The Quiet Don: The Untold Story of Mafia Kingpin Russell Bufalino (18 page)

Since Bufalino was sentenced, their faith in the criminal justice system has been rejuvenated and they now believe that a big mob figure can be brought to justice.

Bufalino’s annual Italian American Civil Rights League Festival held in Wilkes-Barre was the subject of many cancellations from local public figures who had previously been guest speakers at this annual gathering.

The trial, conviction and sentencing was the subject of widespread newspaper and radio coverage in northeastern, Pennsylvania, Albany, Buffalo, and New York City, and had a very favorable effect on the communities in those areas.

Bufalino remained free while he appealed his decision, which was denied, and on August 10, 1978, he reported to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, where he remained for six weeks. Federal judge Morris Lasker had approved an unusual furlough for Bufalino to attend his fiftieth wedding anniversary in September, and Bufalino was to remain in New York until after his furlough. When he arrived back in Pennsylvania for his brief visit, Bufalino was honored at a private party at a Howard Johnson’s motel he owned, and Mafiosi from throughout the region, including New York, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Pittsburgh and elsewhere, were in attendance. The men drank, discussed business and then said their good-byes. Bufalino would remain in charge, dictating orders from behind the prison walls to Edward Sciandra, James Osticco and Billy D’Elia.

Upon his return to New York, he was then sent to the federal prison in Springfield, Missouri, and then transferred to the Federal Institution at Danbury, Connecticut, which was a two-hour drive across I-84 from Scranton.

A medium-security facility, the prison houses many of its inmates in a dormitory-style setting, where beds are lined up next to each other in rows, and prison life is fairly simple. There’s the morning wakeup, then breakfast before reporting to whatever job was assigned to you, then free time, dinner, some television, then lights out. It’s during the free period where inmates can congregate by playing basketball or sitting around playing chess or even pinochle. From the day he was brought to the Danbury prison, Bufalino always showed a preference for pinochle. But aside from his card games, Bufalino spent a lot of his free time overseeing his vast family business. Unbeknownst to Bufalino, the FBI was ramping up a special investigation that would entail the “full-time surveillance of members of the Russell A. Bufalino Family.”

Dubbed RABFAM, the investigation was headed by the FBI’s Philadelphia office, and the focus of the probe was the Bufalino family’s growing influence, particularly in labor racketeering, political corruption and infiltration of legitimate businesses. The Justice Department finally recognized Russell Bufalino to be a powerhouse within organized crime circles, as information received from several informants along with residual reports from the Hoffa investigation revealed Bufalino’s immense power.

Among those targeted were Bufalino, Casper “Cappy” Giumento, Frank Sheeran and Billy D’Elia, and over the course of the next few years, the investigation would eventually require the assistance of more than a dozen bureaus throughout the United States, from Miami to Las Vegas.

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IN 1979, THE
Danbury federal prison accepted a new inmate, a motorcycle gang member named Stephen Fox. An eighth-grade dropout, Fox was once a member of the Gypsy Jokers motorcycle gang, after which he switched allegiances and joined the Pagans, a group of thundering nomads who earned their keep through drug trafficking, selling stolen property and murder. Fox had several previous arrests, including interstate transportation of stolen property in 1969 and 1970. Sentenced to ten years in prison, he served only two, but a parole violation in 1972 earned him a trip back behind bars. He was released to a halfway house in 1975 but escaped, pled guilty and was sentenced to another five years in prison. Prior to his capture, Fox rented several cars but failed to pay for them and also used a stolen credit card.

Sent to another halfway house in 1978, Fox escaped but was recaptured shortly after in Albany, New York, and immediately sent to the Danbury prison in July 1979, and placed in a bunk just across the row from Bufalino.

Now serving the second year of his four-year sentence, Bufalino befriended Fox, and the two men spent several hours each day playing pinochle and talking about trucks and mechanics and Fox’s plans once he was released. At night they watched television together with several other inmates, including Gregory DePalma, the former co-owner of the Westchester Premier Theater doing a term for racketeering. During one evening-news program, Bufalino jolted forward when he recognized the face of James Fratianno.

