Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires (119 page)

Labeling Perrino weak and untrustworthy, and without consulting Massino, who was still in prison, Sal Vitale issued the contract to end Perrino’s life. “He’s going bad and can do a lot of damage to the family,” Vitale explained to Cantarella and other mafiosi who were accessories in the planned hit.

Cantarella’s son Paul helped scout out places where Perrino could be abducted for a fatal ride. Changing plans, Vitale and Cantarella duped Perrino into attending a strategy meeting at a family club in Bensonhurst on the night of May 5, 1992. He was never again seen alive. Frank Lino provided part of the hit team that finished off Perrino and buried him. (The body was found eleven years later, under a layer of concrete in an abandoned Staten Island auto-repair shop. He had been shot several times in the head.) To establish an alibi in case anything went wrong on the night of the murder, Cantarella and his son and their wives made certain they were conspicuous at a lengthy dinner in Staten Island’s Marina Restaurant.

Perrino’s death and the loss of testimony he might have offered hampered the DA’s investigation into the Bonanno rackets. Nevertheless, the inquiry turned up evidence to prove that with the help of mobsters, Post officials were dumping newspapers into the East River, incorporating them into the paper’s circulation statistics, and thereby boosting advertising rates. A month after Perrino disappeared, he was indicted in Manhattan on state racketeering charges. Two other Post officials pleaded guilty to having falsified circulation figures and were placed on probation in lieu of imprisonment.

Only one mobster got jail time—Richard Cantarella. He was tripped up by payroll records and surveillance proving he was never at work. Getting off easy, he pleaded to grand larceny, in effect admitting the no-show job, and spent nine months close to home in a Rikers Island dormitory prison on the East River. Uncle Al Embarrato, then in his mid-eighties, also copped a plea; because of his age he got probation instead of jail time.

His prison term over, Cantarella resumed his soldier’s life more vigorously under the aegis of Joe Massino, who also had completed his sentence. Teaming with his capo, Frank Coppa, Cantarella became a force and big-time earner from gambling, loan-sharking, and extortions. In the early 1980s, Cantarella widened his Mafia and financial horizons by carving out a new racket: the parking lot
business. He answered an advertisement, acquired a lease on a Manhattan lot, and met a future business partner and sycophant, Barry Weinberg.

Weinberg had been in the parking business since he was a teenager and it had made him rich. He operated several lots, but his wealth was based essentially on brokering, obtaining leases on properties and then transferring the leases at sizable profits. Raised in a Jewish family in Brooklyn’s middle-class Sheepshead Bay neighborhood, Weinberg was consumed with myths about the Mafia, longing to be accepted as a friend by organized-crime tough guys. A heavy gambler as well as a sharp businessman, Weinberg, in his mid-thirties when he met Cantarella, was immediately drawn to him. Delighted at being allowed into the select society and criminal ambiance of an authentic gangster, Weinberg taught Cantarella the basic steps for mining gold from parking lots. For decades, unscrupulous lot owners in New York found numerous ways to enlarge profits by “skimming” taxes added to parking fees. Since customers paid cash on the barrelhead when they retrieved their vehicles, and record-keeping was spotty, it was difficult for city and state tax collectors to accurately determine the volume of business and the revenues due the government. The parking-lot industry frauds mounted into millions of dollars in the 1980s and ’90s, according to later analyses by state auditors.

Aided by Weinberg, Cantarella began operating lots in Manhattan, some in Little Italy. Whenever troubled by nearby competitors, Cantarella called on his thugs to intimidate them into paying for protection to stay open or forcing them to close. One tactic against recalcitrant rivals was to burn down the attendants’ flimsy outdoor office and vandalize their lots. “This is the Mafia, I don’t care,” Cantarella once snapped when a wannabe asked about his reliance on beatings and arson.

By going “on record” under Cantarella, Weinberg saw financial benefits for himself. He believed associating with a mobster increased his prestige and power in negotiating deals because other businessmen feared that the Mafia was behind him. A chain-smoker and machine-gun-style talker, Weinberg saw another asset from his obsequious alliance with Cantarella. Twice-married, the father of four, balding, round-shouldered, and middle-aged, he was certain that the Mafia aura extended to him and attracted women.

