At the same time that police were converging on the Lynn house, another team of police, also armed with subpoenas and search warrants, was charging into a number of Boston area banks, trying to confiscate the contents of Phil Cresta’s accounts and a number of safe-deposit boxes. The first bank was located in Coolidge Corner, two doors down from where Phil had unlocked a Skelly armored truck and driven away with $58,000 in 1966. The agent in charge explained to a teller why they were there. After some confusion, two safe-deposit boxes were placed on a table by the bank president and unlocked. There was one single piece of paper in the box that read, “Ha, ha! Kilroy was here!” The same thing happened to other policemen when they opened Phil Cresta’s other safe-deposit boxes in South Boston, East Boston, Charlestown, and Revere.
Phil left Boston with more than half a million dollars in cash. He paid a friend five thousand dollars to drive him to Pennsylvania. When he arrived there, a driver and a room were waiting for him, courtesy of his Chicago friends. The driver would later say, “He was as cool as a cucumber. I was shittin’ my pants. We keep hearing on the radio how he’s a fugitive from justice and considered armed and extremely dangerous. He’s laughing at the news reports, but I’m still scared that we’ll be stopped. As we’re heading into Pennsylvania, there’s a multiple-car crash on the road ahead of us! I’m going to speed up and go around the accident but Phil tells me to stop. I can’t believe it! He gets out of the car and starts helping people who are still trapped in their cars. I keep looking for the cops, but he’s totally unconcerned. Here he is, one of the most wanted fugitives in America, and he’s in the middle of a huge accident with television cameras and police on their way! Finally I grab him by the arm and pull him back into our car and get out of there. When I dropped him off at the designated spot in Pennsylvania, he gave me the five thousand dollars we agreed on, and twenty-five hundred more for my conversation. He was unbelievable.”
Phil wasn’t worried about himself, but he felt bad about Angelo. And he believed it was only a matter of time before Tony was pulled in. All the crime cops knew that Tony and Angelo were part of his team, and that if Phil and Angelo were involved in something, it was a pretty sure bet that Tony was there, too.
What Phil didn’t know was that Red Kelley was already singing like a canary, and he had given up Tony, Merlino, Roukous, and Santo Diaferio. Kelley thought his high-priced lawyer could get him off on any pinch, as long as he rolled on his accomplices.
“Ben Tilley must’ve been laughing his ass off, since all three of us took the hit,” Phil said. “I knew I screwed up by not killing Kelley when I had the chance. Angelo was right, we should’ve taken that asshole out the day he walked out on us. By not killing Kelley and DeLeary we set ourselves up for a big fall. I shouldn’t’ve let them off the hook.”
THE BRINK’S ROBBERY TRIAL for the available defendants took place in June 1969. The state’s two leading witnesses, Red Kelley and Andrew DeLeary, buried the two defendants who stood trial at that time: Tony and Angelo. There was never any question as to their guilt, only to what sentences they would get.
Kelley and DeLeary pleaded guilty to conspiracy and were given three to five years.
Angelo and Tony received sentences of twenty-five to forty years each, to be served at Walpole State Prison.
Carmello Merlino, who evaded capture for more than a year, was later found guilty and sentenced to twenty-five to forty years.
Santo “Sonny” Diaferio suffered a heart attack as the opening arguments of the trial were just getting under way. His case was continued until June 23, 1971. Diaferio’s doctor told Judge James C. Roy that his client had only five to six years to live because of his heart condition. Roy was apparently unswayed; he gave Diaferio ten to fifteen years in Walpole State Prison. Diaferio died April 15, 1981, after his release.
Sonny Diaferio’s attractive wife, Patricia, was also indicted, but she was never tried. She said that she was on welfare and had been forced to sell the family home to pay medical expenses.
Bench warrants were issued on June 12, 1969, for the arrests of Stephen Roukous and Phil Cresta. Like Cresta, Roukous was placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. When apprehended in 1972, he was tried and sentenced to twenty-five to forty years in Walpole.
PHIL CRESTA was a lot smarter than your average wise guy. He had planned for the day when he’d have to flee as meticulously as he planned every score he was involved in. He’d kept his safe-deposit boxes in places easy to get to when going on the run. He’d nurtured his contacts, devised ways to stay in touch with family and friends back home, created aliases, studied disguise. Throughout the years that Cresta and his team had done their jobs, Phil never lost touch with the fact that there was always someone out there trying to take him down.