“He’s a rat and needs to be shut up,” said Bufalino.

Fox was scheduled to be released in July 1980 to a halfway house again, but he needed a job or else he’d remain in prison. Bufalino said he knew a guy that ran a trucking company in New Jersey who would put him to work. Fox called the guy and was told he’d have a job waiting for him once he was released.

When Fox told Bufalino the good news, he replied, “See, I’m glad I could do something to help you get out of here. Just remember there may come a time when I may need you for something.”

A week later, Bufalino pulled Fox aside and told him that once he was released he wanted Fox to fly out to California and take care of a matter involving a witness. His name, said Bufalino, was Jack Napoli, and he had tried to have the matter handled before, but it failed. Fox was told that upon his release he would report to his new job, where a package would be waiting for him with information regarding Napoli, his photograph and his location.

“He’s in Walnut Creek, California, and I’m asking you do me this favor because no one will figure a connection. It will look like something to do with drugs. Just be careful, but remember if there is a slip up, it’s on your shoulders, understood?”

Fox was released on July 18, 1980, and went to work for a company called Howard’s Express. He also got $300 and a new car, thanks to Gregory DePalma, who told Fox to go to an Oldsmobile dealer in the Bronx, where waiting for him was a new Cadillac.

But Fox never made it to California. Shortly after his release, he bolted for Florida after learning that several loan sharks were looking for him. Fox had borrowed money before his latest prison stint and never paid it back, and the loan sharks wanted their money, or his head. Arrested again for violating his parole, Fox had some information he thought the government would want to hear, so he cut a deal.

The federal indictment against Russell Bufalino was handed down on December 30, 1980. When he walked out of the prison in May 1981, the indictment had been unsealed, and he was taken into custody by federal marshals and charged with conspiring to murder Jack Napoli. He was released on bail and kept under twenty-four-hour surveillance by FBI agents working on the RABFAM investigation.

Day after day since 1978, FBI agents had reported diligently on the activities of the Bufalino family. In a telex sent from the Philadelphia bureau to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., on August 15, 1980, agents noted the extensive criminal activities, including loan sharking, bank fraud, jury tampering, obstruction of justice, interstate transportation of stolen property (jewelry, furs, etc.) and corruption of public officials. The telex also noted that in October 1979, the Italian American Civil Rights League sponsored its annual banquet to coincide with Bufalino’s birthday. Bufalino was imprisoned, but that didn’t stop more than 750 people from attending. In the same banquet room were mob figures from New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Binghamton and other cities in the eastern United States mixing with numerous local political figures.

In another telex, dated January 2, 1981, agents noted that the Bufalino family remained heavily involved in the garment and trucking industry and had considerable influence in the Teamsters union. Agents also established that family members were involved in drug trafficking and had considerable influence in Atlantic City’s casinos.

Bufalino was released from prison on May 8, 1981, and returned to his Kingston home. But he didn’t stay there long and resumed his regular schedule, traveling to New York, Philadelphia, Buffalo and Binghamton for meetings with other organized crime figures. Bufalino was also seen frequently in the company of his old friend Frank Sheeran.

Despite the daily monitoring, the enlistment of confidential sources and the participation of bureaus throughout the country, the RABFAM investigation had yet to bear any fruit in the form of major indictments. The lack of production resulted in an internal dispute within the FBI as to whether the investigation should be shelved.

On September 16, 1981, several FBI departments held a conference to discuss RABFAM and a separate jury tampering case that was being independently prosecuted by a young assistant U.S. attorney, Eric Holder, who worked in the public integrity section. An FBI agent in Scranton told Holder in September 1979 that an informant had alleged that Bufalino underboss James Osticco and several others had bribed a juror in the 1977 flood case involving Louis DeNaples. Holder had learned that the RABFAM investigators had cultivated a confidential informant, and Holder wanted access to the man, who was later identified as Frank Parlopiano, a Scranton man who was introduced to Osticco in 1975 by Russell Bufalino.

