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DEVECCHIO: Greg Scarpa was
a well-respected and feared member of the Colombo family.
He'd done a lot of work for the family - work-meaning hits.
A limousine driver
used to take his daughter to school,
and there was a point in time when the limo driver tried
to assault his daughter.
And Scarpa, he went out and gave the guy a pretty
sound beating. And it wasn't enough for him.
Shortly thereafter the limo driver was
shot to death and his body was dumped on one of the streets
of Brooklyn.
Now, one day I ask him, I say, there was a body
found in Brooklyn on such and such a street, and he smiled.
He didn't say anything, but the smile told me he did the work;
he knew I knew he did the work.
None of my top echelon informants would ever tell me
that they committed a ***.
Indicate to me, maybe? Yes.
Tell me they did it? No. So if you
want the information on that secret society how else are you
going to get it if you don't talk to killers,
people that are criminals, there's no way you're going
to get that information.
I mean, you're going to get it from what, your priest?
Your rabbi? Local deli guy? That's not happening.
NARRATOR: IT'S THE EARLY 1980S.
THE SECRET SOCIETY KNOWN AS LA COSA NOSTRA REMAINS THE MOST
POWERFUL ORGANIZED CRIME FORCE IN THE COUNTRY,
UNTOUCHED BY THE LAW.
MOB BOSSES BRAZENLY GUN DOWN THEIR OWN MEMBERS INCLUDING
OTHER BOSSES IN THE STREETS OF NEW YORK CITY.
JOE COLOMBO, JOE GALLO, CARMINE GALANTE, SONNY BLACK NAPOLITANO,
SONNY RED INDELICATO.
SOMETHING HAS TO GIVE.
GIULIANI: This is not just a group of individual criminals,
not just individual crimes. It's not even just a conspiracy.
This is a long-term, 30, 40, 50 year old organized business.
And the business is committing ***, committing extortion,
committing gambling
But I always thought there were delusions of grandeur with these
people. Garbage. It's a really bad organization.
And let's expose it and get rid of it.
NARRATOR: THESE MEN ARE WITNESSES TO THAT SECRET
HISTORY, STEPPING OUT OF THE SHADOWS TO TELL THEIR STORIES
FIRSTHAND.
SOME REMAIN CONCEALED FOR PERSONAL SAFETY,
FEARFUL OF AN ORGANIZATION THAT HAS NEVER TRULY BEEN BROUGHT
TO JUSTICE.
BUT THE ARRIVAL OF THIS AMBITIOUS YOUNG PROSECUTOR,
RUDOLPH GIULIANI, IN THE 1980S, MARKS THE BEGINNING OF A CRUSADE
THAT WOULD SHAKE THE MAFIA TO ITS CORE.
HE KNOWS THE MOB FIRST HAND FROM THE STREETS OF BROOKLYN.
GIULIANI: My father
would describe anybody who operated in a gang as a bully.
If you need 2 or 3 men to fight your battles you're not a real
man, my father- a real man can fight his own battles.
NARRATOR: BY THE TIME HE BECOMES THE U.S. ATTORNEY
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK IN 1983,
GIULIANI SEES THE MAFIA AS HIS BATTLE.
GIULIANI: It was very, very helpful that Italian American
was doing this.
I realized that I could play a unique role;
that my name helped to be able to deal with this more honestly.
I thought I could just say the truth, there is a mafia,
it does exist,
Italian Americans are the exclusive members of it,
it's a disgrace to Italian Americans,
it's a disgrace to America,
and the best thing for us to do is wipe it out.
No criminal organization in the history of our country
has ever infiltrated legitimate institutions of society,
including our political institutions,
the way the mafia was able to do.
This was tremendous power.
NARRATOR: IN ORDER TO BRING DOWN THAT POWER,
GIULIANI MUST TARGET THE LEADERSHIP OF THE MAFIA
A HANDFUL OF MEN KNOWN COLLECTIVELY AS THE COMMISSION,
THE BOSSES OF THE FIVE NEW YORK CRIME FAMILIES: GAMBINO,
COLOMBO, BONANNO, GENOVESE, AND LUCCHESE.
GIULIANI: The New York commission truly governed
the five families in New York City
and had very specific powers.
LEONETTI: The commission is like our supreme court.
CHERTOFF: It's like the board of directors of a company.
WALDEN: The commission was the body that was supposed
to resolve all disputes among the five families,
settle grievances, decide whether to authorize murders
and divide the ***. I think it's fair
to say that they were trying to keep the peace.
GIULIANI: If the Bonanno family wanted to kill somebody
in the Genovese family
then that had to go to the commission,
and there had to be a vote on it.
It was a business.
NARRATOR: KEY TO THAT BUSINESS IS A CODE OF SILENCE,
A CODE THAT HAS BEEN IN PLACE FOR FIVE DECADES.
BUT IN 1983, THE LEGENDARY RETIRED BOSS OF THE BONANNO
FAMILY, JOE BONANNO, FLAGRANTLY BREAKS THAT TRADITION
AND PUBLISHES THIS TELL-ALL BOOK, MAN OF HONOR.
GIULIANI READS THAT BOOK AND RECOGNIZES INSTANTLY WHAT
BONANNO HAS GIVEN HIM - AN UNINTENDED ROADMAP TO THE INNER
WORKINGS OF THE COMMISSION.
GIULIANI: It was a Saturday afternoon I'll never forget it
and I was reading Joe Bonanno's book.
Thought it was really strange he would write this book
because he had an awful lot of information in it.
GOLDSTOCK: You have Joe Bonanno, one of the heads of the original
families, calling himself a man of honour and discussing the mob
in the book.
CHERTOFF: Bonanno's book Man of Honour actually lays out
the history of the mob.
It goes way back over the decades.
GIULIANI: And as I'm reading it all of a sudden it just snapped
in my mind.
He is describing a perfect RICO enterprise.
