Johnny Roselli

Johnny Roselli

In late 1947 fifty men were gathered inside a winery on South Figueroa Street in Los Angeles.  They were all standing in a circle around a long table.  There was a revolver and a dagger crossed at the head of the table.  Johnny Roselli then led in five men.  Three of the five will go on to become the Boss of the family one day. On this day in 1947 they were initiated into the Los Angeles family of La Cosa Nostra or the Mafia. The Boss at that table was Jack Dragna, but he respected Roselli, and even though he was part of the Outfit, on that particular day he was in LA.

Johnny Roselli had just gotten out of prison for his role in the extortion of Hollywood Studios.  He only served 4 years of a 10 year sentence (thanks to the high level Chicago bribery scandal covered in last week’s post).  He was working at Eagle Lion Studios but in reality he was doing much more.  The men in that room owned and controlled Trucking, Garment Center Businesses, Produce and Fruit delivery, Vast tracks of land in Rancho Cucomonga.  Roselli would soon be splitting his time between Los Angeles and Las Vegas because The Outfit was about to step it up.  They needed somebody who could mix in both the underworld and the business world, and Roselli fit the bill.  

The story of the Flamingo and Bugsy Siegal is well known to most people but I’ll go over it here.  Bugsy oversaw the planning and building of the Flamingo for the New York Families. They would recruit those that ran casinos for Meyer Lansky and the Mafia in other places like Kentucky and Havana to help run it. Dave Berman and Gus Greenbaum were heavily involved in the casino.  Gus was close to the Outfit but most of these guys were closer to Lansky.  The Hotel cost over 6 million dollars and lost money when it first opened.  It was a well-known fact that Bugsy was skimming money the whole time.  When Bugsy was killed in Beverly Hills, Gus Greenbaum took over.  

Sam Giancana became the boss of the Outfit in the mid 1950's and he was very close to Roselli.  Chicago had a huge bank of cash via the Teamsters so they would move to buying and building Casinos.  Roselli  would soon start a number of side businesses some that controlled the parking lots of Casinos, others that brought Broadway shows and other shows to Las Vegas.  He also started a production company, a company that sold ice machines to casinos and a company that was building a marina at Lake Mead.

Roselli was a huge earner and very important to The Outfit in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, so its amazing that Hollywood continues to churn out tall tales.  Roselli had been directly under Capone when he was boss and in Los Angeles he worked closely with Jack Dragna but after Jack died he would stay with The Outfit and the new boss Sam Giancana who he had known way back when Sam was a driver for Jack McGurn aka Machine Gun Jack.

The Mafia was riding high.  They had casinos in Cuba and Las Vegas and they had even branched out to Great Britain.  But there was trouble brewing.  

The trouble was Fidel Castro and his revolutionary army which would soon take over Cuba.   They closed the casinos and took over the hotels.  They imprisoned mafia men like Santo Trafficante and kept his cash.  The Mafia saw this happen and they were furious.  It seemed the US Government was on the same page and wanted to take down Castro.

This would not be the first or the last time the US Government would work with the Mafia.  They worked with Lucky Luciano during World War Two to secure the docks from sabotage and then again when the Allies landed in Sicily.  They would use Greg Scarpa to find the dead Civil Rights workers bodies in Mississippi during the civil rights movement.

Sam Giancana

The CIA regularly uses "cut outs" or a go between they trust to take on assignments that they cannot or do not want to be involved.  Robert Maheu, a former FBI Counter Espionage Agent who was then in private practice knew Johnny Roselli, so when the CIA approached him to find people to assassinate Fidel Castro, he thought of Roselli.  He approached Roselli and they met at the Brown Derby in Los Angeles where Maheu was claiming to represent a number of US Corporations that wanted Castro out. Roselli saw the value in the plan so he went to his boss Sam Giancana who reached out for Santo Traficante Jr in Florida and they agreed to meet with Maheu in Florida.

They would meet at the Fontainebleau in Miami with Roselli useing the name John Rawlsten when he first met with Maheu and CIA Colonel Sheffield Edwards Director of security.  Roselli then introduced two men to the two CIA agents. Sam Gold (Sam Giancana) and Joe (Santo Trificante).  They worked out a deal where the CIA would provide cash and poison pills to Cuban Exiles and other contacts to assassinate Castro.  They may have tried or they may have just kept the cash, but they would meet again at the Plaza Hotel in New York.  The Bay of Pigs disaster made the CIA step up their operations but nothing would ever come of this plan.  Roselli would later talk about Santo Traficante possibly being a double agent for Castro and sabotaging their efforts.

