Donnie Brasco

by Joseph Pistone

  I and the other guys dive under cars. I don’t know what’s going to happen if the cop finds us. Maybe these guys are carrying guns. Maybe this cop will be trigger-happy. I have this vision that I am going to die right here under this car, shot as a damn car thief.

  The cop drove around for about five minutes, then went out. We hooked the two Caddies and got the hell out of there.

  Becker had stolen a bulldozer in Baltimore and wanted us to deliver it to the customer in Lakeland, so we drove up and put the bulldozer on a flatbed trailer to haul it back. Becker said he was filling contracts for airplanes. He had already had a twin-engine job flown out to Caracas, Venezuela, and now he had another customer for a single-engine Cessna.

  When we got the bulldozer back to Lakeland, Marshall and I scouted small airports and found the plane at a strip where nobody was on duty at night. Another guy was going to fly it out, so we took that guy out there that night. Marshall got in and wired the plane up and got it started, and the pilot took off. We didn’t want this plane to get out of the country, so I had tipped off our guys ahead of time and they had made arrangements with the FAA to divert the plane to Miami. So when this guy took off, I called in, and they ordered him to land in Miami. So as not to blow our operation, they used as a reason that they suspected it was a drug plane.

  A couple of the car thieves lived in Daytona, and one Sunday afternoon we went over there. They lived with their girlfriends in this dumpy little house, and there were two little kids running around in diapers. The place was a mess, and there was nothing in the house to eat except junk food and beer.

  Marshall and I went out and bought a load of groceries, including baby food. They served the baby food to the kids while I cooked up pots of spaghetti sauce and pasta and sausage and peppers for the adults. So we had a big meal with the thieves and their girlfriends and kids that Sunday afternoon.

  Because we had things going all the time, I got home only twice in five months. In addition to the separation, the operation was putting a financial strain on my family.

  At that time all an undercover agent got was a per diem for expenses. Out of that you had to pay for hotel and meals. It was never enough. Often when I was with badguys, I picked up a check, and often it came out of my own money. I called home a lot, and for security reasons I didn’t want any phone numbers on my hotel bill, so I always called collect. I didn’t get reimbursed for my home phone bill, so I ended up eating that, which was a big sum over the long haul. Sometimes I had to ask my wife to wire me money because I had run out of cash. Naturally, my wife wasn’t happy about seeing our money used this way. In the end I used a total of about $3,000 of my own money in this operation. But I couldn’t stop the operation to argue with the office about expenses.

  The office had a strict policy about having receipts for everything. I got into a flap over the time when the guys were buying the White Freightliner and they asked us to switch hotels. I had two hotel bills for one day. The auditors at the Bureau rejected my reimbursement claim because the rule was one hotel room per day. I drew the line, flat out refused to eat that expense. I explained about how it was operating undercover, how expenses didn’t always fit the normal routine. Eventually that was straightened out. I was given a larger weekly amount, to use how I saw fit.

  The problem was, this kind of extended undercover operation was new to everybody.

  In February 1976, the FBI and Florida Highway Patrol arrested Becker and the entire ring—thirty people—and recovered a million dollars’ worth of stolen vehicles from Florida, Maryland, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Alabama, Georgia, and Virginia. They said it was one of the largest, most lucrative theft rings ever busted.

  Trials went on for more than two months. In exchange for his cooperation in busting the ring, and his testimony, Marshall went into the federal Witness Protection Program, on which he and his family were relocated to an undisclosed place and given new identities.

  For my work I got a letter of commendation from Clarence M. Kelley, Director of the FBI, and an award of $250.

  What meant more to me than that was a letter that one of the defense attorneys sent to Director Kelley. The letter said, in part, “Mr. Pistone ... was a most impressive witness and had obviously done an excellent job in his undercover capacity, but the most outstanding elements of his character were his candor, dedication and sincerity.”

  For a defense attorney who lost the case to take the time to write such a letter—that gave me real satisfaction.

  I came back to New York to resume work with the Truck and Hijack Squad. But the success of this operation had changed the course of my career and headed me toward the Mafia.

  3

  PREPARATIONS

  The FBI was finally thinking about getting into long-term undercover operations—long—term being, say, six months. Our success in the heavy-equipment operation helped convince people that using an agent this way, instead of just turning an inside guy into an informant, was effective.

  My supervisor in New York, Guy Berada, who has since retired, wanted to get another long-term undercover operation going. He was in charge of the Truck and Hijack Squad, the squad I was assigned to.

  Beginning in the spring of 1976, we had meetings and bull sessions and came up with the idea to infiltrate big-time fences—high-echelon dealers in stolen property who were associated with the Mafia. I was a natural link for the hijack squad. You get a report of a hijacking, you investigate it, find out who pulled the job, where the drop was, and who was fencing the load. Our goal was to go strictly after the upper-echelon fences, those who more often than not dealt with the Mafia, the outfit with the money, the know-how, and the connections to distribute the stuff further. Some of these fences owned restaurants or bars or stores; some were actual Mafia members—wiseguys, themselves.

