Born to Steal: When the Mafia Hit Wall Street (41 page)

When Louis got there, he immediately saw that things weren’t right. “This guy Jackie is there. He motions to me from his office—‘I
want to talk to you.’”

Louis felt the microphones cold on his skin and his stomach juices started churning. “I’m really nervous. I don’t know this
guy Jackie, so why does he want to talk to me? Nobody’s expecting me. What’s going on?”

“I go into his office,” said Louis, “and he says, ‘I know you’re a big broker. I know you raise a lot of money. But I made
a couple of phone calls and somebody told me not to deal with you. You’re shady.’” At that point two large men walked into
the office and closed the door.

“You do scandalous shit,” Jackie said.

“I thought by shady that he meant I’m a rat,” said Louis. “My stomach is in my feet. I’m in the back office of this guy’s
fucking place! I could be killed. The two guys were monsters. Italians. Bodybuilders. The two guys just stood there and listened.
Said nothing. I got defensive. ‘What are you telling me? What do you mean, scandalous?’”

Jackie explained that by scandalous he meant “‘the way you sell stock.’ So he starts to explain I’m a cowboy on the phone.
He says, ‘You take it to the next level of lying.’”

Louis could relax now. The rest of the conversation was good. Pretty damn good. This firm was offering Louis a 50 percent
payout, meaning that he got to keep half the money he was getting from customers.

Money. That was what the man said.

Being a cooperator sucked.

For weeks, Louis had been living in other people’s apartments and subsisting on other people’s money. It was humiliating.
Ridiculous. Sure, it was better than jail. But all the bullshit about witnesses being paid by the feds was a crock. At least,
it was a crock as far as Louis was concerned. Maybe he just didn’t get a good deal. Or maybe he was lucky not to be in jail.

But none of that mattered now. Here it was. The goddamn millennium year. Chop houses were supposed to be dead. They had dropped
out of the headlines. But here they were. Still operating. And here he was, wearing this stupid wire.

Jackie was promising cash. It was all Louis had lived for. And now he had none.

He felt like going into the bathroom and ripping out the fucking transmitter, sitting down and making calls. Just a couple.
He could say the transmitter malfunctioned, or something. Then he could come back and get the cash.

It would mean going back to the old days, and the old days weren’t over. They would never be over.

Louis thought about it while Jackie talked.

He had heard enough. He could have kept the conversation going, but it wasn’t necessary. Brosnan and Barrows would have enough.
They would be happy. He went out on the street, turned a corner, turned another corner, and climbed into the van.

Shortly after seven-thirty in the evening of June 14, 2000, Charlie Ricottone was led into Courtroom 5A, 500 Pearl Street,
the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Charlie appeared in court unshaven, jail-ready in a pale gray
sweatshirt, scuffed Nikes, and blue jeans. He was tan. His bald spot was undisguised, lest the communal shower result in an
embarrassing mascara-like run. He entered the courtroom with difficulty because he was chained hand and foot, as were the
other defendants who were led into the courtroom with him. It was a routine procedure, enforced by the burly U.S. marshals
who were everywhere.

Earlier in the day, Mary Jo White had proven that she was no do-nothing Otto Obermaier. In a packed press conference that
made headlines around the world, White announced the biggest securities bust in recent memory. A total of 120 defendants,
Charlie among them, were arrested by FBI agents around the country.

Louis had supplied information for three of the courtroom minuets that Mary Jo White had choreographed that day, and others
that were still in rehearsals but would soon have their premieres. In addition to nailing Charlie, Louis had helped the feds
build a case against a three-man crew that was running a private placement scam Louis had worked in 1999, involving a Staten
Island gym called Future Fitness. Louis also had furnished information leading to the roundup of the First Fidelity crew.
All eighteen of them were led into the courtroom, as Charlie was, bound hand and foot. In all, Louis had helped the feds in
cases that were brought against 22 of the 120 Guys and brokers who were paraded before the TV cameras on that day.

Louis had never heard of most of them. White’s prosecutors had thrown together, in a single press release and press conference,
a grab bag of twenty-two largely unrelated cases. Thirteen of the cases had something to do with a Manhattan stock-promotion
firm called DMN Capital, run by a Bonanno skipper named Robert Lino. Nine—including the three in which Louis was a cooperating
witness—had no connection at all to DMN.