I have about 8,000 FBI papers on Roselli but they really pick up in 1961 and they are all marked with the San Diego FBI Office on them. This is probably because they had turned Frank Bomp in San Diego who had a grudge against Roselli.  Bomp thought that he should have gotten something from the Frontier Hotel in las Vegas because he did some work way back but it was instead Roselli who got the gift shop and some skim.  Frank Bomp knew about Roselli's secret birth name and the FBI was soon onto Roselli.  By the end of the 60's Roselli was headed for a downfall.

Roselli had been sponsored by Frank Sinatra for membership in the Friars Club.  Once there, he discovered a cheating scam going on.  They held card games in an upstairs room and these were high stakes games with some very wealthy men playing.  Some other members had drilled holes in the ceiling and they could see the hands played and they would send signals to their players to hold or fold.  It was very lucrative and soon Roselli was getting a cut.  They even had a Palm Springs Town Home that they also rigged with peepholes.  The FBI found out about this and served search warrants.  They found the peepholes and arrested everyone including Roselli. They then decided they wanted to turn Roselli so they approached him on the street in Beverly Hills on Dayton and Rodeo.  The Agents had a picture of a 4 year old Roseli and his mother which they showed him along with a paper showing his real name, Fillipo Sacco, on it. I am sure they unnerved him and the Agents told him they wanted to meet him in the valley in a week which he agreed to before they left. Rosselli went right to his lawyer's office who called the FBI Office and told them Roselli would only talk to the Agents with his lawyer in his office.  Then Rosselli made a couple of calls and made a trip to New York to meet with Colonel Sheffield Edwards about his name.

 

The FBI was watching this because they had Roselli cold because now he was an illegal Alien and could be deported.  Roselli told the FBI to kick rocks and they charged him for failing to register as an alien on top of the cheating scandal. The CIA sent a memo to the FBI asking them to take it easy on Roselli, because they would be in a bad position if the truth about the plot to kill Castro.  He would get four years for the Friars Club and another year for the Immigration charges.  Tony Accardo had now taken over again as the boss because Sam Giancana was on the lam so he demoted Roselli from his Las Vegas position until he was finished with his cases.  

Santo Trafficante

Roselli served his time and moved to Plantation, Florida where he lived in his sister’s guest house.  He made trips to LA where he met with Jimmy Frattiano and told him about the Senate Select Committee that had called him as a witness for the Castro plot.  Santo Trafficante was afraid his name would come up but it already had so he was delusional.

Jimmy had heard that Johnny was a marked man and told him in no uncertain terms, which Roselli blew off.  

July 28, 1976 Roselli left his sisters home to run errands around town and never came back.  They knew something was wrong right away.  Twelve days prior he had lunch with Santo Traficante.  He was to meet again but nobody ever called for him again.  

On August 9, 1976 some fisherman in Dumfoundling Bay saw a strange 55 gallon oil drum with holes punched in it floating on the surface.  They pulled it in and saw what they thought was a human arm through the holes, so they called the police.  It would prove to be JohnnyRoselli.

Johnny Roselli was without a doubt one of the biggest Mafioso in Los Angeles for decades but his name is never brought up.  

Rest In Peace Johnny.    

