The Big Heist

by Anthony M. DeStefano

There would be at least four mob turncoats who were expected to testify and Ferrone went after the one who could do the most damage: Gaspare Valenti, the broken, deadbeat of a man who turned to the FBI in financial desperation.

  Valenti spied on Asaro for the government for well over six years, and it was strange, said Ferrone, that it took the FBI so long to arrest the old man. More to the point, why did Valenti decide to do what he did to his cousin, become a sort of Mafia fifth-columnist who led Asaro down the garden path.

  “Gaspare Valenti has a long history of borrowing money from people and never paying it back,” said Ferrone. After running out of cities where he could make money, Valenti “embarked upon a new plan for making a buck. His new source of cash: the U.S. government.”

  The only evidence in some instances against Asaro was the testimony of Valenti, and that, Ferrone said, had to be analyzed very carefully.

  “After you hear from Gaspare Valenti, you’ll quickly determine he’s no star; he’s more of a black hole,” Ferrone added. “Listen carefully to what Gaspare Valenti has to say, and if you wouldn’t believe him in your ordinary life, then you shouldn’t believe him just because his latest con victim happens to be the United States government.”

  * * *

  When all of the money and assistance that the government gave to cooperators like Valenti, former Bonanno underboss Sal Vitale, former boss Joseph Massino, and others was added up, it would total $2 million, said Ferrone.

  “The criminal cooperators the government will put on that stand, Joseph Massino, Sal Vitale, Anthony Ruggiero, Peter Zuccaro, they’ve lied to government officials and manipulated the criminal justice system their entire lives,” Ferrone argued. “The evidence will show they are accomplished criminals who began committing crimes as teenagers and never stopped.”

  “Just because someone is called as a government witness doesn’t mean they’re telling the truth,” Ferrone reminded the jury. “Once a liar, always a liar. A leopard never changes its spots.”

  With Lufthansa the first thing on everyone’s mind, the prosecution called as its first key witness Vitale, the ex-Bonanno mobster who became a turncoat in 2003. To some, calling Vitale seemed a move strangely out of place in the sequence of the crime. He wouldn’t know anything about the actual heist in December 1978 but could only testify about what he said was the way some of the jewelry loot had been handled. Vitale had testified in numerous trials, so he seemed terribly self-assured, even smirking at times.

  “You name it, I testified in it,” Vitale said about his history as a turncoat mob witness.

  Yet while Vitale has testified in a great many cases and helped the government to secure major convictions, including those of Massino and Bonanno captain Vincent Basciano, life for Vitale was a struggle. After being released from federal custody in 2010, Vitale was placed in the witness relocation program and given a new identity. But his marriage had collapsed, and he saw his four sons only sporadically. As a man with the new identity, Vitale soon learned that his life was a struggle, mainly because he couldn’t get work.

  “It’s impossible for you to get a job. I mean, you could go work for the local hardware store if the guy’s not going to ask no questions. But if you work for any kind of UPS, REA, or Target, Walgreens, I’ve been turned down by every company. You just can’t get to a human being,” said Vitale when he was questioned about his current situation by Argentieri. “Once you put in your information into a computer, the computer is set to knock out certain things. You got to bring a Social Security card. Who is going to hire a guy at 65 years old with a brand-new Social Security card?”

  To make matters worse, Vitale said that the U.S. Marshals Service cut off his subsistence—“threw me out into the street” as Vitale put it—with no money and no way of making a living. Any time he searched for work, potential employers, seeing he had a recently issued Social Security card, figured he was a wiseguy from Brooklyn, Vitale said. Finally, the FBI gave him a $250,000 payment as a reward for helping the federal government not only convict big mobsters but helping to secure the forfeiture of as much as $20 million in ill-gotten gains.

  Dressed in a suit and tie and looking relatively at ease, Vitale seemed comfortable on the witness stand even though he believed that he was in constant danger from the mob. He had the moniker “Good Looking Sal” from his days as a vain wise guy, although he insisted he didn’t deserve such a nickname. He was remembered by some relatives for having an affection for the designer label Hugo Boss. Vitale had risen to the rank of Bonanno underboss at one point and had been a caretaker acting boss of the crime family during the period Massino was both on the lam and briefly in prison for labor racketeering.

