Read Mafia Prince: Inside America's Most Violent Crime Family Online
Authors: Phil Leonetti,Scott Burnstein,Christopher Graziano
Tags: #Mafia, #Nonfiction, #Retail, #True Crime
T
HE RULES AND PARAMETERS THAT GOTTI SPOKE OF INCLUDED ONE EDICT THAT MEMBERS OF
LA COSA NOSTRA
ROUTINELY IGNORED: THE PROHIBITION AGAINST PARTICIPATING IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF NARCOTICS.
Dealing drugs was an absolute violation of the rules. Plain and simple. My uncle and I were 100 percent against anyone who sold drugs or used drugs. When my uncle became boss, he brought everyone in and told them the rules.
A few days after that meeting, Raymond “Long John” Martorano asked to meet with my uncle, and I arranged for them to meet. Long John said, “Nick I just want to make sure we are on the same page regarding the policy on drugs,” and my uncle said, “I don’t understand what you’re asking,” and Long John said, “Ange had the same policy, but he and I were heavily involved in the drug trade. We made a lot of money selling drugs together.”
My uncle and I were both shocked, and my uncle said, “You and Ange sold drugs together?” and Long John said, “Nick, the entire time Ange was boss, he was the biggest drug dealer in Philadelphia. Him, Phil Testa, and Caponigro, that’s where they made most of their money.”
My uncle changed his tone and said very seriously, “Raymond, listen to me. If anyone in this family is involved with drugs from this day forward and I find out about it, it’s this,” and he made the sign of the gun.
By the summer of 1986, various members of the Scarfo organization had successfully circumvented the edict against being involved with the distribution of drugs by shaking down drug dealers and loaning them money, which in essence, financed their operations.
My uncle said it was okay to shake down the drug dealers with the street tax and it was okay to lend them money with our loan sharking operation, but we were forbidden from getting directly involved with what they were doing.
Many
La Cosa Nostra
bosses—like Lucky Luciano, Vito Genovese, and even Vincent “The Chin” Gigante—had been convicted of dealing heroin in their younger days, and black drug dealers were making piles of money selling cocaine in the 1980s. Several members of the Scarfo organization became directly and indirectly involved in the manufacturing and distribution of methamphetamine—more commonly known as “meth” or “crank” or “speed”—by obtaining and reselling phenyl-2-propanone (P2P) to “cookers” who used P2P oil to make meth.
A gallon of P2P could be obtained overseas for under $2,000 and resold to dealers in the United States for $20,000, or more.
It was an offer that some in the Scarfo mob couldn’t refuse.
The first sign of trouble came when Saul Kane got indicted for labor racketeering with Stevie Traitz and the roofers union, and then got indicted on a federal drug case, which was nonsense. Saul told me he never sold drugs a day in his life, and I believe him to this day.
The feds alleged that Kane, who was 51 at the time, was the leader of an international drug operation that specialized in importing P2P into the United States, and then wholesaling it to various drug operations. The indictment alleged that the operation made an excess of $24 million. Almost as quickly as Saul Kane and several of his top associates were rounded up, one of them began cooperating, and Kane was held without bail.
Several other alleged Philadelphia meth dealers were rounded up in separate indictments that charged them with importing P2P and distributing meth, and shortly after they were charged, several of these individuals began to cooperate and point the finger at various made members of the Scarfo mob, including Ralph “Junior” Staino, Charles “Charlie White” Iannece, Thomas “Tommy Del” DelGiorno, and Nicholas “Nicky Crow” Caramandi, as being directly or indirectly involved in importing, manufacturing, and distributing both P2P and methamphetamine.
Indictments were being prepared, but for tactical reasons they were kept under seal.
In addition to his involvement in the P2P case, Nicholas “Nick the Crow” Caramandi had not heeded Nicky Scarfo’s warning about “being careful” in his dealings with Philadelphia City councilman Leland Beloff. The Crow was caught trying to extort $1 million from a prominent Philadelphia land developer, using and mentioning his connections to both Leland Beloff and Nicky Scarfo in his dealings with a representative for the developer, who was actually an undercover FBI agent.
On June 27, 1986, Caramandi was arrested, but 11 days later the charges against him were dropped.