  It was decided to make it a one-man undercover job. I was picked because I had just come off the other successful operation, because I knew about hijacking, because I was familiar with the street world.

  And not least because I was Italian. That would help me fit in with the types we would be investigating, because if they were not themselves Italians, the people they were dealing with were.

  The idea was: You bust the fences, you wound the Mafia. That was the extent of our aims in the beginning, just to get the fences. Having decided on that, though, you don’t just walk out the door and begin work undercover. It took months of preparation, both for me and for the bureaucracy.

  Eventually we had to sell the idea upstream, to Washington, to the brass at FBI Headquarters. In order to do that we had to have everything calculated—money, time, targets, probabilities for success. Long-term undercover operations were so new to the FBI that there wasn’t even a formal set of guidelines issued for undercover agents and their supervisors to go by until 1980, years later. It was pioneer territory, and you had to sell the plan well.

  Just launching work on the proposal was exciting for me. I was in on the ground floor with the new long-term techniques. And it was targeted toward the mob, which intrigued me. We had new legal tools to use against organized crime. In 1970, Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which everybody refers to as the “RICO” statutes. For the first time we could go after “an enterprise” engaged in a “pattern of racketeering.” If we could show people involved in an organization whose purpose it was to commit crimes, we didn’t have to show that each member of that organization actually committed each crime.

  We had the law we needed against the Mafia.

  In this case, with a new type of undercover operation, I and the supervisors would be able to plan and steer the operation the way we wanted it, doing the thing ourselves without a lot of help or intervention from anybody else.

  Berada was at that time one of the most imaginative supervisors. We had to get some good targets, and it had to be a feasible plan to sell to headquarters, something that would work, because like most bureaucracies, most people
in ours didn’t want to put their necks on the line for something new and risky.

  There was a lot of research to do before I could go undercover. Even the research was done discreetly. Only four or five people were involved in the entire matter. In the beginning only my supervisor, Berada; the Special Agent in Charge of the Criminal Division of the New York Office, Ted Foley; and the guys who would be my case agent, Joe Connally, and my contact agent, Steve Bursey, were in on it. I went through old, closed files, old reports, and talked to guys who were on the squad, guys I could trust, pumping them for all the information we could get on the fences that we were targeting. For the most part we knew who the fences were. It was just hard to get anything solid on them. So now, for the first time, we would try to plant one of our own men—me—to live and work among them. I gathered names, looked at mug shots. We wanted to know who their mob associates were, who the hijackers were, where they hung out, where they worked out of, what their habits and personalities were, what they looked like—anything that might help me navigate in their world.

  In developing the plan and the proposal, there was a handful of people involved, from both New York and Headquarters. Eddie O‘Brien was the supervisor at Headquarters who handled undercover work in its infancy. For the proposal we identified some targets that were top fences, and some areas of the city that I would be going into, such as Little Italy in Manhattan and certain parts of Brooklyn, and restaurants and clubs where I might hang out. We left enough leeway so that in case we got other openings, we could take them.

  It occurred to us to duplicate the New York plan in Miami, with another agent, the two to work in conjunction with each other. Miami had a lot of wealthy residents and vacationers, and a lot of con men and thieves who were specialists in jewels and stocks and bonds. So there were also a lot of big-time fences who dealt with the Mafia. We could target those fences down there as well, and the agent assigned to that end and I could back each other up.

  The Miami office liked the idea. Berada and I went down to help them design the same type of proposal that we had for New York.

  Then he and I discussed who I would feel comfortable with as the undercover agent in Miami. Anytime you’re working undercover, who you bring into the operation is a crucial choice. It has to be somebody you can trust with the job and your life.

  At that time I didn’t know anybody from the Miami office who was available. The guy I decided on was a friend whose undercover name was Joe Fitzgerald. He was from Boston, stood about 6’5”, was a former defensive end for Boston College. I picked him because he was a good bull-thrower, sharp on his feet, and could really handle himself. He was basically a street guy. He had been in Miami enough to know his way around. So we brought Joe Fitz down to Miami and filled him in on the whole operation, and he accepted the job.

  We would launch the two operations together, and the code name for the tandem would be “Sun Apple.” Miami Sun, New York Apple.

  Next thing we had to plan was me. I had to establish a new identity that would stand up under whatever kind of examination that could arise. On the street everybody is suspicious of everybody else until you prove yourself.

  We made a list of things I needed for a credible background. First was a name. From the heavy-equipment operation I already had the kind of wallet fillers you need for identification—social security card, American Express card, and driver’s license (actually I had two driver’s licenses, one for Florida, one for New York). So it seemed easiest just to stick with the name Donald Brasco. Under that name I had established some background in California and Florida and made some good contacts. It would be easier just to continue that than to change everything.

  But the very background that gave that name an advantage gave it its disadvantage. I wondered whether the publicity I had gotten in the Florida heavy-equipment trials would come back to haunt me. But I hadn’t run into any mob guys during that time, so far as I knew. I thought about it for a long time while we were arranging other things. Finally I thought, What the hell, I’ll go with it.