When he hit the bricks on May 14, 1969, Phil tapped into contacts he’d made while living a shadow life in Chicago (unbeknownst to everyone in Boston except Angelo and Tony) for almost ten years. His sister Mari, through her husband, Augie Circella, and his Follies Burlesque Theater, was tied in pretty well with Anthony “Big Tuna” Accardo, Joseph “Joey O’Brien” Aiuppa, Jackie Cerone, and Joseph “Joe Negall” Ferriola—men who ran the Chicago mob as well as the Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Miami, Kansas City, and St. Louis operations. Mari became especially close with Joe Ferriola, who watched out for her and who later took over Chicago.
Years later, Mari reminisced about an evening after she and Augie had split, when she was getting ready to go out on a date with a local wise guy. Before her date came to pick her up she got a call from Ferriola. “Mari, are you going out with so-and-so?” he asked. “Yeah, how did you know?” Mari asked. “Never mind that, just don’t go out with him tonight,” Ferriola, the boss of Chicago at the time, told Mari. She’d been around long enough not to ask any more questions. When the wise guy came to pick her up, she told him she wasn’t feeling well and apologized. He said he understood and left. The next day his body was found in the trunk of his car. Ferriola had saved Mari’s life. Mari knew that everything around Chicago was probably bugged, and that mentioning Ferriola’s phone call to anyone could implicate him in the murder and that she’d end up in someone’s trunk just as her almost-date did.
In 1969, while Mari and her connections were helping Phil hide in Chicago, his whereabouts and ultimate capture became an obsession of a very powerful man in Washington: J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover and his Special Agent in Charge (SAC) in Boston would begin a massive paper trail concerning the whereabouts of Philip Joseph Cresta. In an internal FBI memo dated June 12, 1969, the FBI gave this description of Cresta (which made him somewhat smaller-than-life):
SEX: Male
RACE: White
HEIGHT: Approximately 5′9″
WEIGHT: 165 pounds, January, 1968
BUILD: Medium
HAIR: Chestnut-brown
COMPLEXION: Dark
EYES: Brown
DATES OF BIRTH: March 2, 1938; March 2, 1928
PLACES OF BIRTH: Boston, Massachusetts; Everett, Massachusetts
SCARS AND MARKS: Scar right middle finger; scar left thumb; scar left ring finger; scar near point of left elbow; scar over right eye
OCCUPATIONS: Counterman in restaurant; plumber; car salesman; salesman; mechanic’s helper
ADDRESSES: 16 Light Street, Lynn, Massachusetts, January, 1968, October, 1961, February, 1960; 1 Nelson Street, Lynn, Massachusetts, November, 1959; 56 Fountain Street, Medford, Massachusetts, November, 1959, November, 1955, March, 1945, June, 1942
SOCIAL SECURITY #: 030-20-4003
RELATIVES: Philip, father; Ruth, mother
MARITAL STATUS: Married, November, 1959
FBI IDENTIFICATION #: 4349239
NCIC FINGERPRINT CLASSIFICATION: 1612010611180906tt12
OFFENSE CHARGED: Fugitive from justice
U.S. CODE TITLE AND SECTION: Title 18, US Code Section 1073
WARRANT ISSUED BY: U.S. Commissioner R. Robert Popeo
DATE ISSUED: 6/12/69
&
nbsp; Another memo, dated November 1, 1969, from the SAC in Boston to the FBI director, said that Cresta was believed to have driven from Boston to parts unknown in a 1967 yellow Bonneville sedan, license plate number G2140. The feds thought they had a break in the Cresta case and they plastered his picture and one of the gold Bonneville all over the country.
The FBI offices in Boston were located directly across the street from Boston’s Area A police station, where Phil had thought about hitting DeLeary as he was undergoing questioning by the Boston Police. For a year and a half, the memo from the FBI was posted in every police station in Boston. While the feds were looking all over the country for the gold Bonneville with license plate number G2140, a Boston police officer, working in Area A, was driving that very car every day and parking it twenty yards from the FBI offices.
