Mob Star (16 page)

A few days after Joseph Colombo was hit, three Italian-Americans in Lewisburg got a gift from the law gods. Prosecutors in the Velvet Touch hijacking case pending against Gotti, Angelo Ruggiero, and John Carneglia moved to dismiss the indictment. A new state wiretap law had been declared unconstitutional and recordings from the bar phone were useless as evidence.

Gotti had gotten a sentence break on his first case; Coiro had made the second go away; and now the government had taken away the third. He got the news in the middle of July 1971. He now had only six more months to serve. For the three hijackings he was caught in, he would do less than three years.

J
OHN GOTTI GOT OUT OF Lewisburg in January 1972. The thirty-one-year-old ex-con joined Victoria and the four kids—the oldest was almost 10 now—in an apartment at 1498 East Ninety-first Street in Canarsie, a safe and solid neighborhood south of Brownsville-East New York.

Gotti outlined his plans to his parole officer. He said he had a job waiting for him, working with his father-in-law—Francisco DiGiorgio, a retired sanitation worker—now involved with his own son in the Century Construction Company in a northern suburb. On February 15, 1972, the parole officer put a note in the file indicating Gotti had begun to work at the Dee Dan Company, a Century subsidiary, as a $300-a-week job superintendent.

The job looked good on paper, and that’s about all it was. Gotti really had no interest in the construction business, except for the money to be made fixing contracts or causing labor problems. Thirty months in the joint merely confirmed what he had become—a hoodlum; merely pointed the way to what he would become—a “hoodlum’s hoodlum,” to use the words of a future admirer caught praising Gotti on a hidden tape recorder.

No doubt further seasoned in crime by the career crooks of Lewisburg, Gotti was poised for opportunity. With Bergin Hunt and Fish Club boss Carmine Fatico growing older, he was eager to pursue his future and his fortune.

The Bergin was a few miles away from Canarsie in Queens, in Ozone Park on 101st Avenue, a street of small merchants and small dreams, except for those of the new guy on the block—John Gotti.

Most of the original residents of Ozone Park were of Italian or Polish descent and they remain a dominant force. Over time, many left their jobs in Manhattan, which they call “the city” or “New York,” as if they aren’t part of it. In many ways, they aren’t. Manhattan is an hour away by train; shopping and entertainment are more accessible in Nassau County on Long Island. Many work close to home, at nearby Aqueduct Racetrack or JFK International Airport. Their Ozone Park is a small, manageable world on the edge of the frantic universe of New York City. They mind their own business and let the men at the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club mind theirs.

In 1972, the Bergin was still a center of gambling, loan-sharking, robbery, and hijacking. One crew member had opened a chop shop for dismantling stolen cars for resale as parts and, while John was away, brother Peter also got into something new—cocaine, according to what Matthew Traynor, the ex-Ridgewood Saints gang leader, later told the FBI.

Traynor had moved to Florida and met a cocaine dealer. On a trip back to New York, he saw Peter in the 101 Bar and told him about his connection. Traynor flew the first of many cocaine sorties to Florida on behalf of Peter, then still a city sanitation worker. Peter had been previously arrested in 1968, on a felony assault charge that was later dismissed.

In time, Traynor said Peter began to direct him to a different source, a man later identified as a major southern Florida dealer with Family connections. Traynor said he usually delivered the cocaine to Peter at the Bergin or the 101 Bar. Usually he was paid over $500 for smuggling the coke, but once Peter rewarded him with $200 and a stash of barbiturates, 500 Tuinol tablets. Traynor didn’t complain about the smaller fee; he had also brought back 50 .25-caliber handguns and was having no trouble selling them in Queens bars.

Although he placed Gene as being present at this transaction, as well as another, Traynor never put John Gotti in a room where drugs or cash were passed, though he did say he believed John knew what was happening. This was the first of many conflicting stories about John Gotti and drugs. He would never be charged with a drug crime, though in three different investigations, he would be named in connection with drug dealing. He would preach against it to younger associates, but close around him, older associates would get into trouble over drugs time and time again. Source Wahoo would say Gotti was not involved in drugs; the other FBI informer, Source BQ, would say he was—in a big way. As an ambitious man, Gotti knew he had to appear faithful to the no-drugs policies of Gambino and later Castellano. If his faith was genuine, he can at least be said to have looked the other way, many times.