  Yet Vitale had a great deal of baggage as a witness, namely the fact that he had admitted to the government playing a role in at least eleven murders, many with Massino. He wasn’t a killer as such who bloodied his hands from the evil deeds. Instead, sometimes Vitale’s role was that of cleaning up the bloody mess, as he did when Massino had his cigarette-smuggling business partner Joseph “Doo-Doo” Pastore killed in an apartment in Queens in mid-1976. Other times, Vitale played the man who lulled a victim into a false sense of security, which is what happened in early 1984 to Cesare Bonventre. A stylish Sicilian transplant who was in the Bonanno family, Bonventre had been one of two men who were supposed to guard Carmine Galante when he was assassinated in the summer of 1979. In the byzantine world of Mafia life, Bonventre had been doing well in the crime family and was even promoted to captain when suddenly his star began to fade, and Massino, at the time a powerful captain himself, said Bonventre had to be killed.

  The FBI believed that Bonventre was marked for death either because he distributed some poor quality heroin or was viewed as a threat to the power of then-Bonanno boss Philip Rastelli and Massino. In any case, Vitale was the one who got Bonventre to drive with him and mobster Louis Attanasio on the pretext that they were going to a meeting with Rastelli. As the car Vitale was driving entered a garage on Fifty-seventh Street in Maspeth, he said the code words “It looks good to me” and Attanasio, according to later court testimony, fired two bullets into Bonventre’s head. While Bonventre struggled, he was ultimately finished off and disposed of in fifty-five-gallon drums of glue in New Jersey.

  Vitale got into the Mafia through Massino, his brother-in-law and at one time his closest friend. It was Massino, once a muscular young man, who taught Vitale to swim at the public pools in Queens. Of the two men, it was Massino who had come to the attention of Bonanno boss Rastelli in the 1970s, and after a career as a hijacker and cigarette smuggler was initiated into the mob in late 1976 or 1977. By 1978, Massino was a captain and was visiting Rastelli in prison, passing him messages and considered a young mobster with an inside track to the boss.

  Vitale tagged along on Massino’s coattails but wasn’t given quick mob membership like his brother-in-law. When Vitale had a run-in with Asaro, who was already a made man at the time, the latter pointedly reminded Vitale that he wasn’t a Goodfella so he should watch his mouth. By 1984, after years of being Massino’s acolyte, Vitale was given membership in the Bonanno family.

  The prosecution wanted to use Vitale to show the structure of the Mafia and the Commission, stuff that he was qualified to talk about because of his past associations. Since this was a Mafia racketeering case, the prosecution had to prove the existence of the Bonanno family and that it was a racketeering enterprise, of which Asaro played a role. Vitale recalled a number of interactions with Asaro, some of which weren’t good because Vincent had a temper and was volatile. Interactions with him weren’t always pleasant, recalled Vitale.

  Under questioning by Argentieri, Vitale related an incident in 1981 that had involved an unpleasant encounter with Asaro in a dispute. It seemed that a Bonanno associate named Jose Marsala had been making usurious loans in Howard Beach without clearing it with Asaro or anyone else. Asaro was furious and started giving Marsala trouble. Faced with a problem, Marsala turned to V
itale for help. At that point, Massino was a fugitive and living in the Pocono Mountains area of Pennsylvania where Vitale would visit him to give him updates on crime-family business. During one of those secret visits to Pennsylvania, Vitale told Massino about the problem over Marsala’s loans. Massino’s response was that he would be returning to New York soon and that Asaro should leave Marsala alone until then.

  After returning to New York, Vitale said he met with Asaro at his club on Pitkin Avenue and gave him Massino’s message. It did not sit well with Asaro. He got angry and said Marsala was pushing money out onto the street when he shouldn’t be, recalled Vitale. But there was nothing Asaro could do.