Parlopiano had befriended another man, Charles Cortese, in the summer of 1979 and Cortese had confided that he knew Osticco, who had persuaded him to convince his ex-wife to acquit DeNaples and three other men in the 1977 flood trial. Cortese’s wife, Rose Ann, was a member of the jury, and her lone vote for a not-guilty verdict led to a hung jury.

Holder wanted immediate access to Parlopiano, arguing that during a recent meeting with Osticco at the Medico headquarters, Parlopiano was forced to strip and searched for any recording devices. Parlopiano’s life was in danger, said Holder, and he didn’t want to wait until his usefulness to the RABFAM investigators had run out.

Holder was given access to Parlopiano but the RABFAM investigation would continue.

Bufalino’s next trial once again took place in Manhattan and was again prosecuted by Nathanial Akerman, who had also led the successful federal assault on DePalma and others involved in the Westchester Premier Theater probe.

As Akerman prepared for trial, the Pennsylvania Crime Commission released its latest report, “A Decade of Organized Crime.”

The Pennsylvania Crime Commission was formed in the 1970s to investigate and report on the influence of organized crime in Pennsylvania. Made up of attorneys, law enforcement personnel and interested businessman, the commission was one of the few in the United States that regularly reported on organized crime activities. In its latest report, which documented the previous decade, the commission spent considerable time on Russell Bufalino and his Kingston-based family. Aside from documenting Bufalino’s lengthy career, the report also identified two-dozen other family members. Among them were Billy D’Elia, Philip Medico and Stephan LaTorre, one of the original Men of Montedoro that had arrived from Sicily at the turn of the century and who, at ninety-four, was still alive and living in Jenkins Township, Luzerne County.

Medico’s inclusion came, in part, from the 1979 federal affidavit of former FBI agent John Danary, who had been assigned by J. Edgar Hoover in 1961 to run the New York bureau’s criminal-intelligence section. He was assigned to the espionage division from 1966 until his retirement, in 1968, when he became the director of security for the National Football League. It was during his tenure in the espionage division that Danary had access to reports from confidential informants who stated that Philip Medico was a capo in the Bufalino family. Bufalino himself was caught on a secretly recorded tape describing Medico as a capo.

The Pennsylvania Crime Commission report included a photo of Bufalino’s modest ranch-style home in Kingston and also revealed that Bufalino had been linked by one of his paid killers, Charles Allen, to two murders, three attempted murders, two attempted arsons and the embezzlement of Teamster funds. Allen, forty-seven, turned government informant following his 1978 arrest on narcotics charges. Allen had made his first hit at age eighteen for Los Angeles mobster Mickey Cohen. He later claimed that he killed a Philadelphia Teamster organizer, Francis Marino in 1976, on orders from Frank Sheeran.

Allen also claimed that Sheeran asked him to dynamite three buildings and rough up four people. The conversation was captured on audiotape by the FBI. Allen also said he went to Medico Industries with Sheeran to collect the dynamite and blasting caps that would be used in the building bombings.

The dynamite was later given to the FBI.

The commission report laid out Bufalino’s weekly routine, starting in New York Monday through Wednesday before returning to Pennsylvania and spending Thursday, Friday and Saturday at his office at Medico Industries.

When the trial started, among those called in to testify were Fratianno and Fox, who told their stories to the jury despite frequent interruptions from Bufalino’s attorney, Charles Gelso.

When Bufalino took the stand, he spoke about how, since 1942, he had been having lunch at Vesuvio in New York. He said he knew Mike Rizzitello but only casually, and he barely knew James Fratianno, meeting him during a chance encounter at the Rainbow Room. Bufalino said he saw Fratianno again at a restaurant during a trip to Las Vegas and California with his wife, Carrie, in June 1976. Again, that meeting hadn’t been planned. Bufalino denied talking about Napoli with Fratianno and denied asking Fratianno to kill Napoli.

As for Steven Fox, Bufalino said he knew Fox from prison and acknowledged that he helped him get a job to obtain his parole. But he never spoke to Fox about Napoli nor did he ever ask Fox to kill Napoli.

Akerman then changed the line of questioning and asked Bufalino about his associations with Carlo Gambino, Angelo Bruno and Vito Genovese and his participation at Apalachin before returning to Napoli.