Mob Daughter: The Mafia, Sammy The Bull Gravano, and Me!

by Karen Gravano; Lisa Pulitzer

  Dad had assured us he was taking the deal without resentment because it was best for the family. But he was still very angry and holding a grudge. He was devastated that his entire family had been brought into the fray. I had never seen my father stressed out in any case, but this was his family.

  “If you’d just listened me,” he’d rant. He’d go through this tirade of mixed emotions, and I was feeling a lot of guilt.

  For the first five years of his incarceration, he was held in protective solitary confinement at ADX, the super-max facility in Colorado. Mom visited him there once, but because my father didn’t like the conditions in which we had to see him living, none of us ever visited him there again. Dad wrote to me, though, and I’d write back.

  I continued to work at the day spa in Phoenix and was raising Karina and Nicholas the best I could. I was in New York for a visit with friends in the fall of 2004 when I learned that my father was being transferred from ADX to the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where he had been so many years ago with John Gotti.

  Now he was answering to the 1980 murder of New York City police officer named Peter Calabro of Saddlebrook, New Jersey. A man by the name of Richard Kuklinski, nicknamed the Iceman, had been arrested and charged in five homicides. Kuklinski was a contract killer who was believed to be responsible for more than two hundred murders.

  During his confession to police, Kuklinski implicated my father in Calabro’s murder. He said my dad had hired him to kill Calabro, and had even supplied the murder weapon, a gun. The whole thing was preposterous; my father had his own hit team. Why would he hire somebody? There was also no motive for the crime. It didn’t even look like a Mafia-style hit. Nevertheless, prosecutors were going after my father, and he was housed in New York at the time that I was in Manhattan visiting.

  I nearly keeled over when they brought Dad into the visiting area. He had been diagnosed with Graves’ disease while in prison and looked near death. He was white as a ghost, and was missing teeth. The visit started out okay. He told me how much he loved me and missed me, and asked about the kids. It wasn’t long before he started ripping into me. He was still so angry and said the most hurtful things, blaming me for his current inmate status because I had refused to grow up.

  He complained about how I’d fought him on all his good advice to make friends with his assistant, Jen. I hadn’t gone back to college. I wasn’t able to see that Mike Papa was a dangerous fraud and a lowlife. Basically, he was trying to get his point across, even if it could hurt my feelings. All of it was more than I could handle. I was already feeling guilty about the whole thing and there was nothing I could do to change it. But he just kept railing. Finally, I found the courage to confront him.

  “Let me fucking tell you something!” I shouted.

  Dad sat back and looked at me. “Go ahead,” he dared me, with his arms crossed.

  “I can’t take back anything I did,” I said in a rage. “I live with this every single day of my life. If I could have done five years, I would have. My brother is in prison…” I was going to go on, but Dad interrupted.

  “It makes me sick that my son is in prison. And it makes me sick that I couldn’t make you see…”

  This time I interrupted him. “You couldn’t make us see, just like your parents couldn’t make you see. I can’t change what I did. I can only apologize to you. But you have to take responsibility for what you did, for being Sammy the Bull. If we were just Joe Schmo’s kids, Gerard probably wouldn’t have gotten jail time.”

  The release of my anger was really freeing me. “You thought when I was nineteen and you cooperated, I could just get up and move on with my life. You said you were always looking out for our benefit. You thought you always kept your life so separate and secret from us, but you didn’t realize that we lived it, too. You don’t know what it felt like to me when Uncle Eddie came over and told me to bring you cyanide and when people wouldn’t let me into their houses because of you. I had to figure it out all on my own.”

  I couldn’t leave out the part about how my own family, especially my baby Karina, could have been blown up by Peter Gotti and his hit team because of him. “We were minutes away from being blown away,” I railed. “I can’t move forward.”

  I left my father speechless. Finally he said, “You are right, you are one hundred percent right.” He apologized.

  It was a turning point for the two of us. It felt good. When I left the prison that day I felt like our relationship had been taken to a whole new level. I had grown up since our last encounter. I was in a more mature place, a place where I felt settled. I didn’t leave as Sammy the Bull’s daughter. I left as Karen Gravano, and I felt my father understood that, too. He was looking at me as an adult, separate from him. It had been such a tug-of-war to get here. I was thirty-one now, and finally had a clear understanding of me. I was on a path of my own choosing.

  I was a single mother raising a nephew and a daughter all on my own, and I wanted to give them the best life I could. I decided that I was going to let go of all the anger and resentment I felt toward people who I blamed for wronging me. I had to be able to make my own mistakes and not blame anyone else for my decisions and actions.

  Still, my father is a very valuable person to me. If I am going to do something, I run it by him. I like his opinion, even if I don’t take the advice. I think Dad respects me as an adult now, too.

  The time I spent in Arizona with my father, that year and a half when he was not in prison or witness protection, was important to me. Dad had explained a lot about his life in the mob, and it became clear why he made the decisions he did. But most important, I understood the way he loved his family. He used to say, “Every road you take in life blazes the path for those who follow.” I finally understood what it meant.

