Surviving the Mob (23 page)

Shortly after his meeting with Mike Yannotti, Andrew decided to seek some stress relief by taking Charlotte and her daughter to Florida to visit Disney World. He figured a few days there would allow him to get his thoughts together and plan for the future. As he was preparing for the trip, he contacted his local marijuana connection to tell him he’d be out of town.

The connection told him he had a buddy who might be able to help him out with false identification. When they got together, the friend told Andrew he had blank California birth certificates, blank Social Security cards, and a UPS photo identification card that could show Andrew was an employee.

They filled out all the necessary information, then drove out to a Department of Motor Vehicles office on Long Island. Andrew applied for a driver’s license under the name of Joseph Conti, the name of his mother’s boyfriend. He took
the written test and made an appointment for a road test. Before he left, they issued him a non-driver identification card.

“My Mercedes was registered and insured in Joseph Conti’s name. To get by until my road test, I had Conti tell DMV he lost his license and needed a replacement. At that time they sent a non-photo license right away, followed a few days later by the real license. I took the non-photo license. It happened that I got stopped at a drunk-driving checkpoint. I showed my paperwork and got waved on with no questions asked.

“Within a month, I had a brand new driver’s license as Joseph Conti. A lot of guys in the life who are on the run get caught for stupid things, like driving without a license or not having proper identification. That was one less worry for me. I gave my guy a couple hundred for the fake identification and put him to work in my marijuana business.”

After the trip to Disney World, Andrew took another getaway jaunt to San Diego. While he was there, he just rested and didn’t conduct any business. However, back in New York, his marijuana partner came up with another way to enhance their operation and profits.

Andrew’s associate had a friend who drove a tractor-trailer to California every 10 days. Their San Diego connection could load the truck and start sending product back that way. It sounded like a good deal and they entered into negotiations to set it up.

While he was waiting to put the new delivery system into effect, Andrew snuck a visit to one of his sisters. He parked about a block and a half away and started walking toward her place. When he rounded the corner of 58
^th
Street and Avenue N, he saw two guys standing on the street talking: Wild Bill Cutolo and Danny Cutaia.

“Here I was on the run from the law and I bumped into my two biggest organized-crime enemies. What were the odds of bosses from two different families having a conversation on a street corner at the very same time a guy they hated walked by? Wild Bill saw me and said, ‘Well, look who just walked into the lion’s mouth.’ I answered that it would mean somethin’ if the fuckin lion had any teeth. An argument ensued.

“Wild Bill said, ‘Listen, you motherfucker. You owe me money and I want it. I’m gonna go to Nicky and Lenny. If they don’t go to bat for you, you’re gonna have a big fuckin’ problem. Do you understand that?’

“If I hadn’t been so stressed, I might have handled the situation differently. I had a lot of respect for Wild Bill and I loved Billy. Only a year or so earlier, I wanted to transfer to his crew. But on that day I said to him, ‘You listen to me and you listen good. I’ve got the FBI, the cops, and the parole people looking for me. And I’ve got this cocksucker’s [Danny Cutaia] family looking for me. You’re the last person I’m worried about.’

“He said, ‘You’d better listen to what I’m sayin’ or I’ll put you in the fuckin’ ground.’

“I told him, ‘I heard ya. You go to Nicky and Lenny. And if they don’t go to bat for me, do you think that makes me more dangerous to you or less dangerous? As far as puttin’ me in the fuckin’ ground, why don’t you try it right here and right now?’

“At that point Danny Cutaia cut in. He warned me that I was out of line. He said, ‘You’re on thin ground here.’

“I said, ‘Mind your own business, you motherfucker. You think I don’t know what your plan is? You couldn’t kill me on your best day, you bastard.’

“As I walked away, Wild Bill was still hollering threats. I started laughing and kept on going. It wasn’t funny, though. I’d challenged bosses from two other families. And that
wasn’t allowed. If I’d put my hands on either of them, Nicky and Lenny would have had to go along with my murder. That was the resolution required under Mob protocol. But a verbal confrontation didn’t mean an automatic death sentence.

“Wild Bill didn’t waste much time makin’ his beef. Within five days, I got word that Mike Yannotti was looking for me to tell me I had to come in for a meet with Nicky. I called Mike and told him I was out of town and would be away for a couple of weeks.

“In early December, I arranged to meet with Nicky, Lenny, and some of the crew at a diner on Flatbush Avenue. When I got there, I bullshitted with the guys. They seemed glad to see me and said they couldn’t believe how long I’d been able to stay on the run. I made a joke of it. I said that if I’d known life on the run was going to be so good, I’d have done it years earlier.

“After about five minutes of that, Nicky got down to business. He said he called the meeting because there were a lot of things to discuss. The first thing was the Wild Bill situation. He told me to explain to Lenny what was going on. I went through the whole deal, right up to the thing on the street corner.

“When I finished, Lenny reminded me that if I ever touched Wild Bill or Danny, there was nothin’ he or Nicky could do for me. They’d have to give me up—I’d have to die.

“I said Wild Bill treated me like a fuckin’ mutt. If he was doin’ that to me, what was he sayin’ about them?

“Lenny thought it over a few seconds. Then he said he liked my story better than Wild Bill’s. He wanted me to pick him up later that afternoon and we’d go to Wild Bill’s social club and resolve the matter once and for all. I said okay.

