The Sixth Family

by Lamothe, Lee

  Then, in 1980, came a seizure in Rome that, more than all of the other finds of drugs and money, highlights the success of the new operation.

  Albert Gillet, a Belgian, had arrived at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport direct from New York when his luggage was checked at customs. Inside, inspectors made a surprising and perplexing find. There, neatly packaged, were 10 kilos of heroin that tests found to be 86 percent pure. In any North American city, such a find would have been almost routine, but in Rome it was unheard of, for the simple reason that the drug was moving in the wrong direction—heroin was supposed to flow from Italy, where it was produced, to New York, where it was being bought and resold at an inflated price. Nobody bought heroin at the premium price in New York and brought it to Italy, where it would have attracted only a fraction of its cost. Giovanni Falcone, the anti-Mafia magistrate, seized on the strange case and soon solved the riddle. The shipment, which had originated with the Sixth Family and been sold to one of their regular New York Mafia customers, was being returned, having been found unacceptable by the American buyer. So successful were the new pipelines, and so good was their merchandise, that the buyers had the luxury of being choosy.

  “We did not know that, at the time, the Americans considered 86 percent purity not good enough, which was why the goods were being returned,” Falcone later said.

  Sending 10 kilos of heroin back from New York because, at 86 percent, it was not pure enough? No wonder the men at Giuseppe Bono’s wedding were all smiles in the photographs being studied by police. It was a time of heightened congeniality among the men, who were working, by turns together and in competition, on the disparate parts that made this enormous drug conspiracy work so well.

  The congenial mood could not last with so much at stake and so many greedy men eyeing the same prize. In fact, Bono’s wedding photographs would come back to haunt many of the men pictured in them. Including Vito Rizzuto.

  CHAPTER 17

  BROOKLYN, SPRING 1981

  Despite the fact that Carmine Galante was no longer around to stir up trouble, or perhaps because of this, the situation in Brooklyn by the spring of 1981 was still in disarray. The Bonanno gangsters were beginning to accept the presence of the Zips as a permanent part of the new face of New York, although the Sicilian mobsters were still eyed with suspicion and a degree of distaste. They were not so much outsiders now, but rather one of several factions within the fractured Bonanno Family.

  For Philip Rastelli, Galante’s murder seemed, at first, to ease some of the pressure on his leadership. Rastelli was a gray, cadaverously gaunt man. He had been a captain in the Bonannos since 1968, before moving up to become underboss under Natale Evola in 1971, and then quietly slipping into the boss’s seat some months after Evola’s death in 1974. Despite his steady rise, he was not a strong leader. His frequent stints in prison hurt him greatly, but even when free he had difficulty inspiring his men or enhancing his family’s position. After Galante’s death, Rastelli’s position as boss was re-affirmed far and wide. Lefty Ruggerio even pulled Donnie Brasco, a non-member, aside to tell him that Rastelli was the boss. Everyone finally seemed to acknowledge this. Acknowledgment was one thing; acceptance quite another. While Galante’s murder seemed a relief for all concerned, it eased little of the internal strife that had afflicted the family since its long-time boss, Joe Bonanno, was ousted by the Commission in the mid-1960s. For 15 years the Bonanno organization, once the proudest of the Five Families, had been in decline. Much of the blame was laid at Rastelli’s feet.

  New York mobsters have a saying: “You’re only as strong as your boss.” It is a recognition that the boss of the family is the one who speaks up for the family’s interests before the other families and the Commission; who guides the organization as it seeks to expand into new criminal ventures. Many of the Bonannos felt that Rastelli was not leading them to greatness. The drug profits pouring into New York, and the natural jealousy and intrigue it caused, made the stakes even higher and the untenable situation even worse. The idea that someone other than Rastelli might be capable of doing a better job was quickly catching on. Rastelli soon found himself in his perennial quandary—trying to defend his interests within a divisive and wounded family from the confines of a distant prison cell.

  From within the family, others started braying for a new boss; Alphonse “Sonny Red” Indelicato was the loudest among them.