The cop driving the gold Bonneville was a loudmouth whom Phil never liked. Two days before Phil went on the lam, the cop was drinking in McGrail’s and Phil approached him. “Hey, Cresta, you’re not in jail yet?” the cop said loudly enough for everyone in McGrail’s to hear. Phil laughed, but deep inside he was fuming. “Now what would I be in jail for?” he asked. “I can think of a hundred things,” the cop said, laughing. “You got me all wrong,” Phil answered. “As matter of fact, I’m thinking of opening a new restaurant.” Intent on needling Phil, the policeman said that he hoped this time Phil was going to buy his meat instead of stealing it. “Your last restaurant didn’t last too long,” the cop said, laughing. By now he was really irritating Phil. “Well, I know how much you like my car, and I was going to see if you wanted to buy it from me. But if you’re not interested, I’ll sell it to someone else,” Phil said, drawing the cop in. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” the cop said. “Are you serious?” “Yeah, I got to come up with fifty large to open the restaurant,” Phil lied. “How much you asking for the car?” “A grand,” Phil said. “Just one?” The cop smiled. “Yeah, I need the money tonight,” Phil said sadly. “You got the papers?” the cop, now beaming, asked. “Of course. This isn’t hot, you know that. You’ve already checked it out.” “How’d ya know that?” The cop blushed. “I have my sources,” Phil returned. “I’ll be back in an hour. You gonna be here?” the cop asked. “I’ll be here,” Phil said as the cop hurried out.
Forty minutes later the cop was back with a thousand dollars in hand. Phil had all the papers ready and the exchange was made quickly. The cop, who loved the gold Bonneville loaded with extras, was thrilled with his new possession. “So long, sucker,” he yelled to Phil as he left McGrail’s. “We’ll see who the sucker is,” Phil said under his breath, knowing that DeLeary was close to breaking and he himself was close to fleeing.
The cop Phil sold his car to didn’t bother to reregister the license plates. Thinking himself above the law, he simply put the bill of sale in his glove compartment. Two days later all hell broke loose and Phil beat the cops out of town. The cop reported nothing. Just because Cresta was gone was no reason to give up his new prized possession.
On April 8, 1970, a year after Phil fled, another internal memo sent from the FBI field office in Boston to Director J. Edgar Hoover stated, “Subject: Cresta (FBI # 4347) was last known to be driving a 1967 Pontiac Bonneville, hard-top sedan, yellow, bearing current Massachusetts License G2140 issued to himself.” This FBI memo was put in the police stations throughout Boston, and was posted in the Boston FBI office, on top of the similar one posted the previous November. On May 12, 1970, a young FBI agent parked his car on New Sudbury Street and was walking to the back door of the FBI offices when he noticed a 1969 gold Bonneville parked in one of the spaces reserved for cops assigned to Area A. The agent ran upstairs.
Within minutes he had found what he was looking for. He raced back down to New Sudbury Street, approached the gold Bonneville, and was pleased to see that the license plate said G2140. He couldn’t believe his luck. He told his boss about the Bonneville, and showed it to him from the window. Three FBI agents then walked across the street, where the police captain in command of Area A told them that the officer who owned the vehicle was working a detail at the Boston Garden.
The officer was summoned to the station, where the FBI and some high-ranking Boston police officers anxiously awaited his arrival. After hearing his explanation, the department held a disciplinary hearing. The officer who had called Phil Cresta a sucker immediately “retired” from the Boston Police Department. Phil Cresta, in Chicago, laughed like hell when he was told the story.
WHILE BOSTON’S FINEST were hushing up the story about Phil’s car being driven by one of their own, the feds were putting the heat on Phil’s family and friends. The FBI had moved Phil to their Ten Most Wanted list and his picture regularly appeared on the popular show The FBI, hosted by Efrem Zimbalist Jr. Hoover was creating a mountain of paperwork with the same theme: find Phil Cresta.