DMN was a fairly typical Guy-run stock promotion firm, and it was similar to, if more sizable than, Ralph Torrelli’s Effson
Associates. White made it out to be a cross between Merrill Lynch and the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. It was terrific publicity.

This was war—a war for media attention—and the Eastern District had lost. Compared to the Brooklyn feds’ Hanover Sterling
and Stratton Oakmont indictments, the Manhattan feds’ June 2000 cases were small potatoes. Eastern District U.S. Attorney
Zachary Carter, and his successor Loretta E. Lynch, were both fine prosecutors. But they had a lot to learn about the art
of the press conference.

Louis had been waiting anxiously for Charlie’s arrest, and he was relieved that he was behind bars. Charlie was charged with
two counts of loan sharking. Unlike most of the other defendants, Charlie was detained without bail on the grounds that “there
is a serious risk that the defendant will endanger the safety of another person or the community.” They didn’t say who the
“other person” was. But Louis’s identity was soon made known to defense counsel.

Charlie was arraigned and pleaded not guilty. His case was soon moved to the Brooklyn courthouse, and lawyers swiftly began
pressing for his release on bail. Louis was upset, but he was assured by his FBI handlers that Charlie would likely remain
behind bars.

In support of their application that Charlie be held without bail, prosecutors had submitted excerpts from intercepted phone
conversations showing that Charlie had made threats against people who owed him money. In a letter to Judge I. Leo Glasser
dated September 8, 2000, Charlie’s lawyer Michael Rosen made a number of observations. To begin with, he noted, the charges
against Charlie were lodged in February 2000, but were not unsealed until June. If Charlie was such a threat to society, why
was the case kept under seal so long? A fair question. The answer might have been that the feds wanted to give Louis a chance
to continue his undercover work—or give Mary Jo White another case to announce at the June 2000 press extravaganza. Or both.

Rosen went on:

We learn from the bail hearing before Judge Daniels on June 23, that the alleged “victim” is a confessed stock swindler who,
with the aid of the FBI, made telephone calls to the defendant on three days in October 1999. He continues to be under the
aegis of the FBI and has been safe from the Fall of ’99 to the present. . . .

To be sure, the language captured on tape is tough and graphic. Yet, perhaps due to my thirty-five years in this profession,
I do not regard the words used as unusual for an alleged “loan shark”—most of whom are admitted to bail. Judge Glasser, I
am not downplaying the seriousness of these cases, however, I believe that there are substantial bail conditions that can
be imposed even on someone alleged to be a “loan shark.” . . .

Defendant’s convictions for robbery were over eighteen years ago. His conviction before Judge Raggi in 1992 occurred because
of a stupid struggle when he was intoxicated and resulted in a four-month sentence. I respectfully submit that this conduct
speaks more of “interference with” rather than “assault on” a federal officer.

Charles Ricottone is 42 years old and works in his father’s window business. He is a diabetic and suffers from carpal tunnel
syndrome. . . . Charles Ricottone is not a danger to his community but, instead, is a contributor. He serves as a volunteer
in the
New York City School Volunteer Program
, helping children read, as evidenced by the attached documentation.

Attached to the letter were identification cards indicating that Charlie had been a member of the School Volunteer Program
at PS 177, Brooklyn, during the 1997-1998 and 1998-1999 school years. Also enclosed was a letter from a neighbor who said
that he had known Charlie for fifteen years. He described Charlie as:

… a very nice person and good neighbor. He is very helpful and caring, attentive to all his neighbors and especially the children
who live on West First Street. He has volunteered to help children to read at the local grammar school. He never was mean
to anyone on his block. Always had a helpful hand to anyone who needed it. He has always been kind to my children and myself.
Charlie is a very caring person. If I ever needed help with anything he was there. I hope you will consider his bail.

It worked.

With the agreement of Brooklyn prosecutors, on September 21, 2000, the child-loving, diabetic, good neighbor Charlie Ricottone
was released on $800,000 bail. He was kept under house arrest except for visits to his lawyer’s offices and to work with his
father as a window installer. It wasn’t clear from the court records whether he was able to continue in the School Volunteer
Program.

