To get John off his back, Dad agreed with him. “Yeah, yeah, you’re right John,” he’d say, but I knew he thought John was nuts.
John was a tough, hard man, but that didn’t mean he was all bad. His biggest problem was arrogance. I think a lot of the publicity he got went to his head. He was very cordial to me, though, always ready with a “Hey Karen, how’s it goin’?” He also tried to watch out for me in his own way.
During the year that Dad was incarcerated, I got into two car accidents. The first one was near our house in Staten Island. I blew past a stop sign on the top of a hill in my black Nissan Maxima, and a guy T-boned me on the passenger side. My brother broke his collarbone, and the car was totaled. Okay, it wasn’t one hundred percent totaled, but we took it to a car pound, or a chop shop, depending on how you look at it, run by one of Dad’s friends, who made sure it looked one hundred percent totaled when the insurance people showed up.
After the second crash, which wasn’t nearly as bad, John took me aside in the prison and said, “I’ve gotta talk to you about these car accidents. What’s going on here?” I explained, “Well, John, I’m just learning how to drive.” I’d been driving since I was twelve, so the “new driver” excuse wasn’t entirely true.
He said, “Karen, by the time this is all over, I hope you know how to drive, because God forbid if something happens to your father, I’m not going to be able to afford to take care of you with all those cars you’re going through.” I laughed and didn’t think anything more of it. But my father was really bothered by what he said. Dad was one of those people who analyzed every word. I could see him thinking after John’s comment, and I am sure his mind was going over what John could have meant.
Around this time, I started seeing a transformation in Dad’s and John’s relationship, mostly because of what was going on in their criminal case. Things exploded after a bail hearing on December 21, when some of the secretly recorded conversations between John and Frankie were played in open court.
My father was sitting next to John at the defense table when the tapes were played. The recordings had been made on December 12, 1989, from an FBI bug planted in an apartment above the Ravenite Social Club. The apartment belonged to a widow of a Gambino family member. The bugs got there after the FBI took notice that the men weren’t doing their secret business their usual way, walking up and down the sidewalks of Little Italy.
They figured out that they were using the apartment and gained access to the place while the widow was out of town on vacation. Gotti hadn’t swept the place for bugs, assuming it was secure.
On the recordings, John basically was bashing my father and acknowledging that Sammy had committed murder. But he lied about why the murders were carried out, claiming that Sammy had bullied him into sanctioning the hits when in fact it was the other way around. He also accused my dad of being greedy and withholding money from his construction businesses, which was also a lie. Dad had given John more than $1.2 million in cash, from just his construction business alone.
Sitting in court that day, my father could barely contain his anger. Not only was he mad for all the lies John was spewing, but he was also furious that John had put the family in the predicament they were in by insisting that their meetings be held in such an location, right over the Ravenite.
My father was smart enough to know that conversations like the ones on the tape meant that John had been laying the groundwork for him to get whacked. Dad was convinced that John’s reason for wanting to get rid of him was jealousy. John had always been envious of Dad’s standing with the guys on the streets.
The Feds knew that my father had sworn his loyalty to John. They also knew that he wouldn’t react well when he heard John dissing him to Frankie on those tapes, which is why they played them for both men at the same time during the court appearance. Then they locked them down together in a holding cell. True to the FBI’s plan, the tapes caused a huge rift between John and my father.
Sammy asked John if he had anything to say to him. He was fuming, hot as could be, but I think all he wanted was an apology and he could have been settled down. Not only did John skip the apology, he made it seem like his ranting on the tapes was my father’s fault. Dad had made him angry, he said, and he had just been blowing off steam to Frankie on the tapes, not meaning a word he said.
Dad could see he wasn’t going to get an apology. If John had meant it or was just venting didn’t matter, either way he was now on the hook for murder.
My father wasn’t stupid. He smelled that John was up to something, that John was plotting to set my father up for the fall. The only way Dad could fight the case now was to put in for a severance. He’d need his own defense attorney, who would have to show that John had been lying on those tapes. Sammy got a note to John through the lawyer that he wanted to be tried separately and hire his own attorney.
John sent word back to my father, telling him he couldn’t do that. “What would my public think?” was John’s reply. “Besides, the streets need John Gotti.”
My father was even more upset. The Cosa Nostra’s strength was that it was a secret society. When the members took their oaths, they vowed to recognize their Mafia family before even their own families. They no longer recognized the government’s rules and regulations, and they took in very little of the public’s opinion of them. Cosa Nostra was their government, and their loyalties were supposed to be to each other. Who the hell cared what the public thought of John? Dad’s ass was on the line for murder.
Not only was John refusing to let the men’s cases be severed, but he informed my father that he would no longer be allowed to listen to the tapes and said that Dad and Frankie could only meet with the lawyers when Gotti was present. This was John’s way of controlling the three men’s defenses. I am pretty sure that Frankie was not happy with the way things were going down, either.
My father later told me that Frankie had come to him in jail, suggesting the two should kill John while they were in custody. Dad said he contemplated it, and had even made a list of people he would have to kill next if he decided to murder John. The list included John’s brother, Peter, and even his son, Junior. After thinking long and hard, my father decided against the plan and ripped up the list, focusing on his defense. He would deal with John after they were done with their legal issues, whether it be inside the prison or on the streets.
