Mob Star (51 page)

The first victim he mentioned was Robert “Deebee” DiBernardo, a union fixer and one of those who plotted with Gotti to kill Paul. DiBernardo was murdered in 1986, while Gotti was at the MCC awaiting trial in the Giacalone case. Angelo Ruggiero—lusting to be underboss and considering Deebee a rival—told Gotti that Deebee talked “subversive” behind his back.

Four years later, Gotti said to LoCascio: “When Deebee got ‘whacked,’ they told me a story. I was in jail when I ‘whacked’ him. I knew why it was being done. I done it anyway. I allowed it to be done, anyway.”

On the same tape, Gotti admitted approving the murder of Louis Milito, a soldier, after Sammy said Milito was complaining about Gotti’s leadership.

Gotti could have recalled many murders for LoCascio. That he chose these two did not matter to Bonavolonta or Mouw or Maloney. On top of his other indiscretions at the Ravenite—all his chatter about La Cosa Nostra, obstruction of justice, tax-evasion, bribery, and so on—the murder admissions cooked Gotti’s goose. He had talked his way into a clean, easy case.

In fact, the case was even better than the FBI knew. On the same December 12 tape, in a passage yet to be understood, Gotti left evidence of one more murder. At the height of his invincibility legend, Gotti already was—legally speaking—a dead man.

 

 

It would take a while for Gotti to find out how clean the case was. It would take that long for the Maloney-Mouw team to analyze the tapes, decide what charges to bring, and fight a turf battle with state and federal counterparts in Manhattan that for anxious months appeared certain to deny Maloney the chance to see Gotti on trial again in the courthouse where the legend-making began in 1985.

Stung by his office’s defeat in the O’Connor case, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, the most influential D.A. in the country, also wanted another shot at Gotti. He lobbied hard for a joint state-federal prosecution based mainly on Sparks and featuring his office and the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan. The case should be tried in Manhattan, where the murders occurred, he argued.

In one of many meetings on the dispute, Morgenthau also argued that the jury pool in Manhattan was “better”—a dig at all the jury-tampering that had gone on in Brooklyn during the heroin trials and others involving the Gambino Family.

“The Manhattan courthouse is one subway stop from the one in Brooklyn!” Maloney barked. “Do you think the Gambino Family could find its way there too!”

“All I’m saying is, look at the record.”

The rivals exchanged reviews of each other’s evidence. The Brooklyn case was based on tapes, Gotti’s own words. The Manhattan case was based on turncoat informers, including the former Philadelphia underboss, set to testify that Gotti told him he killed Paul. But defense lawyers fear tapes a lot more than turncoats. In an ideal world, the ideal case would join the proof of both federal offices. And because Brooklyn would bring more to the table than Manhattan, the latter should have conceded the lead role and the District Attorney should have had nothing to say about it.

But Morgenthau did have much to say, and until a final meeting in Washington, where top Justice Department officials controlled the decision, it appeared Gotti would stand trial in Manhattan, in a courthouse just south of the Ravenite. In that meeting, however, momentum shifted back to Brooklyn, mainly because—in one more irony—Brooklyn presented a better plan for guarding against jury tampering.

The plan was devised by John Gleeson. Maloney had put him in charge of the grand jury working with the FBI to prepare the case for indictment. Having led the investigations into jury tampering in the heroin trials, Gleeson was an expert. He told his superiors the problem wasn’t the jury pool in Brooklyn, but the defendants. “It doesn’t matter where they are on trial,” he said, “so how do you attack that problem?”

Gleeson’s plan was to ask the judge who got the case to not only impanel jurors anonymously, but to sequester them as well—a highly unusual request. But Gleeson said that with the informants the FBI now had, plus the known Gambino Family track record, a strong legal argument for it could be made. “I think our district’s judges, because of recent history, are likely to agree with us,” Gleeson said.

Gleeson offered other ideas as well, for screening out predisposed sympathizers, and in the end they saved the day for Brooklyn. A key Justice Department official later said that, in contrast to Brooklyn, Manhattan had not given enough thought to how it would guard against tampering.

At the time, however, no reason was given. Instead, a few days later, the official telephoned Andy Maloney. “It’s yours, Andy,” he said.

