The Mafia Encyclopedia (3 page)

Read The Mafia Encyclopedia Online

Authors: Carl Sifakis

Tags: #True Crime, #Organized Crime, #test

BOOK: The Mafia Encyclopedia
8.26Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Page xiv
edge. Information and facts are to be culled from material that "hangs together." In the case of the Luciano book, other sources have since confirmed many of the facts contained therein. Interviews given to three highly respected Israeli journalists by Jewish mobster Doc Stacher and the same writers' biography of Meyer Lansky, who gave them a number of interviews, back up a number of facts in the Luciano book, such as the role of Frank Costello, the mob's chief briber, in seeing to it that Murder, Inc., informer Abe Reles "went out the window."
Fitting together this jigsaw of twists and turns in organized crime and the Mafia makes it possible to understand the deep changes that continue to develop within the syndicate. There has been a marked decrease of Jewish gangsters in the top echelon of the mobnot due to an ethnic purge, but rather to the simple dying off of top Jewish mobsters. In the early 1930s the syndicate may have been more Jewish than Italian; despite individual flare-ups, the combination was highly peaceful, even affectionate.
There is little need to hammer away at what every Mafia entry says about the lack of nepotism on the part of Jewish mobsters. They were empire builders, not dynasty builders. The same in large measure was true about the individual mafioso, as far as nepotism was concerned. But the Mafia's very structure, its organization, automatically engendered a dynasty. Whether we call it the combination, the Mafia or even Cosa Nostra is unimportant. What matters is that by its very nature, with crime families and a system of bosses, underbosses, capos, soldiers and associates, the Mafia became a dynamic organization existing in a sense on its own, independent of its own membersindeed in spite of them.
And as their Jewish compatriotsusing the term in a most generic senseretired or died off, the Mafia was forced to fill the vacuum in order to carry on the more sophisticated aspects of syndicate operations. The mafiosi were ready, having spent several decades learning the ropes. This has led to what may be called Lansky's First Law: Retreat to the background, turn over the high-visibility street activities to others. Let the blacks and Hispanics work the streets, sell the dope, peddle the female flesh. In New York the pimps of Manhattan are virtually all black, but how many blacks
own
the massage parlors? Similarly it is the Mafia that collects "franchise fees" for those ghetto gambling rackets it does not actively run. It is the Mafia that provides the protection for such operations.
Today, "ethnic succession in organized crime" seems the banner of only a small band of confused observers and, of course, the Mafia itself. Mob guys are the first to say they aren't there.
And it does not appear that the Mafia is a dying institution. Many a hoodlum still clamors to become a "made man" or "wise guy." He hangs around the mob, doing their chores and hoping for the big break that will propel him to the top. As former New York chief of detectives Albert Seedman put it, a mob hopeful still labors at "fencing stolen goods for family members with only a small cut for himself, or even dirty work like burying bodies." His goal: being made a hijacker instead of a peddler, a hit man instead of a mere shoveler. And as a reward he might even get a loan-sharking or numbers territory where, as a "made man,'' he will have no fear of competition.
Not even the worst sort of treachery can sour eager new recruits for Mafia duty. New York hoodlum Tommy DeSimone never gave up hope of making it. He figured he had the credentials, having been involved in major robberies at Kennedy Airport and in handling a number of hits. But he wasn't in; he wasn't a "made man." Then at last he got the good word; he was going to be inducted into the Honored Society.
What he didn't know was that the Gambinos had actually marked him for death, suspecting him of killing one of their members. Tommy DeSimone suspected nothing. He got himself dolled up for the big occasion and got in a car with some of the boys to be driven to the secret ritesin his case, the Mafia-style last rites. Such tales however do not frighten off other Mafia aspirants. As one longtime Mafia-watching cop explained, "Even a simple soldier these days can wind up a millionaire. With those kind of odds, everybody wants in."
Years ago, Meyer Lansky bragged about the syndicate: "We're bigger than U.S. Steel." Apparently little but the players has changed.
In the late 1980s, as well as in almost every previous decade, there were official claims that at last we have organized crime and the Mafia on the run. Yet Thomas Dewey and others in the 1930s claimed they had sounded the death knell of organized crime with massive convictions. Indeed Dewey probably achieved the most impressive record in conviction of top mobsters and their political allies. In the 1940s the smashing of Murder, Incorporated was supposed to at last destroy organized crime. In the 1950s the Kefauver investigation triggered many more convictions and deportations of scores of criminals. In the aftermath of the Apalachin Conference and the revelations of Joe Valachi, it was the same story. The mobs would soon be crippled beyond repair.
In the 1980s there were mass convictions of Mafia bosses. However, there has been no important motion to adjourn by any of the crime families. While officials say that if we maintain "a full court press," the Mafia will be gone within a decade.