The Original Gangsters of Los Angeles

Frank Desimone and Roselli

If all anyone knew about Organized Crime in Los Angeles was from television or the movies, they would think that two men ran the Mafia: Bugsy Siegel & Mickey Cohen.  The truth is that Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen were never in the Mafia and could never order any Mafia guys around.  Long before Bugsy or Mickey started getting press in Los Angeles, there was a man born in a small town near Rome Italy, and his name was Filippo Sacco.  You may never have heard the name, but this was a man who worked alongside Al Capone and at the highest levels of the Mafia for over 5 decades. Filippo had a secret he hid from the world for most of the 5 decades, until a man named Frank Bompenserio told the FBI what his real name was in the early 1960's. Frank was jealous of Filippo for many years, going back to when he controlled part of Nationwide racing wire.  You may know Filippo by another name: Johnny Roselli.  Filippo Sacco grew up in Sommerville, Massachusetts, where he became involved in crime at an early age.  He took part in a murder and left Sommerville for Chicago where he changed his name to Johnny Roselli.  He went to great lengths to conceal his identity by inventing a mother and father who both died early on and filing a fake birth certificate that was signed by a fake cousin.  Once in Chicago he started working with Al Capone in the Outfit, and they realized that he was slicker than most of their men.  So by the mid 1920's he was sent out to Los Angeles to help Chicago oversee their criminal business.  Rosselli soon became close with Jack Dragna, the boss of the Los Angeles Family.  He would then be arrested  on bootlegging charges and charged with carrying a concealed pistol on a number of occasions, but the charges would be dismissed.  Rosselli would also work in the movie industry, not only behind the cameras, but also in the movies.  He can be seen in a number of old movies from that time period.  Rosselli would also open a popular nightclub on Hollywood Blvd called Club New Yorker that would become the go-to place for those in the underworld.  Al Capone and his political fixer cousin Charlie Fischetti made a trip to Los Angeles in 1927 to take in the town and meet with some of the men who worked with them.  They picked the Biltmore Hotel downtown as their base and Johnny Rosselli was soon there to bring them up to speed and take them around town.  He gave them tours of the movie studios and Al Capone saw the potential for making money in the movie business.  The LAPD did not like having such a high profile gangster in their town, so they dispachted a few men to inform "Al Brown" that the weather was better in Chicago he left; but the seeds were planted.

Rosselli started working with Eugene Normille, who besides being Boxing Champion Jack Dempsey’s manager, was also the front guy for Moe Annenberg's racing wire Nationwide in Los Angeles. They ran the service out of the Bank Of America Building on 6th and Spring Street in downtown.  Moe was based in Chicago and he was the one who ran Nationwide, but the wire service depended on Bookies for its business.  The wire service needed Bookies to subscribe to the service but Bookies needed the service for instant results on races and other events.  The service was an easy sell to Bookies, but Rosselli was there to make sure The Outfit got its share and that Bootleggers of the service paid up. It was easy for Bookies to tap into the wire but it could be costly. Rosselli would take home between 10-15% per month from the service personally, but how much he sent back to Chicago is anyones guess. One Gambler, Les Brunemann, in Los Angeles, didn’t feel that he should pay for the service, so he bootlegged it, and Rosselli stepped in to fix the problem. Les did not understand the forces against him, because he had no idea how the Mafia worked.  Rosselli was with the Chicago Outfit, but Los Angeles had its own Family run by Jack Dragna who was given a piece of the service.  Dragna gave the order to kill Les Brunemen for threatening Roselli and stealing their service to Frank Bompensiro.  Frank Bompensiro took the first run at Brunemann but only wounded him so he was laid up in the hospital for awhile.  The LA Family found out that he was taking passes from the hospital with a beautiful blonde nurse without his bodyguards so they set up a hit.  This time, Frank Bompensiero was the backup shooter and Leo "Lips" Moceri the primary shooter.  Another LA Family guy, Biaggio, was the driver.  The Roost Cafe was busy when Leo walked right up to Brunemann and fired a shot into his eye and then emptied the 45 auto into his body.  He then reloaded and head out the door where Bompensiero was supposed to be watching his back.  A football player named Frank Greuzard ran towards Leo, so he shot him 3 times and then hopped into the getaway car. Another man was convicted of the crime and sent to prison.

One last note for those that like Los Angeles History :the Roost Cafe former location is now the Rampart Police Station.

Nationwide would take on a number of names, like LA Journal, and was run by several including Russell Brophy.  Rosselli was still getting his cut.  It was then that the Commission, along with the Outfit, decided to set up its own service, Trans America, and cut out the new boss, James Regan,  of the other service that was now called Continental. It was simply a business decision.  Why take a percentage when you can take it all.  They would end up killing James Regan and that was end Continental.

This is where most of these sham shows and movies get it wrong in how things work.  Bugsy Siegel was part of a Prohibition Era gang called the Bugs and Meyer Mob where he was partners with Meyer Lansky.  The other Jewish Gangsters in New York and elsewhere knew that prohibition would not last forever so they started to diversify their activities into other rackets.  Meyer and other Jews went into Gambling.  Others, like Louis Lepke, went into Labor Racketeering and a new racket as the go-to guys for Murder.  Murder Incorporated would handle "Contracts" for the Mafia and others all over the US.  Bugsy was a founding member.

