Joe Bruno's Mobsters - Six Volume Set (47 page)

Mosca: You want I should talk to the fat guy? (Genovese Family Boss Fat Tony Salerno)

Castellano: Talk to the fuckin’ president for all I care. Just get me my money.

Bilotti: I don't see where this fuckin’ guy should get nothing. We set it up. We did all the work.

Castellano: If you're calling the fat guy, call the Chin (Salerno's Underboss Vincent “The Chin” Gigante).

Gloria: Mister Tommy. You finish all the cookies?

Mosca: So he takes it for six-million-nine. Cody says take it for six-seven-fifty. Something like that. Plus some jobs.

Castellano: Twelve men. Fifteen days.

Bilotti: Yeah, twelve. Fifteen.

Castellano: And the money comes up thirty percent. We do things on our own. We
gotta think of our own. Tell it to the fat guy. Tell Chin.

Mosca: It might get a little raw.

Castellano: It does, it does. What are they going to do, sue me?

The FBI was able to decipher exactly what this conversation meant. The subject of discussion was the construction of a midtown Manhattan skyscraper. Castellano was instructing his men to approach Salerno and Gigante to make sure Castellano got his proper cut of the money being skimmed off the top, and to confirm the number and duration of the no-show jobs his men would get.

The bug in the Castellano residence lasted four months. During this time Castellano was heard discussing how he was controlling the construction business, the meat packing business, and the labor unions; specifically the Teamsters, the painters union, and various unions related to the restaurant business. Castellano let the Feds know he was also involved in the pornography business, as well as stock frauds, and insurance frauds.

These tapes decisively revealed to the Feds that there were two factions within the Gambino Family, each of which had no use for the other. Castellano had the support of Bilotti and his cousin Tommy Gambino, who controlled the garment center in Manhattan. While the other faction was led by Dellacroce, and Dellacroce's “favorite son” - John Gotti.

One of Gotti's underlings was Angelo “Quack
Quack” Ruggiero, a rotund, boisterous man who got his nickname because he couldn't stop talking; on the phone, or in places that were most likely bugged by the FBI. When Ruggiero was arrested in a big heroin deal, Castellano was incensed that any of his men would dare to sell “babania,” which was forbidden in the Gambino Family and supposedly throughout the American Mafia.

Castellano immediately called Gotti on the carpet
, and he reamed Gotti a new one, saying, “Listen Johnny, you got to prove you weren't involved.”

Gotti knew this meant if Ruggiero was indeed guilty of selling dope, and if Gotti knew about Ruggiero's involvement, it was a death sentence for both
men.

Soon, Castellano discovered from lawyers involved in the case that Ruggiero had been caught on secret recordings bragging about several drug deals. Castellano demanded that Ruggiero turn over the tapes to him, and when Ruggiero refused, Castellano (on tape) went berserk, threatening to do bad things to both Ruggiero and Gotti. This is when the FBI decided to lower the boom on “Big Paul.”

On March 25, 1985, FBI agents Andris Kurins and Joseph O'Brien made a trip to Castellano's “White House,” and the told Castellano he was being arrested on RICO charges (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act). Castellano seemed quite confused when he heard the charges, because he fully didn't understand the implications of RICO.

Under the RICO Act, a person who is a member of an enterprise
and has committed any two of 35 crimes—27 federal crimes and 8 state crimes—within a 10-year period, can be charged with racketeering. The RICO Act “allows for the leaders of a crime syndicate (family) to be tried for the crimes which they ordered others to do or assisted them to do, closing a perceived loophole that allowed someone who told a man to, for example, commit murder, to be exempt from the trial because they did not actually do it themselves.”

Those found guilty under the RICO Act can be fined up to $25,000 and sentenced to 20 years in prison per racketeering count.

So Castellano, at the moment of his arrest, oblivious to the fact that his house had been bugged for more than four months, did not realize the scope of the indictment he was about to face. According to Kurins and O'Brien, Castellano first heard of the taped conversations recorded in his house on the federal car radio, while the two Feds were transporting Castellano from the “White House” to the “Big House.”