The Crow comes down to Atlantic City to see my uncle and tells him that the case is bullshit and that’s why the feds dropped the charges. But my uncle spoke to Bobby Simone and Bobby told him that he thought the feds were going to reindict the case down the road and that their ultimate goal was to include my uncle in the indictment, even though my uncle never met the developer or the undercover agent. My uncle didn’t seem to be too concerned about it and neither was I.
Another problem Nicky Scarfo was having at the time was with Tommy DelGiorno, one of the men supervising his mob’s street operation in South Philadelphia.
The same thing that had happened towards the end with Chuckie was happening with Tommy Del. He was drunk seven days a week and my uncle took him down, just like he did to Chuckie. My uncle said to me, “We gotta get this thing back on track, from top to bottom.”He knew that our organization was in bad shape.
What Scarfo had no way of knowing at that time was exactly how bad things actually were.
With Tommy DelGiorno taken down from captain to solider, the 39-year-old Francis “Faffy” Iannarella became the family’s new Philadelphia street boss.
There was just a sense that things were falling apart around us. It’s hard to explain, but the regime just wasn’t the same. After Salvie got killed, and then the thing with Chuckie and Lawrence, it just kept going downhill from there.
And things were about to go from bad to worse.
I
N OCTOBER 1986, NICHOLAS “NICK THE CROW” CARAMANDI WAS REARRESTED IN THE EXTORTION CASE INVOLVING WILLARD ROUSE, THE REAL ESTATE DEVELOPER HE TRIED TO SHAKE DOWN FOR A MILLION DOLLARS. HE WAS HELD IN A PHILADELPHIA PRISON WITHOUT BAIL.
At Caramandi’s bail hearing, the US attorney laid out for the judge the government’s belief that Caramandi was a career criminal and made member of the Scarfo mob, while also claiming that Caramandi figured prominently in both the P2P case, which remained under seal, and the 1983 murder of Pat Spirito.
Caramandi, who had known Scarfo since the early 1970s, understood that the volatile mob boss was furious that Caramandi had talked so recklessly in mentioning both Scarfo’s name and
La Cosa Nostra
when dealing with the man he was trying to extort, who was both an FBI agent and was wearing a wire.
My uncle had told him to be careful and use his head, but the Crow decided to act like a gangster, which he wasn’t, and he started shooting off at the mouth, playing a role and he buried himself.
On November 3, 1986, the New Jersey Attorney General’s office unsealed an indictment against Nicky Scarfo, Philip Leonetti, and 16 others, charging them with racketeering, money laundering, and bookmaking. The backbone of the case was a series of secretly recorded wiretap conversations in which a drunken Tommy DelGiorno openly discussed mob business and expressed his dissatisfaction with his mob superiors, namely “Little Nicky” and “Crazy Phil.”
On the eve of the indictment being announced, detectives from the New Jersey State Police visited DelGiorno at his South Philadelphia home and played the tapes for him in an effort to turn him into a cooperating witness.
Tommy Del knew that once Scarfo and Leonetti heard the tapes, he would become a dead man walking, as the two mob leaders predictably made bail shortly after they were arraigned, posting $400,000 and $300,000 respectively. The other 16 defendants named in the indictment were given court dates for early January.
A week later, Tommy DelGiorno became the first made member of the Scarfo mob to defect from
La Cosa Nostra
and enter into an agreement to cooperate with the government.
Three days later, Nicholas “Nick the Crow” Caramandi would become the second.
Both men were now cooperating with the FBI and the US attorney’s office in the multiple investigations that were ongoing against Nicodemo Scarfo, Philip Leonetti, and the entire Philadelphia–Atlantic City
La Cosa Nostra
—investigations which included all of the unsolved mob murders that Scarfo and Leonetti had ordered and participated in dating back to their early Atlantic City days in the late 1970s up through the Frankie Flowers murder in July 1985.
I remember Bobby Simone came down after the news of Tommy Del and Nick the Crow broke and said, “Nick, it’s not good,” and my uncle knew it. My uncle said, “How long before they come to get me?” and Bobby said, “It could be a day, could be a week, could be a year, but they’re definitely coming.”