 

 

Though unaware of the damage he had caused himself, Gotti assumed a federal case was coming because of all the subpoenas floating around Brooklyn and Manhattan. As the jurisdiction issue played out, he tried to learn when he would be arrested—when, as he put it, “the big pinch” would come. But his sources, including Detective William Peist, did not have the federal hooks they needed.

Still, Gotti continued to relish the benefits of office and mold the Family in his image. One benefit was having people shower him with money, directly or indirectly. In the spring of 1990, each Family capo gave at least $5,000 as a wedding gift to Gotti’s son Junior; super-loyal capo Jack D’Amico gave $10,000 and Sammy chipped in $7,500. All the bosses of the other families gave nearly the same amounts as D’Amico and Sammy—even Chin Gigante. Some 150 other connected guests gave mostly “nickels and dimes”—meaning, $500 or $1,000. At the end of a day of gift-giving and apple-polishing at a banquet for Junior and his bride at an elegant Manhattan hotel, Junior had $348,700.

A couple months later, Gotti promoted the newly wealthy, 26-year-old Junior to capo. Once again, Sammy among many believed Junior was too young for the job and that Gotti was looking out for his interests as much as Junior’s by solidifying his control in advance of his arrest.

Once more, the situation induced speech paralysis. Sammy was now underboss and designated “street boss” if Gotti went to jail. If Sammy objected, how would it look? What was Sammy afraid of? Or planning? Silence was further assured by the manner in which Gotti implemented Junior’s promotion to
caporegime,
meaning crew leader.

“I’ve been thinkin’ somethin’,” he told Sammy and LoCascio at the Ravenite, “and I want you to tell me if you’d recommend we put Junior up to
caporegime,
and give ’im a crew.”

“Yeah, he’s ready, be a good thing,” Sammy said.

The Gambino squad learned about Junior later, from informers, because all the Ravenite bugs were silent. Because Gotti had stopped using the apartment, and because enough evidence already existed, the FBI had shut down even the hallway bug and was concentrating on marshaling indictment details for Gleeson.

Crucially for one man, the significance of one of the last conversations on the hallway bug was overlooked. Agents failed to link the name of a man mentioned in the conversation to threats Gotti made earlier on the apartment tapes. Consequently, the FBI did not give the man a warning that his life was in danger, and he would be murdered.

In Nettie’s on the watershed day of December 12, 1989, the day Gotti talked about killing Robert DiBernardo and Louis Milito, he also referred to another man whose first name was Louis—but agents thought he was still speaking about Louis Milito.

In later reviews of the tape, it became clear he was not—but not in time for Louis DiBono, a soldier in the construction business. By 1989, after he began using cocaine and his business fell apart, DiBono was on shaky ground—particularly after he ducked Gotti’s demands for meetings to discuss his delinquent business-tax payments. These threatened Gotti because Gotti, as a secret partner in the firm, was vulnerable too.

“Louie DiBono,” Gotti said to LoCascio on December 12, “you know why he’s dying? He’s gonna die because he refused to come in when I called.”

It was easier to see how the agents missed a second threat against DiBono on the apartment tapes. That time, on January 24, speaking to Sammy about someone suspected of bringing an informer around, Gotti referred to the overweight DiBono by a nickname.

“He’s gotta get whacked … for the same reason that Jelly Belly’s getting it. You wanna challenge [us], we’ll meet the challenge! And you’re going, motherfucker!”

At the time, agents knew little of DiBono. By the time he got around to meeting Gotti in the Ravenite hallway, they had not yet completely deciphered the two apartment tapes. As DiBono spoke, they didn’t realize they were eavesdropping on a doomed man trying to appease his boss.

“I’m in really good shape,” DiBono told Gotti, referring to his cocaine problem and a new willingness to fix his tax problems. “I’m paying all the bills!”

“I don’t want another thing like this,” Gotti said.

“No!”

“We don’t need this fuckin’ shit. I don’t need it!”

“John, I’m working very hard. I’m in the office every day. I’m on the ball.”

In time, DiBono paid his taxes, but the penalty for his more serious crime—blowing off Gotti meetings—was not lifted. He must have sensed his apology was no guarantee, because he never returned to the Ravenite and avoided all his usual places.

