PROFESSIONAL KILLERS (True Crime)

by Gordon Kerr

  But then Castellano decided to have dinner at Sparks Steak House.

  As head of the Gambino Family, Gotti began to walk the talk. He took to wearing $10,000 suits tailored by Brioni in Rome, tailor to kings, earls and the super-rich. So why not a Don, a Dapper Don as they started to call him in the press? His picture appeared in magazines and on television and he loved it. He would pose outside his hang-out, the Ravinelli Club in Manhatten, shaking hands and posing for photographs with tourists. In Queens he threw lavish street parties and made sure that his was the only crime taking place on its streets. He was adored for it.

  In the 1980s, he escaped conviction on racketeering and assault charges several times by bribing and threatening jurors. He became ‘the Teflon Don’ – nothing would stick and he used police informants to make sure it stayed that way.

  He remained a vicious, cold-blooded killer though. In 1980, his 12-year-old son Frank was run over and killed when he ran out from behind a parked car. The man driving the car that hit him, a salesman named John Favara, was warned that he should move out of the area. He did not, and a few months later disappeared, never to be seen again.

  As the 1990s arrived, Gotti had to be increasingly on his guard. The FBI were on his case, following him wherever he went and listening to him non-stop. Everywhere was bugged. He was forced to hold meetings walking in the street or to play loud tapes of white noise when he was having a conversation. Eventually, of course, he made a mistake. He was heard in an apartment above his club discussing a number of murders as well as other criminal dealings. They arrested him on 11 December 1990 and threw the book at him; several books in fact. He was charged with 13 counts of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, racketeering, loan sharking, obstruction of justice, illegal gambling and tax evasion. Amongst the murders were those of Paul Castellano and Thomas Bilotti. A witness placed Gotti outside the steakhouse immediately before Castellano and Bilotti were shot.

  He was hung out to dry. Former Philadelphia underboss Philip Leonetti testified that Gotti had boasted about ordering Castellano’s murder. Sammy ‘the Bull’ Gravano testified against his boss and went into witness protection. He detailed 19 murders for ‘crimes’ such as cheating, failing to show respect, lying, giving false evidence to a grand jury and so on. The jury found him guilty on all 13 charges and he was sentenced to life without possibility of parole.

  He went to the penitentiary at Marion, Illinois, where he was kept in strict conditions of maximum security. His cell, measuring just eight feet by seven, was underground and he was locked in it for 23 hours a day, being allowed out to exercise for just one hour a day in a concrete-walled enclosure. He was permitted to shower twice a week and could have a radio and a black and white television. Meals arrived through a slot in the door. However, illness struck and in September 1998, The Dapper Don had to undergo an operation to remove a cancerous tumour.

  The Dapper Don never did complete his time. He died of throat cancer on 10 June 2002 at the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners at Springfield, Missouri and was buried in Queens, next to his son, Frank.

  Joey ‘Big Joey’ Massino, The Last Don

  When Joey Massino was convicted in New York, in 2004, his charge sheet was a roll-call of Mafia crimes of the past 100 years – murder, racketeering, arson, extortion, loan-sharking, illegal gambling, conspiracy and money laundering. This head of the Bonanno Crime Family had certainly come a long way.

  Although Joey later became a restaurateur, his catering career had humble beginnings – a mobile food-wagon in the Queens area of New York, selling coffee and pastries to workers in the docks. He began his Mafia career in the 1960s as a protégé of Philip ‘Rusty’ Rastelli and his brothers. Rastelli was a nasty, violent individual who, a few years later, would rise to the top of the heap in the Bonanno Family. With the Rastellis, he got into running numbers, hijacking trucks and fencing stolen goods.

  In 1975, Paul Castellano, who would in the future become head of the Family, ordered Massino to carry out a hit on Vito Borelli. Borelli was dating Castellano’s daughter and had made the fatal mistake of insulting Castellano in front of her by comparing him to a man called Frank Perdue, a businessman with a cooked chicken brand who used to advertise it personally on television. The fact that Perdue himself resembled a plucked chicken, did not endear Borelli to Big Paul. So Massino, accompanied by John Gotti, another future Family head – the Gambinos in his case – killed the unfortunate Borelli at a Manhattan cookie business owned by Bonanno soldier Anthony Rabito. Other men involved were Dominick ‘Sonny Black’ Napolitano, Rabito and Angelo Ruggiero, Roy DeMeo and Frank DeCicco. Massino’s brother-in-law, Salvatore Vitale, was asked to drive the body to a garage where they were waiting. Borelli had been shot in the face and body and he was wearing only his underpants. Vitale noticed that one of the men was holding a knife and speculated that the man with the knife was Roy DeMeo whose speciality was cutting up bodies like a Perdue chicken.

