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| December 14, 1998 |
By Jerry Capeci |
| 31 and Counting |
 Another one bites the dust! Luchese acting boss Joseph (Little Joe) Defede pleaded guilty last week to extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars from Garment Center businessmen, making him the 31st mob boss or acting boss to be nailed on federal charges of some sort or another since 1981, when the FBI started counting. In a plea bargain, Defede, 64, the acting boss of the Luchese family, admitted taking the payoffs from companies looking to avoid labor problems or problems in general.
According to sentencing guidelines agreed to by Assistant U.S. attorney Joseph Bianco and defense lawyer Stanley Teitler, Defede faces 57 to 71 months in prison. It's Defede's first conviction and there's no violence in the case, so normally he'd expect a prison term closer to 57 months than 71. But Defede's sweating his sentence in March, and well he should. Because of his acting boss status, Manhattan federal judge Lewis Kaplan found Defede to be a danger to the community when he was trying to get out on bail in March. Kaplan has never met a mob defendant he couldn't make squirm a little bit extra. Early this year, for example, when 80-year-old Genovese acting underboss Michele (Mickey Dimino) Generoso came before him with a sentencing guideline range of 15-to-21 months, Kaplan cited his high organized crime rank and upwardly departed from the guidelines, slamming Generoso with a total of 57 months. |
| The Soap Opera |
 The feds last week
slapped nuisance charges -- crimes unbefitting for an uneducated soldier, let alone a
would-be don -- against the man most likely to be the 32d Mafia leader to be convicted in
the last 17 years.John A. (Junior) Gotti was charged with lying to obtain mortgage loans to renovate the 14-room Mills Neck, L.I. mansion where he's under house arrest awaiting his racketeering trial. Prosecutors added the charges to Gotti's indictment as they unsealed papers revealing that a key undercover operative for the FBI and a potential witness against Gotti is a child pornography freak. Michael Blutrich, former general counsel of Scores, the swank Manhattan topless joint, admitted downloading from the Internet to his personal computer about 30 dirty pictures of "minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct"between Dec. 1995 and Nov. 1996, according to the court papers. At the time, Blutrich, having been recruited by the FBI, was working undercover in the Gotti probe. The FBI bugged his office and wired him up in the summer of 1996. Last year, Blutrich, in addition to pleading guilty to breaking child porn laws in a sealed proceeding in White Plains Federal Court last year, admitted stealing and defrauding investors and the IRS of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The FBI and U.S Attorney's office would not talk about Blutrich's slimy side, but prosecutors' reluctance to use him as a witness is a major reason why Junior has been offered a fairly sweet plea deal of about six years in prison -- which he is expected to take. Gotti is accused of lying about the sources of his income on two loan applications -- one for $338,900 and one for $500,000 -- he made in May 1996 and March 1997 in order to refurbish the 80-year-old Colonial he bought in December 1995, ostensibly for $700,000. Blutrich, who has been sentenced to 25 years for unrelated fraud charges in Florida involving millions of dollars, has yet to be sentenced for the White Plains charges. He is hoping that his help in the Gotti case wins him a substantial reduction of that term. |
The Garbage Boss |
 If Junior decides not to plead guilty, and
goes to trial in February, Andrew Russo could become No. 32.Russo, the reputed boss of the Colombo family, is scheduled to stand trial next month in Brooklyn Federal Court on charges that he tried to tamper with the federal jury that convicted his son Joseph (JoJo), a capo, of racketeering and murder charges stemming from a bloody family war in 1991 and 1992. Judge David Trager rejected defense arguments last week to eliminate the crime family evidence from the case and force the government to use the father-son relationship as a possible motive for the charge against the elder Russo. Stressing that Russo's alleged actions were more important than why he did them, lawyer George Santangelo argued that the reputed ranks of the father and son in the mob were irrelevant and that it would prejudice the jury. But Trager agreed with prosecutor Daniel Dorsky
that the makeup and actions of the Colombo crime family were essential elements of the
government's case and could be used against Russo and his codefendant, Dennis
If the government fails to nail Russo in this case, it gets another shot in a racketeering case in which Russo and Hickey are charged with fraudulently running carting businesses -- even though they were banned from the industry -- through shell companies they controlled. Even if prosecutors fail again, they can be satisfied that they have kept Russo in jail since his September, 1996, for one reason or another. For all intents and purposes, Russo was the 31st Mafia boss convicted since 1981. Maybe they should put an asterisk next to his name. |
| Gang Land Contest #5 |
Time's running out. This is the last week to test your knowledge of Mafia bosses - the families they headed, the way they died, where they were born, and where they departed "The Life" for the big Gang Land in the sky. The rules are simple, the same as always. One entry per person, via e-mail. Anyone caught making two or more submissions will be rubbed out, eliminated. Previous contest winners, employees of Gang Land and the Daily News and their families, are ineligible to win a prize, but can still play along for the fun of it. In case of ties, winners will be selected at random.
