Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires (88 page)

Corallo shunted aside the knowledge that both Casso and Amuso were accomplished narcotics traffickers. Vic Amuso had served a prison sentence for a heroin conviction, and Gaspipe had beaten narcotics charges. Corallo must have suspected that much of the riches they brought to him came from drug deals, a practice ostensibly prohibited by him under penalty of death. It no longer mattered.

At the conclusion of the Staten Island meeting, Amuso was designated as the heir to assume Corallo’s post as soon as Tony Ducks was trucked off to a life sentence in prison. Only one account of that fateful session has emerged: Casso’s version. According to Gaspipe, Corallo, heeding Furnari’s advice, decided the leadership could be safely entrusted to either of the consigliere’s protégés. “Corallo said, ‘One of them has to come up [become boss]’ and Christie took me and Amuso into the next room in order for us to decide.” Claiming he had no ambition for the family’s highest position, Casso says he determined the outcome by endorsing Amuso as the next godfather of the Lucchese family. Although he had once declined becoming a capo in favor of Amuso, Casso soon accepted promotions to consigliere and then underboss in the new setup.

As 1987 began, the old Lucchese hierarchy was imprisoned for life. Ducks Corallo’s parting gift to his beloved borgata was a peaceful transfer of power that he was certain would ensure the family’s future.

He was dead wrong.

Blood Purge

F
or decades, the Lucchese family was roughly divided into three parts, its main contingent based in Manhattan and the Bronx, and two strong battalions operating in Brooklyn and New Jersey. Before Vic Amuso’s anointment, the three previous bosses came from the Manhattan-Bronx section, the family’s birthplace, and stocked with the largest crews. The first leaders to emerge from the Brooklyn faction, Vic Amuso and Gaspipe Casso now controlled the third-largest Mafia dominion in New York, consisting of some 120 made men and nearly 1,000 associates and wannabes.

From bugs and informers, federal and state investigators pieced together the high-level changes in the Lucchese borgata. Gregory J. O’Connell, a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn assigned to the Lucchese unit, was tracking the new command structure. Early on, he concluded, “Amuso has the title of boss but the brains and driving force behind the family is Gaspipe.” Amuso began almost every day working out by playing handball near his home in Howard Beach, and FBI agents picked up street gossip that Vic was more interested in his sport than the nuts-and-bolts tasks of running the family.

Amuso and Casso were strangers to the capos commanding the Manhattan-Bronx and New Jersey crews. Most of them were older, more experienced mafiosi, and more than likely puzzled by or resentful of the startling ascension
of the two Brooklyn wiseguys. Distrustful of the loyalties of the entrenched capos, the new leaders were determined to impose their own dictatorial authority. Motivated by paranoia and unbounded avarice, their strategy unleashed an internal and external reign of terror that rivaled Murder Incorporated’s. Before the purge ended, some forty victims—mainly Lucchese made men and associates—lay dead or had vanished and were presumed slain. Most were slaughtered after being labeled by Casso, rightly or wrongly, as disloyal or as informers.

One of the first capos to disappear was the Bronx’s Anthony “Buddy” Luongo, who was clipped shortly before Amuso and Casso were officially installed. Luongo’s sin: Corallo was believed to have briefly considered naming him as his successor. He might, therefore, be envious of the Brooklyn upstarts who were taking over the borgata. Casso explained to an underling, Alphonse D’Arco, that he and Amuso resolved the potential headache, admitting, “We killed Luongo and buried him.”