  Borelli’s murder provided a boost to Massino’s career and in 1976 he became a made man of the Bonanno Family, reporting to Philip ‘Lucky Phil’ Giaccone. Best of all, he was still a complete unknown to the Federal authorities. In June of that year, the body of Joseph ‘Doo Doo’ Pastore was discovered in a dumpster, round the corner from Massino’s restaurant in Maspeth. He had been killed with two shots to the head. There was a connection to Massino because Pastore was a truck hijacker who supplied Joey with stolen goods that Massino fenced for him. It did not take police long to make the connection and he and Richard Dormer, Pastore’s half-brother, were taken to the morgue to make an identification of the body. It was no coincidence that, just before the murder, Massino had asked his brother-in-law, Salvatore Vitale, to borrow $9,000 from Pastore for him. It looked like he would never have to repay that particular debt.

  Massino was in court in 1977 on a charge of hijacking a truck but was acquitted while his co-defendant Raymond Wean went to jail for three years.

  In 1979, Rusty Rastelli took over at the top of the Family following the killing of Carmine Galante in his favourite restaurant, Joe and Mary’s Italian-American Restaurant at 205 Knickerbocker Avenue in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The 69-year-old Galante died with his trademark cigar in his mouth, blasted in the face and chest at point-blank range with a shotgun. Although Massino was not one of the shooters, he is reported to have been seen outside the restaurant on the day of the shooting. Whatever his involvement, Rastelli’s promotion was good for Massino – he was advanced to the rank of caporegime, just three years after becoming a made man.

  In 1989, when Massino heard that Alphonse Indelicato, Dominick Trinchera and Philip Giaconne were plotting to take over the Bonanno Family by purging Rastelli’s men, he went to Family bosses Carmine Persico and Paul Castellano for advice. They told him that he had only one option; kill them or be killed himself.

  Sonny Red Indelicato, Giaccone and Trinchera were lured to a meeting with their rival factions, accompanied by capo Frank Lino. Gerlando ‘George from Canada’ Sciascia, Vito Rizzuto and Sonny Black Napolitano burst out of a closet in the room where the meeting was taking place and gunned down Trinchera, Indelicato and Giaccone. Lino escaped.

  Napolitano would, himself, suffer at Joey Massino’s hands in 1981 when he made the mistake of proposing a man called Donnie Brasco to become a made man in the Family ahead of Salvatore Vitale, Joey’s brother-in-law. Vitale, Joey said, had been involved in killings for years, whereas Brasco had not been around for more than a few years and had not been part of any hits for the Family. Unfortunately for Napolitano, Brasco turned out to be Joe Pistone, an undercover FBI agent, a fact confirmed when he disappeared from view. Sonny Black Napolitano also disappeared from view in August of that year. He was taken to a meeting at the house of a Family associate. Frank Coppa, a Bonanno capo, greeted him and threw him down a flight of stairs into the basement of the house. He was shot dead and when Frank Lino handed Sonny’s car keys over to a group of men in a waiting car, he noted tha
t one of them was Joey Massino.

  Another victim of the Donnie Brasco embarrassment in February of the following year was the widely feared street soldier Tony Mirra. Mirra had been the one who had introduced Brasco to the Family. Massino handed the contract for the killing to Mirra’s cousin, Richard Cantarello. Mirra was lured to a parking garage in Lower Manhattan where another cousin, Joseph D’Amico, climbed into his burgundy Mercedes beside him and shot him in the temple. When the police found Mirra hours later, he had been shot twice behind his ear and once in the face.

  When a number of the Bonanno hierarchy were arrested, Massino became a fugitive, indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in Manhattan along with five other men on a charge of conspiracy to murder Indelicato, Giaccone and Trinchera. On the run, his associates kept him in funds and many of his colleagues, including John Gotti, made the trip to visit him.