NARRATOR: RICO. A LAW THAT'S BEEN ON THE BOOKS SINCE 1970,
AND WILL BECOME GIULIANI'S MOST POWERFUL WEAPON
IN THE GOVERNMENT'S FIGHT AGAINST THE MAFIA.
IT STANDS FOR RACKETEER INFLUENCED CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS
AND AT THE HEART OF THIS STATUTE IS AN ELEGANTLY SIMPLE IDEA.
TAKING ON THE MOB ISN'T ABOUT TAKING DOWN ONE CRIMINAL,
IT'S ABOUT TARGETING THE ENTIRE ENTERPRISE.
BLAKEY:Organized crime is a group.
Some of them are out doing the bad activity,
some of them are on trial, some of them are in prison,
and some of them are being recruited.
It's a merry go round, and if all you do is take individuals
off the merry go round, you have no impact on the merry go round.
NARRATOR: THE TERM 'RACKETEERING' IS A CATCHALL
THAT DESCRIBES ALL OF THE MOB'S ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES,
FROM EXTORTION AND LOANSHARKING TO UNION INFILTRATION
AND ***.
BUT RATHER THAN TYING THESE CRIMES TO AN INDIVIDUAL MOBSTER,
RICO TIES THEM TO A CORRUPT ORGANIZATION - IN THIS CASE,
AN ORGANIZED CRIME FAMILY.
IF PROSECUTORS CAN PROVE THE HEAD OF THIS ORGANIZATION THE
BOSS OF THE FAMILY IS AWARE OF AND SANCTIONS THE STREET-LEVEL
CRIMES, THEY'LL FINALLY HAVE THE ABILITY TO GO AFTER HIM.
GIULIANI: You don't just put them in jail
you take their property away from them.
You take away from them their bank accounts,
you take away from them the restaurants they own,
you take away from them the unions they control.
BLAKEY:RICO was
a major change in how you tried cases and thought about cases.
GOLDSTOCK: Investigators can start thinking about
for the first time,
what the organization looked like, how it was structured,
who ran it, who conducted what criminal activities and then tie
all those criminal activities
together in one indictment.
RAAB: For the first time if you proved that a boss knew anything
about this ongoing enterprise
they could get a life sentence.
NARRATOR: ALTHOUGH RICO'S BEEN ON THE BOOK FOR OVER A DECADE,
NO ONE FIGURES OUT HOW TO USE IT
AGAINST THE MAFIA UNTIL GIULIANI READS JOE BONANNO'S TELL ALL
BOOK.
GIULIANI: I'm reading it, you've got this big chart,
and it shows the succession of the commission.
What we should do is
we should take that chart, which ended about 1966.
And then we should take it and we should bring it to 1983
and we should fill in the line of succession.
If we fill in the line of succession
I now have a perfect racketeering case.
NARRATOR: BUT TO FILL IN THAT 17-YEAR GAP AND GO AFTER
THE COMMISSION, GIULIANI MUST FIRST BUILD AN ELITE TEAM,
STARTING WITH THIS PROSECUTOR.
CHERTOFF: I was approached about working with Giuliani on putting
together a case. And it was going to be
focused on the bosses of the five La Cosa Nostra families
that dominate the mafia in the United States of America.
GIULIANI: Michael was a young new assistant U.S. Attorney
We went down to Washington,
we asked to meet with the Attorney General and
the Director of the FBI, Bill West. We went down there.
and gave him a briefing.
We made this big chart.
This is the evidence we have now,
and these are the things we have to fill in.
YOUNG GIULIANI: This club is in Manhattan...
GIULIANI: So we had a plan for how we were gonna do that.
If we take out the commission of the mafia,
we blow a hole right in their heart. And it was a
case frankly that a lot of people thought we couldn't win.
GIULIANI: I'm going to need 50 or 60 more agents.
I'm gonna need more resources.
I'm gonna need really good tech people,
and they may have to come over from the national security side.
NARRATOR: HIS PLAN IS TO STRIKE THE HEAD OF THE BEAST,
THE COMMISSION, THE MAFIA'S RULING BODY,
WHICH PRESIDES OVER AN ARMY OF VIOLENT GANGSTERS.
STEP ONE: FIND OUT HOW THE ORGANIZATION REALLY WORKS.
KOSSLER: We reorganized the office so that we would be able
to investigate specifically one family at a time.
NARRATOR: EVEN WITH THE REORGANIZATION,
INFORMATION ABOUT THE LEADERSHIP IS HARD TO COME BY.
BUT THE FEDS DO HAVE ONE ACE UP THEIR SLEEVE - THE INTEL GLEANED
BY FBI AGENT JOE PISTONE DURING HIS FOUR YEAR INFILTRAION
OF THE BONANNO FAMILY UNDER THE ALIAS DONNIE BRASCO.
HIS INSIDE KNOWLEDGE PROVIDES LAW ENFORCEMENT WITH ITS FIRST
DETAILED BLUEPRINT OF COSA NOSTRA.
GIULIANI: Pistone's infiltration was a massive breakthrough
in terms of gathering names,
identities, who really controls what area.
Some guy that you might suspect was a big deal
because he was acting like a big deal really wasn't.
Some other guy really was the guy calling the shots.
JOHN MARKS: Pistone gave you that?
GIULIANI: Pistone gave us a real leg up on that.
He broke the mystique that you couldn't infiltrate the mafia.
That mystique was very, very important in getting people
to cooperate.
It makes the hand shake a little.
And it gives you a chance to start turning them,
getting more information.
NARRATOR: THIS LEADS TO STEP TWO IN GIULIANI'S PROSECUTION
OF THE COMMISSION: FLIPPING MADE MEMBERS OF THE MOB TO BECOME
PAID INFORMANTS FOR THE GOVERNMENT.
FAT SAL: The most powerful tool that the government has against
organized crime
is a cooperating witness. A rat.
