Manhattan Mafia Guide (7 page)

In 1964, D’Ercole was sentenced to twenty years in prison for heroin distribution;
²⁶
he died sixteen years later.

D
E
F
EO
, P
ETER

219 Mott Street, 1910–20; 276 Mulberry Street, 1930; 130 West Twelfth Street

Alias: Phil Aquilino

Born: March 4, 1902, New York City

Died: April 6, 1993, New York City

Association: Genovese crime family capo

This “Mayor of Little Italy” was a popular longtime capo in the Genovese crime family who also operated the Ross Paper Stock Company at 150 Mercer Street and Ross Trucking Company on Mulberry Street through the 1980s.

DeFeo’s parents, Giuseppe and “Mary,” immigrated to New York City in 1893 at sixteen and thirteen years old, respectively. They married soon after, in 1896, and gave birth to Peter while living on Mott Street.

Young Peter DeFeo “came up” through a Vito Genovese crew based in his native neighborhood, which was led by (future consigliere) Michele “Mike” Miranda. DeFeo proved his loyalty to Genovese on September 9, 1934, when he, Miranda and three associates gunned down a man named Ferdinand “the Shadow” Boccia, a racketeer who had a fallout with Genovese over a business venture. Both Genovese and DeFeo were indicted for the murder, but Genovese fled to Italy, while DeFeo hid out at a hotel resort in Tennanah Lake, New York.
²⁷

The group would eventually reunite in New York City, where DeFeo continued his support of underboss Vito Genovese’s quest for control of the family. By the time Genovese had dethroned Costello via a bullet to the head in 1957, DeFeo had risen to the rank of capo and would, for the next couple of decades, control his crew’s operations out of Little Italy.

In October 1963, DeFeo and six other Mafioso were arrested while drinking coffee in Lombardi’s Restaurant at 53 Spring Street and charged with “consorting for unlawful purposes”; however, all charges were dropped by November 3.
²⁸

In May 1968, Peter DeFeo, along with gangsters James “Jimmy Doyle” Plumeri and Edward “Eddie Buff” Lanzieri, was charged with conspiring to share in tens of thousands of dollars in kickbacks from union member welfare and pension plans.
²⁹

In August 1969, DeFeo was identified in a Unites States Justice Department press release listing the nation’s top Mafia bosses.
³⁰
Between 1969 and 1970, DeFeo’s name was mentioned several times by witnesses in the public hearing of a Joint Legislative Committee on Crime investigation into the mob.

In 1979, during a two-year investigation into corruption of the local construction industry, authorities taped the president of the twenty-five-thousand-strong New York District Council of Carpenters, Theodore “Teddy” Maritas, bragging about his mob connections, including the admission of “belonging” to DeFeo, stating, “As far as Pete’s concerned, you know this…the carpenters are his. Let’s face it, including myself.”
³¹

Maritas was also co-chairman of Ed Koch’s labor committee during his 1977 mayoral bid. Koch later appointed Maritas to the Public Development Corporation, a city agency that develops building projects, but in 1981, he was brought up on charges of racketeering, extortion and taking payoffs to permit nonunion members to work on construction sites. Before Maritas had a chance to stand trial, he disappeared.

Peter DeFeo retired in the late 1980s and passed away of natural causes at ninety-one.

D
IOGUARDI
, J
OHN

169 Forsyth Street, 1920

Alias: Johnny Dio

Born: April 29, 1914, New York City (b. Dioguardi, Giovanni Ignazio)

Died: January 12, 1979, Lewisberg, Pennsylvania (federal prison)

Association: Luciano/Genovese crime family

Johnny Dio, as Dioguardi is best known, was a prominent and well-respected Mafioso who wielded great power over New York City’s garment industry and was instrumental in Jimmy Hoffa’s bid for presidency of the Teamsters union.

Along with his two brothers, Frankie and Thomas, Dioguardi was raised in a mob family and introduced to the Mafia as a teenager. Their father, Giovanni Dioguardi, was killed in August 1930 in what authorities called a mob-associated hit,
³²
and his uncle was Giacomo “Jimmy Doyle” Plumeri, a Lucchese crime family member.

