The Coffey Files (11 page)

Joe had reason to be scared as he sat in front of the imposing district attorney. But the DA seemed to buy the story and promised to speak to Commissioner Murphy. It was Friday and Hogan said he would try to have an answer by Monday. At any rate they had two weeks before Rizzo was booked to leave. In the meantime he suggested Coffey begin to liaison with the police in Munich.

Coffey assumed with his characteristic confidence that he would get permission. He wanted to time his trip so that he would arrive before Rizzo. That would give him the opportunity to install a listening device in the hoodlum's room and a tap on his telephone. In New York he knew both tasks would be routinely approved by a judge, based on just cause provided by investigators. He expected the same procedure in Germany. He would bring his notes and copies of the wiretap requests already used in the Rizzo investigation.

That evening, filled with energy, he raced home to Levittown, a suburb on Long Island famed for being the first mass tract development in the U.S.

He was not looking forward to telling Pat that he was going out of town for at least a week and maybe longer. For most of the time Rizzo was under surveillance in Manhattan, the wife of Joe's regular partner, Larry Mullins, had been ill. Coffey was forced to follow Rizzo around town by himself and stake him out for long hours. He was working as much as twenty hours a day and had not seen his children, Joseph, Steven, and Kathleen, for about a week.

It is times like these that strain relationships between cops and their wives, but Pat Coffey had always been understanding. In 1959, when Joe got out of the army, he returned to a job at Western Electric. The following year he and Pat married. One year later Kathleen was born. In 1962, hanging on to his childhood dream, Joe took the civil service test for New York City police officer. He passed, finishing near the top of a long list.

Almost immediately the department called to offer a place in the Police Academy. Since he was working at a job with great potential in the computer field, he declined. Another baby was on the way and he was concerned he would not be able to raise a family on a cop's salary. However, he asked to be kept on the list for the next round of hirings.

In 1964 the department called for the third time. This was his last opportunity. If he declined he would be taken off the list forever. He would never get the chance to avenge his father.

“I liked the computer business and I knew that someday it could be a financial bonanza, but I had not forgotten my boyhood dream. I still wanted to be a cop,” Joe remembers.

He talked for hours with his young wife about what he should do and found her 100 percent supportive. She encouraged him to do what would make him most happy. “The family will be fine. Don't worry,” she said.

So with Pat's support Joe Coffey quit a $12,000-a-year job with Western Electric and became a recruit in the New York Police Department for half the money.

Pat Coffey learned early that she was not going to see a lot of her police officer husband. She not only accepted that life but learned to find her own satisfaction in it. Joe often shared the details of a case with her, and she would not hesitate to offer an opinion. When he said he was following Vinnie Rizzo to Europe, she picked up on the same inconsistencies in Rizzo's behavior that her husband sensed and understood why it was necessary. She said she would help him pack when the time came and assured him the family would be fine while he was away.

“I never could have had the kind of career I had without Pat's help,” Coffey says. “I was able to pursue leads and meet people at times when other cops were home with their families. It's not that I loved my family any less. I just seemed obsessed with my work. Even when I coached football and basketball in the Levittown community leagues, the other coaches knew I might show up late or not at all for the games. It bothered me to take the time from my kids, but I felt I was doing important work.”

Coffey was restless all weekend and arrived at his office early Monday morning. About an hour later, Hogan summoned him and Vitrano to his office.

The DA told the two nervous cops that he agreed Rizzo should be followed to Munich. An arms deal to Northern Ireland was serious business and should be stopped if possible. He said he was surprised a punk like Rizzo had that kind of international connection but the possibility could not be overlooked. He approved sending one man to Munich.

“He told me that he could budget only $1,000 for the assignment and that I'd better come back with something worthwhile,” Coffey remembers. “He probably knew I wanted to go so badly I would have paid for the trip myself. As far as results go? Well, I was always a hunch player and I was sure this was a solid one.”

On February 24, two days before Rizzo, Coffey left for Munich. He had been working hard during the preceding days, researching German law regarding wiretaps and learning it was similar to New York's, requiring judicial approval based on police information. He also learned that Rizzo was the suspect in the extortion of a German citizen, a fact that made the Munich police even more anxious to help.

He hoped the eight-hour flight would give him a chance to catch up on the rest he had been missing, but once aboard the Lufthansa plane he remembered that he was afraid of flying. He had forgotten his fear during the exciting preparation for the trip, but once he sat down in the seat he began to sweat. He could not sleep on the flight, and no amount of airline booze made him forget he was flying thirty thousand feet above the cold Atlantic Ocean.

When he landed in Munich, Coffey was hung over, tired, and starting for the first time to feel some apprehension about his mission. He was not feeling much like the globetrotting secret agent he was trying to portray.

“I was really exhausted, not in any shape to begin such an important investigation, but I figured I could get to my hotel, shower, and shave before hooking up with the local police,” he remembers thinking.

His plan was dashed by the efficiency of the Munich Police Department. Two Munich detectives were waiting at the customs gate to meet him. Quickly they bypassed the lines and, within minutes of his arrival, were driving him to the police presidium (headquarters) in the center of the city. There, waiting for him with a big smile and a shot of cognac, was Klaus Peter, the detective who would work directly with him.

Peter explained he had arranged with the Palace Hotel for a room two doors from Rizzo's, where the cops could set up their own headquarters for the surveillance mission. Another room, two floors above, was reserved for Joe's use.

“The Munich police assigned sixteen detectives to Peter and me, and they were all highly polished pros. Their manner was much more professional than the cops I usually came across in the states,” Coffey recalls.

The Munich police were very excited about working with the detective from New York. The Mafia to them was a legendary crime organization they believed to be more powerful than any police force. They had little contact with Mafia criminals, but were deeply interested in the efforts of their Italian, Dutch, and American colleagues who battled “La Cosa Nostra” on a regular basis.

