The Sixth Family (20 page)
Authors: Lee Lamothe
By September 1981, Nick, Vito and other family members, along with some of their closest associates, had bought a long strip of property along Antoine-Berthelet Avenue, in an exclusive Montreal neighborhood near the waterfront on the southwestern edge of the city. Here they built several large, posh homes and moved in, signaling not only their return, but their triumph.
Along the far side of the street at the end of the secluded subdivision was a short string of mansions. Near one end was Nick and Libertina’s house, in a Colonial-revival style of red brick with white decorative accents and dramatic circular porch featuring two-story columns. Over time, the evergreen trees planted in front would grow to tower over the pagoda-like roof. Next door was the home of their daughter, Maria, and her husband, Paolo Renda, with a wraparound front porch, double front doors, white stone façade and a terracotta tile roof, an outsized version of the roofs typical in their old village in Sicily. Beside that was the home of Vito and his wife, Giovanna, the most spectacular on the street; a colossal structure that was part Tudor style, with decorative half-timbering, and part Medieval revival, with imposing dark stone and recessed doorway. It was with an eye to Vito’s interest in expensive automobiles that the design included an impressive three-car garage, larger than the entire area of most homes. Toward the end of the block, on the other side of Vito’s house, was another impressive home, with a two-car garage and white brickwork. Joe LoPresti and his family would move in here. Beside the LoPresti property at the time was an empty lot that was awaiting construction of yet another home, this one for Gerlando Sciascia. It would never be built. Although only a few people on the street are linked to the mob, it is still often called
Rue de Mafia
, “Mafia Street,” in Montreal.
Rue de Mafia
, “Mafia Street,” in Montreal.
As their business was to be largely kept away from their homes, they also established a headquarters where more unsavory people could visit. Long before Cotroni died, the Club Social Consenza, on Jarry Street East in Montreal, was in full swing as a gambling den, organizational headquarters and social club in the New York City Mafia tradition.
Like his Godfather, Joe Bonanno, Cotroni enjoyed a relative luxury among mob bosses who had lost a showdown with a rival. His life was claimed by nature, not man. He died of cancer on September 16, 1984, apparently while watching television coverage of Pope John Paul II’s visit to Canada. It was a serene end for a man who had seen so much vice and violence during a career at the top of the underworld. Cotroni’s funeral, in north Montreal, was a send-off fit for minor royalty, complete with a 17-piece brass band and a road-choking number of limousines just to carry the flower arrangements. Among the many mourners were two tall, neatly dressed men who showed the appropriate respect and sadness at the passing of the Godfather.
Police identified them as Vito Rizzuto and his loyal Sixth Family colleague Joe LoPresti.
With Cotroni’s passing, the Rizzutos’ control over Montreal was complete. The rank-and-file members and associates of the Mafia quickly fell into line, easily flipping their allegiance and answering as smartly and respectfully to the Rizzutos as they had to Cotroni and Violi.
Leslie Coleman, for instance, had been a young enforcer for Luigi Greco in the 1950s and was “inherited” by Violi when Greco died. After the deaths of Violi and Cotroni, Coleman was frequently seen flexing his muscles beside members of the Rizzuto organization. Similarly, Joe DiMaulo, who was such a close and personal part of Violi’s inner circle that Violi asked him to represent the entire Montreal organization in meetings with the Bonanno leadership in New York, seemed just as content to ply his trade under the Rizzuto banner. Most surprising to many, even the remnants of the Cotroni family bowed to Nick and Vito Rizzuto. In 1979, Frank Cotroni was released from a U.S. prison and returned to a Montreal that was vastly different from the one he had left. As a good mobster, Frank accepted the changing of the guard and settled in to play his part in the new order of the Montreal
decina
. As an enthusiastic drug trafficker, Frank fit in far better with the Sixth Family than with Paolo Violi. He died in 2004, also of cancer, at the age of 72.
decina
. As an enthusiastic drug trafficker, Frank fit in far better with the Sixth Family than with Paolo Violi. He died in 2004, also of cancer, at the age of 72.
The taking of Montreal was a significant feat in the context of global crime.
“For the past 25 years, Montreal has been the key that turns the lock of America,” said a high-ranking anti-Mafia investigator in Italy who has spent a career probing organized crime and the drug trade as an officer in the Carabinieri. “The one holding that key becomes the pinnacle. You can ship the narcotics, but if there is no one to facilitate the reception of the drugs and the transition into the marketplace, you have no profit. The Montrealers have long held that position.” From the 1970s on, expatriate Sicilian Men of Honor—many of whom made up the Sixth Family drug consortium—“smothered” the American Mafia in both Canada and the United States, the Carabinieri officer said.
“They are beguiling. Little of what transpired in America is known, but from the activities of Catalano, Salvatore, it’s clear he was able to make significant profits for the bosses of [the American Mafia],” he said of the Zip leader who had taken over Brooklyn. (Italian investigators typically state the last name of a person first, and then the given name.)
“In Canada, things are a little more transparent, thanks to the Violi transcripts: the Rizzuto family was able to promise a transport between the Mafias of Europe and the Mafia of America. Riches were promised for all. Codes meant nothing in the onslaught of finance. It was a situation of cynicism. If the Violi situation had evolved in the 1990s, its resolution would not have taken years. He would have been killed instantly.”