After hearing the news on the radio, Castellano told the two Feds he suddenly felt ill, and would they please stop the car at a
drug store to buy him some Tums and a candy bar for his diabetes, which was suddenly making his head swim.

However, Castellano was not the only mob bigwig arrested that day.

Under the direction of Rudolph Giuliani, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, as the cuffs were being put on Castellano, they were simultaneously putting the cuffs on Gambino Underboss Aniello Dellacroce, Fat Tony Salerno, the head of the Genovese Crime family, Lucchese boss Tony “Ducks” Corallo, Columbo boss Carmine Persico, and Rusty Rastelli, the acting boss of the Bonanno Crime Family.

Giuliani went so far as to arrest 82-year-old Bonanno Family patriarch Joseph Bonanno
at his home in Tucson, Ariz. It seemed that Giuliani was astounded and overjoyed after reading Bonanno's recent autobiography
“A Man of Honor,”
in which Bonanno admitted things about the “Sacred Society” that no made man had ever dared utter.

In addition to the RICO charges, Giuliani hit Castellano with an additional 51 charges stemming from the murders and stolen car ring perpetrated by Roy DeMeo's crew. (Rumors were that before Castellano was arrested on RICO charges, he heard from his law enforcement moles about the impending DeMeo-related indictments. Feeling that DeMeo, facing life in prison, was not the type of man to do his time quietly, Castellano ordered the murder of his most proficient murderer. DeMeo's own crew did the honors; stuffing DeMeo’s frozen body into the trunk of a car for the police to find.)

Through an FBI informant close to John Gotti (code name Wahoo – later discovered to be longtime Gotti pal Willie Boy Johnson), the Feds found out that Castellano, because of the internal strife in the Gambino Family, was planning to whack Gotti and his entire crew. Gotti, cognizant of this fact, started to make plans to do away with Castellano first. The only person stopping Gotti from doing what he wanted was Gotti's boss Dellacroce, again an old-schooler, who would never sanction a hit on his own boss. This obstacle was removed on December 2, 1985, when Dellacroce finally succumbed to the ravages of cancer.

With the coast now clear for
him, Gotti sought permission from the other mob bosses to whack Castellano before Castellano whacked him. Vincent “The Chin” Gigante issued a firm “No” to Gotti. But the other mob bosses, not liking Castellano too much, shrugged their shoulders and basically said, “Do what you got to do.”

On December 16, 1985, after finishing a 2:30 p.m. appointment in Manhattan with his lawyer James LaRosa, Castellano decided to kill a little time Christmas shopping with his chauffeur Tommy Bilotti
, before they went to their 5 p.m. appointment at Sparks Steakhouse at 210 East Forty-Fifth Street. At Sparks, Castellano and Bilotti were supposed to meet with Gotti and three other men. A table for six had already been reserved for 5 p.m. under the name “Mr. Bell.”

What Castellano didn't know was that Gotti had no plans to show up inside Sparks Steakhouse, but was, in fact, at this time in the passenger’s seat of a Mercedes driven by Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano. Gravano had parked the car at the corner of 46
th
Street and Third Avenue, where he and Gotti had one eye trained on the entrance to Sparks and the other eye on Third Avenue, waiting for Castellano's black Lincoln to make its appearance. On the street surrounding Sparks were anywhere from eight to 10 of Gotti's men; armed with guns and walkie-talkies, ready to take action.

At approximately 5:30 p.m., with Castellano now fashionably late, Castellano's Lincoln made the turn from Third Avenue onto 46
th
Street and parked in front of Sparks. As soon as Bilotti exited the driver's side, he was met by a hail of bullets, allegedly fired by Gotti henchman Tony “Roach” Rampino, rendering Bilotti quite dead.