MCDONALD: And their motivation for doing that is, I guess,
three fold. One, to get money.
Two, to curry favor with the investigators.
And three, to enhance their own positions of power in organized
crime because they're only gonna give information up against
their rivals.
GIULIANI: Law enforcement work requires infiltration.
You can't do all of it through bugs.
Because you don't know what to wiretap,
you don't know what to bug.
So that's why informants, they are the key.
NARRATOR: AND ONE FBI AGENT IS PARTICULARLY SUCCESSFUL
AT TURNING MOBSTERS INTO INFORMANTS; THIS MAN,
FBI AGENT LIN DEVECCHIO.
JOHN MARKS: What would be the opening conversation with a guy
like this? What's the way in?
DEVECCHIO: Well, what you wanna do is to find him alone.
You put him under surveillance and you see where he goes.
And when you catch him alone somewhere,
you stop him and talk to him.
That's how we developed Gregory Scarpa.
NARRATOR: THAT INFORMANT, GREGORY SCARPA,
WILL BECOME ARGUABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL PAID INFORMANTS
IN THE CASE AGAINST THE COMMISSION,
AND THE CORNERSTONE IN GIULIANI'S COMING WAR.
FAT SAL: Greg Scarpa Sr., Grim Reaper nobody called him that
to his face, you know what I mean, he was called Greg,
but behind his back he was the Grim Reaper.
That was his nickname because he was so vicious.
I was in the credit card business with Greg Scarpa.
I would sit down and talk to him everyday and he would give me
pointers where to go and use the credit cards.
That's the type of guy he was. He was a mad hatter.
God knows how many people he killed.
He smiled at ya, stick a knife right in your neck.
But he'd smile at you while he's doing it.
Real friendly guy.
CALANDRA: Greg Scarpa, he was, he was a monster,
he was a mad dog in the neighbourhood.
If he was walking on the same side as my sidewalk back
in the day, I'd probably cross the street.
That guy killed everything. Women, children...
he killed everything.
DEVECCHIO: He'd previously been an information for an agent
by the name of Tony Valano and had been
closed for a number of years.
And I figured, he was an informant before,
maybe he'll talk again.
And I knew where he lived. And I went out there one day
and parked my car and I waited about half an hour
just to see if anybody else was coming by.
If there were any wise guys going to his house I would have
gone back to the office.
I saw him come out of the house.
And I got out of my car... and basically he said.
He says, what the xxxx do you want?
And you know, it's a good opening.
And I told him, I said, my name's Lin Devecchio,
I'm an FBI agent. SCARPA: Yeah, and...?
DEVECCHIO: And I said to him, I need an education.
I need a schooling in the life.
I was a good friend of Tony Vilano's.
He told me before he died if you ever need help from a guy,
go see Greg.
Tony never told me that but that's what I told Scarpa.
And he said to me Let me think about.
Do you have a number where I can reach you?
I gave him a confidential number.
About two weeks later he called me.
He said, Do you know who this is?
I said, Yeah I know who this is.
He said, Meet me at my house tomorrow at 10 o'clock,
come alone.
And a relationship started from there.
NARRATOR: SOON SCARPA STARTS TO DELIVER THE GOODS.
ONE OF HIS FIRST TIPS TURNS OUT TO BE ACCURATE AND GRUESOME.
THE LOCATION OF BURIED BODIES, MOB *** VICTIMS.
DEVECCHIO: The body that we exhumed in a social club
in Brooklyn was Dominic Scialo,
nicknamed Mimi Scialo, was the victim.
Greg Scarpa, he didn't do that work to the best of our
knowledge but he provided the names of the guys that
did and where the body was buried.
Mimi's body was buried in a shower curtain in the basement
under on a dirt floor. And actually below that,
below him, there was another body that had been there for
years and years and I'm not sure the medical examiner ever
identified that body.
NARRATOR: THE BODIES CONFIRMS SCARPA'S VALUE TO THE FBI.
DEVECCHIO: He'd keep us updated. Anytime somebody got made,
somebody died, who was loansharking, who was gambling.
He had information on all five families.
NARRATOR: SCARPA'S TIPS LEAD TO THE NEXT STEP IN GIULIANI'S
CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE COMMISSION.
GIULIANI: The ability to do wire taps and bugs,
without the informants that the FBI developed on the inside we
couldn't have done the wiretaps, we couldn't have done the bugs.
I mean, that was vital.
NARRATOR: THE FIRST TARGET IN THE ELECTRONIC ASSAULT,
THE LUCCHESE CRIME FAMILY, BASED IN HARLEM.
THEY HAVE A CONTROLLING INTEREST IN THE NEW YORK GARBAGE INDUSTRY
TO THE TUNE OF MILLIONS
THEIR BOSS IS THIS GUY OLD SCHOOL GANGSTER
TONY DUCKS CORALLO
MCDONALD: Tony Ducks Corallo ran that family
for many years.
RAAB: He was arrested often and somehow
He managed to beat all these raps.
He ducks everything. It's Tony Ducks.
NARRATOR: BUT TONY DUCKS HAS A WEAKNESS,
A SPECIAL FONDNESS FOR AN EXPENSIVE SET OF WHEELS,
HIS JAGUAR,
A TIP GIVEN TO THE FBI BY NONE OTHER THAN GREGORY SCARPA.
DEVECCHIO: I had asked Scarpa about
where do they discuss things? And he happened to mention
they talk about it in the Jaguar.
MCDONALD: He was chauffeured around by a fellow by the name
of Avellino.
GOLDSTOCK: We knew if we could get a bug in the car,
there was no place for them to go,
the conversations would be studio quality.
It gave us a unique opportunity.
DEVECCHIO: Scarpa furnished the probable cause
for a judge to sign off on a Title III,
an electronic intercept, to put in that car.
