Joe Bruno's Mobsters - Six Volume Set (53 page)

Alas, all good things must come to an end.

In April 1962, Galante's second trial commenced.

At the trial, there was a bit of mayhem in the courtroom, when one of Galante's co-defendants, a nasty creature named Tony Mirra (who was said to have killed 3
0-40 people) became so unhinged that he picked up a chair and flung it at the prosecutor. Luckily for the prosecutor, the chair missed him and landed in the jury box, forcing the frightened jurors to scatter in all directions. Order was restored to the court, and the trial proceeded, which was bad news for Galante and for Mirra.

Both men were found guilty, and on July 10, 1962, Galante was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Mirra also was sent to prison for a very long time. It is not clear if any additional time was tacked onto Mirra's sentence for the chair-throwing incident.

Galante first was sent to Alcatraz Prison, which was located on an island fortress in San Francisco Bay. He was then moved to the Lewisburg Penitentiary, in Leavenworth, Kansas, before serving the final years of his prison term in the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia. Galante was finally released from prison on January 24, 1974, full of fire and brimstone and ready to get back into business. However, Galante was to be on parole until 1981, so he had to be careful not to keep a high profile.

Unfortunately, being in the background was not in Galante's makeup.

While in prison, Galante made it known that when he got out he was going to take control of the New York Mafia by the throat.

The accepted head of the five New York City Mafia families at the time was Carlo Gambino, the head of the Gambino crime family. Gambino wa
s shrewd, and generally quiet and reserved. Gambino was well-respected for his business acumen and for his ability to keep peace amongst his own family, as well as the other Mafia families. However, Galante had no use for Gambino or his method of doing business. Galante told a cohort in jail, that when he hit the streets again, he would “make Carlo Gambino shit in the middle of Times Square.”

By the time of Galante's release, his boss Joe Bon
anno had been forced to “retire” and was living in Tucson, Ariz. The new Bonanno boss was Rusty Rastelli. But since Rastelli was in the slammer at the time, Galante took over as the “street boss” of the Bonannos. Still, Rastelli was considered the boss of the Bonannos, and he was none too happy about how Galante was strutting his stuff on the streets of New York City.

Galante took the unusual step, and not appreciated by other Bonanno crime family members, of surrounding himself with Sicilian-born Mafioso
, like Caesar Bonventre, Salvatore Catalano, and Baldo Amato. These men were derisively called “zips” by the American Mafia because of the quick way they zipped through the Italian language. These zips were heavily involved in the drug trade and in direct competition with those in the Genovese Crime Family, which was run by Funzi Tieri, every bit as cunning and vicious as Galante.

Galante had a minor setback, when in 1978, he was arrested by the Feds for “associating with known criminals,” which was a violation of his parole. While Galante stewed in prison, he began ordering his men to kill mobsters in the Genovese
and the Gambino crime families who were cutting in on Galante's worldwide drug operation. With Carlo Gambino now dead (from natural causes), Galante figured he had the muscle to push the other crime family bosses into the background.

From prison
Galante sent out the message to the other bosses, “Who among you is going to stand up against me?”

On March 1, 1979, G
alante was released from prison and walking on air because he truly believed the other crime bosses were afraid of him. Like Vito Genovese, Galante envisioned himself as “Boss of All Bosses,” and it was only a matter of time before the other bosses cowered before Galante and handed him the title.

However, Galante underestimated the might and
the will of the other Mafioso bosses in New York City.

While Galante swaggered around the streets of New York City, the other bosses held a meeting in Boca Raton, Florida, deciding Galante's fate. At this meeting were Funzi Tieri, Jerry Catena, Paul Castellano, and Florida boss Santo Trafficante. These powerful men voted unanimously, if mob peace was to exist on the streets of New York City, Galante had to go. Rastelli, who wa
s still in jail, was consulted. And even the aged Joe Bonanno, living in Arizona, was asked if he had any reservations at his former close associate being hit. Both Rastelli and Bonanno signed off on Galante's murder contract and Galante's days were numbered.