  A few days later, Vitale testified, he went to meet with Bonanno family boss Philip Rastelli in McCarran Park in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn and discussed the Marsala problem. Rastelli had already talked to Asaro about the dispute and then told Vitale that both he and Asaro should get along. Besides, said Rastelli, the crime family was going to admit Vitale to Mafia membership and he would be a comrade of sorts with Asaro, who was already a made man.

  “That Vinny is a made member, but you are going to be a made member some day and you should try to get along with Vinny,” Rastelli said, according to Vitale.

  Vitale then met Asaro for a second time at a diner on Cross Bay Boulevard to pass along the message that Rastelli also wanted Marsala to be left alone for the time being. Like what happened in the earlier encounter, Asaro went ballistic, swearing at Vitale and dressing him down, saying, “I’m the Goodfella here, not you!”

  Vitale then played the one trump card he had, telling Asaro that the message was that time coming from Rastelli himself. That stopped a flustered Asaro short, who had to backpedal and sheepishly responded that Vitale should have said that from the beginning, according to the testimony.

  “I said, ‘Vinny, you didn’t give me a chance. Phil said leave the guy alone until Joe comes home,’” Vitale recalled, adding “Then I just couldn’t wait to get out of there. I got out of there.”

  * * *

  There would be many episodes, including some taped conversations, which would show the angry nature of Asaro, and Vitale certainly had borne the brunt of some of his anger. But the real usefulness of Vitale would be to show how he linked Asaro somehow to the Lufthansa heist. It would be hard to dispute Asaro’s ties to the mob or the existence of the Bonanno crime family. But the real test for the prosecution would be if he could be linked through Vitale to the robbery.

  To do that, the prosecution questioned Vitale about a car trip he had taken with Massino shortly after Lufthansa. Vitale at that point wasn’t a made man and served as his brother-in-law’s driver. Vitale testified that he drove Massino to meet Asaro at a mechanic shop on Cross Bay Boulevard, a place run by Joe Marsala. Vitale said he waited in the car and watched in the rear-view mirror as Massino met Asaro outside the garage. Both men then went for a walk as he watched them in the mirror, recalled Vitale.

  “What did you see?” Argentieri asked Vitale.

  “I seen Vinny hand Joe a case,” answered Vitale.

  “Then what happened?” Argentieri said.

  “They kissed goodbye,” recalled Vitale.

  After Massino returned to the car, Vitale drove away. As he drove, Massino opened the case and showed it was filled with gold chains and necklaces, saying “This is from the Lufthansa score,” according to Vitale.

  That night Vitale went to Massino’s home in Howard Beach. Massino opened the case and spread the jewelry out on his dining-room table, according to Vitale. As a gift, Massino gave Vitale a gold chain.

  “He was always a big spender,” Vitale said sarcastically about Massino. “He gave me a chain as a gift.”

  That last remark showed the depth of the hatred that Vitale had for his former crime boss. Both were related by marriage and had been extremely close growing up. But when they were arrested and indicted in early 2003, Vitale decided to become a government cooperating witness, driven in part by the fact that Massino had recently put him on the shelf, stripping Vitale of his control over other members of the Bonanno family and depriving him of money from rackets. Massino had soured on Vitale because of the poor way he related to other crime-family members and because of the suspicion by some over the years that Vitale might be an informant—suspicion that at the time was a bit premature. Some in the crime family wanted Vitale dead, and at one point his wife Diana pleaded with Massino not to have him killed. Massino, whose wife Josephine was Vitale’s sister, agreed to let him live.

  The rest of Vitale’s direct testimony dealt with a series of events in the history of the Bonanno crime family that he played a role in or knew about. He admitted to his share of extortions, loansharking, gambling, and homicides. In the latter, Vitale said the closest he got to pulling the trigger was in May 1981 during the killing of the Three Captains: Dominick “Big Trin” Trinchera, Philip Giaccone, and Bruno Indelicato. The three men were killed as a preemptive strike in a Massino-led operation because they were believed to have been plotting to take over the crime family from Rastelli. Vitale said he had a tommy gun during the incident at a club on 13th Avenue in Brooklyn but never had to use it since the three men were slaughtered quickly enough.