 

 

It was not in John Gotti’s nature to look the other way. One night, four months after his release from Lewisburg, John, Peter, and their father were in the Crystal Room, the bar that Traynor said Gotti partly owned. A likely bar topic was the sensational murder of Joseph “Crazy Joe” Gallo a few days before at Umberto’s Clam House in Little Italy. The victim was the reputed operations director of the hit on Joseph Colombo, the surprising Italian-American civil rights leader, and doubtless it was Colombo’s friends who took their revenge with machine guns.

On this night in the Crystal Room, a patron began arguing with the barmaid and Gotti intervened. Cops were called and he was arrested and charged with menacing and public intoxication.

As he was booked in the 75th Precinct station house in Brooklyn, he used an alias for the first and only time. Perhaps as a joke, perhaps as a tribute, the young Carlo Gambino-affliliated hood gave the name “John DeCarlo.” Gotti was able to pay a $50 fine and forget about it.

Besides the Crystal Room, another place Gotti now favored was the Sinatra Club, a storefront on Atlantic Avenue near Eighty-seventh Street in Queens. It featured the singer’s albums and all-night card games, and it’s where he met a future nemesis, Salvatore Polisi.

Polisi was a degenerate lowlife who entered the world of crime at about the same time as Gotti, after faking his way out of the Marine Corps on a psychological discharge. Over the years, he would also fake his way out of several criminal charges by reading medical journals and learning to act convincingly crazy; he would fool more than two dozen psychiatrists.

Polisi was once diagnosed as “a chronic, undifferentiated schizophrenic with a passive dependent personality disorder, with sociopathic tendencies.” It was all the result of a scam, except for the sociopathic tendencies.

“I could put myself up as looking odd and strange sometimes,” he later testified.

Polisi went into the Marine Corps to beat a robbery case, and wanted out after a couple of days so that he could rob again. He received a sizable, completely fraudulent disability pension for many years. He stole tape players from cars, robbed gas stations, and carried around a “blue box” to cheat on his telephone calls.

When Gotti met him, Polisi had become associated with the Colombo Family through a bookmaking operation he and his uncle operated. Polisi bragged about conning the Marine Corps, and so he became known on the street as Sally
Ubatz,
the last name a slang rendering of
pazzo,
crazy.

Though associated with the Colombos, Sally Crazy began hanging out a little at the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club in 1972, he would later testify. He was friendly with a Bergin associate named Ronald Jerogae, who was known as “Foxy.” That same year, Sally Crazy and Foxy also went into the cocaine business.

Sally Crazy said John and Gene Gotti were at the Bergin nearly every day. Other club men included the brothers Fatico, the brothers Ruggiero, and the brothers Carneglia. Willie Boy Johnson and William Battista, the hijackers and bookmakers from John’s old neighborhood, also were part of the scene, as was Tony Roach Rampino, now out of Lewisburg, too.

“Some days we hung around and did some gambling,” Polisi said. “There was other days we conspired to commit crimes.”

Polisi said it was clear who at the club had power and respect. As crew leader, Carmine Fatico, now 62, had the most, followed by his brother Daniel. Because the Faticos treated him with respect, John Gotti was next in line, followed by Angelo and Gene.

The elite five, at various times, were called upon to approve high-interest loans to bettors. Loan-sharking is a natural complement to a gambling operation. They are like peanuts and beer; the more the customer eats, the more he drinks. More losses, more loans. If the bettor can’t pay his debt, he had better come up with something valuable—a piece of his business, a tip about a horse or an unguarded truck, the key or layout of a warehouse; in Ozone Park and its environs, the bars, hangouts, and union halls were full of bettors.

During scores, the two pals, Crazy and Foxy, played Smart and Stupid—Polisi, of course, was Stupid, although he believed he was Smart. That spring they heard about a hijackable truck. As they were with different Families, permission from spokesmen for each was needed. When Foxy got his from John Gotti, it was clear in Crazy’s mind that Gotti was going places. Gotti himself had quit going out on jobs and contented himself with management duties—another sign of his emerging status.