On July 12, 1979, it was a hot and sticky summer
afternoon, as the 69-year-old Carmine Galante's Lincoln pulled up at 205 Knickerbocker Avenue in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. For more than 50 years, Knickerbocker Avenue had been the turf of the Bonanno crime family, and over the years numerous mob sit-downs had taken place in one of several storefronts on the block.

Carmine Galante stepped out of the Lincoln,
and then he waved goodbye to the driver, his nephew James Galante. Carmine Galante was wearing a white short-sleeved knit shirt, and as was his custom, he was sucking on a huge Churchill cigar.

Galante strutted inside the tiny restaurant, and
he was greeted by Joe Turano, the owner of Joe and Mary’s Restaurant. Galante had made this visit to meet with Turano and with Leonard “Nardo” Coppola, a close associate of Galante’s, over some undetermined mob business.

At approximately 1:30 p.m., Coppola strolled into the restaurant, accompanied by zips Baldo Amato and Cesa
re Bonventre, who were cousins and from the same village as Galante's parents, Castellammarese del Golfo.

By this time, Galante and Turano had already finished their meal, so while the three newcomers sat inside and ate their lunch, Galante and Turano slipped outside into the backyard patio
, and they sat under a yellow-and-turquoise checkered umbrella. After Coppola, Bonventre, and Amato finished dining, they joined the other two men outside. Galante and Turano were smoking cigars and drinking espresso coffee laced with Anisette (only tourists and non-Italians drink Sambuca).

Galante was sitting with his back to a small gard
en, while Amato sat to his left and Bonventre to his right. Turano and Coppola sat on the opposite side of the table, their backs to the door leading to the restaurant.

At approximately 2:40 p.m., a four-door, blue Mercury Montego double-parked in front of Joe and Mary's Restaurant. The car had been stolen about a month earlier. The driver, wearing a red-stripe
d ski mask, stepped out of the car and stood guard, holding a .3030 M1 carbine rifle menacingly in his hands. Three other men, also wearing ski masks, jumped out of the car, and they jogged into the restaurant. The killers sped past the few startled diners who were still eating lunch, and they rushed into the patio area.

As they entered the patio, one masked man sa
id to the other, “Get him, Sal!”

The gunman called “Sal” began firing a double-barrel shotgun several times at Galante, propelling Galante, as he was rising from his chair, onto his back. Galante was hit
by 30 pellets, one knocking out his left eye. Galante was probably dead before he hit the ground, but his cigar was still stuck tightly between his teeth.

As Galante was being shot, Joe Turano yelled, “What are you doing?”

The same gunman turned to Turano, and with the shotgun pressed against Turano's chest, he blasted Turano into eternity.

Coppola jumped up from the table, and either Amato, or Bonventre (it's not clear which one did the shooting) shot Coppola in the face, then five times in the chest. Coppola landed face down,
and the killer with the shotgun blasted off the back of Coppola's head.

The three masked men hurried fro
m the restaurant and into the waiting getaway car.

According to witnesses outside the restaurant, the car sped up Knickerbocker Avenue to Flushing Avenue,
and then disappeared around the corner. Bonventre and Amato, who were both wearing leather jackets despite the stifling heat, soon followed the three gunmen out of the restaurant. They calmly walked down the block, got into a blue Lincoln and then drove away, like they hadn’t a care in the world.

Galante’s body was laid out in the Provenzano-Lanza Funeral Home at 43 Second Avenue on the Lower East Side
of Manhattan. The crowds that usually accompany a Mafia wake of this kind were notably absent.

Galante was buried on July 17 at Saint John’s Cemetery in Queens. With the Feds doing the counting, only 59 people attended Galante's funeral mass and burial. The Feds also reported that not one Mafia made man was captured on surveilla
nce cameras, either at the wake or at the funeral.

One Fed, commenting at the sparse turnout, said, “Galante was so bad, people didn’t want to see him, even when he was dead.”