From that point on, I started to see a change in my father. He seemed disheartened. I think this might have been the first time he ever questioned his oath to the Mafia. He had taken an oath to a brotherhood, and he had been betrayed by a brother.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I’m going to do something that goes against everything I’ve ever believed in.”
One day in early October of 1991, Dad summoned Mom, Uncle Eddie, and me to the Metropolitan Correctional Center. He told us to make sure we got there early, even earlier than usual. He sounded very tense, which didn’t surprise me. Both he and Uncle Eddie had been acting really strange for the previous two weeks, especially when they were discussing the serious charges Dad was facing.
Rain was coming down in buckets that day. I sensed something big was about to happen and that my life was about to change for the worse. Both in person and on the phone, Dad seemed to be tired and disgusted with everything. I was concerned, because he generally had a positive attitude about jail and life on the inside. Since his arrest, he’d always made it clear that he was doing absolutely everything he could to make the best of the situation, like everything was going to be okay. “Stay strong,” he’d say. “We’ll always be a family, no matter what.”
That day, as soon as Dad walked into the visiting room, I knew something was wrong. He wasn’t making his grand entrance, all high-fives and hugs. This time, he looked very serious, like something heavy was on his mind.
Mom, Uncle Eddie, and I were the only ones in the room. The rest of the inmates were doing their visiting in an adjacent room out of earshot. Dad sat down in betwe
en Mom and me, and Uncle Eddie took a seat to Mom’s right.
I could tell Dad had something extremely serious on his mind he wanted to talk to me in particular about. I watched as he took a long, deep breath, looked directly into my eyes and said, “I’m going to do something that goes against everything I’ve ever believed in, and everything I’ve ever told you guys to believe in. I’m going to cooperate with the government. I’m going to testify for them.”
I was hearing his words, but I couldn’t believe he was actually saying them. I jumped out of my seat, “How can you do this?” I yelled.
“Sit down!” Uncle Eddie directed with a stern voice.
I obeyed, but I was in total shock. What Dad was saying meant that he would be fingering friends, family, and people he’d worked with forever. His testimony was going to put people we’d known all our lives into prison for years and years. Yes, I loved him and wanted him out of prison as soon as possible, but turning state’s evidence went against every rule of behavior I had ever known, against everything he had ever taught us to believe in.
From the time we were young, my father told Gerard and me, “You never give anybody up, no matter what.” I’d get punished for telling on Gerard, and he’d get punished for telling on me. Once, Gerard and I had a dispute over the thermostat. It controlled the temperature for the upstairs part of our house, and it was located in Gerard’s room. Gerard liked the house really cold, so he’d turn down the temperature and blast the air conditioner, then lock his door. He wouldn’t open up, no matter how hard I banged. We’d be up there screaming at each other, then I’d go downstairs to tell Dad, and he’d say, “I don’t want to hear it. Go back up there and work it out yourselves.” He’d intervene if we were really killing each other, but most of the time, we never told on each other, because that wasn’t the way it worked. Whether it involved something big or little, you just didn’t do it, plain and simple.
When Dad dropped his bomb, I never felt so hurt, confused, mad, or scared in my entire life. The life I thought I had was gone. With that one announcement, he ripped my heart out. As a child, I had been Daddy’s little girl. I looked up to him, respected him, and trusted him. Despite his occupation, I always felt safe and completely protected. Now, I felt totally and utterly betrayed. I stood up and yelled right there in the visitor’s room, “How could you do this?!”
He was sullen and withdrawn when he said in a low voice, “I know this is something you will never understand, but this is something I have to do.”
“You’re right,” I barked back, “I’ll never understand. I don’t even know who you are.” I even challenged him, “So you’re gonna become a rat?” In our circle that was just about the worst thing you could be called.
My father didn’t say a word. I think it broke his heart to see me react with so much anger. He quietly told me, “I understand how you’re feeling. This is something I’ve thought long and hard about. I just want you to know that I love you and I’ll always love you. I’m not doing it because I’m scared of staying in prison. I’m just done. I’m sick of this life. I’m sick of the backstabbing and the double-crossing. But I also know who I am. I never let anyone in my entire life double-cross me and fuck me over without doing something about it. John is a double-crosser, and I am a master double-crosser.”
That afternoon, my father, protector, and friend broke my heart. I was completely empty inside. I could barely even look him in the eyes. Right before our tense good-byes, Dad said, “I told the government I needed two weeks to tell my family, then to get my life in order. This will all come out next week.”
He forewarned me there were other bombshells to come. “You’re going to hear about murders, about everything we never spoke about at home,” he said, with a “by the way” tone. With that, our visit was over.
Naturally, the cold rain was still coming down as Mom and I huddled under an umbrella on the way back to the car. Uncle Eddie drove us home to Staten Island, and Mom kept looking back at me and asking, “Are you okay? Are you okay?”