Page xv
Other observers are less sanguine. There is the very real possibility that prosecution of top mafiosi will result in a form of social Darwinism, forcing the mobs to bring newer and better leaders to the fore, those who can develop immunity to detection.
The Mafia in various forms has existed in America for at least a century. When an institution becomes as rich and powerful as the Mafia, it is hard to believe that mere harassment of the leadership will destroy it. In the late 1980s most of the bosses of the New York families were either convicted or facing likely conviction and long prison sentences. A real crisis in the Mafia was building there and around the country. By the 1990s the crisis reached the point where no one wanted to seize the mantle of leadershipat least it was so theorized by prosecutors. The reality was, however, that as the old mob leaders disappeared to assassination or law enforcement crackdowns, replacements were always at the ready. Typical of the crisis was the situation in Chicago where the Outfit was reeling after the wipeout of the top bosses on charges of murder, conspiracy and the looting of Las Vegas casinos.
Forced to do as he had often done before, Tony Accardo emerged from semi-retirement to bring order to the mob. A meeting of the top capos was called for Accardo to anoint a new day-to-day boss. Through inside informers, the FBI learned the details of the meeting. Accardo reminded the capos that since the formation of the Outfit in the 1920s by Johnny Torrio and A1 Capone, every boss had either fallen to the gun or ended up in prison. There had been only one exceptionAccardo himself. Now he had a man able and willing to take charge. Under the circumstances, Accardo said, "we got to count this guy as one hell of a man. We got to give him every fuckin' thing we got. ... So I want every one of you to pledge to Joe Ferriola that you will work your ass off for him and that you will keep him as protected as you can."
Ferriola rose and took charge, announcing the only item on his agenda for the meetingdeciding the fate of Tony Spilotro. The mob held gpilotro, their enforcer in Las Vegas, responsible for the collapse of the Outfit's dominant status there. Ferriola announced Spilotro would be hit, the standard punishment for such failure. The new boss had exercised his first godlike moment. It is often said that the only thing that counts in the Mafia is money, but the right to play god and pass death sentences on other men is one of the most tantalizing elements of Mafia power.
Ferriola lasted less than two years, expiring of a heart condition while under the care of the famed Dr. Michael DeBakey. Ferriola may have known of his ill health when he accepted the position of boss. If so, he had little to lose and much to gain. The boss always reaped millions in tribute from his mobsters, but more important Ferriola gained the ultimate perk of being the top man, the right to decide who lived and who died.
The combination of money and power explains why, despite the risk of death or imprisonment, someone is always ready to step into the breach. In reality, the candidates are prepared to kill to make it to the top. The fact is the average Mafia godfather maintains power for six to eight years. Al Capone fell into that category, as did Lucky Luciano, Albert Anastasia, Carmine Galante and John Gotti. Many others had even shorter reigns. Some of the brighter ones lasted much longer, such as the brilliant Carlo Gambino, the tough Tony Accardo and the careful and devious Chin Gigante. When Gigante went to prison, he tapped Quiet Dom Cirillo as his successor. Inside sources remarked that Cirillo became the top guy reluctantly. More likely, he grabbed the power with both hands, or it grew on him in any case.
Of the above only Gambino and Accardo died in bed. The rest went to prison or perished under their opponents' guns. As Accardo put it, the average top guy these days is "lookin' at a few good years and then the rest of his life in prison."
What is the main impetus for the embrace of power by top mobsters or their chief aides? They would all tell you it is just the money and that the killings are "strictly business." The last point is debatable, as monotonously attested to by mobsters' habitual acts of violence meant to demonstrate their own omnipotence over life and death, committed often for the most trivial of reasons. Little Nicky Scarfo, onetime boss of the Philadelphia family, ordered hits willy-nilly to satisfy his blood lust. Often his victims had done little else than to show, in Scarfo's eyes, a secret disrespect to Little Nicky. John Gotti revealed on tape similar reasons for why a certain mobster had to die: "You know why he's dying?" he told an aide. "He's going to die because he refused to come in when I called."
More damning on the Gotti tapes were his statements about what was necessary to get a hit done: "You go to the Boss, and your Boss kills him. He kills 'em. He okays it. Says it's all right, good." Clearly, Gotti relished the power over life and death. Not surprisingly his longtime role model for the operations of a boss was the violent Albert Anastasia, the "Lord High Executioner'' of the infamous Murder Inc., which had been active in the 1930s and 1940s.
The true code of the Mafia states that a boss must be willing to oblige his underlings. When Jackie Cerone informed Accardo that Johnny Whales, a hit man with whom Cerone had done many gang killings in the "old days," had started to wig out, Accardo obligingly asked
Page xvi