  Massino was now running the Family and, even though Rusty Rastelli had been released from a spell in prison, it was Joe calling the shots.

  His next hit was Cesare Bonventre who had been Carmine Galante’s – unsuccessful – bodyguard on the day he had been killed. Bonventre was invited to a meeting with Rastelli in Queens, but was picked up by Salvatore Vitale and Louie Attanasio and never made it to the meeting. They drove into a garage where Attanasio shot him twice in the head. Bonventre was a strong guy and he struggled, despite his wounds. They had to pull into a car park where Bonventre crawled out of the car. Attanasio jumped out and pumped another two bullets into him. Gabriel Infante was given the job of getting rid of the body, but it was found shortly after, in April 1984, cut in two and stuffed into 55 gallon oil drums in a warehouse. It was the last mistake Infante made.

  Things were becoming a little hot and Massino decided that the best thing would be to turn himself over to the police. He was given bail and released. In 1985, he was indicted for labour racketeering along with Rastelli, Carmine Rastelli, Nicky Marnagello and 13 others. Then in October of the next year he was found guilty of violations of RICO Law, the Hobbs Act (robbery or extortion) and the Taft-Hartley Act (labour racketeering). In January 1987, he was sentenced to ten years.

  As if that were not enough, April 1987 saw him in court again, on hijacking and murder charges. Joe Pistone/Donnie Brasco testified against him, tried to implicate him in a triple murder as well as the conspiracies to kill Pastore and Indelicato. He was acquitted of the hijacking charges due to a legal problem, but went to prison until 1993.

  Rastelli had died in 1991, and when Massino came out of prison, he seemed to be the only man who could fill his shoes. He made Salvatore Vitale his underboss and Anthony Spero consigliere. He gained a reputation for living according to the old rules, keeping Cosa Nostra and membership of it secret. He accused the government of being biased towards Italian-Americans. He was doing a good job. The Bonanno Family regained its seat on the Crime Commission and business was looking up. It did not last long, however. Spero was given life for racketeering and murder and his replacement, Anthony ‘TG’ Graziano, was indicted for murder, drug trafficking, extortion and illegal gambling.

  Joey was, himself, indicted again in January 2003 and amongst the charges lurked seven murders: Alphonse ‘Sonny Red’ Indelicato, Philip ‘Lucky Phil’ Giaconne, Dominick ‘Big Trin’ Trinchera, Dominick ‘Sonny Black’ Napolitano, Tony Mirra, Cesar Bonventre and Gabriel Infanti. Things began to go very wrong when eight Bonanno men decided to give evidence for the prosecution, including Salvatore Vitale, his loyal associate of so many years. Massino had been best man at his wedding and was godfather to one of Vitale’s sons.

  In July 2004, he was found guilty on all counts and faced at least life or possibly execution. To the Mob world’s horror, it was announced in February 2005 that Joey Massino had turned and was cooperating with the authorities, the first Mafia boss to do so.

  As a result of his cooperation he succeeded in escaping the death penalty, instead being sentenced to life. He also admitted ordering the killing of Bonanno capo Gerlando Sciascia, waiving his right to appeal his conviction for the seven other murders.

  Meanwhile the Mafia reeled.

  Part Two: Other American Killers

  Fung Jing Toy, ‘Little Pete’

  It must have been quite a sight back in the late 1800s – Fung Jing Toy, better known as Little Pete, processing through San Francisco’s Chinatown, one minder walking in front of him, one at his side and one behind him. Accompanying them was a trusted servant carrying a jewel case and Pete’s toilet articles so that he could maintain his appearance. Alongside Little Pete was his interpreter, for, bizarrely, this Chinaman spoke no Chinese and could only bark his orders to his henchmen by way of a third party. Hovering in the shadows were half a dozen boo how doy, ‘hatchet men’, who would bury a hatchet in the head of anyone who so much as approached the little man. He took no chances, Little Pete. At night, he and his family slept in a windowless room behind a heavily built door that was both barred and bolted. As an added security measure, a vicious dog was chained on either side of the door to deter break-ins.