I definitely wasn’t okay. While we were crossing the Verrazano Bridge, I stared out at a raindrop that had started making its way down my window. I felt exactly like that, a raindrop in a storm with nowhere to go but down. When I had left the house that morning, I was a certain person. I had a specific identity. I was Karen Gravano, the daughter of the Bull. But now, my entire life had changed and I was going home the daughter of “Sammy the Rat.” I was a new person, and I was as lost as if my father had just stolen my soul.
Uncle Eddie dropped us off at the house. As I got out of the car, he said, “You know you’re not allowed to say anything to anyone. None of your friends, nobody. If you do, you might get killed to keep your father from talking. Your brother might get killed, too.” He probably didn’t believe it, but was just trying to scare me. I could tell he was scared, too. He thought he was going to get killed. Right before he pulled away, he gave me one last hard look and said, “Karen, do you understand?” I understood all too well.
Uncle Eddie was a good-looking man with silvery-gray hair, and like John Gotti, he was always dressed to the nines: nice suits, nice ties, nice shoes. He was quiet, and not particularly tough or charismatic, especially when compared to Dad. My father was the kind of guy who was always joking around, throwing fake right hooks and left jabs at people. Uncle Eddie, on the other hand, was a bit more sophisticated and reserved, and never a whole lot of fun.
Dad liked him as a brother-in-law, and he respected him for his knowledge in the construction business. But when it came to the mob, Dad wasn’t one hundred percent sold on him. When my father brought him into the life, he was looking at it as an opportunity to help Eddie provide for his sister. But there were other parts of the mob he didn’t think Eddie was cut out for. Some of the guys in Dad’s crew who were very loyal to Sammy didn’t trust Eddie, and they had warned my father about him on more than one occasion. But Dad went against his better judgment and their advice and kept Eddie around. No matter what he felt about him, my father’s loyalty lay with his sister. He honored his loyalty to his family more than he didn’t trust Eddie, so he didn’t want to chase him off.
It was actually Uncle Eddie who first talked with my father about cooperating. He had heard from a lawyer that John was planning to set my father up to take the fall. His defense was going to be that he had lost control of Sammy the Bull, and the brunt of everything would be put on my father. John was hoping that a judge and jury would view him as a victim as well; poor John had lost control of his underboss, Sammy the Bull, mad killing machine. He hoped they would show him leniency, and that he would be spared a heavy prison sentence. Dad, on the other hand, the fall guy, would probably go away to prison for the rest of his life.
I think in Uncle Eddie’s heart, he thought that Dad would never actually go up against John. But once Eddie planted the seed, and my father thought long and hard about what Gotti was doing, he decided cooperating was his best option.
I can’t say that Uncle Eddie’s encouragement was the only reason why my father decided to do what he did, because Dad was no pushover. Everything he did, he did only after he thought it through, long and hard. But Uncle Eddie definitely started him thinking. Plus, he gave Dad his assurance that he would be there to take care of Mom, Gerard, and me, probably making it easier for my father to go through with it.
The day Dad told us he was turning, I noticed that Eddie wouldn’t look him in the eye. Dad did this symbolic thing where he would clench his hand in a fist as if to say, Stay strong, we’re one. When Dad raised his fist that day, Uncle Eddie turned away. My father knew right then and there that Eddie had decided to turn his back on him.
What Dad was doing was extremely bold and risky. He was a strong personality with strong convictions. When he put his mind to something, he did it one hundred percent. I don’t think Uncle Eddie had quite the same conviction. Although he had been able to talk with Dad about cooperating, Dad going through with it created a whole
different set of problems. Not that Eddie would be the one taking the stand against John, but just associating with someone who switched sides would have earned him the same stigma. And Eddie wasn’t the one in jail facing a life sentence for murder. He was out on the streets living his life. He had grown sons and daughters, with families and children of their own, so at the last minute, maybe he just felt this wasn’t the right move for him.
I didn’t know this until much later, but Dad had called my mother soon after we left the correctional center that day. He told her that Uncle Eddie was not on board. Mom confided to him that, sadly, she also could not get behind him. She let him know she had no intention of going into a witness protection program and was against his decision to cooperate. She was going to stay in Staten Island with her children.
Mom told Dad that she would always love him, but she said that she had never been involved in the life, or the decisions he made when it came to Cosa Nostra. She wasn’t about to start now. He was on his own.
* * *
My father was what some people referred to as a “Shylock’s Shylock,” which meant he lent money to people, who would then lend it to somebody else, presumably at a higher interest rate. Dad was owed a lot of money on the streets, probably over a million dollars. I was never sure what happened to it, if it was collected by someone, or if the debts were just squashed, but it was never turned over to us. I am sure my father was particularly bothered that Eddie did not help to collect, but now that he made his mind up to cooperate there was no turning back.
Once we got home from the jail, I went up to my room. I had a million things going through my head, most of them not good. Where were we going to live? What was going to happen to us? Who was going to take care of us? The next day, I went to the flower shop. Uncle Eddie was in the construction office, sitting down at Dad’s desk. He could see that I was upset.
Mob Daughter: The Mafia, Sammy The Bull Gravano, and Me! Page 11