GOLDSTOCK: Because we had physical surveillance on
Avellino in the car for such a long period of time,
we knew that it would be very difficult to do this.
He was never far away from the car,
and it would have been virtually impossible to do it where
he parked the car at night.
And so there was a short period of time,
we had to get it right the first time.
We didn't want to be caught.
if we were, we would never have the opportunity again.
TECH AGENT: You gotta connect the transmitter...
GOLDSTOCK: And the tech unit really practiced for this.
They got a car that was the same,
and then we essentially took it apart to figure out where
we would get the best recording
They had to figure out how to get off
the dashboard, how to install it, how to connect it.
TECH AGENT: Mount the transmitter right on the bottom,
he won't see anything...
GOLDSTOCK: And then they started to time themselves.
So there would be practice runs, literally
using a stopwatch.
TECH AGENT: Make sure you pull those wires out,
make that connection real good.
GOLDSTOCK: Installing it, connecting it to the battery,
reinstalling everything, getting out, and not
leaving anything behind AGENT: How you doing in there?
Good, good... You got it?
And then, once we got it down to the time, we now looked for the
opportunity to put it in.
NARRATOR: IT'S MARCH, 1983,
AND FBI AGENTS ARE POISED FOR ACTION,
RIGHT MOMENT TO PLANT A BUG INSIDE THE JAGUAR OF LUCCHESE
FAMILY BOSS AND TONY DUCKS CORALLO.
GOLDSTOCK: We saw him pull in,
we saw where he parked, we saw him go into the location,
and then the tech unit began to do its thing.
And then they went in. the stopwatch went again.
They had plastic because they had to make sure that no drop
of rain got into the car.
And the pressure was not only getting the bug in on time,
but ensuring that there was no indication that they had
ever been there.
And we started instantaneously getting terrific recordings.
AUDIO RECORDING: We have to think about it.
That the life was good enough for you.
If we really believe in it, why wouldn't we want our son.
If I were a doctor I would be saying to my son
since he's a little kid you're gonna be a doctor.
Or if I was a lawyer I would be looking for my son to be
a lawyer.
So they must feel that if this life is good enough for me,
I still want it for my son.
Otherwise, we're really saying that this xxxx life is no
xxxx good. It's for the birds. Right?
GOLDSTOCK: Within a day or two, Corallo was in the car saying
that he was the boss of the family.
NARRATOR: TOM MIX SANTORO IS ALSO IN THE JAGUAR TALKING.
HE'S THE UNDERBOSS OF THE LUCCHESE FAMILY,
AND THE TALK IS ALL ABOUT COMMISSION BUSINESS.
SANTORO: Okay. So in the next ten days he will be the Boss of
the Family, but he can't sit on the Commission.
CHERTOFF: So you get a complete picture of what the Lucchese
family is doing.
NARRATOR: BUT THE LUCCHESE FAMILY IS ONLY ONE OF THREE KEY
TARGETS IN THE COMMISSION CASE - PROSECUTOR RUDOLPH GIULIANI'S
EFFORT TO DISMANTLE ALL FIVE OF THE NEW YORK MAFIA'S FAMILIES.
ANOTHER, THE GENOVESE FAMILY.
AND THE FACE OF THE GENOVESE IS THIS GUY, FAT TONY SALERNO.
KALLSTROM: Fat Tony Salerno was- was quite a character.
Very, very powerful guy.
Reporter: Do you have something to say, Tony?
Tony: Yes, go xxxx yourself. Reporter: Thank you.
RAAB: He was recruited at an early age as a little tough kid,
a knee breaker, a jawbreaker.
NARRATOR: THE GENOVESE ARE MAJOR PLAYERS IN THE PORTS,
GARBAGE HAULING, AND LABOR UNIONS,
AND YET THEIR HEADQUARTERS IS THIS DIVE IN HARLEM,
FAT TONY SALERNO'S DOWN AND DIRTY HOME BASE,
NOW AN FBI TARGET
KALLSTROM: He had this grungy, beat up
candy store slash club up in East Harlem.
GIULIANI: So Fat Tony would come down to his social club
in East Harlem.
However, when he left, he would always leave his social club
guarded 24 hours a day. Day and night.
NARRATOR: SO THE FEDS JUST CAN'T GO IN THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR.
KALLSTROM: On either side of the street, you know,
there's four story buildings.
and who knows who's looking out these windows.
And you gotta go up to the front door and you gotta go through
the lock.
GIULIANI: Finally, over a Thanksgiving
weekend, Fat Tony, out of the goodness of his heart
let his men off.
NARRATOR: BUT THE FBI STILL NEEDS TO OVERCOME A MAJOR
OBSTACLE: GETTING INSIDE.
KALLSTROM: We had to get underneath the club.
It was a filthy basement.
One of my best technical agents, John Kravek
Crawled his way into the basement.
It was dark and muddy down there and who knew what was in there.
You know, you're operating with red light Pen lights.
And they were drilling a hole up through the floor to get into
Tony's little candy store.
There were rats in that basement the size of cats.
And I'll never forget John calling me on the radio
I was out in the command car
cause one of these rats bit him in the back of the ankle.
But we got away with it.
GIULIANI: They were able to get in, wire the whole place.
And it was a gold mine.
NARRATOR: THE FBI NOW HAVE BUGS PLANTED IN THE JAGUAR OF
LUCCHESE BOSS TONY DUCKS CORALLO AND THE SOCIAL CLUB OF GENOVESE
BOSS FAT TONY SALERNO.
JUST TWO IN A GROWING NETWORK OF SURVEILLANCE BLANKETING THE MOB
NEW YORK CITY.
Wiretap: This is what I'm looking for you see?
Let's designate somebody for that office.
Do you follow what I'm bringing at? Yeah.
We want to put a delegate. Then it's our xxxx union.
Not that's its Jimmy Brown's union.
Not that it's Paul Castellano's Union.
