New Jersey Fun with the DeCavalcantes

The FBI still goes after Cosa Nostra or mafia families, and in the last few years they have hit the New Jersey-based DeCavalcantes pretty hard.

Last week a judge gave Charles “Beeps” Stango, a capo in the DeCavalcante family, ten years in a case that included murder-for-hire.  

The DeCavalcante crime family is the crime family that the show Sopranos was loosely based on.  Law enforcement now claims that they operate under the Gambino crime family. I laugh out loud when I think about the Sicilians, who run the Gambinos, actually wanting to deal with a bunch of American Cosa Nostra.

Beep’s crew engaged in everything from bookmaking, to loansharking, to selling cocaine and untaxed cigarettes.  The FBI was watching them and intercepted some good wire talk about their drug deals.  One of the conversations they were able to record was one of Beeps talking about the structure of the family and who did what.  It is a very damning recording.  He explains that he goes way back with Goombah Frankie, aka Frank Nigro, who was also taken down in the investigation.  Nigro also happens to be the consigliere of the family.  

Beeps explains to the informant who made the recording what place the consigliere holds in the family.  Equal with the underboss, but a representative of all the men.  

He goes on to explain that if you have a beef, you go to your capo, who takes it to the consigliere, who will settle the dispute.

This is where he tells the informant that the family is under the Gambinos now after being independant since the beginning.

Beeps brags about “planting the family flag,” or setting up crews, in New Orleans, Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

Beeps then had a beef with another capo and another made guy in his crew.  He told the informant that they were disrespectful to him and the underboss.  He wanted the guy hurt, acid thrown in his face or put in a wheelchair.  

He wanted the informant to use a crew from outside Elizabeth, New Jersey that would not be recognizable to the locals.  He considered throwing “pineapples” (grenades) to blow up the guy.

The informant found two unknown outlaw bikers who would do the job.   Beeps offered them fifty thousand dollars to handle the guy.  This time he wanted him dead and he told them.  He also told his son on the phone, and Nigro, while it was being recorded.

The recordings go on and on about setting up the murder and why.  They are between Beeps and Nigro, Beeps and his son and many with the informant. The two would-be hitmen would later turn out to be undercover FBI agents.  

They recorded a meeting at a bar with his son Anthony and two females, where they discussed starting a high end escort business.  They went over paperwork the girls would sign stating that they would not commit illegal acts.  Beeps wanted his son to open a bar as a front for the business.

The informant also did a couple of ‘buy walk’ cocaine deals.  A ‘buy walk’ is when law enforcement buys illegal drugs, pays for them, and lets the dealer go about business.  This is different when law enforcement does ‘buy busts’ and takes everyone down at the time of the deal.  They did a couple of deals with Anthony for two hundred grams of cocaine to strengthen the case against him.  Then the FBI upped the amounts to five hundred gram deals.

The informant got some great tapes of them discussing where they got the cocaine from and how it was brought into the country.

The six others arrested with Beeps Stango have all plead guilty and will be sentenced.

In the old days, a capo would be insulated from street dealings - and forget about having to “hire out” a killing.  The guys in any mafia crew would not get paid to murder - they just did what they were told to do.  Old age and repeated government assaults have weakened the family.

I doubt Beeps Stango will ever be a play on the street again.

Say Goodbye to the Saint

On November 7th one of the last vestiges of the old Patriarca crime family in New England, Anthony "The Saint" St. Laurent, a one time capo, cashed in his chips.  

He had not been well for a long time and he was released from Federal prison less than two weeks before his death.  I am sure they knew he was not going to make it.

He died in a Providence Rhode Island Hospital of natural causes.

The Saint was once a trusted member of Raymond Patriarca Mafia family that was run from the Coin-O-Matic business on Atwells Avenue on Federal Hill.  The Saint took care of a lot of the bookmakers in and around Providence Rhode Island.

The Patriarca family takes its name from the long time boss Raymond LS Patriarca who made the family into a powerhouse that encompassed Boston and surrounding cities.

He did not found the family, but he made it a more powerful organization.

The family that was once able to murder Joe Barboza, an informant then hiding in California, and controlled most of the Boston area bookmaking thanks to its underboss Jerry Angiulo and his brothers in the North End.

The Saint was a capo in 1993 when he was busted for running a bookmaking operation out of the Foxy Lady in Providence.  Law Enforcement called it the largest operation ever taken down in the state.  The Foxy lady itself was a huge money maker. It was a stripclub that was two stories of debauchery.  It had three stages and cream wrestling.  It also had the ever popular Legs and Eggs 6am breakfast buffet.

The Saint was also one of the rare few that were inducted into the Nevada gamings so called Black Book. He was placed in after his many convictions, but one has to wonder why because he was 2,600 miles away from Las Vegas.  I am sure he didn't lose any sleep from not being able to set foot in a casino.