if he wanted Whales killed. Cerone was too fond of Whales to do that but said he would have nothing more to do with Whales. Accardo let it pass, but it was clear the offer was there if Cerone ever wanted it. He apparently never did, and Whales eventually went off the deep end and disappeared. However, one should not perceive Cerone as a gentle soul. Details of some of his authenticated killings demonstrated a savage blood lust. Pathological violence from which final death is a blessed release often typifies Mafia killings. Enforcer Tony Spilotro enjoyed torturing victims by squeezing their heads in a vise until an eye popped out. When Spilotro himself was summoned to his own execution, his killers batted him unconscious at a prepared grave and then covered him up for the final blackness while he was still alive.
Mob killers surrender themselves to both the need and joy of killing. After completing his first contract Sammy "the Bull" Gravano reflected in
Underboss
: "... I felt a surge of power. I realized that I had taken a human life, that I had the power over life and death. I was a predator. I was an animal. I was Cosa Nostra."
The feeling of power is common to the cold-blooded "stone killers" of the Mafia. Roy DeMeo, the stone killer and body dissembler for the Gambinos, murdered at least 37 people and perhaps many times that. He believed a similar philosophy, here repeated almost certainly word for word by one of his apt "disciples": "No one understands what it's like to kill. The power you possess when you kill someone, it's like being God. Do I want this guy to continue living, or should I kill him? No one can understand it unless you do it."
When the boss orders a hit, it reflects the total power of the Mafia, a power to be celebrated for the ease and matter-of-factness with which it can be executed. Carlo Gambino had but to arch an eyebrow and a killing would be done. Sam Giancana, the Chicago boss, had what was called "the look." He could be with several of his men and the potential victim, and say nothing, merely give the look, and his men knew what to do.
Killing is part of what mobsters call "the life." Sonny Black, who plotted and killed his way to the position of acting boss of the Bonanno family, told undercover FBI agent "Donnie Brasco": "Every day is a fucking struggle, because you don't know who's looking to knock you off, especially when you become a captain or boss. Every day somebody's looking to dispose of you and take your position. You always got to be on your toes. Every fucking day is a scam to keep your power and position.
That too is the romancefor want of a better wordof Mafia life.
From the 1980s to the '90s law enforcement authorities led a string of successful prosecutions. A key figure, New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, predicted that in time the crime families would be reduced to little more than street gangs. Clearly, the prosecutions left many of the crime families in various levels of disarray. Certainly that was true of the Gambino family, which after the disastrous Gotti era saw its wise guy membership drop from about 250 or 300 to a mere 150. (On a bottomline basis, John Gotti may have been the worst Gambino family leader of all.)
It seemed only a matter of time before further degeneration set in. The mainstream press bought wholeheartedly into the theory. Thus it was something of a shock when John Gotti Jr. was arrested in January 1998 along with 39 others in what was alleged to be a massive strike at the Gambino family.
The
New York Times
(January 22, 1998) observed, "Although prosecutors portrayed the indictments as a triumphant blow to organized crime, the allegations also testified to the resiliency of the Mafia, which despite repeated indictments has been able to continue its hold on lucrative ventures and enter into new ones, like telecommunications fraud." Even the triumphant Mary Jo White, the U.S. attorney for Manhattan, noted, "What this case graphically shows is the power, profit and reach of the Gambino crime family in business and industries, both legitimate and illegitimate, throughout the metropolitan New York area."
The families have lost considerable clout and power in the fish and construction industries and to a lesser but growing extent in trash hauling and the garment industry, but the Gambinos and the other families are still around. Officials concede that even as the Mafia loses ground in some areas, it gains ground in others. Certain mainstays, such as loan-sharking, chop-shop rings and gambling, are still there. A new crop of mobsters, however, is focusing on lucrative white-collar crimes, such as stock swindles, the sale of fake prepaid telephone cards, and medical-insurance frauds. Said Lewis D. Schiliro, the head of the FBI's New York office, "The families are in transition, trying to figure out how to redirect their criminal activities in a new environment."
If John Gotti bossed the Gambinos down in power, other families have thrived. Typical was the Bonanno family, which had fallen into disrepute among mafiosi. They were deeply involved in drug trafficking and fought numerous brutal turf wars among themselves for internal rackets and spots in the power structure. Yet under boss Joseph Massino, the Bonannos staged a stunning resurgence with 100 active members and no top leaders in prison or even under indictment. By 1998 they had gained so much strength that they were close to rivaling the Gambinos as the second most powerful crime group in the East. Law-enforcement agents

Other books

HotText by Cari Quinn
Sexy as Hell Box Set by Dae, Harlem
The Eleventh Commandment by Lutishia Lovely
Hide and Seek by Brown, P.S.
Double Agent by Peter Duffy
In Situ by Frazier, David Samuel
The Husband Trap by Tracy Anne Warren