Things were getting too hot for Bugsy, so he was sent out west to look after some interests that New York had in California.  Chicago had the Wire Service but New York got a piece, and they also had ties to the garment center. It was still Jack Dragna's town and he was a Commission member.

All the stuff written about Bugsy coming to Los Angeles and taking over and making Mickey Cohen his underboss are fictional accounts, written by those who have no idea what they are talking about.  Mickey Cohen worked in Chicago with Jake Guzik but only as a low level street collector and he was chased out of town after a problem.  

Rosselli

Rosselli soon set his sights on another venture and he soon took over the race track Caliente in Tijuana Mexico with Eugene Normille as his partner. Johnny Rosselli was heavily involved in with the Movie Studios and with the IATSE the Union the handled the Studios workers.  George Brown was elected the President of the Union and  Willie Bioff was made his special Representative but they were just pawns of the Chicago Outfit. Rosselli was their go to guy in Los Angeles but every family including New Yorks got a piece of the action with Chicago getting the lions share.  This would fill the Mafia Coffers with millions of dollars in the next few years until it blew in 1941.  It was during World War Two and Johnny Rosselli was drafted into the Army before he was indicted for his involvement in the Movie Studio Extortions.  Rosselli, Paul Ricca, Louis Campagna, Charlie Gioe, Phil D'Andrea, Ralph Pierce were all indicted for their part of the extortions and all were convicted and given 10 years sentences in Federal Prison.  This is where the power of the Mafia becomes apparent, because they would all be paroled after just over 3 years inside.  Murray Humpreys, the Outfit’s political fixer and a close friend of Rosselli, used a corrupt Lawyer in Missouri named Paul Dillon.  Paul Dillon had defended others in the Union for Chicago before so they knew he could be trusted but they wanted him because he had close ties to President Harry Truman. Paul Dillon had been Truman’s campaign manager for his Senate race so he was well liked by the White House.  

Boxer Jack Dempsey, a Chicaog Police Sargent,
and NationwideRacetrack Partner Eugene Normille

It worked like this: first, all the Outfit guys were moved from Atlanta Federal Prison to other federal prisons closer to Chicago, then they all started securing jobs and parole sponsors, aka upstanding citizens who would watch out for the hoods when they were released.  Johnny Rosselli first had a doctor and then a priest as his sponsor, and he had a job at Eagle Lion Studios working with Bryan Foy, the King of the B movies. Murray Humpreys delivered $250,000 to Paul Dillion who had connections with Muray Hughs, a Dallas Lawyer, who headed to Washington where he met with the Attorney General Tom Clarke.  Soon, all the men were paroled and the country was in an uproar over their treatment.  The FBI spent years investigating the bribes, but they never got anyplace.  I’ve read a couple thousand articles and papers from the investigation.

So why do all these people keep writing this crap about Mickey Cohen and Bugsy Siegel being the bosses of LA?  I think it is because all these talking heads get their information from other movies and books.  Next week Johnny Rosselli Las Vegas and the CIA's Operation Mongoose.

Patty Testa, the Neighborhood Car Guy

There are only three main ways a person ends up if they choose "the life" over working hard and being legit. One way is to end up doing life in some Federal or State prison.  A second way to end up is joining Team USA.  The third and final way a person in the life ends up is to be murdered.  Murdered by your friends. That is exactly what happened to Patrick “Patty” Testa.   Testa was born March 11th, 1957.  He was murdered on December 2nd, 1992.

It took me 20 years of trying to do things the wrong way to finally see the light. Some people, for instance Eddie Garofalo and his wife Alicia, must really enjoy the life. We shall see how long Edward Garofalo 57501-053 likes it where he is now.  

Roy Demeo

Back to  Patty Testa.  Patty started off his Mafia life in the Roy Demeo Gambino Family crew when he came to Roy’s attention because of his skill working on cars. Patty was a worker.  He worked very hard on cars, unlike so many “car guys” who just have others work for them.  Soon Patty was working with Roy Demeo in what would become the largest stolen car operation in New York.  The FBI called it The Empire Boulevard Operation.  It worked like this: the crew would steal cars all over New York and then use altered vin numbers and fake papers so they could ship them from New Jersey to either Puerto Rico or Kuwait.  The partners in business were taking home more than 30k a week and this was back in the late 1970's!  