He would go down again in 1999 for extortion because he was shaking down bookmakers.

Then he was accused by another family member of being an informant. The man who accused him was Bobby DeLuca, a capo in the family.

The irony in that is that Bobby DeLuca became an informant and then later lied to the FBI about a murder and a hidden body.

The Saint admitted in 2011 that he tried to hire a man to murder DeLuca for accusing him of being an informant.

He met the hitman in a parking lot and he drove him to a restaurant in Providence, where DeLuca was working.  He promised the hitman cash.  After Deluca was murdered he planned to get cash from a local bookmaker who was paying DeLuca protection money.

One thing he wanted the hitman to tell DeLuca is that  it was from the Saint before he died.

The problem was, the hitman was an informant for the FBI.

Old age, failing health and changing times caught up to the Saint.

The Mafia Hit Man's Daughter

If you google the name Gregory Scarpa, up will pop words such as his nickname, “the Grim Reaper,” “Mafia capo,” and “FBI informant.”

Greg was also a husband and father.  

I recently read the new book, “The Mafia Hit Man's Daughter,” written by  Greg's daughter Linda.

I did not know Greg, who was a capo in the Colombo Family.  I did, however, know a lot of people in the book.  I knew some of his intended victims and those that tried to make him a victim.  

The book is a well written look inside a mafia leader’s family life.  Greg comes off as charming in beginning.  It sucks you into the life so you are almost living it with Linda and her mother, Big Linda.  This is a not a book that glamorizes the life, but a look at the truth.

As you read along, you begin to accept things as okay even when you know they are not - which is exactly how it happens in the life.  I'll give you a few examples.  

When someone goes into the armed forces they go away to bootcamp.  They go through physical stress as well as emotional stress.  Everyone around them is dressed the same and going through the same experience.  They use the same lingo for common things, which people outside that life don't use.  Everything about that life is becomes normal to them, but if you were to do the same things for a day you would find it grueling.  The same with going into law enforcement or the fire department. Life in service (that is not normal to anyone outside of service) becomes normal and accepted when you are a part of it.

Greg Scarpa’s wife Big Linda grew up in Brooklyn and the people she saw often were involved in the mafia.

Today it is easy to forget that the Italians and Jews were once the immigrants who lived in the ghetto.  They were blue collar and many worked hard to assimilate into American society.  They kept their heritage but became Americans.  They still lived in neighborhoods like Bensonhurst, Brooklyn but they worked their way up to become middle class.  I knew some old Italian mafia guys and they still talked about how they were spit on as kids.  A couple of them boxed and they took Irish names so they could get fights, since Italians were not seen as fighters.  

In 1962 at Flamingo Lounge at 72nd St. and 13th Ave in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Big Linda met a 35 year old Greg Scarpa.  It was the glory days of the American mafia and these guys ruled the city with an iron fist.  She was already dazzled by these men in power, but Greg was a different story.  He was handsome and very self confident, but he was very nice. He did everything for her and she was willing to overlook the small things like gambling and robbery.  Why not - he was a good man to her.  When she found out he murdered people it was the same, because she did not see the devastation up close.

Big Linda was also a witness to Greg's double life as an FBI informant.  This is the part of the book that is fascinating. When you read it you will be shocked at how far the government is willing to go in order to put away certain people.  

I was an FBI informant, and guess what, so are many guys still on the street.  The founder of the modern mafia, Lucky Luciano, was an informant.  It gives you an edge to others on the street. You don't have to worry about the law, just those in the street.  

Greg loved the life and he never intended to leave it.  He used the FBI for money and most importantly, intel on his enemies or other law enforcement agencies.  I've known a lot of informants over the years.  I knew many who did just what I did and got out.  I knew others that used the FBI to continue their crime spree and even commit murder.  One man I knew flooded Southern California with cocaine from the Medellin Cartel and murder whoever displeased him.  He was a long time FBI informant that never should have been.  The DEA warned the FBI not to use him because he was still a top cocaine supplier and a murderer.  They used him anyway, and he died of old age in his bed.

The book gives names and times Greg met with the FBI and intel agents gave him.  The agents broke the rules and became friends with Greg.  They vacationed with him and ate meals.  How they did not get put away is beyond me.  I guess this is why today the agents work in pairs and when important papers have to be signed a fresh agent must witness it.

The book is not a Mafia tell all that names names and specific crimes, but it is a great look into the world.  I know guys who were on the hit Linda describes in the book when the Wild Bill faction of the Colombo family tried to get him.  I've been told first hand by a shooter what went down and the version in the book is right on.  