An ostentatious spender, Weinberg drove prestigious autos—a convertible red Rolls-Royce, a Bentley, and Mercedez-Benzes. The wiseguys knew that he
kept pocket money and ready cash of as much as $60,000 in the trunk of his car. By the late 1990s, Cantarella made his daily headquarters at a Little Italy restaurant, Da Nico, on Mulberry Street, which was owned by reputed Bonanno soldier Perry Criscitelli. Also attracted to Little Italy, Weinberg met frequently in the neighborhood with Cantarella and with mafiosi from the Bonanno and Gambino borgatas. An investor in restaurants, Weinberg became a partner in Dixie Rose, a Mulberry Street café, but spent more time a block away at Da Nico.

The relationship with mafiosi must have been titillating for Weinberg although there was a price to be paid for the adventure. Considering himself entitled to a share of Weinberg’s businesses, Cantarella demanded a stream of payoffs, and he eventually siphoned $800,000 from Weinberg. Oddly, Weinberg supplied much of what the criminal code classifies as extortion by writing checks, sometimes laundered through a third party who passed the money along to Cantarella. Trying to conceal the reason for the extortion or tribute, Weinberg labeled the checks as “loans,” in the naive belief that the practice made them appear legal.

Showing off his Mob connections, Weinberg in 1999 brought another businessman and Mafia devotee, Augustino Scozzari, into Cantarella’s orbit. A native Italian, Scozzari immigrated to the United States after his construction company failed in Germany, where he had grown up. A heavyset, portly man in his mid-forties, Scozzari was steered by New York relatives to the purchase of Theresa’s, a Little Italy restaurant. He changed the name of the restaurant on Mulberry Street to Due Amici (Two Friends), and he met Weinberg while he was looking for similar investments in the restaurant field. Weinberg unofficially brokered the sale to him of Cuccina Bene (Good Kitchen), a small Italian takeout-style restaurant on Exchange Place in New York’s financial district. Having studied numerous books about the Mafia, Scozzari was captivated by the subject and overwhelmed by Weinberg’s offer to bring him into Cantarella’s sphere. Before long, Scozzari was used by Cantarella as an intermediary to help launder payoffs from his financial pigeon, Weinberg. Gradually, Cantarella built up trust in Scozzari, holding private conversations with him about the nuances of the Honorable Society, and introducing him to Joe Massino at a party. Seemingly grateful to be enveloped in Cantarella’s roguish lifestyle, both Weinberg and Scozzari could be classified as “Mafia groupies,” never balking at bending the law on his behalf.

While the two semilegitimate business associates were endearing themselves
to Cantarella, he was looking out for Massino’s interests. As part of his contributions to the administration, in the early 1990s he cut Massino and Vitale (before Sal’s break with Massino) into the parking-lot bonanza. The arrangements listed Josephine Massino and Sal Vitale as partners in three properties, and the boss and underboss cited the investments as proof of legitimate income in joint tax filings with their wives.

Complying with Massino’s plan to strengthen the family by inducting sons, Cantarella enhanced his relationship with the boss by sponsoring his son Paul as a soldier. Massino honored the Cantarellas by officiating at Paul’s induction and explaining the traditional do’s and don’ts to the newcomer. Showing his growing regard for Cantarella, starting in 1996 Massino invited him to dine weekly at the Casa Blanca. Their intimacy included exchanging license-plate numbers of law-enforcement cars that might be tailing them.

Cantarella became more indebted to Massino when he named him a captain with his, own crew in 1999, and appointed him to the select committees that supervised the borgata. Confident of Cantarella’s fealty, Massino gave him details of top-secret communications with the heads of other families and insight into memorable murders. He also reminisced about his numerous accomplishments for Rastelli, advertising himself as having been a “one-man army” for the previous boss. Reviewing the massacre of the three capos, Massino told Cantarella that the hits occurred in “close quarters,” an implied admission that he had been present. Raising the subject of Vitale’s demotion, Massino explained that his displeasure with Sal began during his imprisonment in Talladega. He was particularly upset by Sal’s decision to kill Perrino during the Post investigation, and would have vetoed it had he been consulted.