It's theirs and ours. Now, let's take somebody.
Let's take a son, a son-in-law, somebody put them into
the office.
They got a job, let's take somebody's daughter, whatever,
she's the secretary. Let's staff it with our people.
KOSSLER: We have 25 wiretaps or microphones, and we have
200 agents in the New York office and we also had 100
detectives from the NYPD.
So, at any one given time we had over 300 and some investigators
working on these matters.
NARRATOR: BUT THE MOST CHALLENGING TARGET OF ALL
IS THE GAMBINO FAMILY AND ITS BOSS, BIG PAUL CASTELLANO,
WHO ASPIRES TO BE THE BOSS OF ALL BOSSES
MCDONALD: The most powerful family was the Gambino crime
family. Paul Castellano was the boss of the family in 1982.
POLISI: You know, he was at the top of the family and all that
money was being kicked up to the boss and he got a piece of it.
RAAB: He was a brother-in-law and cousin of one
very powerful man, Carlo Gambino,
for whom the family was named.
MCDONALD: He was a very sophisticated,
almost businesslike boss.
FAT SAL: Paul Castellano, he wasn't really a mobster,
he was more of a businessman.
If it had to do with money he'd probably sell out
the whole family.
FRANZESE: Paul Castellano was not a guy
that was spoken very well about: you know,
he was a legitimate guy, he had no business being boss,
you know, he backed in through his relationship
with Carlo Gambino... so we always heard that stuff.
POLISI: He was never a tough guy.
He was just a guy who just fell into it.
NARRATOR: CASTELLANO MAY BE DESPISED BY SOME GUYS IN THE
LIFE, BUT HE HAS A HUGE EGO AND THE REAL ESTATE TO MATCH.
KALLSTROM: Paul Castellano had this
big mansion out on Staten Island.
Paul's mansion was called the White House and he tried to run
the family from the house.
RAAB: Now here he builds himself
this mansion, which he deliberately names The White
House because he passes the word along that he is as important
a sovereign, a leader, as the President of the Unites States!
NARRATOR: THE ONLY WAY FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT TO GET INSIDE
THE WHITE HOUSE IS ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE.
MCDONALD: Bruce Mouw was the head of the Gambino squad
and it was Mouw
who came to us and said let's see if we can get a bug into
Paul Castellano's home. They knew from their informants,
they knew from their physical surveillance that many
significant players in the Gambino family and indeed
other families were going up to the hill to meet
with Castellano.
KALLSTROM: That was a fortress that place,
with locks and alarms and cleaning people coming
and going.
It was virtually never empty.
We spent weeks trying to figure out when the best opportunity
was, and there really wasn't a good opportunity.
WIRETAP: I can give you guys a half a million dollars a year
without a problem...
NARRATOR: IN 1983, THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT, LED BY U.S.
ATTORNEY RUDOLPH GIULIANI, LAUNCHES AN ALL OUT ASSAULT ON
THE RULING BODY OF THE AMERICAN MOB KNOWN AS THE COMMISSION.
NOW COMES THE BIGGEST ELECTRONIC COUP OF THEM ALL.
THE FBI PLANTS A BUG AT THE HEART OF THE BEAST,
INSIDE THE IMPENETRABLE WHITE HOUSE OF GAMBINO FAMILY BOSS,
BIG PAUL CASTELLANO.
KALLSTROM: We basically put the microphone in right in front
of 'em.
You can only imagine how we did that because I'm not gonna
tell you.
NARRATOR: BUT SOME SAY THIS IS HOW THEY DID IT.
RAAB: They damaged, from the outside, his cable TV
and they sent over somebody, two agents masquerading as
technicians to repair his cable TV.
They bugged his telephone and they planted bugs
in the baseboards of his rooms.
MCDONALD: I went over to the FBI site
where they we doing the monitoring of Paul Castellano's
house when we put the bug in there and it was the first day
we were up and I said wow, this is going to be incredible.
I'm going to hear them talking about planning murders
and controlling labor unions.
And what did I hear?
They were talking about what was better, Beck's or Heineken.
What they had for dinner last night.
Where they were going to go for dinner
the next night.
Paul Castellano was constantly talking about his grandchildren.
And then they hit a gold mine, then they'd get stuff that was
really significant, and they'd get Castellano talking about how
they control the garment centre and how they were involved
in all sorts
of significant racketeering activity.
GIULIANI: At that point now we had three or four simultaneous
bugs:
Corallo's Jaguar, Castellano's study,
And Fat Tony's social club.
WIRETAP: We should make some examples.
Other people ain't like us, they talk about it...
NARRATOR: AND WITH THE HELP OF THOSE BUGS,
ALL THE PIECES OF THE COMMISSION CASE START COMING TOGETHER.
CHERTOFF: So you'll get one version in the Jaguar and other
version in the social club and you put them together and that
gives you a kind of a multifaceted
view of a particular criminal activity.
NARRATOR: THE BUGS OFFER UNMISTAKABLE PROOF OF THE EXTENT
OF MAFIA COMMISSION POWER.
GIULIANI: The tape recordings
has them planning murders, dividing up routes for
garbage collection, dividing up restaurants,
dividing up the garment industry.
All of this was on tape.
GOLDSTOCK: We now knew
the entire structure of the family.
We were working with the Senate Judiciary Committee that was
doing an investigation of organized crime at the top.
And we gave them essentially an organizational chart.
There was testimony at the congressional hearing about this
and it was reported in the New York Post the following day.
Corallo was having a conversation with Avellino,
looking at the paper, he said, you know,
for the first time they got it right, how do they know this?
And in effect what he did was say,
This is the structure of the family.
NARRATOR: WORDS CAUGHT ON TAPE ARE ONE PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE
OF THE COMMISSION BUT PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE WOULD BE
EVEN BETTER.
BRUCE MOUW'S GAMBINO SQAUD GETS THE ULTIMATE TIP.