A dispute over the proceeds of a hijacking also showed Gotti rising fast in the Bergin world. Gotti had teamed up Crazy and Foxy with a man who had inside knowledge of a fur shipment, and when the furs were fenced by Angelo and Danny Fatico for a price Polisi thought unfair, Gotti told him, “Tough. You got to take it,”

A few months later, the FBI heard of this hijack from Source Wahoo. It was apparent then why Polisi had complained. The FBI valued the load of 5,577 mink and muskrat pelts at $100,000, but Polisi and Foxy got only $4,500 each.

 

In May 1972, Gotti benefited from Carmine Fatico’s misfortune. Fatico was indicted in Suffolk County, Long Island, on loan-sharking charges; the authorities said he was collecting more than 200 percent in annual interest on several loans.

Carmine was already on probation due to a conspiracy conviction for his role in the 1968 murder plot against a Long Island businessman. Needing to lay low and prepare for his trial, Fatico began to avoid the Bergin. With the consent of Neil Dellacroce, Gotti filled the vacuum. At 31, he became acting captain of the Fatico crew, even though he was not a made man. It was impressive, but another ex-Brooklyn Neapolitano, Al Capone, had done better: He ruled all of Chicago at age 32.

No one at the club was surprised. Johnny Boy Gotti was aggressive and political and a more able leader than Danny Fatico. Men around him now rose in stature. For instance, Polisi said that Willie Boy Johnson began to be “treated with a great deal of respect because he was a close friend of John’s.”

Willie Boy’s father wasn’t Italian and thus he could not be inducted into the Family, but over the years Willie Boy became like Family to Gotti. He was a versatile and likable criminal and, among many other things, wound up managing his own gambling operation.

In addition to the Crazy-Foxy tip, Source Wahoo had also told the FBI about a hijack drop used by William Battista and John Carneglia. Now Wahoo filed his first report on John Gotti, post-Lewisburg, and his control agent put a note in the file.

Gotti was “a big hijacker” and Angelo and Salvatore Ruggiero worked for him. Every Saturday, he reported to Neil Dellacroce at the Ravenite Social Club in Little Italy. He would be made a member of the Family soon. As an aside, Wahoo said the Bergin crew was “starting to wonder” about Billy Battista, who was asking too many questions about a man wanted on an FBI warrant.

The visits with Dellacroce shot Gotti into the big time. A year earlier, another United States Senate committee had issued a report calling Dellacroce “the most powerful boss in New York today. His influence is enormous. His power is incredible.”

The Senate committee was overstating a bit, but Gambino was slowing down and Dellacroce, born and bred in Little Italy, seemed an obvious choice as the new
don
, or lord of the Family. Few outsiders knew much about the man who was emerging as another possible successor, the low-key cousin and brother-in-law, Paul Castellano.

Dellacroce’s high profile was a possible disadvantage. At the time Carmine Fatico was indicted on the loan-sharking case, Dellacroce was indicted on an income-tax charge. He was accused of reporting an income of only $10,400 in 1968 when he actually made $134,150; it was a net-worth case, meaning that the government had to prove his guilt by proving how much he had spent. The prosecutor said Dellacroce “had lived the life of a professional hoodlum all his life.” Dellacroce, however, was confident he could beat the charge. He had beaten so many.

John introduced Angelo and Gene to Dellacroce, who now supplanted Fatico as John’s mentor. The young Bergin hoods fawned over the chief Ravenite hood. Angelo called him “uncle.” When they went to sit down with him, they wore suits and ties; going into “New York” they felt sharp and looked sharp—in their own way. For John, who came from a house of hand-me-downs, it was the start of an obsession with fine clothes.

Late in 1972, after all appeals had been exhausted, Dellacroce had to go to jail for snubbing a grand jury despite having gotten immunity. More bad news broke in January. His sanguine attitude about his tax case evaporated in a conviction. The evidence included testimony that Dellacroce, as “George Rizzo” in three days of gambling in a casino in Puerto Rico, had lost as much as he reported in income for the entire year. He faced five more years after his grand-jury contempt sentence expired in June.

 

 

John Gotti went about his business as best he could. As acting captain, he matched talent with tips. Early in 1973, he hooked Crazy and Foxy up with Sal Ruggiero and another hijacker so they could swipe 57,000 watches from a storage area at JFK Airport. Soon everybody at the Bergin had new watches to go with off-the-truck suits from an earlier hijacking.