  The Bonanno Family was splitting into clearly defined factions, with most scrambling to seize what they considered to be their share of the lucrative drug trade, competing to find a role in its operations and calculating where their interests lay on the issue of leadership. Alliances among mob captains were sought, forged and broken; gangsters with a means of distribution were being courted by those with a means of importation, and, through it all, those controlling the flow of drugs were aggressively building strategic alliances that would further their profits, regardless of any mob sentimentality about family structure or arcane rules. A new underworld order was emerging in which contribution to the drug trade was more important than family affiliation, creating strange bedfellows; Bonanno captains grew closer to like-minded Gambino soldiers than to their own family.

  The 15 or so captains within the Bonanno Family, who, between them, controlled roughly 150 made men, started taking sides. The Bonannos, at one time the most cohesive of the Five Families, continued to split apart at the seams. Four factions emerged, Bonanno insiders said.

  “There was the Zips from Italy, one faction,” said Frank Lino, a long-time Bonanno member. “Joseph Massino and Sonny Black was another faction. Sonny Red and Philly Lucky was another faction.”

  Sonny Red had become the head of the disaffected and dissident faction in this squabble over Rastelli’s leadership. He had built a power base around close friendships and family ties. Early on, he had brought his son, Bruno Indelicato, into the mob. After Bruno helped kill Carmine Galante, he was rewarded with a promotion to captain. Bruno was a big supporter of his father; the two socialized and conducted serious mob business together, and, with Sonny Red’s youthful looks, he could just about pass as Bruno’s older brother. Another family member, Joseph “J.B.” Indelicato, who was Sonny Red’s brother, was also a Bonanno captain. Also close to him were two captains not related by blood: Dominick “Big Trinny” Trinchera and Philip “Philly Lucky” Giaccone, a distinctly passive-looking mobster. Just six months before, at the Bono wedding, Big Trinny and Philly Lucky had sat with J.B., Bruno and Lino at the Hotel Pierre, their role as distributors of the Sixth Family’s heroin having secured them their invitations.

  “Philly Lucky, Trinny and Sonny Red wanted to rob the family from Phil Rastelli,” said Sal Vitale, who, as Massino’s right-hand man, was slavishly devoted to the Massino faction. Lining up behind Massino were Sonny Black, James “Big Louie” Tartagliano, Gabe Infanti and others. The Massino faction was loyal to Rastelli, the titular boss. For Massino, this was his best chance for retaining significant power within the family in anticipation of the day when Rastelli stepped down or passed away, leaving Massino as his heir.

  The fourth faction, made up of the old-timers, seemed keen to stay out of harm’s way during the troubles. Salvatore “Sally Fruits” Ferrugia, Matty Valvo, Stefano “Stevie Beef” Cannone, Nicholas “Nicky Glasses” Marangello, Nicholas “Nick the Battler” DiStefano and Joseph “Joe Bayonne” Zicarelli remained somewhat passive observers as the younger gangsters faced off.

  The Zips faction, who had caused much of the strife with their aggressive move into the heroin market, included Sal Catalano, Santo Giordano, Bonventre, Amato and Giovanni Ligammari. Also siding with the Zips was the Sixth Family.

  One member of the Sixth Family was, in fact, at the center of the double-dealing and fury in New York. Gerlando Sciascia had access to a seemingly endless supply of heroin. A burly man with a warm, engaging smile, he held some power and distinction in New York, despite being looked on as something of an outsider.

  CATTOLICA ERACL
EA, SICILY

  In the winding cemetery of Cattolica Eraclea, a casually dressed man ambled among the large mausoleums adorned with images of kneeling angels, whimsical cherubs, crosses and a risen Christ, his pierced hands outstretched. The man, a former Montrealer, had returned to Cattolica Eraclea under circumstances he would not discuss.

  “He is the one you should be writing about,” he said, pointing to a tomb containing the remains of the Sciascia family. “You know Sciascia? He was the most powerful one who went overseas. But he’s dead now.” The man squinted at the vast field of tombstones and crypts.