THE BOSSES ARE GATHERING FOR A SITDOWN,
OFFICIAL COMMISSION BUSINESS.
MOUW: We got word of a meeting in Staten Island.
NARRATOR: TWO OF MOUW'S AGENTS STAKE OUT THE LOCATION OF THE
ALLEGED COMMISSION MEETING AND BEFORE LONG THE BOSSES BEGIN
TO APPEAR ONE BY ONE.
BIG PAUL CASTELLANO.
TOM MIX SANTORO. FAT TONY SOLERNO.
AND THE STREET BOSS REPRESENTING THE COLOMBO FAMILY WHOSE BOSS
IS ALREADY IN JAIL.
MOUW: It was prime evidence of showing
There is a commission, here these guys are.
They're meeting at this house surreptitiously and we got them
on film.
NARRATOR: ON TAPE, THE MOBSTERS OF THE FIVE FAMILIES NOW CONFIRM
WHAT JOE BONANNO HAS WRITTEN IN HIS TELL-ALL BOOK AND NOW EVEN
MORE INCREDIBLY, HE GOES ON TELEVISION.
WALLACE: One of the most infamous crime bosses
of all time, Joseph Bonanno, agreed to sit down with us.
The commission, they sit around and say, ok,
that man's going to go. We're not going to do it.
BONANNO: No, the commission would never say that,
the commission is nothing to do with, to do this.
WALLACE: I'm wrong?
CHERTOFF: When he went on 60 Minutes,
and he talked about the structure of the mafia and the
structure of The Commission, the mobsters watched it,
and we actually had recorded conversations
where Corallo and Santoro, and they would say did you see
the 60 Minutes show?
And did you see what Bonanno said?
And then they would say
well, he lied about this but he told the truth about this,
and this is right and that's wrong.
He was even saying there was a commission!
He was admitting that there was a commission.
He did.
And uh, five bosses of New York.
On the TV, he didn't call it, he just said I'm a father of
a family.
CHERTOFF: We were actually able to
then use some of what Bonanno said against these mobsters
because they had incorporated his television appearance into
their own conversation.
NARRATOR: IT'S A LANDMARK PIECE OF EVIDENCE THAT ESTABLISHES
ONCE AND FOR ALL THAT THE COMMISSION EXISTS.
MEANWHILE THE WIRETAPS AND BUGS ARE MAKING CLEAR
THAT THE COMMISSION BOSSES HAVE THER DIFFERENCES.
GIULIANI: So these guys would finish a meeting
of the Commission and they'd go back to their various haunts,
right?
Corallo would get back into the Jaguar immediately and he'd tell
his driver
We had a rough meeting today.
Fat Tony was being a jerk, he's always a jerk.
Remember that vote two years ago?
That came up again that vote to kill so and so two years ago.
Persico's still complaining.
He voted against it and everyone else voted for it,
what a mistake that was.
Then you would get Castellano's version of that when he'd return
home to his study.
He'd bring all his men in and he'd say That idiot Corallo's
objecting, he's bringing up that *** of two years ago,
who wants to talk about that damn *** of two years ago?
NARRATOR: BUT NOW THE US ATTORNEY FROM BROOKLYN MUST
PROVE HIS CASE AGAINST THE CORE LEADERSHIP OF THE AMERICAN MOB
IN COURT, SOMETHING NO PROSECUTOR HAS EVER DONE.
IT'S 1985, AND AFTER A 2-YEAR CAMPAIGN OF ELECTRONIC
SURVEILLANCE AND EAVESDROPPING ON THE MAFIA'S BIG FAMILIES
U.S. ATTORNEY RUDY GIULIANI IS READY STRIKE.
HE'S SET TO TAKE HIS CASE AGAINST THE MOB'S RULING BODY,
THE COMMISSION, TO COURT.
HE CHOOSES THIS MAN, MICHAEL CHERTOFF, AS LEAD PROSECUTOR.
CHERTOFF: It would be fair to say
there was a lot of pressure to bring this off without a hitch.
GIULIANI: Michael was a young new assistant U.S. Attorney.
I assigned him to work on the case with me.
We developed the case together for 2 and a half, 3 years.
CHERTOFF: We had to do a job that was unimpeachable.
Meaning not only that we had to collect
sufficient evidence to convict but we have to do it in a way
that wouldn't be subject to being overturned.
NARRATOR: IT'S THE MOST AMBITIOUS,
FAR-REACHING CASE AGAINST THE MOB IN AMERICAN HISTORY,
THE CULMINATION OF YEARS OF LAW ENFORCEMENT WORK.
FROM THE INFILTRATION OF THE BONANNO FAMILY BY UNDERCOVER FBI
AGENT JOE PISTONE
AND THE USE OF PAID INFORMANTS LIKE GREGORY THE GRIM REAPER
SCARPA TO A NETWORK OF WIRETAPS LACING THE MAFIA'S VERY HOMES
AND SOCIAL CLUBS.
ON FEBRUARY 25TH 1985, IT BEGINS.
KOSSLER: It had leaked out to the press that they were
gonna be
indicted, and my boss came in, and I said to Tom, I said,
you know, we got a problem.
I just got a call from the press office.
They know about the indictments. We gotta go.
NARRATOR: LAW ENFORCEMENT INDICTS AND ARRESTS 9 MEMBERS
OF THE COMMISSION, INCLUDING GAMBINO BOSS BIG
PAUL CASTELLANO, LUCHESSE BOSS TONY DUCKS CORALLO,
GENOVESE BOSS FAT TONY SALERNO.
REPORTER: As the arrests continue,
the FBI said it was the worst night ever for the mafia.
NARRATOR: FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY,
THE RULING BODY OF THE MOB, THE COMMISSION ITSELF,
WILL BE DRAGGED OUT INTO THE HARSH LIGHT OF A FEDERAL
COURTROOM.
