The Coffey Files (34 page)

Gotti “got his” in his fourth trial. On December 11, 1990, Gotti, his personal enforcer, Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, and Gambino family consiglieri Thomas Locascio were arrested by federal agents working under orders from Andrew Maloney, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, in a raid on the Ravenite Social Club. Also netted in the raid was Carlo Gambino's son Thomas, who eventually had his case separated from Gotti's and plea bargained his way out of jail.

Gotti, Locascio and Gravano were held without bail in the Metropolitan Correction Center until January 1992 when they went on trial for racketeering, loansharking, obstruction of justice and eleven murders, including the ambush of Paul Castellano.

The media dubbed the trial the “mob trial of the century” and it lived up to its billing. Behind the scenes Joe Coffey was kept busy by the prosecution team. He was an invaluable source of information about how the Gambinos did business. Thirty-one surveillance tapes recorded by the State Organized Crime Task Force helped make up the federal case. And one of Joe's best informants actually made nine face-to-face recordings of conversations with Gotti. As Joe says, “You'd, think Gotti and the rest of the mutts would have finally learned to stay out of the Ravenite and the Bergin Club, or at least not talk business inside. They were even tipped by the corrupt detective that we had taps in the clubs. We were not dealing with the faculty of Harvard.”

Hundreds of reporters from all over the world circled the federal courthouse in Brooklyn each morning of the trial fighting for a quote from the defense team. All this was played out against the background of one of the most violent gang wars in New York's history.

As the capo di tutti capi sat in his cell or in his chair at the defense table, the soldiers of the Colombo crime family were gunning each other down in record fashion.

Before the Gotti trial reached the halfway point, six soldiers, a Colombo capo and two innocent civilians were dead as jailed boss Carmine Persico spit out orders to stop the advance of a new boss chosen by the Mafia Commission which presumably included John Gotti. There had not been so much mob gunfire since the Coffey Gang had been formed.

And then, as if the trial of John Gotti needed more drama, the government revealed that Sammy “The Bull” Gravano would forevermore be known as Sammy “The Canary.” Gotti's most trusted aide turned on him, hoping to avoid a life sentence. In court he testified not only how Gotti had planned the murder of Castellano, but was actually at the scene outside Sparks Steak House when the shooting took place. In almost a full week of testimony, Gravano revealed the underbelly of the Gambino family as it was run by Gotti: One murder after another. Gravano admitted following orders to kill his brother-in-law who had been suspected of disloyalty. He described in chilling detail the murder of Robert DiBernardo who ran the pornography operations for the Gambinos and had fallen into disfavor with Gotti. “The Canary's” song put Gotti in a cage for life. He and Locascio were found guilty and sentenced to life without parole. The following day Gotti was in the federal prison in Marion, Illinois. It is a jail so tough that Amnesty International has it on its list of inhumane prisons.

“Those first three months of 1992 saw organized crime in New York change forever,” Coffey says. “First of all, the Colombos destroyed what was left of a disintegrating organization. With the Bonanno family practically out of business New York is left with only three Mafia families: the most powerful, the Genovese family; the Gambinos, but now without a real godfather, and the Luchesse family. But even they are not the powers they used to be.

“The Genovese family which dates back to Lucky Luciano has the most legitimate investments and the most to lose by strongarm tactics and drug dealing. The Luchesses are survivors, but will not produce a godfather. With Gotti locked away for life, with no true successor thanks to the conviction of Locascio, the Gambinos will never be the same.”

Coffey says the most telling evidence of the progress made by law enforcement is the turning of Sammy Gravano. “Gotti clamming up to the end is a bit of a throwback. The scene in
Goodfellas
where Paulie and the boys enjoy their steak dinners in prison is history. It was accurate, but it is history.

“Public, officials are no longer so easy to corrupt. The prisons are now run by the black and Latin inmates. A Mafia hood is just another con these days,” says Coffey. “So it's much easier to make them cooperate. They used to call going to jail ‘going on vacation.' It's no longer a vacation for them. That's why Sammy Gravano turned. He didn't have the guts to go to prison.”

Black and Latin gangs are also taking over much of the profits from the Mafia in the inner cities. Their use of violence makes Mafia hitmen seem like choirboys as they wipe out entire families and gun down police officers and journalists. As a result the suburbs of America are seeing more and more organized crime activity.

Extortion of construction contracts for work on malls, environmental crimes like illegal dumping of toxic wastes, video shops, gambling among workers in industrial parks and office complexes, increasing auto theft and insurance fraud, and drugs in suburban schools is more and more the work of the nation's Mafia families.

In New York State the Organized Crime Task Force has taken steps to beef up its activities in suburban areas. Joe Coffey has been put in charge of the Mid-Hudson Task Force which investigates organized crime in Westchester, Rockland, Orange and Sullivan Counties. There is plenty of work ahead.

Image Gallery

Detective Sergeant Joseph Coffey.

Joseph Coffey, Sr. and Margaret Coffey.

The original “Coffey Gang” that solved 82 Mafia murders—after being presented with the New York–New Jersey–Connecticut Detective Crime Clinic Award as the Top Investigative Team of 1980.

Leo Ladenhauf's body as found in the trunk of his car at LaGaurdia Airport.

Carmine Galante after lunch at Joe and Mary's, July 12, 1979. Galante's murder was believed to be a mob hit.

Joe Coffey and Chief of Detectives James Sullivan (seated) and the rest of the team that cracked the Ladenhauf Case—the first case broken by the Coffey Gang.

Detective Larry Mullins, Police Commissioner Robert McGuire, and Joe Coffey (from left to right).