By the early 1930s, young Johnny Dio was working for a Plumeri crew as a labor-slugger in the garment industry, a job that introduced him to the politics of the labor unions he would eventually control.

In March 1937, Dioguardi was sentenced to three years in Sing Sing prison after pleading guilty to charges of extortion, conspiracy and racketeering. After his release, he spent a short time in Allentown, Pennsylvania, before returning to New York City.

James Riddle Hoffa (February 14, 1913–?) was a powerful midwestern Teamster leader who had established the Central States Pension Fund in the early 1950s, a fund that subsequently allowed the Mafia access to millions of dollars in union pensions.
³³
(It is said that much of the mob’s casino activity in the 1950s was funded by the illegal Teamster pension program.) In a bid for the Teamster presidency, Hoffa’s greatest obstacle was the support of New York City unions, so he sought to form alliances with Anthony Corallo and John Dioguardi.

Hoffa was introduced to Dioguardi by Paul “Red” Dorfman, president of the Waste Handler’s Union. Dioguardi was not a Teamster, but several influential United Auto Workers–American Federation of Labor (UAW-AFL) locals were under his control, and he’d had a working relationship with the organization since the 1930s. Corallo outright owned one Teamster local and controlled several others.
³⁴

Dioguardi spent sixty days in jail for tax evasion in 1954, which led to his removal from the UAW-AFL, but by December 1955, he and Corallo had chartered seven “paper” Teamster locals—phony organizations with the minimum required membership—which helped Hoffa win the presidency in 1956, a position he would hold until 1971.

That same year, Dioguardi was indicted,
³⁵
along with five associates, for conspiring to injure a federal racketeering trial witness named Victor Riesel, who had sulfuric acid thrown in his face by Abraham “Leo” Telvi on April 5, while exiting the old Lindy’s Restaurant at 1655 Broadway. Reisel was a popular labor journalist who was outspoken against the mob’s racketeering operations and had finished a radio interview critical of local union leaders just hours before the attack took place.

Telvi, who was himself injured in the assault when the acid splashed on his face as well, sought to be compensated above what was agreed for the hit. The twenty-year-old hired thug apparently felt that Dioguardi, who had recruited him for the job, would be easy to shakedown since the mobster was under the scrutiny of law enforcement. Dioguardi agreed to pay; however, Telvi was gunned down outside 240 Centre Street before he had a chance to collect. All charges against Dioguardi in the Riesel attack were eventually dropped after several trial delays.

Legal troubles were just beginning for the veteran gangster, who would spend most of the rest of his life in court or behind bars. In August 1957, Dioguardi refused to answer questions from the United States Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management, which was investigating his relationship with Hoffa and illegal union activity.

Over the next decade, Dioguardi faced a series of back-to-back trials—charged with everything from extortion to tax evasion—but stealthy tactics by his legal team kept the mobster from spending any lengthy time in jail until 1970. On October 2 of that year, fifty-six-year-old Dioguardi entered a Lewisburg, Pennsylvania prison to begin serving a five-year sentence for bankruptcy fraud and conspiracy. He would not see the light of day as a free man again.

While in prison, a forty-count indictment was filed on May 27, 1971, against Johnny Dio and eight associates, charged with conspiring to “violate provisions of the federal securities laws and regulations”
³⁶
(stock fraud), as well as federal mail and wire fraud. On January 26, 1973, Dioguardi was found guilty on four of nineteen counts against him and sentenced to an extra thirty years behind bars.

Dioguardi’s following convictions—April 12, 1973 (nine years), and February 5, 1974 (ten years),
³⁷
to be served concurrently—ensured a virtual life sentence. Dioguardi spent the last few years of his life at Lewisburg Federal Prison in Pennsylvania, infamous for housing numerous high-profile inmates over the decades, such as John Gotti, Al Capone, Henry Hill, Paul Vario and Jimmy Hoffa.