  As Donald Brasco, I had to have a past. Not too much of a past. Like everything else, I wanted to keep it simple. You have to tell a lot of lies, anyway. The fewer you tell, the fewer you have to remember. In my undercover work I stayed as close to the truth as possible, whenever possible. For this particular aspect—where I came from—the less there was at all, the better.

  My background was going to be that I spent time down in the Miami area and out in California, and that I was a jewel thief and burglar—and a bachelor.

  We came up with the idea that I would be an orphan. Without a family it’s harder for people to check up on you. If you had a family, you would have to involve other agents to speak up for you as family members. If you’re an orphan, the only thing they can check on is if you lived in a neighborhood or if you have any knowledge of the particular neighborhood. I had knowledge of areas in Florida and California because I had done some work there.

  We knew from our research people about an orphanage in Pittsburgh that had burned down, and there were no records left of the children raised there That was perfect for me. One of the agents had lived in Pittsburgh, and I had grown up in Pennsylvania.

  Being a jewel thief was my idea. There are all kinds of crooks. I needed a specialty that allowed me to work alone and without violence. I couldn’t be a stickup man or a bank robber or hijacker or anything like that. We had an okay from the department to get involved in certain marginal activities, but you had to avoid violence. As a jewel thief, I could say I worked alone. I could come and go as I wanted, and come up with scores that everybody didn’t have to know about because I committed my “crimes” in private.

  For a jewel thief and burglar, it was not unusual for a guy to work alone. And since if you pull off the job correctly you don’t confront your victims, there is a minimal chance for violence. That specialty gave me an out whenever anybody would want me to pull a violent job—that’s not my thing.

  Given the nature of the operation, there was a likelihood that I would wander into gray areas regarding FBI rules and regulations. But we had to take some chances. We would face things as they came up. How far my role could go, what crimes I could participate in and observe and ignore, how far I could go in having a deal instigated and yet avoid the entrapment issue—such things were part of my preparation before I hit the street.

  As a jewel thief, I would have appropriate expertise. I knew enough about alarm systems and surveillance equipment to assess prospective “jobs” that I or others might undertake. A prominent New York City jewelry company gave me a two-week gemology course, knowing only that it was for the FBI and not knowing anything about my operation. I spent time with a gemologist at a New York museum and bought books on precious gems and coins. This didn’t make me a top-flight expert, but at least I knew what to look for.

  I had a name, a background, a criminal career. We had to budget the operation. I would need an apartment, car, money to bounce around with, and so on.

  We started modestly. For the New York side of Sun Apple, we figured on a six-month operation with a budget of $10,000. That was low, but with a low figure we felt we had a better chance of getting the operation approved. The main thing was getting it launched. Once you’ve got something going and can show some results, it’s easier to extend it. We were confident. Then if we needed another six months, we could go in with an additional proposal.

  Nobody dreamed of going for six years and getting where we got to.

  We budgeted carefully because the Bureau audits carefully: apartment, phone, leased car, personal expenses, and so on. Our initial figure climbed from $10,000 to $15,000 because we decided to ask to have $5,000 on hand for any special, unexpected expenses, such as if I had to buy into a score.

  When all the paperwork was completed, the proposal was sent to headquarters in Washington. They approved it.

  Now I had to disappear. Only a handful of people knew about this operation. For their
own protection my family knew only that I would be going undercover, not for what. Since the Bureau had no history with deep, long-term undercover operations, we had to make up guidelines as we went along. One of the things we determined was that my true existence as an FBI agent would have to be erased.

  In my earlier undercover operation with the heavy-equipment theft ring, everything was treated within the office on a need-to-know basis. Now the security measures would be even more severe. At the New York office of the FBI—then on East Sixty-ninth Street—my desk was cleaned out. My name was erased from office rolls. My personnel file was removed from the office and secretly stashed in the safe of the Special Agent in Charge. Since I was off the office payroll, my paycheck was sent to me outside the normal system. With the exception of those few case agents and contact agents and higher-ups in FBI Headquarters in Washington, nobody in the office or field staffs of the FBI around the country knew what I was doing. If anybody called the office looking for me, they would be told there was nobody employed by the FBI under that name. As far as people inside and outside the Bureau were concerned, nobody by the name of Joseph Pistone had anything to do with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  We had started thinking about this in April. By the time I was ready to actually hit the street, it was September.

  Once I walked out of my FBI office on that September day in 1976, I never returned, never went into any FBI office anywhere, for the next six years that I was undercover.

  My coworkers didn’t know what had happened to me. My friends didn’t know. My informants didn’t know. I would utilize no informants in this new Donald Brasco job.

  Having disappeared, I proceeded to build my new life. I needed an apartment, a car, a bank account—ordinary things. None of this would be gotten through the Bureau. I would do it on my own, as Donald Brasco, and no strings would be pulled.

  I wanted to do everything myself. I didn’t want to go through contacts because I didn’t want anybody to know it was an FBI operation. You never know if somebody’s going to get into somebody else’s files, or if somebody will slip and say something. If nobody knows and nobody’s involved, nobody can slip. And we knew we might be rubbing up against mob guys through the fences we were targeting, and that any slip could be fatal, so everything I did was done by myself, just as Joe Blow off the street.