Patty Testa

Patty had a brother, Joey, who was a heavy hitter in the Roy Demeo crew.  He was very well respected and when the FBI finally shut down Roy’s crew and Roy was killed, Joey and his buddy Anthony Senter would get sentenced to life in prison for the murders they committed with Roy. It has been said that the two men, Joey and Anthony, are the ones who killed Roy and left him in his trunk.  Patty was never charged in any of the murders.  Believe it or not, both Joey and Anthony will be free men in 2032 because they were sentenced under the old laws.

After the end of Roy, Patty transferred to the Luchese family where he was soon back to his old car tricks.  He opened up a place called Patty Testa Motor Cars in Brooklyn.  He knew how to make cash.  Back in those days, you used to be able to buy just a VIN number.  Back then they didn’t have such a thing as a salvage title. They would buy the VIN, go to an insurance company and get "the car" insured. They didn’t take pictures of the cars and you didn’t have to have a police inspection.  Then, in a month or so, they would report the car stolen.  

VINs

Patty used to sell used cars and some of them were VIN jobs.  He would sell them and then give a copy of the key to some car thieves in a Gambino crew.  They would steal the car back before the person was pulled over or had any problems.  Once, a friend of mine who worked with Patty, followed a guy around all day so they could steal his Seville.  He saw them following him.  He happened to be a wiseguy, so he must have thought he was getting clipped.  He parked by his house and they stole his car.  Later that day, he went to Nicky Corrozzo, because he knew his guys stole cars.  He asked Nicky if he could do anything to help him.  Nicky called his guys in and one admitted he stole it, but it was already gone to Patty. The owner told him he would give him 10k if he could get his car back because it had something inside it.  They ran to Patty, but Patty told them sorry, its a tin can now.  

Patty was made along with Tommy Red, Rocco V and Giampo into the Luchese Family.  He would soon take on an important role in the family. Vic Amuso had become boss and his underboss was now Gaspipe Casso.  By 1991 they had gotten word from some dirty cops that they would be indicted.  So they went on the lam in two jeeps provided by Patty.  Soon Patty was the go-between for Vic Amuso and his men.  He set up all the meets and drove guys to them.  This did not last long because somebody, probably Gaspipe, tipped off the Feds to Vic’s location, and he was arrested. Gaspipe let it slip that it may have been Patty, and soon one of his friends walked into his garage and shot him dead.  Gaspipe then told people it was the Gambinos, and it was so believable that George Conte was going over to shoot Little Nicky Corrozzo in his club.  A lot of people blamed Frank Listerino for the murder, but he was pulled over by FBI Agents right afterwards and he had no gunpowder residue on him or his clothes, no weapons.  I’m sure one of his Froggy friends blasted him to suck up to Gaspipe.

I’ve been told that Patty was a great guy.  People were sad when he was killed.  A few of my friends bought their first Mercedes from Patty.  Tommy was then shot by a kid in the neighborhood the same day but lived. That is the world of the Mafia in Brooklyn.  Always treacherous when you have friends.

Reality vs. Fiction: Mob City's Mickey Cohen vs. Today's Colombo Family

Hollywood never tires of making movies about the Mafia.  The problem is they don’t know the way it works.  So they claim they are telling true stories, yet they make up the facts.  Every person from the writer to the studios has to put their spin on it, throw in their ideas of how it may have happened, yet not one of them knows a thing about the life or bothers to talk to anyone who actually does.  They do research by reading books written by people who also don’t know anything.  They “learn” by watching other poorly done movies.  Or, they might even speak to a copper, who knows very little about the whole story.  Once in awhile, they might find some old guy who was somehow “part of the life” in a farfetched stretch of reality, for example their “insider” was maybe a bartender at a watering hole a few mobsters frequented.

Reality Vs Fiction: MOBCITY

This is what they say about the show. “Mob City is a television series created by Frank Darabont for TNT. It is based on real-life accounts of the L.A.P.D. and gangsters in 1940s Los Angeles as chronicled in the book L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City by John Buntin.”  

I see billboards all over the city calling Mickey Cohen the “Godfather of LA”.  That is an incredible feat for a one-time “Never Contender” Boxer who was not part of any organization but his own.  They will continue to credit him with murders that real Gangsters from the Dragna Family, The Outfit and other families back East committed.  The Cosa Nostra Family, that at Mickey Cohen’s time was headed by Jack Dragna, was already 50 years old by the time of Cohen’s run as LA's “Newspaper Gangster.”