D
I
P
ALERMO
, C
HARLES

260 Elizabeth Street, 1950s

Alias: Charlie Beck, Charlie Brody

Born: February 15, 1925, New York City

Died: [?]

Association: Bonanno crime family

Along with brothers Joseph and Peter, Charles made up one-third of the notorious Beck Brothers, suspected narcotics distributors and trusted associates of top Mafia leaders.

Charles, the youngest of the clan, possessed a criminal record dating back to 1945 with arrests for forgery, alcohol violations and burglary. His role in an international narcotics ring earned him a twelve-year prison sentence in 1959 (see Di Palermo, Joseph).

D
I
P
ALERMO
, J
OSEPH

246 Elizabeth Street, 1950s

Alias: Joe Beck, Joe Palmer

Born: June 8, 1907, New York City

Died: [?]

Association: Bonanno crime family

Joseph, the eldest Di Palermo sibling and reputed leader of the Beck Brothers, has a long and storied criminal record dating back to 1925 (the year his youngest brother, Charles, was born). Joseph Di Palermo is perhaps most famous for his suspected role in the 1943 murder of news publisher Carlo Tresca.

Despite the candy store front (46 Prince Street) and his slim, five-foot, six-inch, 120-pound frame, Di Palermo was at one time one of the Mafia’s most feared enforcers. The FDN described him as “a most vicious criminal,” with arrests for everything from liquor violations to homicide by the time his legal troubles
really
started in the 1950s.

In September 1950, Di Palermo was sentenced to seven years in prison for his role as ringleader of a million-dollar traveler’s check counterfeiting operation, but he was back on the streets by 1955, allegedly spearheading an international narcotics distribution operation based out of East Fourth Street on the Lower East Side.

By the spring of 1955, Di Palermo, Ralph Polizzano, Natale Evola and several other ring members were suspected of importing large quantities of pure heroin from Europe and Cuba to the gang’s plant: Ralph Polizzano’s apartment at 36 East Fourth Street. At this location, Polizzano and the youngest Beck Brother, Charles Di Palermo, would allegedly dilute and repackage the drugs for street sale and then hand off suitcases to mules at Al’s Luncheonette (34 East Fourth Street) or the Squeeze Inn bar (57 East Fourth Street).
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One witness named Nelson Silva Cantellops would later testify that between March 1955 and June 1957, he was paid up to $1,000 for each (almost weekly) trip he made to cities like Las Vegas, Miami and Chicago. According to Cantellops, the men also planned on purchasing and taking over “policy banks” in the Eldridge Street area, to use as a front for their narcotics distribution operation. He claimed that in October 1955 the gang met at Ralph Polizzano’s apartment, where it was concluded that the scheme would cost between $100,000 and $150,000 and needed approval from “the right man,” meaning Vito Genovese.

Some sources in the know believe Cantellops was never involved in the ring and provided misleading information to police to save himself from a minor drug possession charge. One insider described the witness as a low-level, part-time street pusher with a string of arrests for petty crimes, like passing bad checks. Following up, Cantellops was indeed pinched in 1952 for attempting to use a suspect check worth $35.42 at a deli at 104 Columbus Avenue.

Regardless, the entire case didn’t ride on Cantellops’s testimony: the operation was shut down when associate Salvatore Marino was arrested on a drug run in July 1957. While in police custody, Marino claims that police beat him until he was “knocked out,” at which time he gave up the address of the plant under duress. Within a few hours of Marino’s arrest, police raided Ralph Polizzano’s apartment, uncovering heroin, cocaine and all the materials needed for large-scale packaging and distribution.

Thirty-seven defendants and fourteen co-conspirators were indicted, but only seventeen ended up standing trial, including Joseph and Charles Di Palermo, for “conspiracy to import and smuggle narcotic drugs into the United States; to receive, conceal, possess, buy and sell the drugs; to dilute, mix and adulterate the drugs prior to their distribution; and to distribute the drugs.”
³⁹
On April 17, 1959, Joseph Di Palermo was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.