  Vitale’s cross-examination was handled by Macedonio, and her tactic seemed two-fold: to show the jury that Vitale had received “coverage” for a long list of crimes in his plea deal with the government and to spell out the various murders he participated in. Macedonio wanted to give names to the victims and to show the matter-of-fact way Vitale and the others in the Bonanno crime family took many lives. One New York judge once called Macedonio’s method of questioning “snarky,” and at a number of points she seemed to get on Vitale’s nerves, as the following exchange showed about the way a nephew of mobster Pete Rosa had been marked for murder because he was suspected of being an informant.

  “You couldn’t care less if they killed this man,” said Macedonio.

  “If he was a rat, yes, I could care less,” replied Vitale.

  “You didn’t make an inquiry, you just said do what you have to do?” Macedonio asked.

  “If a captain comes in with an official beef that was put there by Mr. Massino, and he could prove it to the individual’s relative . . . what, do I want it notarized? I mean what do I do? You are talking about street people here,” a testy Vitale answered.

  The long and the short of Macedonio’s questioning was to show that in addition to the eleven mob murders Vitale had pleaded guilty to, there were at least two others that he didn’t have to admit responsibility for under his plea deal. Going over the details of some of the murders, Macedonio was making it clear to the jury that government witnesses like Vitale had a great deal of blood on their hands, a lot more than had been alleged against Asaro.

  Massino had always been a scheming, Machiavellian character in the Mafia, and during his cross-examination Vitale revealed how his brother-in-law used the murders of the Three Captains to secretly consolidate his power. After the murders there was a push by some in the Bonanno family to have Massino assume the throne as boss. But according to Vitale, Massino didn’t want that but preferred to have the aging and tired Rastelli stay on as a figurehead boss. By keeping Rastelli as boss, Massino was keeping the FBI attention focused on someone other than himself.

  “He didn’t want the family, because he was getting the respect, he was getting the money, he was getting the notoriety without being in the seat,” explained Vitale about Massino’s plan for Rastelli.

  At some points, Macedonio seemed to overdo it with her questioning, repeating lines of inquiry, particularly about the amount of money Vitale had received from the government as a stipend and what his family could keep. Finally, Vitale reminded the court that Macedonio had already questioned him about certain things and Ross agreed, telling the defense attorney to move on to something else. Ross even had to tell Macedonio during a sidebar that while she thought she cross-examined very well that she ten
ded to be “argumentative” with the witness.

  But in the time Macedonio spent with Vitale on cross-examination she had gone through years of his criminal life and spread out before the jury all of the murders he had been involved in. The jury also saw, unlike from the government’s direct examination, that Vitale had received a great deal of compensation from the government, close to $900,000 for his cooperation, as well as his freedom. For someone who was a major Mafia player, Vitale had made out fairly well.

  Toward the end of her cross-examination, Macedonio questioned Vitale about the treacherous nature of the Mafia. Friendship, explained Vitale, was a relative situation in the Mafia.

  “You don’t real have friends in organized crime,” Vitale said at one point, “because some day you might be ordered to kill that individual. I was close to a couple of individuals, yes, but I didn’t want to go beyond that.”

  “That is because it is a treacherous organization, correct?” Macedonio asked.

  “Without a doubt,” replied Vitale.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “COME DRESSED”

  AFTER A LIFE OF CRIME, SAL VITALE came to understand that in the Mafia the most dangerous thing could be a friendship, even a lifelong one. During the time he testified, Vitale would be heard to say a phrase that was in some ways the watchwords for survival and caution in the gangster life: “Only your friend can hurt you.” The next witness called by the government at the Asaro trial was a person who in his own way and by his own conduct illustrated the truth in Vitale’s words.

  It was the very next day after Vitale had testified that Gaspare Valenti took the witness stand. The time was just around 10:00 A.M. on October 20, and this was to be the premiere witness for the government, the man closest to Vincent Asaro who had turned against him and tape recorded him for three years. The thousands upon thousands of words captured on tape were the proof, prosecutors said, that Asaro was a thief, arsonist, extortionist, and killer—a mobster to the core.