Louis DiBono lasted until October of 1990, which was when Sammy learned he was on a drywall job at the World Trade Center in Manhattan. DiBono was promptly shot dead by a hit team led by Gotti bodyguard Bobby Borriello. Gambino agents soon learned about the murder and simply regarded it as an unsolved homicide. It would take a couple more months for them to realize they could have possibly prevented it.

“The system failed,” Mouw would later recall, grimly.

W
ITH GOTTI ON THE TAPES, John Gleeson had enough to ask his grand jury to indict not just the leaders of the Gambino Family—Gotti, Sammy, and LoCascio—but virtually every capo, but he and Maloney decided to include only one capo, Tommy Gambino. They liked the case short and simple; the others could be attacked later.

Once that decision was made, in November of 1990, it was time to make the “big pinch.” Sammy’s brief absence from the scene—he sneaked away to Florida and briefly contemplated fugitive life—delayed matters a little more. On the afternoon of December 11, 1990, the arrest team moved into place. Ten agents and three police detectives would wait near the Ravenite until all the suspects arrived, then move in. One agent would wait for Tommy Gambino outside his office.

LoCascio showed at the Ravenite about five o’clock. An hour later, Sammy arrived. By past practice, Gotti should have arrived 15 minutes later, but did not. After a half-hour more, the arrest team suffered adrenaline letdown. In the video plant, Mouw told his men: “If we take these guys without John, you know what Cutler will do. He’ll call a press conference and make a big show of surrendering his oppressed client.”

Fifteen more minutes passed. Finally, Gotti’s Mercedes inched up Mulberry with Jack D’Amico at the wheel. In a few minutes, after Gotti—wearing a camel-haired coat and jaunty yellow scarf—walked inside the club, Gabriel led his team to the door. Some soldiers recognized him, but did not interfere as he walked in, pistol in one hand, badge in the other.

“FBI! You know why we’re here! We’re here for John, Sammy, and Frankie, and I want everyone to do us a favor and cooperate.”

Smiling, Gotti ambled up, his arms extended in a handcuff-me gesture. A grim Sammy in construction-foreman garb was a few steps behind, trailed by a suited and snarling LoCascio.

“I knew you were coming tonight,” Gotti said. “I knew.”

This was another example of Gotti’s ceaseless need to stroke himself. He did not know. He believed the hammer was going to fall after the Christmas holidays, and so he had continued to book engagements—including one for the next night, when he was to escort a dazzling young woman, Lisa Gastineau, to a Sinatra concert in New Jersey. She was the recently divorced wife of a former All Pro football player whom Gotti had previously squired to the Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center.

“I knew,” Gotti repeated, trying to bait Gabriel, who thanked him and LoCascio for dressing up so nicely for the arrest, but noting: “You forgot to tell Sammy.”

Mouw arrived from the video plant and telephoned Gleeson. “John, I’m in the Ravenite, sitting right across from John Gotti and listening to George Gabriel read him his rights. It’s a beautiful sight.”

The suspects were denied bail pending a hearing and put in solitary confinement. The first of many hearings on bail and other matters was held in secret a few days later, on December 21, 1990. It would be a very pivotal day for all parties.

A couple hours before the hearing, Gabriel, agent Carmine Russo, and Gleeson assistants Laura Ward and Patrick Cotter went to the courtroom to assure the equipment for playing tape excerpts was working. These would be used to show the suspects were dangerous criminals undeserving of bail.

Gabriel inserted an excerpt from the December 12, 1989 tape and everyone donned headsets. The excerpt was the one that they knew featured Gotti’s references to “Louie,” meaning Louis Milito, and “Deebee,” meaning Robert DiBernardo.

Maybe it was multiple ears hearing the words for the first time, maybe it was that ears were more in tune because everyone now knew about the murder of Louis DiBono, but the words coming out of the machine, into wires and then to speakers mounted around the courtroom provoked a double-edged epiphany.

“Louie DiBono,” Gotti said to LoCascio, “you know why he’s dying? He’s gonna die because he refused to come in when I called.”

Until that moment, “Louie” and “DiBono” had been heard—by both prosecutors and agents, during many reviews—as “Louie” and “Deebee,” as one confusing reference to two murders mentioned earlier in the tape, not as a new reference to a third murder.