  I just wish Gerard and I had really understood what he was trying to say to us earlier. Perhaps my father wouldn’t be doing twenty years in prison on drug charges? Maybe if my father had gotten it earlier in life himself, we all would have traveled a different path? Who knows? Maybe he would be dead.

  I know that the decisions and choices that each of us has made has impacted us. But throughout all of our hardships, we have remained a family unit. We work every day to try and put it all behind us. Children of the Mafia live with scars and get terribly hurt. There’s no getting out. But one thing I did learn is that if you have a loving and supportive family, it makes it easier to get through.

  EPILOGUE

  Five years after my arrest, I borrowed money from my grandparents and bought The Body Wrap and Company, a health and wellness spa, from my boss. My dream of owning my own business and making enough money to support my family was coming true. My mother worked there with me. Shortly after we were arrested in 2000, my mother was forced to sell the restaurant and hand over the proceeds because of a lien the state of Arizona put on the business. They also put a lien on our property.

  I loved having her at The Body Wrap. We offered every imaginable spa treatment, from wraps and peels to facials and body bronzing. About a year after I took ownership, I started to develop my own skin care line. I custom-made creams and products exclusively for my clients. The spa was so popular at its height that I had more than ten employees in the three-thousand-square-foot space.

  Unfortunately, when the economy went bust in 2009, the spa suffered. Between the mortgage crisis and the recession, business started to drop off. People were no longer able to spend on luxury items such as facials and body treatments, keeping their money for the necessities. At that point, I started to realize I needed to branch out into other areas in order to support my daughter.

  Around the same time the struggles at the spa began, I reconnected with Jennifer Graziano, my childhood friend from Staten Island. Jenn was always a go-getter. She was now running her own marketing company and working in the entertainment business. Jennifer already had a successful career working at Sony Music Entertainment and had decided to branch out on her own as well. We started m
eeting up in Los Angeles when she was there on business.

  Jenn and I wanted to see if we could find a way to collaborate on something. We wanted to see if we could come up with a project that interested both of us. We talked about doing a scripted TV show about my “aromatherapy” days back in New York.

  Jennifer also ran an idea by me about a reality show which is now known as Mob Wives, something she had talked to me about back in 2007 and had been working on ever since. She had grown up in that world and now realized the cast members had been right under her nose for most of her life—Drita, Renee, and me.

  When Jennifer first sprung the idea on me, I was not so open to it. I had always been so private about my personal life, especially when it came to the lifestyle I had grown up in. I felt like reality TV was not the place for me to open up. But after a couple of conversations, I saw Jennifer’s vision. She did not want to focus so much on the mob, but more on the lifestyle and its effect on the family, both positive and negative. After casting Drita, Renee, and me, Jenn decided she needed a fourth woman. Renee suggested her friend Carla Facciolo, who was married to a guy in prison and who had connections through her family to this lifestyle. Although Drita had absolutely no mob ties, Jenn thought her character would be good for television.

  By April of 2010, I decided to close the spa. Financially, I couldn’t ride the wave until the recession was over. And now I had other interests going on. I had reached a point in my life where I had fully come to terms with everything that had happened to me, and was ready to write my story, as well as let America in on who I am as a person now through my participation in Mob Wives.

  When the show was first bought by VH1, the other girls had reservations about working with me: Renee because she worried about what her father would say; Carla because she cared about what other people would think about her; and Drita because she was concerned about the world knowing that she and I were friends and she married my ex-boyfriend.

  Jennifer did not let that get in the way of her vision. She felt that when all four of us got together, we each brought something to the show. I was bringing the biggest last name in the mob because of who my father was. Renee was bringing a larger than life personality, and Jennifer always knew that when her sister made her TV debut, she was going to be a star. Drita was a character, as was Carla.

  I was okay with being on the show with everyone. I felt that we were all women in the same situation, and pretty much all of us were single moms raising our kids. I am not going to lie, I felt uncomfortable when we began filming season one because of everything that was brought back up about my father. I have always been a very private person, and I felt exposed. After a couple of days of filming, I realized that this was something I chose to do, and I began to see the bigger picture. It was rewarding for me coming back to New York. When I left Staten Island for Arizona, a part of me had wanted to stay. Now, I was coming back with a fuller understanding of who I was.

  After a while, Renee and I moved past our issues, and she and I have been building a bond and a true friendship. As for Drita, I realized that we were never really true friends, and I am okay with that. It was great to be back and reconnect with Jennifer. Now I’m on the show with Ramona Rizzo, the newest cast member, whom I consider family.

  Ramona has been a lifelong friend, she understands me, and having her on the show has added a whole unique twist. It feels good to have someone who is loyal. Having Ramona on the show brings me back to memories of the lifestyle we grew up in. We were apart for a while. She was married and raising four kids, and I was in Arizona dealing with my life. When she and I came together for season two, it was like we hadn’t skipped a beat.