“After that, Nicky asked me about the bank robberies. I said I didn’t know what he was talkin’ about. He said he knew about the New Jersey job and wanted to know where
his money was. I told him I was on the run and needed every dime I could get my hands on. But I promised to send some money to him the next week. That seemed to satisfy him.

“Next he said he was gonna make some changes. He wasn’t sure what to do with me. He was thinking about having me work directly with Mike Yannotti or Lenny. He said he was leaning toward Lenny. I remember thinking how great it would be if I went with Lenny. You could talk to him like a friend. With Nicky, it was all Mob all the time. He was like a machine. Getting away from him would be the best thing that could happen for me.

“I asked him why he was making these changes. He said he was stepping up. That meant he was taking over as boss of the Gambino family. And in the life, the boss can’t have his own crew, because it would show favoritism. So he said he was putting me with Lenny and Mike would be my go-between.

“With that out of the way, Nicky said he had some serious law-enforcement problems. The feds were after him and his taking over the family would double the speed of their investigation. He expected to be arrested at any time. But even with that hanging over his head, the door was open for him and he had to grab the opportunity. After all, that was what every gangster who came up from the streets dreamed of being some day: the boss of the family.

“Nicky turned to me and made the sign of a gun with his thumb and finger. He said if he did get arrested, there’d be a lot of work [killing] to do. Then he looked around at everybody and he said, ‘Do you hear me? I said if I get arrested, there’s gonna be a lot of fuckin’ work to do.’

“Nicky grabbed my hand and said, ‘And we’re gonna start with that fuckin’ Baby Huey in Queens.’ Baby Huey was what we called Junior Gotti. Nicky looked at me and Mike Yannotti. He said, ‘Okay. Start gettin’ familiar with this guy.’ Mike nodded. I said sure, whatever had to be done would be
done. Nicky said he’d contact me later by beeper and we’d get together. Then the meeting ended.

“Two hours later, Lenny and me drove to the sit-down at Wild Bill’s social club. Lenny told me to wait outside while he went in and talked with Wild Bill. He said he was going to settle the problem, but not use his new position in the Gambino family to abuse him. That meant to me that with Nicky’s rise to boss, Lenny was probably going to be the underboss.

“Lenny was gone for about an hour. When he came back he said, ‘You know, this guy hates your fuckin’ guts. But he agreed to settle your debt for seven thousand. Get it to him as soon as you can. So as of now, this thing is squashed. You watch out for yourself anyway, though.’

“I asked him if this was squashed, why I had to still be careful. I mean, for the time being Nicky and Lenny were two of the most powerful gangsters in New York. Wild Bill was just a crew boss. If they said the beef was squashed, it should have been squashed.

“Lenny said he wasn’t talking about Wild Bill. He wouldn’t elaborate, but he gave me a warning. ‘I don’t want ya’ to get caught with your dick in your hand. Don’t trust nobody. Not even in your own backyard, kid.’

“Was Lenny telling me that Nicky was getting ready to give the order to have me whacked? Would Mike Yannotti be the assassin? I didn’t know and he didn’t say. But that statement put me on a serious red alert. When I dropped Lenny off, he gave me one more piece of advice. ‘If they start calling you in [for meetings] too many times, do yourself a favor and don’t go after a while.’

“By the end of that day, I felt I had no choice but to continue to keep an eye on Wild Bill, who was still upset with me over the money deal. I knew how Danny Cutaia felt about me. And from what Lenny had told me, I wasn’t in very good shape with Nicky either. I was already being very careful. How much more cautious could I be?

“Nicky wanted to meet with me again about a week later. But before that took place, he was arrested on federal racketeering charges in Key Biscayne, Florida.”

On December 18, 1996, Nicky Corozzo was arrested on charges of attempted murder, loansharking, and racketeering. A newspaper report of the arrest said Corozzo was nabbed by federal agents as he emerged from a swim in the Atlantic Ocean at the Sonesta Beach Hotel in Key Biscayne, shortly before he was to depart for New York City. Officials said the arrest was certain to create even more disarray in the Gambino crime family.

The arrest coincided with the unsealing of a 20-count indictment that accused Corozzo of an array of charges, including running the Gambino gang’s crime activities in South Florida for at least four years, operating a vast loansharking ring that charged extortionate interest rates up to 260% a year, and arson.

Investigators said that Corozzo was believed to have succeeded John Gotti as the godfather of the Gambino family after leaders in the city’s four other Mafia factions—the Genovese, Lucchese, Colombo, and Bonanno families—demanded that Gotti step down. They’d complained that Gotti, serving a life sentence for murder and racketeering, could no longer effectively run the Gambino group from a cell in the federal penitentiary in Marion, Illinois.

Also indicted on racketeering charges with Corozzo was Leonard DiMaria, who officials said was Corozzo’s right-hand man and had recently taken command of Corozzo’s old Brooklyn crew. DiMaria was arrested by the FBI at his home in Flatlands, Brooklyn.

The indictment by a federal grand jury in Fort Lauderdale asserted that Corozzo had ordered the abduction and
murder of an associate in the family, Louis Maione, suspected of stealing $20,000 from the loansharking operation. Investigators said the FBI had been investigating the Florida crew for two years and that its loansharking activities were conducted through a front, the E-Z Check Cashing Company in Deerfield Beach, a town near Fort Lauderdale.

From wiretaps, the FBI learned about the alleged conspiracy to murder Maione, who cooperated with the inquiry after agents warned him that his life was in danger.

Although Nicky had predicted his arrest days earlier, it still sent shockwaves through the crew.