As a capo, Cantarella’s coffers filled more quickly. He kept a larger share of his own booty and collected a portion of his crew’s take. Under Massino’s reign, as soldier and capo, he became a multimillionaire, possibly the family’s richest racketeer after Massino. His take from loan-sharking—he charged 2 percent in vigorish—and assorted racketeering was a minimum of $500,000 a year. The riches pouring in enabled Cantarella to acquire thirteen parking lots in Manhattan and a small mansion, valued at more than $2 million, in the exclusive Ocean Gates Estate in Staten Island. Much flashier than his prudent godfather, Cantarella’s extravagant tastes extended to collecting Jaguars, Mercedes-Benzes, Cadillacs, and vintage cars.

Vitale’s arrest in late 2001 brought Cantarella even closer to Massino. He was appointed acting underboss, the family’s official number-two leader. Selecting Cantarella as his main aide-de-camp, Massino was unaware of a vital development: the Bonanno Squad had explosive investigations under way of his new field commander, Richie Cantarella, and the groupie Barry Weinberg.

Divide and Conquer

M
apping out their strategy in 1999, the FBI’s forensic accountants Jeffrey Sallet and Kimberly McCaffrey’s first step was to examine the income-tax returns of Joe Massino and Sal Vitale and their wives. 1RS records listed the names of the accountants who had prepared the annual tax returns for the two couples, and the firms were subpoenaed to hand over their records. That initial move turned into a lucky strike for the agents; the firms had saved memoranda dating back more than a decade, although not legally required to do so.

One eyebrow-raising item was the incredible gambling successes enjoyed by Joe and Josie Massino. On their joint income tax statements (only Mrs. Massino’s occupation was noted: “HW” for housewife) they showed lottery winnings totaling almost $500,000 over four years in the 1990s. Agents doubted that any couple could be so inordinately lucky year after year, but never conclusively determined whether the lottery lucre was due to pure luck or Mafia chicanery. A consensus speculated that Joe used his borgata minions to obtain winning lottery tickets, offering a premium to the legitimate holders who turned them over to him. The actual winners got cash that was unreported to the 1RS, and Massino, if audited, could cite the lottery prizes as legitimate income to account for his comfortable standard of living.

From 1996, the year the Massinos presumably began their run of lottery
successes, until 2001, their reported annual gross income ranged from $373,052 to $590,789. Sifting through piles of tax minutiae, the forensic sleuths spotted a pattern more engrossing to CPA’s than lottery gambling. They were drawn to faxes exchanged between separate accounting firms used by Massino and Vitale, concerning overlapping investments. What intrigued the agents were documents, known as K-l reports, listing partnership interests and earnings. Attempting to substantiate their legitimate incomes, Massino and Vitale, in their tax filings, had included payments from three parking lots. The K-ls documented a connection to Richard Cantarella, because his wife, Lauretta Castelli, was a third investor and officer in the parking lot companies.

By fine-tooth-combing partnership records, the agents discovered the name of another player in the deals. They found checks which Joe and Sal’s wives had written to Barry Weinberg for initial investments in the lots. Sallet and McCaffrey considered the previously unknown Weinberg’s middleman involvement in the parking lots their most promising find. Who was the mysterious Weinberg? The agents decided to focus on him as a moneymaker for the Bonannos—and a potential soft spot for penetrating the family.

With Sallet and McCaffrey leading the way, the C-10 squad in 2000 placed Weinberg under an FBI microscope, tailing him and locating his bank and financial records. Surveillance squads watched him meet and party frequently with Richard Cantarella and his Mob crew, and with Augustino Scozzari. They became familiar with Weinberg’s routine schedule, his morning departures from his posh Northern New Jersey home in Closter, and his rounds of meetings in Manhattan parking lots, restaurants, and sites in Little Italy.