First prize is a copy of "Gotti: Rise & Fall," autographed, of course, by yours truly and co-author Gene Mustain. Second prize is a similarly autographed copy of Murder Machine: A True Story of Murder, Madness and The Mafia. The contest has four sections, each with five questions. That's 20 questions for those with problems in arithmetic, each worth five points. Novices and Gang Land newcomers have a shot at this contest, since it's a matching test, just like those you took in school. And there's no penalty for a bad guess. Just to be different, and make things a little competitive, there's an extra possible match in each section. Good luck. |
Match the Boss with his Family |
| 1. Paul Sciacca New Jersey |
| 2. Mike Trupiano Cleveland |
| 3. Frank DeSimone Bonanno |
| 4. Stefano Badami St. Louis |
| 5. John Tronolone Los Angeles |
| Kansas City |
Match the Boss with the method of his death |
| 6. John Bazzano natural causes |
| 7. Tommy Eboli shot |
| 8. Phil Testa bludgeoned |
| 9. Tommy Lucchese bomb |
| 10. Vince Mangano disappeared |
| stabbed |
| Match the Boss with his birth place |
| 11. Joseph Bonanno Lauropoli, Calabria |
| 12. Carlos Marcello New York, NY |
| 13. Frank Costello Castellamare, Sicily |
| 14. Carmine Galante Risigiano, Italy |
| 15. Vito Genovese Carthage, Tunisiaf |
| Palermo Sicily |
| Match the Boss with his death place |
| 16. Albert Anastasia restaurant |
| 17. Angelo Bruno airport parking lot |
| 18. Frank Nitti rail yard |
| 19. Lucky Luciano bathroom |
| 20 Joseph Masseria passenger seat |
| barber chair |
 Big
Al's Corner
By Allan May "These boys looked tough," thought Frank Osowski. With that simple idea in mind, the 29-year old Cleveland patrolman put into motion a chain of events that brought to an early end the first known meeting of a national crime cartel. Seventy years ago last week, during the pre-dawn hours of Dec. 5, 1928, Osowski was winding up his tour of duty, a foot patrol assignment that brought him to the Statler Hotel at Euclid Avenue & East 12th Street. He watched while eleven men alighted from two touring cars, followed them into the hotel, and waited while they checked in. He copied their names from the register and dropped off the list at the detective bureau. Detectives arrived later that morning and were floored by the names on the list which included some of the most well known bootleggers in the country. In short order, a small army of law enforcement officers descended on the Statler, and the group was quickly rounded up and taken to the police station, booked, photographed, and fingerprinted. Each hoodlum was questioned individually by detectives. Organized crime was just coming of age in the late 1920s. One year later, another organized crime meeting would take place in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The FBI was still in its infancy and it would be years before FBI Director for life J. Edgar Hoover would be forced to focus attention on organized crime. Perhaps that's one reason the Cleveland meeting hasn't been looked upon as a significant event.