For a decade, Michael Pappadio, a Bronx soldier, was Ducks Corallo’s deputy in the Garment Center, having inherited the important job from his older brother, Andimo. Pappadio was a good earner, funneling to the hierarchy millions of dollars every year from companies he was shaking down for labor peace, and from his own loan-sharking business in the commercial heart of Manhattan. Pappadio’s holdings included a secret partnership in a profitable Mob trucking company that had exclusive rights to operate in the Garment Center. Suspecting that Pappadio might be skimming profits for himself, Casso and Amuso abruptly replaced him with Sidney Lieberman, a more trustworthy lackey and associate who worked for them. Since Lieberman was Jewish, they felt he would know how to wring more money from the Jewish-owned companies that predominated in the clothing industry. Lieberman knew his way around the district, and had been the source of rumors that Pappadio was cheating the new administration out of $15 million a year from his rackets. A defiant Pappadio, citing his status as a made man and a former confidant of Ducks Corallo, balked at being ousted from a plum spot by a non-Mafia outsider, a “Jew bastard.” He made a grievous mistake. Acting on orders from Casso, a hit team one Sunday morning drove Pappadio to Crown Bagels, a Queens bakery that was owned by a Lucchese soldier. Pappadio thought a routine Mob meeting was to take place. When he entered, one killer shouted, “Surprise!” as another thug battered him over the skull with a heavy copper cable. “What are you doing that for?” a staggering Pappadio moaned, trying to stay on his feet. A
third hood finished the contract, firing several shots into Pappadio’s head at point-blank range.

The new regime had an ideal method of disposing of bodies. Pappadio’s corpse was cremated by a funeral home that provided favors for George Zappola, a made man and Casso’s ally.

A second Bronx capo high on Casso’s “house cleaning” list was Michael Salerno. He was found in the trunk of his car, shot in the head, his throat slashed from ear to ear. In charge of a large and prosperous crew, Salerno was viewed by Casso and Amuso as a potential challenger to their authority, who was piqued at their promotions over him. He posed another problem for the new leaders because he had been close to Christie “Tick” Furnari, and Casso and Amuso suspected that he knew too much about their pasts, their “dirty laundry.” Casso’s stated reason for killing Salerno was that he was “a rat,” and had skimmed money from the family’s hierarchs by secretly running a profitable garbage landfill in Pennsylvania. As a bonus for Casso and Amuso after Salerno’s demise they acquired the income from his shylock book, totaling about $7 million in usurious loans.

A Bronx soldier, Anthony DiLapi, handled labor rackets for the family through his post as a corrupt teamsters’ union business agent. Sensing the animosity of the new family leaders, DiLapi relocated to California and was swiftly declared disloyal and a plotter against the administration. DiLapi was the nephew of the imprisoned former underboss, Tom Mix Santoro, and Amuso and Casso spun a story that before the Commission case he had schemed with his uncle against Ducks Corallo. With the help of information from the paid-off New York detectives, Casso traced DiLapi to California, where he was gunned down by a four-man hit squad from New York. To get DiLapi, Casso authorized an unusually high expenditure of $10,000 to cover the cross-country expenses of the murderers.

John Petrocelli’s error was bragging about his loyalty to a mobster friend, Gus Farace, a Bonanno associate, who had killed a federal narcotics enforcement agent named Everett Hatcher. The agent’s murder sparked a wide manhunt and brought immense pressure on the New York families to give up the killer. A general order was issued by leaders of the five families that no help should be given to Farace. Petrocelli was hiding the fugitive, and Casso sent him word that Farace must be killed immediately, thereby ending the Mob’s problem. When Petrocelli refused to knock off Farace, a Casso squad shot the disobedient mobster to death in the hallway of his Yonkers apartment building.
His attempt to protect his friend was fruitless. Determined to get the law off the Mafia’s back, Bonanno gunmen found Farace’s hideout and killed him.

Bruno Facciolo, a Lucchese soldier in Brooklyn, fell out of favor with Gaspipe by neglecting to visit him in 1986 while he was recuperating from the ambush attempt on his life. Casso’s enmity was further fueled by Facciolo’s socializing with Gambino members, and by a rumor that he had slipped information to the authorities about the DiLapi murder. The two rogue detectives helped out, reporting that they believed Facciolo was working for the FBI. Lured by fellow Lucchese soldiers to a meeting at a Brooklyn auto-body repair shop, Facciolo realized too late that he had been set up. Trying to flee on foot, he was tackled to the sidewalk and dragged inside the shop; passersby made no attempt to intervene or call the police. Aware of his fate, Facciolo begged a last favor—a telephone call to bid farewell to his daughter. The three killers refused. Shot and stabbed, Facciolo’s body was found in a car trunk with a canary stuffed in his mouth, the traditional Mafia warning to squealers.