Charlie was given no list of Guys to avoid. The days of hit teams and Mob wars were over. That was proclaimed repeatedly in
the media. The Mob was dead. Massive gang-bang prosecutions, such as Mary Jo White’s June 2000 indictment-fest, were credited
with destroying the very core of organized crime, forever, everywhere.

Or at least, for the time being on West First Street.

In October 2000, Brooklyn prosecutors brought additional gambling and loan sharking charges against Charlie and fourteen additional
defendants, including Stevie Two Guns, Charlie’s cohort at Aaron. Louis didn’t supply any information to authorities on the
gambling charges. There were probably other cooperators. It was a popular thing at the time.

Elsewhere in the Brooklyn courthouse, other Guys were being brought to justice with little fanfare or publicity. On March
2, 2000, Frank Coppa and eighteen other Guys and brokers were indicted for their alleged control of State Capital Markets,
where Louis and Benny briefly peddled Chic-Chick.
^*
Rocco Basile was again indicted, as was Joe Temperino. So was supersalesman Al Palagonia, for allegedly working in concert
with the State Street brokers. Gene Lombardo, Frank Coppa’s craggy henchman, was named as well. In June 2001, L. T Lawrence
principals Larry Principato and Todd Roberti were indicted in Manhattan.
^**

The takeover of U.S. Securities spawned no indictments but by mid-2001 Alan Saretsky was serving a prison term on fraud charges
unrelated to U.S. Securities.,

Then came the guilty pleas—Frank and Rocco and Al and Gene and—just about everybody else. Then a drumroll of sentencings that
droned on through the end of 2002. The chop house kids and their Guys were shuffling off to federal detention. Rocco Basile
went to prison, and so did Chris Wolf, and so did his tormentors, Dom and Rico. The days of lenient white-collar sentences
were over. The days of bullshit SEC sanctions were over. John Moran would have probably been tossed in the clink if he had
been prosecuted a decade later. It’s a fair guess that Bob Brennan and Meyer Blinder would have faced the blast furnace of
the criminal justice system, instead of skipping daintily over useless SEC lawsuits. And maybe, just maybe, the chop house
era wouldn’t have happened. We’ll never know.

Louis was relieved that he would never have to testify against his old mentor Roy Ageloff—and neither would anyone. Roy had
copped a plea.

Roy pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering, and he spent months dickering with prosecutors over a suitable deal. The
rumor was that he was cooperating. The rumor was false. On August 15, 2001, he appeared for sentencing before Judge Raymond
J. Dearie.

Dearie was handing out stiff sentences. Some months earlier, Bobby Catoggio, burdened by a previous conviction, was hit with
a twelve-year prison sentence and ordered to pay $80 million in restitution.

Roy must have been nervous. But he didn’t seem nervous.

Roy was true to the code. He was Roy to the end. A guy who wanted to be a Guy and was facing his punishment like the Guys
of old, like Sonny Franzese. Roy wasn’t ratting out the people he worked with, like his counterpart at Stratton Oakmont, Jordan
Belfort. Roy was keeping his mouth shut. It was a slow news day, but this was the Eastern District so reporters weren’t summoned
and there was no publicity. Even if reporters had gotten a heads-up, Roy’s sentencing would not have gotten much attention.
The bull market that had spawned the chop houses was a memory now. Memories were short. Hanover and Roy were forgotten, even
as one of the techniques perfected by Roy at Hanover was coming back in popularity.

In 2000 and 2001, the financial press was ablaze with news of SEC inquiries into manipulation of Internet IPOs—particularly
the “prepackaging” of IPOs, in precisely the way it was done by the chop houses. That is, forcing customers to buy IPO shares
after the stock went public, which artificially boosted their prices. (Real Wall Street had its own term for that—“laddering.”)
News reports indicated that “boiler rooms” had migrated overseas. The era of the chop houses was over, it seemed, but that
summer their spirit lived on in the IPO mess.

In that Brooklyn courtroom in August 2001, Roy’s concerns were more immediate—keeping his time in prison to a minimum. Half
of Judge Dearie’s courtroom was filled to overflowing with friends and relatives of the defendant. The other half, sparse
like a wedding between families of far different social strata, contained barely a dozen or so prosecutors and federal agents.