Edward "Cousin Eddie" Garafola

Cousin Eddie Garafola is a Gambino Soldier who is doing 30 years of hard time.  The brother-in-law of Sammy the Bull, he enjoyed the life of a Mafia Czar.  How could he lose with Sammy rising to be the number two man under John Gotti.  Then Sammy flipped and Eddie was just another soldier, and worse yet, the relative of the biggest rat in Mafia history.

Cousin Eddie pleaded guilty on September 7, 2007, and at 66 years old with a 7th grade education, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

He pleaded guilty to a number of crimes.  One of them was conspiring to murder Sammy Gravano in Arizona with Peter Gotti.  Peter Gotti was visiting his brother in prison when John Gotti Sr told him on September 1996,  “that’s a bill that’s gotta be paid some day, just like every other bill, ya know what I mean, just like this Gravano and the rest of them, then that bills gonna be, thats gotta be cashed, . . . cause I gotta be able to sleep, ya know what I am saying.”

He was ordering him to kill Sammy the Bull. So in 1999 Peter Gotti gave the contract to Cousin Eddie and Thomas “Huck” Carbonaro to murder him in Arizona. Huck enlisted Salvatore Mangiavillano, a Gambino associate, to help him find Sammy the Bull in Arizona.  They obtained fake IDs and headed to Arizona. The New Jersey IDs used were in the names Henry Payne and Paul Milano.  They would make two trips out, one of which included buying firearms at a roadside flea market.  Sammy the Bull would be arrested for drugs before their last trip out.

Cousin Eddie took part in the planning in a Staten Island hotel where one of the guys dropped off pictures of Sammy the Bull’s places.   Cousin Eddie still wanted to murder Sammy the Bull after he was arrested. A number of plans were discussed including sending a letter bomb, but one of the smarter participants pointed out that it would not work because the marshals would x ray the mail.

Cousin Eddie not only conspired to murder his former brother-in-law, but he also helped murder his cousin Eddie “The Chink” Garafolo in August of 1990.  

Eddie the Chink is the father of my former friend Eddie “The Tall Guy” Garofalo who had his wife Alicia on the show Mob Wives.  

The truck lot in Staten Island where Eddie and Teddy Persico Jr ran their trucking business out of was owned by Cousin Eddie.  

That is all in the past.  Today, Cousin Eddie is unable to speak from a stroke and is wheelchair bound after an amputation.  He was just denied a release on compassionate grounds by the Feds.

Its ironic that on the other hand, Sammy the Bull is coming up for release again.  He took part in 19 murders, was locked up for that, then released.  After he was freed for the murders, he sold massive amounts of Ecstasy and was arrested again.  

Gene Gotti & Gambino Family

Gene Gotti, the younger brother of John Gotti,  will be released on September 19, 2018 at the age of 72. Gene was given 50 years on July 8, 1989.  At the time he went away his older brother John was the boss of the Gambino family.  John then went away for life in 1992 and later his son John Junior took over for him.  Junior would later break all the rules by talking to the FBI and giving up Danny Marino and Joe Watts. The Garbage Man Peter Gotti, another brother of John Gotti, was even worse for the family.  

The new Gambino family is run by the Sicilian faction, but maybe Gene will fit in with them.  Gene has maintained a steady stream of visitors who speak to him on many family topics including his brothers and nephews.  Many of these men were heroin dealers like Gene, and some continue to push their poison to the masses.  Gene Gotti, Angelo Ruggiero, John Carneglia and Sal Ruggiero ran a multimillion dollar heroin empire and it was running smooth until Sal was indicted and had to go on the run.  

Sal worked with many people including mob criminal attorney Michael Coiro and criminals including Joseph Guagliano, Anthony Moscatiello, Oscar Ansourian, Edward Lino, Mark Reiter, William Robert Cestaro, Salvatore Greco, Joseph Lo Presti, Vincent Lore, Anthony Gurino and Caesar Gurino.  He would also deal with a lot of those that would go away for the Pizza Connection.   The drug cash was flowing into John Gotti's Bergin crew and Sal was an unofficial member because of the ban on drugs in the Gambino Family.  The ban is funny because Carlo Gambino profited off drugs, the Zips, the Cherry Hill Gambinos all paid him.  The new boss, Big Paul Castellano, had made a pact with Genovese Boss Chin Gigante “deal and die”  they were to not discuss it, just kill those that had anything to do with drugs.  They rightly figured that if guys were caught dealing they would be facing so much time that they would flip.  

On May 6, 1982 Sal Ruggiero and his wife boarded a Learjet in New Jersey bound for Florida where Sal was going to look at a McDonalds franchise that was for sale. The day was perfect and the sky a clear blue and over the Atlantic the jet requested permission to descend.  It descended but went into a dive straight into the ocean where it killed everyone aboard.

Angelo lost his brother (who had been a fugitive running his drug empire while on the run) and also his partner.   Angelo and Gene had to move fast because the Feds identified Sal’s body and they would be looking for his hideouts.  Sal had died when they had just gotten a large load of heroin.  Angelo started cleaning out Sal’s hideouts but according to the lawyer, turned crew member Michael Coiro Gen found the heroin.  This would all come out because the FBI had been watching Angelo because of his connection to the Gotti’s.  They had wiretaps and bugs in his home and they were listening when all this was going down.

Angelo was able to get a copy of an affidavit in support of a warrant to bug his home.  It came via a Genovese soldier and Angelo knew that he and Gene Gotti would soon be indicted for running Sal’s heroin business. It all came crashing down on August 8, 1983 when the FBI arrested Angelo, Gene Gotti and others for drug dealing.  It was soon learned that the tapes had provided the evidence the FBI needed to bug Gambino Boss Big Paulie’s home on Staten Island.

Paulie ordered his ailing underboss Neil Dellacroce to have have Angelo turn over the tapes so he could hear them.  The Gotti brothers Gene and John knew that the tapes would mean certain death for all of them.  They held off by making up excuses and when Dellacroce died and Big Paulie did not attend his funeral they used that to fuel the fire.  They started planning to murder Big Paulie.   On December 16, 1985 John Gotti struck, killing Big Paulie and his underboss Tommy Bilotti in Midtown Manhattan.  John Gotti was now the Gambino boss and he upped his brother Gene to Capo of his Bergin crew.  Gene would be found guilty of drug dealing in 1989, almost 7 years after his arrest. He went through 3 trials where jurors were threatened and bribed until he was given 50 years.  The Gambino family as it is stands today is no long Gene’s family.