Even though the newspapers played up the killing with gruesome front page photos, the general public seemed impervious to the magnitude of the event. A young boy strolled up to a police officer standing guard at the wake.

“Was he an actor?” the kid
asked the cop.

The cop replied, “No, he was a gangster.”

G
ambino, Carlo

He was a quiet
man who dressed inconspicuously and was known to never lose his temper. But there is no doubt Carlo Gambino, with his huge hawk nose and enigmatic Mona Lisa-smile, was one of the most powerful Mafia bosses of all time.

Gambino was born in Palermo, Sicily on August 24, 1902. The area of Palermo, called
Caccamo in which Gambino grew up, had such an intense Mafia presence the police and even the military were afraid to enter into its domain. That left the Mafioso to rule the area with impunity, knowing whatever crimes they committed would not be reported to the police; if the police even cared what happened in the first place.

Carlo's mother's maiden name was Castellano, and she used her influence with her family, who were Mafiosos, to introduce Gambino to “Men of Respect” when Gambino was barely a teenager. Gambino, only 5-foot-7 and slight of build, quietly impressed his superiors w
ith his calmness, his intellect and his ability to do whatever was necessary, even if it meant whacking someone whom his bosses said needed to be erased.

In 1921, right before his 20th birthday, Gambino was rewarded for his good work by being inducted into the Mafia, or what was known in Italy as the “Honored Society.” However, because of Benito Mussolini's vendetta against the Mafia (Mussolini had arrested
numerous Mafioso, including top Mafia boss Don Vito Cascio Ferro who was sentenced to life in prison), many Mafioso, including Gambino, decided that Sicily was too dangerous for them to exist in the manner in which they had been accustomed. As a result, there was a huge exodus of Mafioso to the mountain of gold across the Atlantic Ocean called America.

In late 1921, Gambino left Sicily on the freighter
SS Vincenzo Florio,
which was headed for America. For the entire trip, Gambino subsisted on nothing but wine and anchovies, which besides olive oil were the only food substances on the ship.

The
SS Vincenzo Florio
docked in Norfolk, Virginia, on December 23, 1921, and Gambino disembarked as an illegal immigrant. Wearing a natty three-piece suit and a black fedora, Gambino walked down the gangplank looking for a car, with flashing lights at the end of the dock, he was told would be waiting for him when he landed in America.

Gambino spotted the car
, and when he reached the vehicle, he saw a Castellano cousin sitting behind the wheel. The two men embraced, and in seconds they were headed to New York City.

When Gambino arrived in New York City
, he discovered that his Castellano cousins had already rented him an apartment on Navy Street in Brooklyn, near the waterfront. They also put Gambino to work in a trucking company owned by his first cousins, Peter and Paul Castellano. Soon, Gambino segued into the illegal bootlegging business, run by his Palermo pal, Tommy Lucchese.

Prohibition was instituted by the passing of the Volstead Act in 1919, which banned the manufacture, sale, or
transportation of intoxicating liquors, but not the consumption. One thing led to another, and soon Gambino was a main cog in the crew of Joe “The Boss” Masseria, the most powerful Mafioso in America.

However, another Mafioso had escaped Mussolini's wrath and arrived in America in the mid-1920s. His name was Salvatore Maranzano, second in command to Don Vito Cascio Ferro in Sicily. Maranzano figured the Sicilian Mafioso were much superior to those in America, so it was only natural that he should become the top Mafia boss in America. This did not sit well with Masseria, and the result was the Castellammarese War, which flooded the streets of New York City with scores of dead bodies from 1929-31.

Masseria's crew was soon joined by top Mafia men such as Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, Albert Anastasia, and Vito Genovese, who were well-connected to Jewish gangsters Meyer Lansky, Louie “Lepke” Buchalter, and Bugsy Siegel. However, since Masseria did not like his men doing business with non-Sicilians , Luciano, Costello, Anastasia, and Genovese bided their time, hoping that maybe both Masseria and Maranzano would knock each other off so that the younger men could take control of all their operations.