KOSSLER: I went to the arraignment with the case agent,
and sat in the middle of the courtroom,
just he and I, and as they brought these guys in in cuffs.
And I just sat there and I just said, this is a dream!
Called Bob Blakey, I said, Bob, got news for ya. We did it.
Did what? he said.
I said We got an indictment of the commission,
of La Cosa Nostra. We did it, Bob!
BLAKEY:Now, all of the sudden in the United States Federal
courtroom,
there was an indictment that charged all these people
with all these things.
They laid out for all of the world
to see and hear what the FBI had come to know,
including the existence of the Commission.
NARRATOR: THE RICO STATUTE, WILL NOW BE PUT TO THE ULTIMATE TEST.
BUT CAN THE CASE REALLY WORK AGAINST A PREVIOUSLY UNTOUCHABLE
CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE?
GIULIANI: What the RICO statute allowed us to do is to first of
all categorize it correctly.
This is a long-term organized business.
The business of committing extortion,
committing loan sharking, committing ***.
FAT SAL: The first time I heard about the RICO act was during
the Commission trial and that's when Rudolph Giuliani learned
how to use it and started using the RICO act.
CHERTOFF: Well we knew this was gonna be a historic case,
and this offensive in its totality was designed the break
the economic power of the mob and really send them back to
what they were when they were essentially street gangs.
NEWSMAN: They call them the underworld's board of directors.
Members of a 26 family mafia commission controlling much of
America's organized crime.
REPORTER: Can you comment at all about the charges?
CHERTOFF: But they were set free on high bail.
And then the clock starts to tick.
NARRATOR: IT TICKS DOWN TO BLOODSHED.
ON DECEMBER 16TH, 1985, TEN MONTHS AFTER HIS INDICTMENT,
GAMBINO BOSS PAUL CASTELLANO, THE BOSS OF ALL BOSSES,
IS ASSASSINATED.
FAT SAL: They killed him.
They killed him right in midtown Manhattan,
him and Tommy Bilotti.
MCDONALD: He was killed over at Sparks Steakhouse.
NEWSWOMAN: A black Lincoln Continental pulled up to
the door of Sparks Steakhouse on East 46th...
DETECTIVE: The tentative identification is that it's
Paul Castellano and Tom Bilotti.
CHERTOFF: I got a call from one of the FBI agents
who was working on the Commission Case saying
Paul Castellano just got killed.
MOUW: We got the call and I sent out a couple of agents.
KOSSLER: They told me that Castellano had been executed.
COFFEY: When I get there, Castellano's body is laying
right under the awning
in front of Sparks' restaurant.
NARRATOR: AT FIRST IT'S NOT ENTIRELY CLEAR WHO PULLED OFF
THE MONSTER HIT.
REPORTER: Are there any eyewitnesses?
DETECTIVE: Well we haven't come up with anybody that is
volunteering anything at this point.
MOUW: I think 3 or 4 saw something substantive.
Because everybody else knew it's a mob hit, I didn't see nothing,
I don't want to get involved.
KOSSLER: The major part of that commission case was
the extortion of the cement business, so
when Castellano fell, when he was shot,
his head was right above this wet cement,
and I thought it was rather appropriate at the time.
He died right there in the cement.
CHERTOFF: So my reaction is, well, all the work on Castellano
is gone because he's not gonna go to trial.
NARRATOR: BUT THE OTHER BOSSES WILL.
BROUGHT TO JUSTICE AT LAST IN THE MAFIA TRIAL OF THE CENTURY.
GIULIANI: Boy we're really getting to them.
They're really under tremendous pressure when they start killing
bosses. We must have them on the run.
NARRATOR: BUT CASTELLANO'S *** DOESN'T STOP GIULIANI'S
PROSECUTION OF THE OTHER BOSSES.
GIULIANI: I didn't see it as a set back,
I didn't see it as a particular advantage.
I would have liked Castellano around because when you have
the boss
it helps the prosecution of the rest of the case.
But then we had so much evidence it really didn't matter.
NARRATOR: IN SEPTEMBER 1986 TEN MONTHS AFTER THE CASTELLANO HIT,
THE CASE AT LAST GOES TO TRIAL.
CHERTOFF: Well, you're in a giant courtroom,
the ceremonial courtroom in the U.S. courthouse
in downtown Manhattan,
so it's a very large courtroom, very ornate.
The gallery's packed with people watching.
These defendants are they have a kind of a business-like
attitude, but it's clearly a very tense situation.
DEVECCHIO: And there were over 75 tapes played to the jury,
there were photographs, there were videotapes played.
So it was a vast amount of evidence.
You know it was virtually it was truly overwhelming.
CHERTOFF: Now as we're moving along to trial we're continuing
to investigate and we're also collecting more physical
evidence.
We subsequently add additional figures to the case,
of which most notable is Carmine Persico,
the boss of the Colombo family.
NARRATOR: CARMINE THE SNAKE PERSICO MAKES THE RISKY DECISION
TO REPRESENT HIMSELF - A LAST DITCH ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE THE TRAP
NOW CLOSING ON ALL THE BOSSES.
DEVECCHIO: Defending yourself you have a fool for a client
is the timeworn legal adage, and Persico, I mean,
I couldn't believe he did that.
First off his vocabulary was- was, you know,
of what may be a 6th grader, and I'm giving him credit for that.
NARRATOR: GIULIANI AND CHERTOFF'S CASE AGAINST
THE COMMISSION ENCOMPASSES A WIDE ARRAY OF CRIME,
BUT THE CENTERPIECE IS *** THE INFAMOUS 1979 MULITIPLE
SHOOTING OF BONANNO FAMILY BOSS, CARMINE GALANTE.
NEWSMAN: Galante was having lunch in the courtyard of an
Italian restaurant in Brooklyn when 5 men entered with
automatic rifles and shotguns and opened fire.