As Castellano was exiting on the passenger side, he turned toward the street to see what all the commotion was about. Before Castellano could decipher he was soon to be a dead man, another Gotti shooter, allegedly John Carneglia, pumped six bullets into Big Paul, thereby ending the reign of Paul Castellano as the head of the Gambino Crime Family.

C
otton Club

THE BLACKS WERE ON THE STAGE.

THE WHITES WERE AT THE TABLES.

THE MOBSTERS WERE BEHIND THE SCENES.

AND SOMEHOW THE MAGIC TOUCHED THEM ALL

– Jim Haskins - “The Cotton Club.”

In the 1890s, Harlem
was a land speculator's dream. The elevated railroad lines that had been extended to 129th Street in Manhattan had transformed the area from the hinterlands to what was called “The Great Migration.”

At the time, black families lived mostly in the area between 37
th
and 58
th
Streets, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. The upper crust of society viewed Harlem as the next step for the upwardly mobile, and as a result, splendorous townhouses costing thousands more than comparables downtown were being built as fast as the Harlem land could be purchased by speculators.

By 1905,
however, the Harlem real estate market dropped through the floor. Land speculators were forced to face the fact that the townhouses had been built too quickly and the prices were far above what people were prepared to pay.

On the verge of bankruptcy, the land speculators used tactics that today would be illegal. They rented their buildings to black tenants, far above what they would charge white tenants. Then, in a frenzy to recapture their losses, the land speculators approached white building owners, and
they told them if they didn't purchase their vacant buildings they would rent them out exclusively to blacks, thereby reducing the value of the white landowner's properties.

The white landowners didn't bite, so the land speculators made good on their promises. Whites began moving out of Harlem in droves, replaced by black families who had never lived in such a fine neighborhood. Black churches followed their congregations from the slums of Manhattan to the splendor of Harlem, and by the early 1920s, Harlem was the largest black community in the United States.

However, most blacks could not afford the high rents charged by the white building owners, so they took in tenants, resulting in two and sometimes three families living in a one, or two-bedroom apartment. Coinciding with the overcrowding of Harlem, came the influx of illegal enterprises, such as numbers running, houses of prostitution, and drug dealers. This was counteracted somewhat when prosperous blacks, mostly in the entertainment business, decided Harlem was where they could showcase their talents in a neighborhood filled with people of their own race.

Fritz Pollard, noted All-American football player, who made his money in real estate, moved to Harlem, as did fellow All-Americ
an football player Paul Robeson; destined to hone an outstanding career acting and singing on stage. They were quickly followed by famous singers like Ethel Walters and Florence Mills, and Harlem was ready for a renaissance equal to that of the glowing White Way on Broadway.

However, where there was money to be made, white gangsters like Dutch Schultz and Owney “The Killer” Madden were ready to jump in and take the
profits; by force if necessary. Schultz muscled his way into the Harlem numbers business, chasing out such black notables as Madam Stephanie St. Claire and Caspar Holstein. During the height of Prohibition, Madden had his eyes on the perfect place to sell his bootleg booze: The
Club Deluxe
on 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue.

The
Club Deluxe
was owned by former world heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion of the world. Whereas, Johnson was proficient with his fists, Madden and his formidable crew were good with guns, knives, and bats. A few choice words, backed up with the threat of violence and few meager bucks thrown in, forced Johnson to hand over
Club Deluxe
to Madden and his partner/manager George “Big Frenchy” DeMange. The two gangsters renamed it
The Cotton Club
.

Not to totally insult a black man
of Johnson’s stature, Madden threw Johnson a bone. Madden allowed Johnson to hang around the joint, showcasing his black tuxedo and a toothy smile. Johnson told customers he was the assistant manager of
The Cotton Club
under DeMange, but that was not true and just a way for Johnson to save face.

To understand why such a great heavyweight boxer like Johnson would cower before Madden, who was barely five-foot-five-inches and 140 pounds after a huge dinner, one would have to understand Madden's background.