Facciolo’s brutal death provoked the murders of two of his Mob partners to prevent them from retaliating. Al Visconti and Larry Taylor, Lucchese associates who specialized with Facciolo in jewel burglaries and holdups, were stalked and shot to death by Casso’s assigned gunmen. Visconti was deliberately shot several times in the groin; the new leaders believed he was homosexual and had disgraced the family.

Corrupt union leaders paid a heavy price for conspiracies with Casso and Amuso. Starting in the late 1950s, the Lucchese borgata had forged alliances with union officials to extort millions in payoffs from painting contractors in return for preventing eleventh-hour construction headaches. (As the last construction workers on jobs, painters can create exceptionally costly delays for contractors and developers through slowdowns.) The corrupt painting contractors were further rewarded by mobsters with sweetheart collective-bargaining agreements and permission to hire cheaper, nonunion workers. Investigations by state and federal prosecutors in the late 1980s threatened the arrangements and alarmed the new Lucchese lions, who feared that they might be exposed to indictments. Casso saw James Bishop, a former top official of the six-hundred-member painters’ union and a Democratic Party district leader, as a weak participant and the most likely individual to cooperate with prosecutors for a lenient sentence. If he defected, Bishop would have plenty to tell. Unscrupulous
union leaders and their Mob partners were dividing with Casso and Amuso kickbacks of up to 10 percent of net profits on almost every large public and private painting contract in the city. On a huge subway job alone, they had split $4 million with the Luccheses.

Casso again called on the corrupt detectives, and they confirmed that Bishop was “singing” to the Manhattan DA’s office. So, one May morning, as Bishop prepared to drive off after spending a night in his mistress’s Queens apartment, two Casso gunmen made sure he would never testify. He was shot eight times in the head and chest with silencer-equipped automatics.

Along with Genovese, Colombo, and Gambino leaders, Casso and Amuso were reaping steady protection payoffs from companies allowed to participate in rigged inflated bids for the installation of windows at public housing projects. As the FBI closed in on the racket in 1989, the Lucchese bosses grew apprehensive about a linchpin in the conspiracy, John “Sonny” Morrissey, a shop steward in an ironworkers’ local representing window installers. The union had long been a Lucchese fief, and Morrissey, a bagman for the borgata, knew a great deal about the mechanics of the shake-downs and the distribution of payoffs to his Mafia handlers. A burly ironworker and a crude scrapper, he proudly advertised himself as a gangster. “I’m a thief and a hoodlum,” he often exclaimed after a few drinks. Taking no chances that the talkative Morrissey might sing to the authorities, Casso ordered his extermination with the proviso that his body should not be found; his disappearance would look as if he had fled, seeking to avoid prosecution. Persuading Morrisey to spend a carefree day in the country with them, Lucchese hit men made a detour, pulling up at a deserted housing development site in rural New Jersey. The first gunshot grazed the disbelieving Morrissey. “I’m not a rat,” he moaned, crumpling to his knees. As the executioners advanced toward him, he implored them to finish him off quickly and painlessly. They hid his body under tons of landfill. Though his words had failed to save him, Morrisey had been truthful; he had not cooperated with the FBI.

Casso and Amuso exhibited rare moments of relative compassion for their perceived opponents. In his late seventies, and in poor health, Mariano “Mac” Macaluso, a former consigliere, was nevertheless added to Casso’s “enemies list.” Wealthy and widely respected as an elder by Lucchese mobsters, Macaluso had been a Lucchese soldier for fifty years and could become a threat if he joined a dissenting movement. Summoned to a restaurant meeting by Alphonse D’Arco, a courier from Casso and Amuso, Macaluso was ordered
to give up his illicit interests. Macaluso sobbed, “I’m being thrown to the side. It’s unfair.” D’Arco’s reply was blunt: the choices were mandatory retirement or death.

Casso now had the power and troops to settle personal scores. His first priority was identifying and hunting down the gunmen who had ambushed and wounded him in Brooklyn. Aware of Casso’s unforgiving fury, the incompetent shooters had scattered to different hideouts after failing to kill him. Target number one for Casso was the principal member of the hit team, James Hydell, a small-time drug trafficker and hoodlum from Staten Island, a half-Italian associate in a Gambino crew. Hydell was the nephew of
Gambino capo
Danny Marino, a fact that did not earn him clemency from Casso.