “This is Special Agent Taylor of the FBI. We have the house surrounded. Please tell the others that you should all step outside right now, hands up.”

  There was no stand-off. The occupants of the house complied with Agent Taylor’s instructions, and Carmine and the others were promptly arrested. In the car with the feds, Carmine cracked jokes. He autographed a copy of his Top Ten Most Wanted poster for them.

  According to the FBI, Fred, Donnie Shacks, and Joseph Russo were arrested for harboring fugitives. DeChristopher had to spend the night in the Metropolitan Correctional Center, but in the morning they very, very quietly let him go without ever formally charging him with anything.

  Carmine was arraigned on February 16 in Federal District Court in Manhattan. The prosecutors in charge of his case were Bruce A. Baird and Aaron R. Marcu.

  * * *

  On July 2, 1985, Carmine’s dire legal situation grew worse. Much worse. He was indicted, along with other mega-powerful underworld figures in what would be called the Mafia Commission Case. These indictments were the product of the FBI’s Operation Star Chamber (not to be confused with Operation Star Quest, i.e., the Colombo case). The charges: “Engaging in an enterprise which operated, supervised, and promoted crime, activities in Interstate commerce and did unlawfully, willfully and knowingly combine, conspire to participate in the conduct of the affairs of that enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activities. It was a pattern of racketeering activities to unlawfully, willfully obstruct and affect commerce by extortion by use of actual and threatened violence and fear of economic loss.”

  Gerry Lang was a co-defendant—again. But not all of Carmine’s co-defendants were compadres. Setting a precedent, expanding the scope of RICO, the defendants, to be tried together, represented a sampling of mob power from across the families: Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, seventy-three-year-old Tony “Ducks” Corallo, head of the Luccheses who wore a golf shirt and a cardigan in court, Sal “Tom Mix” Santoro, Christy Tick Furnari, Ralphie Scopo, and Anthony “Bruno” Indelicato.

  If you could show that an organization existed to commit crimes and that a person belonged to that organization in a specific capacity, you didn’t need to show that the person committed the crime. That had clicked in court in the past, with a crime family used as the unit of organization. But the feds were greedy fucks. They had caught the leaders of the families meeting, forming one super-organization, membership of which would be, they hoped, considered an automatic crime. In that way they would take out the bosses in one fell swoop.

  * * *

  To the delight of the press, the fifty-three-year-old Carmine Persico announced that he was going to do something he had dreamed of since the first time he ever saw the inside of a courtroom back in his days with the Garfield Boys, when he watched the trials of Scappi and brother Allie Boy with such fascination. He was going to defend himself at the Commission trial—that is, do his own talking, without a lawyer. He respectfully informed the court that he was qualified, based on the long list of defense attorneys who’d gotten him convicted. He referenced his own “considerable experience with the criminal justice system.”

  Persico’s co-defendants were dead set against it. Fat Tony Salerno was particularly vocal. He was cranky anyway because he wasn’t eating as often or as well as he liked, and he’d recently had eye surgery, so one eye was red and swollen throughout the trial. His body language always suggested aloofness. If he could have, he would have perched on a riser, above his co-defendants. Salerno and the other co-defendants feared that Carmine’s mistakes would hurt them also. They didn’t see how Carmine defending himself helped them in any way.

  Presiding over the Commission case was Judge Richard Owen, a man of multiple talents. He flew bombing missions in World War II, went to Harvard Law, and eventually was appointed a U.S. judge by Richard Nixon in 1973. But he was also a musical child prodigy, one of those spooky kids who could play Beethoven when he was six, and is perhaps best remembered as the composer of the opera Abigail Adams, based on the life and times of America’s second First Lady.

  Judge Owen didn’t like this defending-yourself business either. It was a mistrial waiting to happen, potentially a big fat waste of time. He warned Carmine that men who represent themselves in criminal trials often have incompetent counsel.
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  The judge may have moaned when he first heard of Carmine’s intentions, but there was a part of him that admired Persico as well. What balls the guy had. He knew the spotlight was going to be on him, and he couldn’t wait to take the courtroom stage.

  Carmine could be smart and charming, absolutely—but Judge Owen had to be practical. As incompetent counsel was such a common appellate theme, he offered Carmine a deal: if he were allowed to defend himself, he waived the right to appeal any potential conviction on those grounds. Carmine said whatever.

  Folks who’d known Carmine since the old days understood that this was perfectly in character for him. He was not the sort to relinquish control, and for years had been badmouthing lawyers, saying he could do a better job than they did and do it without a single day of law school.

  Carmine’s stubbornness grew when he saw he was alone in his desire. Fuck everybody. If he wanted to defend himself, he was going to defend himself.

  So Judge Owen upped the ante. He would grant Carmine his wish only if his co-defendants, grumpier than ever, also waived their right to appeal on the grounds of incompetent counsel.

  Judge Owen thought that would put an end to it, but no. It was a power struggle, and as usual, Carmine proved to have the stiffer spine. His co-defendants and their attorneys—among them Anthony Cardinale representing Fat Tony, Gerald McMahon for Gerry Lang, Albert Gaudelli for Tony Ducks, Samuel M. Dawson for Sal Santoro, James LaRossa for Furnari, John Jacobs for Scopo, and Thomas Nooter for Indelicato—had no shot of changing Carmine’s mind.

  Carmine Persico remained, as always, the immovable object.

  So they all waived that right, and Carmine prepared his case. The spotlight, already on Carmine anyway, intensified.

  The judge had lost, but he wasn’t done. He insisted that Carmine have a legal expert of some sort on hand to give him advice during the trial. Trials were a complicated thing and Carmine didn’t want to make any unintentional mistakes, right?