  “Killed,” he added, needlessly.

  Gerlando Sciascia, born on February 15, 1934, in Cattolica Eraclea, was almost 12 years older than Vito Rizzuto and a close family friend. Sciascia was raised just 10 houses down the narrow street from the Rizzuto family home and a similar distance from that of Joe LoPresti.

  Sciascia was not yet 25 when he, along with other members of the Agrigento Mafia, followed the Rizzutos to North America. Sciascia arrived a year after the Grand Hôtel heroin summit. By the time he was establishing himself in the New World, heroin was starting to trickle in from the new conduit and, accordingly, Sicilian traffickers were setting up shop in Toronto, Montreal and New York. Sciascia’s relocation seems to have been sparked by these new ventures into the drug trade. As it was for Carmine Galante, heroin seemed to be Sciascia’s calling.

  This was all unknown, of course, when he had his first encounter with American authorities. Arriving in New York City in September 1958, he was listed in U.S. Department of Justice files as “a stowaway.” The entry was illegal, but he was nonetheless granted an immigration visa. Sciascia was simultaneously assigned Immigration file #A11628312 and FBI file #726030D; although he had no known criminal record, the Bureau opened a file on him because of the illegal entry. Over the years, that file would grow to an immense and unwieldy size. Little was known about Sciascia when he arrived. He was five-foot-seven, a trim 160 pounds and was said to be vain about his thick head of hair. He listed his birthplace as Cattolica Eraclea and said he had left the middle school there after completing the eighth grade. His father, Giuseppe, died a month after Sciascia arrived in the United States; his mother, Domenica LaRocca, would die in 1974.

  Once in America, Sciascia traveled to Montreal to reconnect with the Rizzutos and other friends and family there. He returned to the United States on January 17, 1961, driving a car from Montreal to New York, crossing at Rouses Point, an hour’s drive due south of Montreal. U.S. Immigration officials quietly started their own case file on him that day. Back in America, Sciascia moved first to Newark, New Jersey, and worked at Ridoni Gardeners in nearby Summit, and Como Pizzeria on Broadway in Manhattan. Two years later, he worked at Mac Asphalt Contracting Company Inc., in Flushing, New York, while living in the Bronx. That same year, he became a member of Local 1018 of the Asphalt Workers’ Union. In March 1974, he moved to 1646 Stadium Avenue, in the Bronx, where he lived for the rest of his life—when he was not a fugitive, or in Canada, or in jail. For some time, Sciascia led a low-key life and did not appear on the radar of law enforcement, although he was seen at Italian social clubs and in the company of people who would later become prime targets of police surveillance.

  “We didn’t know enough about George. There were a thousand Georges,” a U.S. law-enforcement analyst said. “No one knew about the heroin agreements in Palermo. No one knew the Sicilians had gone into the heroin trade. There were just a lot of guys, mostly young guys, who turned up in New York and New Jersey and who had a lot of free time on their hands. In those days, investigations worked from the outside in: you were investigating a crime and the people you were investigating led you to other people, to social clubs or parties. There were no family charts, no integrated intelligence. If you overheard them talking, it made no sense, even to Italian-speaking cops. They spoke dialect and they didn’t speak a whole lot.”

  Like most of the rural Sicilian mafiosi who went into the heroin business, there are huge gaps in Sciascia’s biography. There are months, even years, when he dropped out of sight, only to turn up in the midst of increasingly larger drug deals and ever more successful police investigations. But he was always in the best of criminal company: the Sicilian expatriate Mafia, the Bonannos, the Gambinos and the Rizzutos. Like many Zips, Sciascia was inducted into the Bonanno Family. A May 1981, FBI memorandum, noting that a racketeering case was being opened on him, reads: “According to sources, Sciascia is a recently ‘made’ capo in the Bonanno Family … involved mainly in drug trafficking.”