Today, many Clevelanders don't realize the significance of the city's booze wars during those years. Because of this, there were few books written about organized crime in Cleveland and less attention was paid to the possible reasons why the historic meeting took place and what was discussed. Of the 23 men arrested, the first statistic that stands out is that almost a third were named Giuseppe. Nine men came from Brooklyn. Seven were from Chicago, two each from New Jersey and St. Louis and one each from Buffalo, Gary and Tampa. All had Italian surnames. Once informed of the arrests, Cleveland "Sugar Baron" Joseph Porrello contacted family and friends and headed down to the police station to post bond for the gangsters who had been booked on "suspicious persons" charges with bonds set at $10,000 each. Approximately $400,000 worth of homes, small business, and real estate in the Woodland -East 110th Street neighborhood were pledged to furnish the bail. All but one gangster, who was wanted on a murder charge in New Jersey, were released pending a hearing. Cleveland's City Manager William Hopkins blasted the police department for its handling of the arrests and attacked the clerk of municipal courts for accepting the over-inflated pledges that had been offered as bail, claiming that most were near worthless since they had already been pledged in other cases.
While the police department was patting itself on the back, Hopkins was wondering why police had arrested the group in the first place, thinking it might have been wiser just to keep them under surveillance and find out what they were up to.
One possibility is that it was a meeting of the Unione Siciliane. In the prior six months, both Frankie Yale of Brooklyn and Antonio Lombardo of Chicago had been murdered on the streets of their respective cities. If it were a Unione Siciliane meeting, it would also explain why no other ethnic groups were represented. Fifteen of the defendants pleaded guilty on Dec. 15 to "suspicious persons" charges, were fined $50, and sentenced to 30 days in jail. The fines and jail time were ordered suspended if the men agreed to leave town immediately and not return for one year. Five pleaded "Not Guilty" and later that same day they were tried and found "Not Guilty," and quickly left town with the others. Other notables arrested included Pasquale Lolordo, a Chicago mobster and Capone friend, who would become head of the powerful Unione Siciliane chapter in Chicago. He was murdered in Chicago less than a month after leaving Cleveland. Joe Guinta, another who was arrested there, would also attain the position of head of the Chicago president of the Union Siciliane before it was discovered that he was plotting to overthrow Capone. Guinta was beaten to death with a baseball bat by Big Al himself, less than six months after the Cleveland meeting. In July 1930, 18 months after police officer Osowski ruined Joe Porrello's get together, rival gangsters from the Mayfield Road crew ended his chances of hosting a successful meeting when they blew him away in the Little Italy section of Cleveland. |
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Defede, an unlikely mob kingpin, used to operate a hot dog truck in
Brooklyn that doubled as a numbers bank. A long time friend and handball partner of
Luchese boss Vittorio (Vic) Amuso, (left) Defede took over as acting boss in 1994, not
long after Amuso's conviction and life sentence were upheld by the Second Circuit Court of
Appeals.
Hickey, a close friend and
reputed mob associate involved with as many as three different crime families. 
Deadline
is Sunday, Dec. 20.
During Prohibition,
Cleveland was the fifth largest city in the United States and a stopping off point between
New York and Chicago. By the end of the Prohibition Era, Cleveland would be tied for third
in the number of gang related murders, an obvious indication that extensive gang war
activity going on. However, when organized crime became a popular subject after Apalachin
and the revelations by Joe Valachi, (right) Cleveland was on the decline population wise.
Among those arrested in
Cleveland were men who would become powerful heads of two of the New York City crime
families after the Mafia was re-organized in 1931 by Lucky Luciano. (left) Joe Profaci,
(right) who headed the Profaci family until his death in 1962, and Vincent Mangano, who
ran what is now known as the Gambino family until his disappearance in 1951. Profaci and
Joe Magliocco, who would succeed Profaci as boss, were the only two gangsters to be
arrested at two different nationally organized crime meetings, the second being the 1957
Apalachin summit.
What were they up to?
Much speculation about that has taken place over the years. There were rumors that other
gangsters had checked into several other Cleveland hotels or were on their way when the
arrests were made. Al Capone (right) himself was supposedly planning to attend. However,
an investigation turned up no other hoodlums in town other that those nabbed at the
Statler. It is known that at least four of the men arrested had met with the Porrello
brothers at their sugar warehouse, and that Joe Porrello desperately wanted to be
recognized by the national crime cartel as the leader of the Cleveland underworld.
Porrello had his childhood friend and rival, Big Joe Lonardo and his brother John murdered
on October 13, 1927. Until then, Lonardo had been the recognized head of the Cleveland
underworld.