Mickey Cohen (the little guy) and his "bodyguard" who was also conveniently a California Highway Patrol Officer

Yes, Mickey was a tough guy and he did shoot a guy in his wire room off La Brea.  But, he never killed one guy in the Dragna Family.  During the time of his so-called reign as the Godfather of LA, the Dragna Family had over 60 inducted members.  Mickey Cohen was a Bookmaker.  The Dragna Family had huge shylock loans all over the city, they also had their own wire rooms.  Dragna himself had his office downtown in the produce area, where he imported bananas and other fruit.  He had at least two freighters that came up from South America.  Now who here thinks all they brought from South America was fruit?  

Mickey Cohen in a hospital bed after being shot by Dragna's men.  LA's first Reality TV mobster seen here talking to reporters and police.

Many others in La Cosa Nostra were also in the importing business.  They ran the garment district because Tommy Lucchese, a relative of Dragna, was huge in the Garment Unions.  The Chicago Outfit was big in LA because they ran the Unions that extorted the Studios.  

The control of Unions in Hollywood still was going on in the 1980's.  I knew a guy who was the head of the Projectionist Union and they were important because no movie could be shown at a theatre unless a Union guy was in the booth.  This all changed with Digital because there is no need to change film reels.

I love how they get cops to tell us how Mobsters act.  They only know what they hear by rumor.  They were never in a crew, never inside.  It is like those talking heads on those TV show “documentaries” on gangsters that say things like Carmine Persico was a ruthless guy who only wanted power.  Yet they never met Carmine, or any made guy for that matter.  They read about it in books written by others who did not know, from their safe office.

Los Angeles was never an "Open" city for the Cosa Nostra.  It always had a family, since before 1900.  The rules of Cosa Nostra as set forth by the formation of the Commission in 1931 are that every family is equal.  That means no family can come into another family’s area and just set up shop.  When New York came to Los Angeles, they made arrangements with Jack Dragna.  When the Chicago Outfit came and did their extortion of the Movie Studios, they gave the LA Family a piece.  They let them in on their Wire service when they brought it to Los Angeles. People have to understand how the Cosa Nostra works. Lets say guys from The Patriarca Family came to Los Angeles to open up a porn studio.  They would clear it with LA and give them a small piece.  LA would not expect a large share unless they used their people as enforcers or workers.

In 1957 Mickey Cohen was on TV being interview by Mike Wallace.  Now what kind of Gangster would do that?  All Mickey was doing is living off his past exploits. In 1957 The Commission met in up State New York at the home of mobster Joseph Barbara in Apalachin, New York on November 14, 1957.  Over 58 Made Guys were arrested but not one from the so-called Jewish Mafia. Los Angeles was represented by the REAL BOSS Frank DeSimone and his Underboss Sam Scozzari.  Why were there no other guys from other ethnic groups?  Only Italians were inducted into families and many are related.  

Mickey Cohen died broke in a little one bedroom apartment.  The families of the LA Family owned huge garment center businesses, trucking firms, wineries, vast tracts of land in what is now Ontario California, Apartment buildings etc.

Reality TV meets real life.  Mob Wives has a new cast member Alicia DiMichele Garofalo and her claim to fame?  She is the wife of Edward Garafalo Jr aka Eddie, whose father was murdered by Sammy Gravano (because Sammy was greedy).  Eddie Garofalo Jr ran his Big R Trucking and Equipment (T&E), and another trucking business, from a truck yard in Staten Island that used to be owned by his cousin Eddie Garafola, a Made Gambino guy and a relative of Sammy Gravano.  He ran it before out of a yard in Downtown Brooklyn.  I started wearing a wire and taping Eddie when he was still at the fuel oil lot in Brooklyn.  I even drew the FBI a layout where they would talk about important things.  Eddie is a big guy.  Mostly, a fat guy.  And yes, just like all big guys he likes to push around guys who are smaller.  He would fight guys who were smaller with no skill. 

Fat Eddie and Alicia.  Eddie introduced me to people as his cousin, and you can see here why people may have believed him.

 Yesterday, Eddie was sentenced by a Federal Judge for his crimes, which included ripping off the Union for employee benefits, things like health insurance and retirement.  Alicia used to help him, so she was also charged and has plead guilty. Big R trucking was named after their child.  

