Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires (16 page)

A codefendant in the Commission Case and Castellano’s underboss, Aniello Dellacroce was fatally ill with cancer when he was indicted on murder and racketeering accusations. He was the mentor of future Gambino boss John J. Gotti. Dellacroce’s death in 1986 unleashed a cataclysmic upheaval in the Gambino family.
(Photo courtesy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation)

Free on a $2 million bond, Big Paul Castellano was killed by gunmen as he arrived for dinner with capos at a Manhattan restaurant on December 18, 1985. Even as the Gambino godfather’s body was being removed, investigators focused on John Gotti as the new Gambino emperor and prime suspect behind the rubout.
(Crime Scene Photo)

Anthony Salerno, a prominent figure in the Commission Case, sent fellow mafiosi Christmas cards in the early 1980s. “Fat Tony” posed in pajamas, a bathrobe, a baseball cap on backwards, and his trademark cigar. The FBI and prosecutors branded him the notorious head of the Genovese family but later discovered that he had never been a godfather or boss.
(Author’s archive)

The gangland murder of Carmine “Lilo” Galante at a Brooklyn restaurant in July 1979 was a controversial issue at the Commission trial. Prosecutors claimed that the Commission authorized the hit to prevent Galante from taking over the Bonanno family and dominating the Mafia’s narcotics trafficking. Galante’s body is on the right of the table with a cigar clenched in his mouth.
(Photo courtesy of the New York City Police Department)

Six years after Galante’s murder, Pat Marshall, the FBI case agent for the Commission investigation, used a new technology to obtain a latent palm print from the getaway car. The print enabled the prosecution to indict Anthony Bruno Indelicato, a Bonanno soldier, as a member of the hit team.
(Photo courtesy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation)

G. Robert Blakey, law professor and former Justice Department prosecutor, was the chief architect in 1970 of RICO—the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act. For almost ten years Blakey tried vainly to persuade federal prosecutors to use the law to attack entrenched Mafia families.
(Photo courtesy of G. Robert Blakey)

Rudolph Giuliani (right), the United States Attorney in Manhattan, who utililized the RICO law, and Judge William Webster, the FBI Director, provide details of the Commission indictment at a news conference in February 1985. Although it is unclear who first proposed using RICO against the Commission, Giuliani is credited with being the catalyst for developing the case.
(Photo courtesy of United States Department of Justice)

Carmine Persico (left), the boss of the Colombo family, on a walk-talk in Brooklyn, with bodyguard and ace partner in crime, Hugh “Apples” McIntosh, in the early 1970s. The moody Persico elicited contradictory nicknames. To his admirers he was “Junior;” to his detractors, “the Snake.”
(Surveillance photo courtesy of the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor)

Facing two RICO trials, Persico hid out as a fugitive in 1984 and became the only Mafia boss ever included in the FBI’s list of Ten Most Wanted Criminals.
(Photo courtesy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation)

Eluding an FBI dragnet for four months, Persico was betrayed by a relative in whose Long Island home he was hiding. Handcuffed and covering his face, Persico later autographed his Most Wanted posters for arresting agents.
(Photo courtesy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation)

Normally well groomed and a natty dresser, Gennaro Langella, the Colombo underboss, sprouted a beard and dressed less fashionably to escape arrest as a codefendant with Persico. The disguise failed when an informer tipped the FBI to “Jerry Lang’s” hideout.
(Photo courtesy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation)