The Mafia Encyclopedia (33 page)

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Authors: Carl Sifakis

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Page 85
tigators in both countries. A coordinated assault in the two countries netted some 150 suspected drug traffickers, and there were more arrests over the following year. One of the prize captures was that Emanuele Adamita who had been furloughed from an Italian prison after serving seven years for a previous drug conviction. He never returned to custody but made his way to New York, where he notified a would-be customer that he could provide heroin and cocaine.
Eleven months later Adamita was in the Parker Meridien hotel in Manhattan with a good customer. Adamita hugged the client and told him he considered him "family." He added they could not be too careful since the police were everywhere. His customer agreed there were rats all around. The customer paid for a pound of heroin, took delivery and kissed Adamita on the cheek. Then the customer announced he was a Drug Enforcement Administration undercover agent and placed Adamita under arrest. The shocked Adamita broke down weeping.
That was one of the final nails in the coffin of the cocaine-heroin shuttle, but no one really believed the crackdown, any more than in the Pizza Connection case, would put the drug traffic out of business permanently. The immensity of the rewards for such criminal activities guaranteed that drug dealing would long remain a problem for law enforcement and continue to fatten the mafiosi, despite all their claims that they stay out of the dirty racket.
Cohen, Mickey (19131976): California gangster
Perhaps the most shot-at mobster in American criminal history since Chicago's Bugs Moran, Mickey Cohen became a sort of cult hero on the West Coast in the 1940s and 1950s. Cohen, who rose through the ranks as Bugsy Siegel's bodyguard, had made himself scarce on the day Siegel was shot in Virginia Hill's Beverly Hills mansion. Who had the muscle to make him stay away from his beloved mentor? The general conclusion: Meyer Lansky.
Cohen may have bowed to Lansky, but he wasn't about to cater to Jack Dragna, the top mafioso in Los Angeles. Dragna and his family, forced into a subordinate position by Siegel, were also eclipsed in Cohen's bookmaking operations.
The Los Angeles Family has often been referred to as "the Mickey Mouse Mafia," for its general ineffectiveness and its inability to control criminal activities in its bailiwicka contention given credence in the Mickey Mouse war Dragna waged against Cohen. Cohen escaped at least five attempts on his life. Twice the Dragna hit men tried dynamiting Cohen's home, once with a homemade bangalore torpedo (a military weapon used to destroy barbed
West Coast mobster Mickey Cohen,
who reformed after doing a long
Federal prison rap, previously
escaped Five attempts on his life
by Los Angeles mafiosi, whom he
and others dubbed "the Mickey
Mouse Mafia."
wire and blast into machine-gun pill boxes) and another time with a straight dynamite blast. The bangalore job though planted never detonated. The dynamite cache did go off but had been placed directly under a cement floor safe, causing the explosion to travel downward and sideways rather than up. The blast shattered windows throughout the neighborhood but left Mickey, his wife, his dog and his maid unharmed. What upset Mickey the most was the fact that more than 40 suits from his $300-apiece wardrobe were turned into airborne shredded strips by the explosion.
On another occasion a Dragna gunner let go with both barrels of a shotgun as the mobster was driving home late one night. Cohen's Cadillac was peppered with shot but incredibly not a single slug touched him. It was almost as miraculous as the time shotgunners opened up at Cohen as he was leaving a restaurant with a group of friends. Just as the gunmen squeezed off their rounds, Cohen noticed a scratch on his shiny Cadillac and bent down to look at it more closely. The two hit men were still stunned when they reported back to Dragna on how their quarry had lucked out.
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Dragna never did get Cohen. Even when he was convicted on a tax rap and sentenced to five years in prison, a major corruption probe cost Dragna the police protection he needed to take over Cohen's operations. Cohen was probably the most-quoted gangster of his day. He once told television interviewer Mike Wallace: "I have killed no man that in the first place didn't deserve killing by the standards of our way of life." When asked to name the California politicians who had once protected his gambling empire, he refused, saying "that is not my way of life."
Cohen was no more communicative in 1950 when he appeared before the Kefauver Committee's hearings on organized crime. Asked by Senator Charles Tobey, "Is it not a fact that you live extravagantly ... surrounded by violence?" Cohen answered, "Whadda ya mean, 'surrounded by violence'? People are shooting at
me
."
When he was asked to explain why a Hollywood banker had granted him a $35,000 loan without collateral, Mickey quipped, "I guess he just likes me."
Always one to insert himself in the public eye, Cohen in 1958 provided the press with love letters written by actress Lana Turner to Johnny Stompanato. Turner's gangster lover was, in fact, Cohen's bodyguard and had been stabbed to death by Turner's teenage daughter. Cohen also let it be known all around that henot Turnerpaid for Stompanato's funeral.
Cohen was twice convicted of tax violations, serving four years of a five-year sentence on one occasion and 10 years of a 15-year term on the other. When he came out of prison in 1972, Cohen declared his intention to go straight. It was not necessarily a matter of choice. He was partly paralyzed as the result of a head injury he received at the hands of a fellow convict at Atlanta in 1963. Cohen's last major foray in the news occurred in 1974 when he announced he had made contact with certain people who knew the whereabouts of the then-kidnapped Patricia Hearst. Cohen died, some say remarkably, of natural causes in 1976.
Cohn, Roy (19271986): Mob mouthpiece
In his late years Roy Cohn, a major figure in McCarthyera anti-communist activities, became a popular lawyer for top mafiosi, including Fat Tony Salerno, Carmine Galante and several members of the Gambino crime family. Among the latter were Carlo's sons Tommy and Joe Gambino, Carmine Fatico, Angelo Ruggiero and John Gotti.
If not for Cohn's counsel, Gotti's career might have ended more than a decade before he catapulted to boss of the Gambinos. In 1973 Gotti was looking at a long prison term for a killing he participated in at the orders of Godfather Gambino. The victim was James McBratney, who had kidnapped for ransom and killed one of the don's nephews. Gotti and two other hoodlums, Ruggiero and Ralph Galione, cornered McBratney in a Staten Island bar. They flashed phony police badges and tried to hustle their quarry away to a more private location where he could be dispatched in the horrible fashion the don wished.
McBratney was not fooled and resisted. Galione produced a gun, which he was forced to turn on menacing bar patrons. A drunk tried to intervene and the gun went off accidentally. Galione panicked and fired three shots into McBratney.
The job had been slightly botched, but Gambino was not displeased. Unfortunately witnesses easily identified the killer trio, and Ruggiero and Gotti were arrested. In the meantime gunner Galione had been shot dead, apparently by McBratney pals.
Gambino decided to get Gotti the best lawyer money could buy, Roy Cohn.
Cohn devised a strategy that satisfied Gambino. Gotti would plea-bargain down to attempted manslaughter, since he had not done the shooting and merely held McBratney. Cohn, the precocious son of a New York judge, was said to have a network of compliant judges, prosecutors and district attorneys and other law enforcement officials who could help things go his way. Carlo bought the idea and ordered Gotti to cop the plea.
Gotti wanted to fight the charge. Aniello Dellacroce, Gotti's mentor in the family, dissuaded him: "Carlo says you take the fall, and that's it."
Gotti remained bitter until he saw the strategy play out. He was sentenced to a mere four years and actually served less than two. Gotti had been certain such a deal was impossible, but everything went smoothly. The district attorney's office didn't even label either Gotti or Ruggiero as "persistent offenders," which both were and which under state law would have earned them very harsh sentences. In
Goombata
, authors John Cummings and Ernest Volkman found Cohn's legal magic "not especially surprising in the history of the Staten Island District Attorney's office, which had a notably lax record in dealing with organized crime defendants."
Still, in his later years the apparently still-smarting Gotti exhibited no desire to utilize Cohn's services.
Coli, Eco James (1922): Chicago syndicate gangster
Long identified as a mob assassin as well as a muscleman, Eco James Coli sports a record dating back to 1945, with arrests for attempted hijacking, assault and sex offenses. A leading suspect in a number of murders, Coli also was identified as a prize exterminator, work-
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ing strictly on contracts for the Chicago syndicate bosses. In those labors he was put on an equal performance level with the likes of Fiore Buccieri, Sam DeStefano, Jackie the Lackey Cerone, Willie ''Potatoes" Daddano and Marshall Caifano. His conviction for contributing to delinquency resulted in one-year probation; for armed robbery, a sentence of eight to 12 years. On the latter count Coil was released by order of the Illinois Supreme Court in 1955 after having served only three years.
In addition to Coil's alleged hits, he served as secretary-treasurer and business agent for a Teamsters local of funeral drivers, directors, embalmers and others. Coil was the source of considerable political embarrassment when he marched most prominently between Mayor Richard Daley and Governor Richard Ogilvie in Chicago's 1969 Columbus Day Parade. After the parade both officials said they were not aware of his criminal background.
Coll, Vincent "Mad Dog" (19091932): Gangster
Vincent "Mad Dog" Coil, the quintessential Irish gangster of the early 1930s, was doomed. He sneered at the organizers of syndicated crime, announcing be would take whatever slice of whichever pie he wished; those who objected could lie down in a gutter and bleed to death, a condition Coil would readily have helped bring about. What's more, Coil enjoyed and indeed reveled in a much bigger press than such more important gangsters as Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, Vito Genovese, Joey Adonis and others. That alone may have been a contributing factor to his eventual demise.
Coll was known in the New York underworld first as the Mad Mick and later in the press as Mad Dog because of his at least half-demented disregard for human life. Some said he had little concern even for his own life, recalling his abandon in raiding the gangland stronghold of Owney Madden, Legs Diamond and Dutch Schultz. Without a moment's hesitation he accepted a mind-boggling murder contract on Lucky Luciano, Vito Genovese, Frank Costello and Joe Adonis, as though he would not face bloody retribution if he carried out such hits.
Coll was hired for that wholesale slaughter by Salvatore Maranzano, then the self-proclaimed Mafia boss of bosses. Maranzano wished the killings to be carried out by a non-Italian so that suspicion would be diverted from himself and so he could perhaps use the murders as justification for making war on other ethnic gangsters. Coil got a $25,000 advance payment for the killings and was on his way to Maranzano's office to which Luciano and Genovese were being lured for a meeting. Luciano learned of the murder plot and acti-
Vince "Mad Dog" Coll (left), who
bucked the emerging national crime
syndicate, was cleared of a murder
charge by ace criminal lawyer Sam
Leibowitz. A Few months later mob
machine gunners filled Coll with lead.
vated a plan he already had in the works so that Maranzano was taken out by killers supplied by Meyer Lansky. When Coil showed up, he discovered his erstwhile employer was dead; he was ahead $25,000 for doing absolutely nothing. He walked off whistling.
Vince Coll came out of the Irish ghetto called Hell's Kitchen in New York determined to make it big in the criminal world. He and his brother Peter became rumrunners for crime kingpin Dutch Schultz, $150 a week each. Vince saw the job as a mere stepping stone. They had to learn the bootlegging craft and then either start their own operation or take over Schultz's. While still working as trusted gunmen for Schultz, the Coil brothers started splitting the Dutchman's operation, convincing some gangsters they would fare better with them.
One who wouldn't go along was Vincent Barelli, a dedicated Schultz hood. The Coll brothers had gone to school with a boy named Carmine Smith, and Carmine's sister, Mary, was Barelli's girlfriend. On that basis Mary agreed to bring Barelli to a meeting with the Coll brothers. When Barelli rejected Coil's offer to defect, Vince

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