  To the Bonannos, Sciascia was a loyal captain. He was recognized as the New York-based head of the “Montreal crew,” the Rizzuto organization that had assumed control over the Bonannos’ satellite in Montreal. Sciascia, however, was a man whose loyalty—at a glance—seemed deeply divided. He was a captain in the Bonanno Family but was known among the gangs of New York as “George from Canada.” He is described by New Yorkers as the boss of the Montreal crew, but the Montreal crew was answering to the Rizzutos, who were living primarily in Venezuela and addressing interests based more in Agrigento than in Brooklyn. The Bonannos considered Sciascia one of their own, a sworn captain in their family, but he was, at the same time, a wholly absorbed part of the Sixth Family.

  Was Sciascia looking out for the Bonanno Family’s interests in Montreal, or the Sixth Family’s interests in New York?

  While Sciascia’s loyalty seemed a puzzle, other issues of fraternity and loyalty were once again consuming the Bonanno Family in New York, overshadowing any cursory confusion that might have arisen over his status.

  By the time Sciascia had used his Sixth Family heroin connections to become a major player in New York, Rastelli’s leadership of the Bonanno Family was again being challenged.

  The struggle for primacy within the family is often presented as being about loyalty to the boss or protecting the officially sanctioned hierarchy. It also had a far less romantic and honorable subtext. For many choosing sides, it was largely about drugs and control over a billion-dollar heroin network. Sciascia—and his Sixth Family kin—had just one real concern in the seemingly internecine struggle: which faction would be most useful in their efforts to flood the streets of North America with high-grade heroin?

  CHAPTER 18

  BROOKLYN, SPRING 1981

  Alphonse “Sonny Red” Indelicato was a stocky man, with strong, tattooed arms and dark hair, despite his nickname. He favored large tinted glasses, perhaps taking a fashion cue from fellow Bonanno captain Cesare Bonventre. Any sartorial similarities to the cool and stylish Bonventre, however, ended there. Sonny Red preferred garish, casual clothes—orange T-shirts, bright red shorts, colorful baseball jackets, striped track suits, multicolored socks and faded blue jeans were all part of his wardrobe. He was particularly fond of a pair of brown leather cowboy boots, the looks of which probably made Bonventre cringe. If Bonventre dressed Euro-cool, Sonny Red was American-kitsch.

  Despite his clothing, Sonny Red was a powerful force on the streets of New York. Born in New York on February 16, 1927, Sonny Red displayed an early interest in narcotics transactions and stark displays of violence. Charged with heroin possession in 1950, he was quickly convicted. Not long after his six-month stint in jail, he was an aggressor in a social club shooting, on Boxing Day, 1951, that left one man dead and another, a witness to the attack, wounded. The poorly planned hit led to convictions against Sonny Red for murder and attempted murder, followed by a 12-year stay in Sing Sing prison. He was hardly reformed by his incarceration. After his release, despite being on lifetime parole—likely the reason he was not celebrating with his cohorts at the Bono wedding—he was repeatedly named by informants as a major narcotics dealer, according to FBI documents.

  In the 15 years since his release from prison in 1966, Sonny Red had built himself into a formidable presence within the Bonanno Family, not only because of his opinionated, charismatic swagger, but because at least four other Bonanno
captains supported any move he made. With each captain controlling a half-dozen to a dozen other made men, the tight-knit group presented a significant force, one that seemed in a reasonable position to seize control. Many in Sonny Red’s group had proven their deadliness in the slaying of Galante; although they were not alone in its planning and perpetration, Sonny Red’s men took the lead. Along with his Bonanno allies, Sonny Red had solid connections to other New York crime families, including senior members of the Colombo Family and a father-in-law, Charles “Charlie Prunes” Ruvolo, who was a Lucchese Family soldier. As such, both the Zips and Joe Massino took the Sonny Red faction seriously. Sonny Red threatened both the leadership of Philip Rastelli, the family boss, and Massino’s grand ambitions.

  For the Zips, motivation for opposing Sonny Red’s rebellion came from more materialistic concerns. Sonny Red was not only cocky toward Rastelli and disrespectful to Massino and Sonny Black, but he appears to have been dismissive of the power of the Zips, a mistake also made by Paolo Violi and Pietro Licata.