The next day, me and my uncle went to Angeloni’s for lunch and the mood was very somber. He knew his days were numbered. He told me, “If they lock me up and I can’t make bail and you’re not in the cell next to me, you’re in charge for as long I’m locked up. You will get
messages either directly from me, through Bobby, or through Nicky Jr.” I tried to lighten the mood by saying, Uncle Nick, you think any jury is gonna believe Tommy Del or Nicky the Crow? It’ll be just like the Falcone case with Joe Salerno. We’ll get the best lawyers and we will fight them and we will win, just like we did before.
Now at this time, between the two of us we had almost three million dollars, and my uncle said, “You’re right, fuck ’em. Fuck Tommy Del, fuck Nicky the Crow, and fuck the feds. Fuck ’em all. We ain’t laying down for none of them.”
As the feds meticulously debriefed DelGiorno and Caramandi in separate locations, they were obtaining an insight into the dark world of
La Cosa Nostra
under the despotic Nicodemo “Little Nicky” Scarfo.
Right before Christmas of that year, 1986, me and my uncle headed down to Florida to Casablanca South for a few days. Spike was down there and he tried to cheer us up, but it was gloom and doom ever since we found out that those guys had flipped. I went back to Atlantic City right before New Year’s 1987 and my uncle stayed down there a few more days with his girlfriend at the time, who we all called Chicago.
On January 7, 1987, the remaining 16 defendants in the New Jersey State racketeering indictment were all arraigned and subsequently released on bail. Among those charged were Faffy Iannarella, Scarfo’s Philadelphia street boss; Joseph “Joe Punge” Pungitore; Joseph Grande and his brother Salvatore “Wayne” Grande—all four of whom were allegedly involved in the Salvatore Testa murder—and Joseph Ligambi, the alleged triggerman in the Frankie Flowers murder.
This arraignment took place five years to the day that Frank “Chickie” Narducci was ambushed and murdered by Salvie Testa and Joseph “Joe Punge” Pungitore for his role in the murder of Testa’s father, Philip Testa. Those five years essentially defined the rise and the fall of Little Nicky Scarfo’s Mafia empire.
The next day, January 8, 1987, would mark Nicodemo Scarfo’s final day as a free man.
As the 57-year-old Mafia don emerged from an Air Brit flight from Fort Lauderdale to Atlantic City, he was swarmed by a half dozen FBI agents
and taken into custody on charges that he had conspired with Nicholas “Nick the Crow” Caramandi and Philadelphia City councilman Leland Beloff in the attempted $1 million extortion from Philadelphia land developer Willard Rouse.
Sporting a business suit and a cashmere overcoat, Scarfo had a deep winter tan as he smiled for reporters and photographers documenting his arrival and subsequent arrest.
Scarfo was taken to FBI headquarters in Linwood, New Jersey, for processing, and then held overnight at the Cape May County jail, some 30 miles south of Atlantic City.
Scarfo would then be transferred to a detention center in Philadelphia to await a bail hearing, and less than a week later, Little Nicky was formally denied bail.
His 33-year-old nephew, Philip Leonetti, was now the acting boss of the Philadelphia–Atlantic City mob.
When my uncle went to jail, we were in bad shape. It wasn’t like when he was in La Tuna and me, Chuckie, Lawrence, and Salvie kept things going. This time around, there was nobody left. Salvie was dead; Chuckie was in a jail cell in Camden; and Lawrence wasn’t really around anymore. It was basically me and Faffy, and guys like Joe Punge. We all had cases pending, and we knew we were gonna get locked up; it was only a matter of time.
For the first two months of 1987, Philip Leonetti attempted to use men like Francis “Faffy” Iannarella in Philadelphia and Pasquale “Patty Specs” Martirano in North Jersey to carry out his uncle’s orders—orders that basically consisted of making sure that Scarfo’s street tax and tribute money were being collected and sent down to Leonetti in Atlantic City for his uncle’s safekeeping.
I was meeting a couple times a week with Bobby Simone, and Bobby had introduced me to a lawyer friend of his named Oscar Goodman from Las Vegas. Bobby told me, “Oscar’s one of the best lawyers in the country. If you get arrested, I want him sitting next to you.”
I was going to see my uncle once or twice a week in Philadelphia and I would go and see Faffy when I got done visiting my uncle
to pick up our money or to hear what was going on in Philadelphia. I was basically going through the motions, doing what my uncle wanted, but my heart wasn’t in it anymore, I knew it was only a matter of time before it was lights out.