NARRATOR: THE TRAIL OF EVIDENCE GOES BACK TO THE IMMEDIATE
AFTERMATH OF THE CRIME WHEN THE NYPD TRACKS DOWN THE GETAWAY CAR
SHORTLY AFTER GALANTE'S ***.
CHERTOFF: We discovered that the car had been
identified within a matter of an hour or so after the ***.
They had taken fingerprints off the car,
so we had to figure out who those fingerprints belonged to.
NARRATOR: THE FINGERPRINTS LEAD NOWHERE,
BUT INVESTIGATORS ALSO FIND PALMPRINTS,
AND THOSE HAVE A MATCH, KNOWN BONANNO CAPTAIN,
ANTHONY INDELICATO.
CHERTOFF: And it turned out that the palm prints matched.
There was a little bit of evidence that Joe Pistone,
the undercover agent,
had, that members of the Bonanno family had killed Galante,
and part of that was also proven by the existence of
a videotape that had been taken in 1979.
Shortly after the ***, showing people who were believed
to be the murderers going to meet with the underboss
of the Gambino family and getting congratulated.
NARRATOR: THE PALM PRINT AND SURVEILLANCE ARE DAMNING,
BUT GIULIANI AND CHERTOFF ALSO HAVE A SECRET WEAPON
TO TIE GALANTE'S *** TO THE COMMISSION
UNDERCOVER AGENT JOE PISTONE AKA DONNIE BRASCO,
AND HE HELPS SUPPLY THE MOTIVE.
PISTONE: Galante controlled
all the importation of drugs into the US for the mafia.
And Galante wouldn't share with any of the other families.
So the other families got together
and they decided he's go to go.
CHERTOFF: The reason this *** was important in the case was
because it was one of those relatively rare instances where
you can actually tie a *** to the commission itself.
NARRATOR: WITH SUCH A WEIGHT OF EVIDENCE,
THE FATE OF THE MAFIA'S BOARD, THE COMMISSION,
IS ALL BUT SEALED.
REPORTER: The government called Anthony Tony Ducks Corallo,
Carmine Junior Persico, and Anthony Fat Tony Salerno,
the board of directors of the mafia.
And today, after 6 days of deliberation,
a New York jury agreed, finding them and 5 of their associates
all guilty of running a racketeering and extortion
enterprise.
GIULIANI: We have now proven in a court of law,
beyond a reasonable doubt, not only that there's a mafia but
that there's a commission, that it runs the mafia...
NARRATOR: THE COMMISSION CASE IS THE CENTERPIECE OF AN ALL OUT
LEGAL ASSAULT ON THE MAFIA, AN ASSAULT THAT INCLUDES CASES
AGAINST INDIVIDUAL FAMILIES, BUT PERHAPS MOST IMPORTANT,
AGAINST LABOR UNIONS.
GIULIANI: And there we were able to expose it,
bring it before a federal judge, have the federal judge throw
everybody out of the teamsters,
throw everybody out of the central state's pension fund,
let us bring in a monitor and let us change the whole thing.
For some reason, that's when I felt the sense
that we've done our job now.
I mean- now we have them in a situation where they can never
quite reinvent themselves.
NARRATOR: AFTER DECADES IN THE DARK,
LAW ENFORCEMENT HAS FINALLY FIGURED OUT HOW TO FIGHT
COSA NOSTRA.
THE RICO LAW ENDS AN ERA IN THE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN MOB,
NOW FULLY VISIBLE FOR THE FIRST TIME.
GIULIANI: First of all, ended the debate about the mafia.
We proved in court, beyond a reasonable doubt that there
is a mafia.
It took down all these people that supposedly were
impregnable, the bosses.
It created chaos in the organization.
And chaos in an organization is a gold mine for law enforcement.
FRANZESE: I know people don't like to give Giuliani credit for
this, but he was the guy that used the statute effectively,
no doubt about it.
So yeah, I mean it was eye opening.
Here's all the bosses, they're getting convicted, they're gone.
They're going away.
I mean, this was a rumble throughout all the families.
What happens now?
Reporter: The sentences were handed down at the Federal Court
in New York.
The end of the trial seen here is historic.
KOSSLER: And it brought them to a point where we exposed them
for what they were.
Reporter: The single most important campaign against
America's organized crime syndicates for decades.
NARRATOR: WHEN THE TRIAL ENDS, OF THE ORIGINAL 9 MEMBERS
INDICTED IN THE COMMSSION CASE TWO ARE DEAD.
IN THE GAMBINO FAMILY, PAUL CASTELLANO FROM A HAIL
OF BULLETS AND ANIELLO DELLACROCE FROM CANCER.
ANOTHER, PHILIP RUSTY RASTELLI OF THE BONANNO FAMILY RECEIVES
A SEPARATE TRIAL.
THE OTHER SIX RECEIVE LIFE IN PRISON.
FAT TONY SALERNO OF THE GENOVESE FAMILY DIES IN A FEDERAL
FACILITY IN 1992,
AND TONY DUCKS CORALLO FOLLOWS HIM IN 2000.
COLOMBO BOSS CARMINE SNAKE PERSICO IS SENTENCED TO SERVE
HIS 100 YEARS IN A NORTH CAROLINA PRISON
WHERE HE STILL SITS TODAY.
WISE GUYS KEEP WORKING THE ANGLES,
BLOOD STILL SPILLS IN THE STREETS
BUT COSA NOSTRA IS NOW A HEADLESS SNAKE.
MOUW: The mobsters call this the Holocaust-The hit of the century
NARRATOR: ONE AMBITIOUS GANGSTER IS POISED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE
OF THE CHAOS,
THE MOST FAMOUS MOBSTER OF MODERN TIMES,
POLISI: He could kill somebody in 30 seconds.
NARRATOR: JOHN GOTTI.
POLISI: Unbelievable the power that he had.
CUTLER: He was always on. He was bullet on.