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| May 2, 2002 | |||||
| By Jerry Capeci | |||||
| Sammy The Bald | |||||
  As John Gotti battles cancer in silence, his once understated
underboss has been reborn as an arrogant, loudmouth drug
dealer with delusions of grandeur.After expressing faith in his court-appointed attorney in court last month, Salvatore (Sammy The Bull) Gravano begged two sketch artists to make him look handsome. "Give me hair," he
snarled as he was escorted back to his prison cell to decide whether to
retain Lynne Stewart, who is charged with serving as a conduit for
convicted terrorist, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman. "You ruined me last time. All
The hubris began when he was being fawned over by young Arizona drug dealers in business with his son Gerard, the Baby Bull. As we reported in our Mar. 28 "Sammy The Jerk" column, Gravano posed for pictures as he signed baseball bats and autographed copies of his life story in his new home town. It has continued during his return to Brooklyn Federal Court, where instead of regaling juries as Gotti's former right-hand-man-in-crime in mob hits and mayhem, he has admitted selling Ecstasy with his wife, son and daughter. At a pre-sentencing hearing two months ago, Gravano, obviously self- |
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It started with a silent greeting when Gravano was led into the courtroom and scanned the audience for familiar faces, much the way the Dapper Don did during his heyday. When Gravano recognized Cornell, he nodded, and then, with a goofy grin, put his arms up to cover his bald head. "Yeah, you're bald," Stewart confirmed for Gravano, who has a thyroid-related disease that caused his hair to fall out. Gravano shrugged, looked back at Cornell and stuck out his tongue. Later, when Michael Papa, a transplanted Long Islander, testified he was "star struck" when he finally met Sammy The Bull and how thrilled he was to be swimming in his pool, Cornell gave Sammy a "Was it cool for you too?"look. Gravano shrugged, extended his hands out, palms up, and gave Cornell a "Can I help it if young punks like him idolize me?" glance that made her so uncomfortable she avoided eye contact with him. Meanwhile, Sammy The Bald, after telling Judge Allyne Ross he would like to retain Stewart as his lawyer, is still discussing the risks of continuing to be |
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represented by her with an attorney Ross appointed to consult with Gravano. If Gravano chooses to go along with Stewart, he still may be forced to switch. At the last session, prosecutors Linda Lacewell and Noah Perlman moved to disqualify her, arguing that the charges against Stewart make it impossible for her represent Gravano effectively. On the one hand, prosecutors say, her indictment gives her "a motive to curry favor with the government in a manner contrary to (Gravano's) interests. Conversely, Ms. Stewart may become overzealous in reaction to her own indictment, and this, too, may not be in Mr. Gravano's best interest."
"I think it's a very serious motion," said Ross. As for Gerard, the Baby Bull who liked to pull up his shirt and show off a tattoo of a bull on his belly, (right) and boast, "You know who I am? I'm Sammy The Bull's son," he's decided that because he's Sammy The Bull's son, he had a "diminished capacity" to resist a life of crime and deserves a "downward departure" from the 11 to 14 years that the sentencing guidelines would normally call for in his case. Sounds like a pretty good argument to Gang Land. |
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| Work Is What You Make It | |||||
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Some old mobsters fade away. Others, like Luchese soldier Joseph (JoJo) Truncale, get involved in school construction projects. And in Truncale's case, the five weeks he reputedly spent at Intermediate School 254 in Queens earning $18 an hour from the Marmer Brothers Construction Company was not a crime, even if he did no work at all. Truncale, 71, and lawyer Joel Wingrad insist that because of his advancing years, Trancale was assigned, and performed, light duty like "backing up trucks, arranging traffic control and sweeping and cleaning" on the job site in late 1998. No matter, ruled Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Atlas, who threw out similar labor racketeering charges of falsifying business records against two other defendants last year. There was no reason to treat Truncale any differently, even if he were a gangster, as prosecutors alleged, Atlas wrote. Truncale, said Atlas, was paid on the books; he got the prevailing union wage; he was on the site according to both union and company records, and none of the reports required "certification that the employee actually performed work during the hours reported." Though he beat the case, it is not quite a "happily ever after" ending for Truncale. Last month, he was sentenced to five years for federal murder conspiracy and drug dealing charges. His sentence begins in July. |
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In
addition to their public remarks, the prosecutors have filed two sealed
letters to back up their claim.