Linda talks about going to Florida with guys from her father's crew when they were on vacation.  The guys from the crew were really going to carry out a murder.  The guy she named was Joe Peraino.  Joe Peraino and his brother Tony owned a porn company Arrow Film and Video.  They had many, but Arrow was the most famous.  Tony’s son Butch produced Deepthroat which became a moneymaker beyond anything the Mafia ever did in porn.  Tony, who I knew as Big Tony, was a made Colombo and so was his brother Joe.  They came from a line of mafia bosses.  They had interests in the garment center but after Deepthroat took off, the money became an issue.  

The Colombos sided with Big Tony.  A hit team that included Tommy Shots Gioeli chased down Joe and his son in Brooklyn.  They killed Joe’s son and a nun, but Joe lived out his life in a wheelchair in Florida.

The book is accurate and a great read, pick it up today if you’d like an inside peak into the life.

The Father

A lot of books and stories available that are written by people who have no idea about the life.  They make “facts” up, based on their “expert opinions.” Who decided they are experts?  And how do you become an expert without living in the life?  All you have to do is turn on any number of these crime shows and the experts will tell you “what Carlo Gambino was thinking.”  

If you grew up in the life or around the life, it is possible you know what is real.  

Imagine for a moment that you are just old enough to realize that your father is not the same as the other fathers.  He dresses differently, he acts different, and people treat him different.  So you ask your father, “Dad what do you do for work?”

He replies,”I'm a Secret Agent.”

“Like James Bond?”

“Yes like James Bond.”

That is what Greg Scarpa told his daughter, Linda, when she was young.  

They loved to watch James Bond movies together as she grew up.

Greg Scarpa has been known as the “Grim Reaper” in the media, but nobody would have called him that to his face.  Scarpa really was a Secret Agent working for the government of the United States.  He was a long time informant for the FBI, who, because of his high rank inside the Colombo Family, was able to provide top notch information.

He was doing work for the FBI not only against Mafia families but in other places.

The movie “Mississippi Burning” is about the FBI search for bodies of three missing civil rights workers during the summer of 1964.  This happened near the small town of Philadelphia, Mississippi.  The FBI knew the Civil Rights workers were dead, but they could not find the bodies.

In the movie, a man is flown into the town on a small airplane. He kidnaps the town’s mayor and beats  the location of the bodies out of him.   

The man in that case in real life, who was flown in from New York, was Greg Scarpa.  He grabbed a TV Salesman and took him to the remote Camp Shelby Army, base where he got the location of the bodies out of him. Perhaps he just asked him nicely and he gave it up?  

The FBI uncovered the bodies in an earthen dam, and Greg Scarpa flew back to Brooklyn to continue his criminal enterprise. The FBI was happy, J. Edgar Hoover was happy, and the press made a huge deal out of it.  

The FBI may have used Scarpa on a few more of these Civil Rights missions.  Maybe some day the rest of the information will come out.

Scarpa, or Greg Bond, as he jokingly told his daughter one day, was not the typical mobster.  He dressed nice but was never flashy.  He did not go bouncing around clubs like the others.  Scarpa was a family man.  He always wanted his family home for 5pm dinner together. The kids all knew they would be in trouble if they were not home by 5pm.  It seems a little funny that Scarpa knew the importance of family meals in keeping the family bond strong. Today nightly family dinners are all but lost in most of America.

In their younger years the kids would beg their mother to take them down to the club or luncheonette to see their father.  It was a wondrous place where they would emerge with pockets full of cash given to them by everyone.  Joey would walk across the room on his hands from one end to the other to entertain them.  The crew was so amazed they would make bets on how long he could do it.

Scarpa didn't keep his life a secret from his family.  Testimony from other mobsters proves that.  So the fact that Linda has now written a book titled, “The Mafia Hitman's Daughter,” which will be available in December, should not surprise anyone.  Many men in the life did keep their involvement in the Mafia a secret from their wives, kids and grandkids.  Unlike the books by those families members who pretend to know, but were kept in the dark, Linda’s book will have real insight and great stories.  

Linda knew her father well and what he could do.  People would “disappear” or they would end up in the hospital if they crossed Scarpa.  She once stopped by the social club and her father told her she had to leave right then.  Scarpa had a two way mirror where he could see the club and one place you never wanted to be was behind that glass. Nothing good would come of that.

I've written before about a planned hit against Greg Scarpa at the start of the Colombo war in the 1990’s.  I was told about the event from someone who was in on the planning and was there.  Now I’ve also heard it from the other side.

Scarpa was feared by Vic Orena and Bill Cutolo, so after the failed hit on Orena they decided to hit Scarpa.  The main thing about the whole event that people do not understand is that Scarpa was on the outs with the Persicos. He was already very sick with AIDS that he had contracted from a blood transfusion.  The dementia was setting in at the time.