Their enthusiasm rubbed off on Coffey. Some confidence and energy was just beginning to return to his tired body when Klaus Peter mentioned the major roadblock to proceeding any further.

“Of course you understand we're not sure we want to set up this eavesdropping device,” Peter said.

“Why not! I thought you understood that was the basis of my trip. So far we've built our whole case on the wiretap evidence,” Coffey responded.

For the next few minutes, Peter patiently explained that the Munich police had not conducted a wiretap since World War II, when they were controlled by the Nazi Gestapo. While the law was on the books and judges seemed willing to approve such measures, police departments in Germany were trying hard to live down the Gestapo image. Peter said they could discuss it with the Munich police commander the next day. The laws may have been similar to the United States codes, but the postwar attitudes were quite different.

As drained as Coffey was, he was determined not to let another day pass without the okay for the telephone wiretap and the listening device. He wanted to be sure it would be in place before Rizzo arrived in his room.

For hours the cops argued the case. Peter was sympathetic but very protective of his department's reputation. He explained that his men were experts in surveillance and routinely built solid cases without eavesdropping. But Coffey was adamant. He knew what he would have to take back to the states to build his case there. New York prosecutors wanted legally obtained tape recordings of criminals discussing their crimes. Juries in the United States loved the dramatic dialogue and occasional confessions such tapes produced. Several times Coffey bluffed that he would just pack the whole thing in if he could not get wiretaps.

Finally Klaus Peter agreed to let Coffey make his argument to Reinhard Rupprect, director of the department's criminal division and Peter's boss. Six months later Rupprect would become world famous as the man who led the German police against the Arab terrorists who attacked the Munich Olympic Village and murdered Israeli athletes.

Coffey found Rupprect very understanding. He also was concerned about the flow of illegal arms to Northern Ireland. His cop's instinct agreed with Coffey's that it had to be a big deal to flush a lowlife like Rizzo out of the protection of his own neighborhood. He agreed to pass the police request for a bug and wiretap on to the proper judicial authority.

In the states this is where Coffey would have expected resistance. American cops were always anxious to bug suspects. Judges took on the responsibility of protecting the suspect's rights and often refused the police requests. The Munich judge, however, spent only a few minutes reviewing the paperwork, and the electronic surveillance request was approved around midnight.

Coffey was exhausted. He turned down the Munich detectives' invitation to drink some beers at their favorite hangout and returned to his hotel, not far from the police presidium. Too tired to even call Pat, he collapsed on the bed with his clothes on and slept soundly until the hotel operator woke him up at 7:00
A.M.

By 9:00 he was at Klaus Peter's small office, chain-smoking and pacing. He was now bursting with energy, anxious to get up to the room the Palace Hotel had reserved for Rizzo to get the bug and the wiretap installed.

Peter showed up within a few minutes. He carried a small metal box which he handed to Coffey with the words, “I hate to see a good cop walking around naked. I thought you could use this.”

Joe opened the box and took out the Walther PPK. He had left his own gun in New York rather than deal with the tangle of paperwork necessary to carry it onto the airplane and into a foreign country. Peter had noticed he was unarmed and thought he could do something to make his new American friend a little more comfortable. A fan of spy novels, Coffey recognized the weapon as the same one used by the fictional James Bond.

“The offer of the gun calmed me down a little. I realized Peter and his men knew what they were doing. I had been embarrassed by the whining and begging I had to do to get the wiretap approval, and the Walther provided a laugh as I joked about being 007. It was a very important moment in the case because it proved the German cops had faith in me,” Coffey remembers.

Continuing to make light of the emotional moment, Joe said, “What do expect me to do with this? I'll probably shoot myself in the foot.”

The line brought a laugh from the group, and as Coffey slipped his belt through the holster's loop, he asked Peter if he could take a look at the surveillance equipment before they went over to the Palace.

“I might as well have asked him to see a heart-lung machine. He looked at me like I was from outer space,” Coffey recalls.

Up to this point Peter had assumed Coffey had brought the necessary equipment with him. The Munich police, having never wiretapped a phone or bugged a room since the end of World War II, did not even have the equipment to do so.

Peter called Rupprect, the director of the criminal division, for advice. The solution was to meet with an American CIA agent with whom the Munich police had a discreet relationship.

Now feeling more and more like an international espionage agent, Joe met the spy for lunch at an American servicemen's club, very much like the ones he had spent time in thirteen years before while serving in the army in Germany as a cryptographer.

The CIA man was more than cooperative, offering not only the bug but a technician to install it. By early afternoon Coffey and a handful of Munich police officers, including a woman who was fluent in English, German, and Italian, were in Rizzo's room.

One of the first things a detective in the district attorney's office in New York learns is the art of eavesdropping. Coffey was much more comfortable around electronic bugging equipment than he was around high-tech weapons. “A good wiretap technician does more to put criminals behind bars than a dozen SWAT teams,” he says.

He quickly realized, and was greatly surprised, that the gear provided by the CIA was outmoded, almost obsolete. The actual listening device was larger than what Coffey was used to working with. It had a very limited range and was operated by batteries that had to be changed regularly. Coffey told the technician to put the bug in the motor that ran the massage unit in the bed. Coffey realized that if Rizzo did his talking while enjoying a massage, the bug would be useless, but he decided it was the only centrally located spot that would hide the unit. The detective wondered to himself how the CIA managed to conduct any kind of sophisticated electronic surveillance with that kind of equipment. He assumed the KGB had better devices, and he knew the Manhattan DA did.

It was decided earlier to wiretap the phone by recording Rizzo's calls at the hotel switchboard, so that was no problem.