  Little Pete himself was quite a sight. On his fingers he wore several of the numerous, expensive diamond rings he possessed and which he would change several times a day. As a protection against assassins, he wore a coat of chain mail over one of the 40 suits he owned, none of which he wore two days in succession. If his hat looked a little strange and uncomfortable, it was because inside it lay a protective thin sheet of metal, curved to the shape of his head. From under his hat grew a glossy queue – a pigtail – of which he was extremely proud. In fact he was so proud of it that every morning he would spend at least two hours brushing, combing and oiling it.

  Although responsible for the deaths of at least 50 men, Little Pete was a cultured man. He played the zither and wrote comedies in his spare time which he had translated into Chinese and staged at the Jackson Street Theatre. It was never a problem getting them put on – he owned the theatre after all. Little Pete had reason to be cautious as he went about his business in Chinatown for he was, at the time, the most powerful Chinaman on the entire Pacific Coast. He ruled his own gang or Tong, the SumYops, with a rod of steel and exercised control over a number of other Tongs that were allied with his. The world of the Tongs was a violent one and careers were often short-lived, especially careers such as Little Pete’s.

  The first Chinese immigrants arrived in America in 1820, but until the California Gold Rush in 1848, fewer than 1,000 had settled in the United States. The Goldrush, however, provided plenty of work for them as labourers for the gold prospectors who had flooded into California. By 1852, 25,000 Chinese had arrived and by 1880 more than 100,000 Chinese immigrants had decided to make their future in America. They settled mostly on the Pacific Coast, and consisted mainly of poorly educated young men from the province of Guangdong on China’s south coast.

  Chinese immigrants often suffered at the hands of other ethnic groups and Tongs, and benevolent organisations were created for the support and protection of Chinese–American communities. Originally, the Tongs emerged in 17th-century China as political–religious bodies, but the 19th-century American versions were often special fraternal groupings of merchants, craftsmen and tradesmen. However, along the Pacific coast of America, criminal Tongs also sprang up, dealing in opium and gambling, activities accepted in China but illegal in the United States. Further revenue was derived from prostitution and protection.

  As the number of criminal Tongs grew, so, too, did quarrels and territorial disputes, resulting in bloody feuds and violent clashes between rival gangs. These gang wars spanned a period of some 70 years, starting in the 1850s and not fading out until the 1920s by which time the Chinese–American community had grown wealthier and had begun to feel more secure in its adopted country.

  Fung Jin Toy arrived in America with his merchant father when he was five years old, in 1869. That year, as Ulysses S. Grant succeeded Andrew Johnson as President of the United States, Little Pete began work as an errand boy
, working for a Chinese shoe-manufacturer. By the age of 21, he owned his own shoe company, J.C. Peters & Co, the only legitimate business with which he was ever involved. He had become attracted to the profits to be made from gambling establishments and opium dens and had also begun to dabble in the slave trade. By 25 he was head of the Sum Yop Tong and intent on expanding his business interests.

  The Su Yop Tong were one of Chinatown’s most powerful criminal organisations and when Little Pete began stealing girls from Sue Yop members, animosity broke out between the two Tongs. Soon, they were at each other’s throats, engaged in a bitter and bloody war, a war in which, it is reported, Little Pete hacked to death 50 members of the rival Tong. In the midst of all this, however, he made a grave error, foolishly trying to bribe the jury and the entire prosecution team, including the District Attorney, when one of his killers was put on trial for the murder of a Sue Yop man. His mistake cost him the next five years which he spent in San Quentin State Prison.

  On his release, Little Pete picked up where he left off, escalating once more the war with the Sue Yop which had died down considerably during his incarceration. Having been to prison once, he sought legal protection, retaining the noted criminal lawyer Thomas D. Riordan. Critically, however, he forged an alliance with the blind saloonkeeper and Democratic Party political boss of San Francisco, Christopher A. Buckley, nicknaming him the Blind White Devil. Buckley ruled the city for some 20 years, the most corrupt years in San Francisco’s history. Soon, with friends in such high places, Little Pete was riding high as the undisputed boss of Chinatown, with tribute being paid to him by every business, legal or illegal.

  If payments were not paid, establishments would receive a visit from the San Francisco police and would be closed down, to be reopened a few days later with Pete and his gang in charge.