Phil’s younger brother Bobby knew he was under surveillance. He responded one day by pulling into the parking garage next to the Area A police station. “I was directly across the street from the FBI offices. I parked the car on the fourth floor and could look into their offices from there. I knew the feds wouldn’t follow me into the garage. There was only one way out, so they’d wait across the street until I came out, which I did about fifteen minutes later. I could tell they were surprised as I drove out onto New Sudbury Street. They’d figured I’d be walking, I guess, but they quickly followed me. I traveled down Congress Street and over to Stuart. I parked on Berkeley Street, directly across from Boston Police headquarters. I walked down St. James Avenue and into the Greyhound Bus terminal. I quickly ran to a bus that was headed for Florida, and removed from my pocket the bug that I’d taken from my car in that parking garage. I placed the bug under the cushion of one of the seats and ran off the bus before it left the terminal. I ran into the men’s room and stayed there for an hour. When I returned to my car on Berkeley Street, the tail was gone. It was the last bug I ever found on or in my car,” Bobby said.
Bobby Cresta knew, too, that his phone was being tapped. But he and his brother Phil stayed in contact by telephone, by using an intricate system that Phil had devised long before he fled. Phil had given Bobby a list of twelve pay phones, each in a different part of Boston. Next to each phone’s number and address was the phone’s location. Part of it looked like this:
1. 269-0080—460 West Broadway, South Boston; next to South Boston Savings Bank
2. 265-66378—1120 Dorchester Avenue, Dorchester; in front of Fields Corner MBTA station
3. 242-7897—312 Main Street, Charlestown; next to Warren Tavern
The plan worked as follows. On January 1 at one P.M., Bobby Cresta would be standing in front of a pay phone located at 460 West Broadway. At exactly one o’clock the phone would ring and Bobby would talk to his older brother Phil on the other end. Their conversation would be brief and straight to the point. Phil would probably say, “Anything I should know?” Bobby might answer, “No, everything is cool.” Phil would hang up and Bobby would be on his way.
The next month the second listing would be the one to use: On February 2 at two P.M. Bobby Cresta would be in front of 1120 Dorchester Avenue and at exactly two o’clock the pay phone at that location would ring. Bobby would pick it up. And so it went.
The conversations varied from seconds to minutes, but the feds never had the time or the expertise to track where the call originated, and even if they had, it would have done them no good. Phil always used a different pay phone to call from, just as Bobby used a different pay phone to answer. If Bobby missed a call, Phil would wait until the next month to call again. If Phil had to reach Bobby for an emergency, everything was to go through Augie, but that happened only once.
WHILE THE FEDS were looking for Cresta, three indictments were handed down by a Suffolk County grand jury in October 1969 for the VA Hospital job, naming Phil Cresta and, of all people, Ben Tilley—and Jerry Angiulo as an accessory after the fact. The indictments went nowhere and nobody ever went to trial. Phil,
of course, was already long gone from Boston.
Angiulo, though, was extremely annoyed that his name was in the indictment. He was trying to lie low at the time, and was dealing with more important things: a gang war going on in Southie, Charlestown, and Somerville that threatened to compromise Angiulo’s power. Nobody ever won in those kind of battles, as Angiulo, who had been involved in a few, knew only too well.
Still, people were disappearing left and right, both in Southie and Somerville, and the two names that kept cropping up were Whitey Bulger and Howie Winter.
Bulger was known to be a fitness freak who had served time in Alcatraz and Leavenworth for bank robbery, and now was back home in South Boston, teamed up with people like Steve “The Rifleman” Flemmi. He had met Phil Cresta through mutual acquaintances, and while they weren’t close friends there was a mutual respect. Many people saw Bulger as trouble and there were a few attempts on his life, which he somehow managed to escape. The attempts were thought to have been made by Angiulo’s men, but that was never proven.
Howie Winter, who was the leader of the Winter Hill Gang in Somerville, was also seen as an up-and-coming player who had a lot more in common with Bulger than with Angiulo. Angiulo was clearly having problems, and his boss in Providence, Raymond Patriarca, the head of New England’s La Cosa Nostra, was having serious problems too. The last thing Jerry Angiulo needed was the kind of publicity that the VA Hospital indictment brought.
Phil had no sympathy for the man he had once worked for, the man who had tried to get him killed—by his own brother. “I understood that Jerry Angiulo wasn’t too pleased with me when he got pulled into the hospital rap,” Phil said, smiling. “Tough shit.”
J. EDGAR HOOVER died in 1972 but the FBI continued the search for Phil Cresta. Cresta, however, had been quietly swallowed up by his friends in the Chicago syndicate. He now answered to the name Joey Paul Zito, and he was the owner of a toy store in Chicago.
Final Confession Page 20