So, when Scarpa was driving away from his home with his daughter and her son behind him, the hit team parked a truck across the street.  They jumped out of a van but one the shooters fired a shot by accident.  Scarpa gunned his car forward.  Linda saw a shot part the hair of one of her father’s men.  Scarpa seemed to be hit as he got around the truck.  The gunmen then turned their guns on the car driven by his daughter.  Luckily she was not hit. She ran back to the house and started beating on the door.  She handed her mother the baby and screamed, “They killed Daddy!”  Her legs were rubber and she sobbed until Scarpa walked in the door.  

Scarpa cried along with his family for what almost happened.  He knew it was a close call and the guys who did it would be back again.  Scarpa was on a mission from that minute forward.  He told his family that every one of the would be assassins would pay. “I’ll kill them all.”

Scarpa was the one the other side feared the most.  It was a big mistake on their part.

Those days are in the past.  The guys from both sides of the Colombo war are gone. Scarpa passed away in June of 1994 in a federal prison hospital.  He had lost his battle with Aids.  

Linda will forever miss the hugs from her father and his voice.  Gone are the family meals, but not the many memories.

The whole mafia life is full of stories.  Every story, every crime, every botched hit, has two sides who can tell the same story from a completely different point of view.  

Harrelson, a judge and JFK

Woody Harrelson has made a name for himself as a great actor, but few people know about his father Charles Voyde Harrelson.  Charles V. Harrelson was a hitman, the first person to kill a sitting federal judge in the 20th century.  

Our story begins with Jimmy Chagra, a struggling rug salesman.  His family went bust and he turned to gambling and drug smuggling to make his cash.  He was hugely successful as a drug trafficker and became a fixture in Las Vegas.  He lived at Caesars Palace while he was having his mansion built.  He gambled a million a week in the casinos and once lost 500k on a golf game.  He was indicted and arrested twice for drug dealing.  When he drew Judge John Wood, better known as “Maximum John” because he handed down the maximum sentence to drug dealers, he was advised by his brother Joe Chagra, a lawyer, to kill the Judge rather than receive a long sentence.  So he reached out for a hitman.  Charles V. Harrelson was well known as a gun-for-hire, a guy who would do whatever it took to get a job done.   They met in a Las Vegas Casino.  

Charles V. Harrelson Mugshot

Charles was paid an astronomical amount of cash to kill the judge, 250K. This amount is high even in today’s dollars.  Anyone who watches Discovery ID Channel will know that people are killed for much less all the time.   Just look at what those who killed Fat Herbie Blitzstien were paid.  Charles was paid based based on the word that he was on the grassy knoll and fired the famous fatal head shot.   Whether you believe that or not, he did kill the judge with a single shot fired from .240 Wetherby Mark V rifle, killing him from a distance.   He waited for the judge to come home to his San Antomio, Texas townhome.  When he arrived in the parking lot, Charles fired a single shot from a rifle into his body, killing him.  When he was arrested, high on cocaine on the highway in Texas, he was ranting about killing Kennedy. When they searched him they found a card from R.D. Matthews in Dallas.   The FBI launched the biggest investigation in modern history in 1979, interviewing more than 30,000 people and collecting more than 500,000 pieces of evidence, at a cost of 11 million dollars.  

Charles was rumored to be one of the three tramps arrested by the Dallas Police immediately after the Kennedy assassination. There was no official record of ever arresting three tramps, and it would never even be known about except for a series of pictures taken by a reporter in Dealy Plaza immediately after the assassination.   The tramps were trying to board a train very close to the grassy knoll and stockade fence when they were arrested.  They appear very clean shaved with new shoes on their feet, so them actually being real tramps is suspect.   One looks a lot like Charles V. Harrelson.  

The Three Tramps

R. D. Matthews, the man whose card was found on Charles when he was arrested, was a shadowy Dallas gambling figure who was a highly decorated World War II Veteran.  He returned  back home and became part of a large Dallas gang.  He worked with Benny Benion of Horseshoe Casino fame and even had places in Cuba.  Jack Ruby made a 13 minute call to RD's wife's home in Las Vegas a few days before the Kennedy assassination. Jack Ruby saw Dallas Mafia boss Joseph Campisi and RD Matthews after killing Lee H Oswald.  RD had a permanent room at the Horseshoe and that was where Charles Harrelson was paid the 250k to kill the judge.

There is so much to this story and that is why I kept studying the files and getting into contact with Charles Harrelson.  He wrote me back to say that he was going to tell his story, the REAL story.  Unfortunately, that book will never come because he died on March 15, 2007 and his cell was cleaned out.    

A few years back, casino magnate Bob Stupak was roughed up by a then-88 year old RD Matthews.  I called up Las Vegas Reporter Scoop Smith and asked him if he knew who RD was, and he didn’t know. So I filled him in and there was a nice piece in the next paper.

RD Matthews, like Charles, has passed on. On July 21, 2013 he died like he lived, quietly.