Eddie also plead out to a murder conspiracy.  I was there with the wire running. Eddie egged the whole thing on and he is the one who brought it up in front of Teddy Persico Jr.  Yet when we got to Teddy’s mothers house to pick up "the gear" aka guns, Eddie had to run inside to use the bathroom. After they handed out their really crappy "gear," and all I had was a knife, Eddie told me to duck if they started shooting.  Once we were at the spot, the Cops and paramedics were also there. Then Eddie Uncle Manny drove by and stopped. Strange.  Today the headlines in the New York Daily News read:

“Mafioso husband of 'Mob Wives' star sent to prison for 7 years in extortion case.”  They called him “Reputed Colombo enforcer Edward (Tall Guy) Garofalo, Jr.”  Now that is a strech, according to a number of my friends who knew them when they were all young.  And I quote " If the Colombos needed an enforcer, Eddie Garofolo is the last guy they would call."  End Quote.  

People around him felt sorry for him because his father was killed by Sammy the Bull for no reason, and he didn’t do anything in retaliation.  Not that he could do anything.  

Now Eddie is going to be calling in on the reality show from prison.  I wonder what Teddy Persico, his Capo, thinks about that?  Just like the real mafia guys in LA would never have been on TV like Mickey Cohen, every mob guy knows mob guys don’t go on TV.  It’s a secret society.

To top it all off, according to the New York Post, Eddie’s Wife Alicia has been carrying on a 3 year affair with a married restaurateur. That is how she thanks her husband, after he plead out so that she would get no time.

Do we see a rule 35 hearing coming up in the future?

For more details on the affair, click here.

That is the real Mafia, full of honor.  

Eddie's Uncle Manny, today a free man.  He received zero jail time from the judge, even though he plead guilty and had plenty of clear evidence stacked against him.  Makes you wonder why they let him off...???

To Blow Up an Irishman (Ray Ferrito: Part II)

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that gangsters from the past were a different breed. Gangsters today are just not cut from the same cloth. Young guys coming up no are no longer willing to put the time into being a gangster.  If we were talking about success in any other field I would defer to the book Outliers which promotes the thesis that in order to become successful in any field one has to put in 10,000 hours doing what they want to succeed. It is not just the 10,000 hours, it is practising the craft.

Ray and his friends had put in the time and they had become a traveling crew of top rate burglars that hit places all over the country. They were able to hit businesses and crack their safes as if they owned the places.  Ray and his friends soon bought an apartment building in the San Fernando Valley just over the hill from Los Angeles.

Jimmy Frattiano wrote about staying at Rays apartment and the guys there like Julius Petro using it as a base of operations.

A large bookie in Santa Monica named Sparky Monica asked Ray to murder Juli Petro because he kept shaking him down.  Sparky offered Ray 20k and half his book to handle the murder.  Ray agreed and after failing to blow him up with a bomb, he drove him to the airport and when a plane was taking off shot him in the head.

Buffalino

Sparky, being like a lot of bookies, decided that he didn't have to pay Ray for the hit or give him anything from the book.  When Ray called, he invoked the name Tony Plate, a made member of the Gambino family living in Florida.  This is the way of Organized Crime, bookies like to try and play both sides, Sparky thought by partnering up with Tony Plate he could get out of paying Ray.  He would pay.

Ray was not only a burglar and a hitman, he was also a gambling genius who had clubs in Erie including The City Squier Club and The Calabrese Club.

The early 1970's is when Ray went to Russel Buffalino with the idea of putting together a massive sports betting empire that would use tips right from the locker rooms of professional sports teams.  This made it possible to play with the odds and lay off what they needed to.  Russel Buffalino and his friends each put in 200k and they were off and running.  They settled on a code name for the business "Ameche13" and it would soon span 12 states.

Things started to change in Cleveland when the longtime boss Jack Scalish died during an operation on his heart.  Scalish had been at war with a rogue band of criminals including the self proclaimed Celtic Warrior Danny Geene.  Scalish had been content with his family and had not made any new guys in the family, so they didn't have the same manpower as those families in Chicago or New York.  The new Boss James "Jack White" Licavoli would send numerous hit teams after Danny Greene, but he truly had the luck of the Irish.  Danny had dodged 8 attempted hits by the Cleveland Combination when Jack White took over.  Danny Greene had orchestrated the disappearance of Leo "Lips" Moceri the Underboss of the Combination. Leo was a close associate of the Los Angeles Family and Jimmy Frattiano.  The war in the streets of Cleveland raged on and they finally were able to murder Danny's partner Union Boss John Nardi.  They found out that Nardi parked his car in the same spot day after day, so they parked a car rigged with a directional bomb and when he walked to his car they detonated the bomb killing Nardi instantly.