  In season two, we focused more on the five women, our stories, and our businesses. I have always been a businesswoman, so I was excited to share that side of myself with our viewers. It was also exciting to bring the show to an international audience and to have people outside of the United States hearing our stories.

  The hardest part for me is being away from Karina. She is in Arizona with my mother. I am so thankful for my mother. She has always co-parented Karina with me, and she continues to do so today. My daughter is also spending time with her father and I think it is really good. She and Dave are rebuilding their relationship, and that is important.

  I have a lot going on in New York. I am in the process of getting back into the spa business, and have decided to go back to developing my skin care line. That has been something I have always wanted to do, and when I decide to do something, I feel like I need to accomplish it.

  My mother and brother are in Arizona. Gerard was released from prison on January 19, 2009, and he has been working as a chef. He is actually in the process of creating his own line of sauces from recipes that he gathered growing up. The name of the company is The Gravanos, and Gerard is selling the products through our family website, thegravanos.com.

  My father is still in prison, serving the remainder of his nineteen-year sentence on the Arizona drug charges. His agreeing to accept a plea deal in that case was very hard for me to deal with, so I decided to revisit that case, and I have uncovered new information that I believe proves that my father had minimal involvement in the Ecstasy ring, and that his only crime was loaning my brother and Mike Papa money. I don’t know where my investigation is going to lead, but with an attorney on board, I feel that this is something I need to shed light on. From what I have uncovered so far, I believe that it is going to be explosive.

  My father and I speak regularly. He is not a hundred percent on board with the content of Mob Wives, but he understands why I am doing the show and he supports me in my decision. I have talked with him about the book and, like everyone else, he is anxious to read it. He is there for me as a friend. Even if he doesn’t agree with me completely, it does not affect our relationship. Nothing will ever affect that. He is my father and I love him.

  He is fighting hard to keep his health, and he works out every day. He will never be able to grow his hair back, but his mental state is good. Physically, his color has come back, he is fit and he has gained some weight. For that, I am grateful.

  One thing I realized was that if I had to do it all over again, I would not change a thing. Everything that happened to my family is what made us who we are today. I just wish my father could be with his grandkids. I wish he could see Nicholas play baseball. Nicholas is so good that he has been selected to play on a pre-Olympic team. I wish he could come and see Karina play volleyball. I wish he could be a part of their lives. But we do the best we can with phone calls and an occasional visit. And I try and make him a part of it all by being here on the outside.

  When I left New York in 1998, I was in a vulnerable state. I was confused and still looking for answers. Now that I am back, I feel like I have found those answers. Old friends have welcomed me home, and even some of my father’s old friends have come out of the woodwork to reconnect with me. It’s like my life has come full circle.

  Even with Aunt Fran and Uncle Eddie, I have moved past all the anger and hurt and have made amends. One day, when I was in the spa in Arizona, Aunt Fran’s telephone number popped into my head and I just dialed it. She thought I was calling to tell her that something had happened to my father. I said that he was fine, and that I wanted to call her and start to rebuild our relationship.

  Now when we talk, we don’t bring up the past, we focus on the present and the future. It is the same way with my uncle Eddie. Uncle Eddie is still in prison, and I have come to a place of forgiveness. He is no different from my father. He made his mistakes just like my father did and I forgave my father, so why wouldn’t I forgive him?

  We have to break the cycle for our kids. We don’t want to keep passing this legacy down from generation to generation. That is what we have done. One thing I have learned is that you can’t choose your family. I wouldn’t change mine. I am completely happy with them. I love them, and I always will.

  KAREN GRAVANO was born in Brooklyn, New York. She
is one of the stars of the VH1 reality TV show Mob Wives, about the day-to-day struggles family members are faced with after a loved one is sent to prison. She is also producing a movie based on her family’s story, and is developing a scripted television series about her wild days living in New York City. Outside of the entertainment business, Karen is putting her experience as an aesthetician and her love for skin care into developing her own line of products.

  LISA PULITZER is a former correspondent for The New York Times. She is the author of more than a dozen nonfiction titles, including the New York Times bestseller Stolen Innocence (with Elissa Wall) and Portrait of a Monster: Joran van der Sloot, a Murder in Peru, and the Natalee Holloway Mystery (with Cole Thompson).

  MOB DAUGHTER. Copyright © 2012 by Karen Gravano with Lisa Pulitzer.

  All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  Opening photograph of Karen and Gerard Gravano courtesy of Sandra Scibetta

  www.stmartins.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Gravano, Karen.

  Mob daughter : the Mafia, Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, and me! / Karen Gravano with Lisa Pulitzer.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-250-00305-8 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-250-01520-4 (e-book)

  1. Gravano, Karen. 2. Gravano, Salvatore, 1945—Family. 3. Mafia—New York (State)—New York. 4. Children of criminals—Family relationships—United States. I. Pulitzer, Lisa. II. Title.

  HV6248.G647G73 2012

  364.1092—dc23

  [B] 2011043170

  e-ISBN 9781250015204

  First Edition: February 2012

  Table of Contents