Greene Dead

The bosses from Murray Hill finally called in Ray at the urging of Jimmy Frattiano and they made Ray an offer.  Ray rejected their offer and asked for 25% of the rackets in Warren and Youngstown.  At first they balked and then they came around.  They bugged Danny Greene's phone and they soon learned that Danny, like many gangsters, was playing both sides.  Danny was an FBI Informant and this would explain all his bravado.  Ray and his team planted a remote controlled bomb outside an apartment building where Danny frequented, but on the day of the hit there were a number of elderly people sitting nearby so Ray called it off. The wiretap soon picked up Danny making a dental appointment and they knew that was where they could get him.  The Cleveland guys supplied Ray with two cars. One was tne was the bomb car and the other was the getaway car.  Ray had them registered to a fictitious person in Pennsylvania to take some of the heat away from Cleveland.  Ray and his confederates soon wielded a steel "Bomb Box" that would direct the blast right at Danny from the door of the bomb car.  It would be like a huge Claymore mine spewing death in one direction.   Ray waited nearby and as soon as they spotted Danny about to get into his car he detonated the bomb, right when he touched the door handle.  This time Danny was blown to bits.

A short time later in Cleveland, Ray was summoned to a secret location where Jack White and the Administration of the Combination held a ceremony to induct Ray into the family.  They had the pistol and the knife, the saint card and Jack White rattled off the words to Ray.  Jimmy Frattiano was also present during the Ceremony and in his book he would claim that it had been so long since the family had inducted anyone they forgot how!  

Ray was happy and with good reason.  Every street hood knows that being a made guy is the highest honor.  They used to be held in high regard and they were highly respected.  

Ray had no idea at the time that these men of honor actually met hours before the ceremony and had voted to kill him as soon as the heat died down.  The ceremony was just to pacify him until they could kill him.  It was pure greed, because Ray had been a loyal soldier for years. Jimmy Frattiano, who was an informant at the time, also agreed that Ray should be killed. He had been locked up with many of them and he put in the work, yet they decided to kill him.

If you look at the things that happened next it also looks like they tried to hedge their bets by setting Ray up at the same time.

The first clue came from a young couple who just happened to be driving by after the explosion.  They claimed that they saw the fleeing bombers and the woman just happened to be a police sketch artist.  All they saw was a car leaving the area, they did not see Ray holding the remote.  Lets look at this statement, a bomb explodes if you are in the area what do you do?  Stay there or flee.  All you have to do is watch video from any explosion or shooting and watch people run in every direction.  So the women showed the sketch to her father who just happened to be a Detective and he had investigated Ray.  The Feds were soon after Ray and he found out at the same time that Cleveland had put out a contract on him.  

Jack White

Ray walked into the Pittsburgh FBI office and gave himself up. He spent a few hours there under heavy guard until the agents let Ray listen to wiretaps they had on the Combination.  Ray heard with his own ears the bosses and Jimmy Frattiano casually talking about his fate.  That was all Ray had to hear and then he decided to cooperate with the FBI.  He would take down the whole Family in Cleveland and Jimmy Frattiano.  Ray’s cooperation would destroy the Cleveland Combination and decimate the LA Family and even topple a boss in New York. All because of these greedy old men.

Ray would leave WITSEC and continue to work the Ameche 13 gambling organization until 1993!  This would be the first that I heard of a guy getting out of WITSEC and picking up where he left off.  Sammy The Bull tried it and failed, but look at him.  I know that many people still talk to me so I know Ray did it.

The best part of this story?  Ray retired to Florida where he lived out his last days a free man with his loving wife.  On May 9th, 2004 Ray was too weak to get up but he whispered to his wife " I beat'em, didn’t I honey?"  Ray had beat them all, and died a free man in his home.

If you would like to read Ray's whole story in detail please pick up a copy of Ferritto: An assassin scorned.

Ferrito: An Assassin scorned