The final transfer of power to the Rizzutos had indeed taken far longer than anticipated—six years of battling with Violi followed by six years of waiting for Cotroni to pass away. During those in-between years, the Sixth Family would have an explosive impact on the American Mafia as they continued to work closely with the other expatriate Mafia clans, Sicilian Men of Honor and members of the Five Families to hammer out a new form of international organized crime.
The prominence and significance of the new Montreal organization in New York City would far exceed anything Paolo Violi likely ever dreamed of.
CHAPTER 14
MANHATTAN, JULY 1978“Why the hell are we standing here?” a newly recruited associate of the Bonanno Family asked, as he milled about in the oppressive summer heat in front of Casa Bella, a restaurant on Mulberry Street in New York’s Little Italy. Half a dozen Bonanno soldiers were on the sidewalk with him, all having similarly been summoned to this spot.
“We’re out here to make sure nothing happens to the Old Man. He’s in there,” the associate’s mob mentor answered.
The man asking the questions was known to all on the street that day as Donnie Brasco, a jewel thief with great mob potential. He was, they would later be horrified to learn, really FBI Special Agent Joseph D. Pistone, posing as a bad guy in an unprecedented undercover operation. The man answering his questions was Benjamin “Lefty” Ruggiero, a made man in the Bonanno Family, a prodigious killer and an inveterate gambler. The “Old Man” he spoke of was Carmine “Lilo” Galante.
“What’s the big deal? What’s gonna happen to him?” Brasco asked. “Things are going on. There’s a lot of things you don’t know, Donnie. Things I can’t talk about,” Lefty said. “You don’t know how mean this guy is, Donnie. Lilo is a mean son of a bitch. A tyrant. That’s just me telling you, it don’t go no further. Lot of people hate him. They feel he’s only out for himself. He’s the only one making any money. There’s only a few people that he’s close to. And mainly that’s the Zips, like Cesare [Bonventre] and those that you see around Toyland,” Lefty said of the Toyland Social Club, a Bonanno hangout on the outskirts of Little Italy.
“Those guys are always with him. He brought them over from Sicily and he uses them for different pieces of work and for dealing all that junk,” Lefty continued, using the mob slang for heroin. “They’re as mean as he is. You can’t trust those bastard Zips. Nobody can. Except the Old Man. He can trust them because he brought them over here and he can control them. Everybody else has to steer clear of him. There’s a lot of people out there who would like to see him get whacked.”
Lefty Ruggiero was a soldier of great loyalty who had killed many times for the family. His enduring legacy as a mobster, however, will forever be his introduction into the Bonanno Family of “Donnie Brasco.” For Lefty, and for any number of other made Bonanno soldiers, Galante was the boss. It highlights the disarray within the family at the time that its leadership was such an open question. Others insisted Philip “Rusty” Rastelli, who was in prison, was still the boss, having been picked for the post in 1974 during a meeting that included Paolo Violi’s representative from Montreal. Lefty had it right that Galante’s gruff presence and monomaniacal plans were causing dissent within the family—and outside it as well—but he was misinformed about Galante’s true rank.
“He wasn’t the boss. I guess he wanted to be the boss, but he didn’t make it,” said Frank Lino, a former Bonanno captain. “He was a captain of the Montreal crew. At one time, he just wanted to take over Montreal, didn’t want anything to do with New York.”
Sal Vitale was equally emphatic: “He was never the official boss. … [Galante] was a captain with the Bonanno Family, [a] very powerful individual.”
What Galante wanted to do was to use that power to gain control of the family, unify it under his banner and then flood America with high-grade heroin. The profits would flow ever upwards until they reached him. And then, likely, go no further: not to Sicily, not to Canada and not to the other New York families. As it was, although he was not the official boss, Galante was already demanding a “boss’s cut” from all Bonanno wiseguys. Echoing the attitude of Nick Rizzuto in Montreal toward Violi, Galante just ignored the fact that the family already had a boss.
Galante was able to hijack the boss’s position not only because of his strength but because of Rastelli’s weakness. For the captains and soldiers on the street, it put them in an uncomfortable position. Galante was forcing the issue, telling them to choose sides, and Galante was a hard man to say no to. Mobsters and cops alike tell of how frightening it was just to look into his cold eyes.
Among those ambitious Bonanno soldiers and captains trying to navigate the situation was Joseph “Big Joey” Massino, a mobster who was bright and had a keen mind for strategy. Massino was broad and plump, with thick, fleshy arms and a double chin. Even with the plush exterior, however, he did not look soft. He wore his dark, wavy hair longer than most mobsters, which, coupled with his preference for T-shirts that showed his panther tattoo on his left arm, made him look less like a stereotypical Mafia leader and more like a petty thug. Just as the gentlemanly air of “Mr. Settecasi” was deceiving, so, too, was Massino’s look of being a dumb tough. If his hair and clothes rubbed older mobsters the wrong way, there was one thing Massino did that erased any concern—he was an earner. He proved himself to be resourceful, smart and careful. Born in 1943, Massino grew up in Queens and, like Sal Vitale, his childhood friend and future mob colleague, attended Grover Cleveland High School. Massino first met Vitale as a young boy when Vitale’s sister, who was friendly with Massino, introduced them. Four years older, Massino taught Vitale how to swim at the local swimming pool. Leaving school early, Massino made good money hijacking trucks and selling the stolen cargo before he moved into other mob activities. By the late 1960s he was running snack trucks around construction sites from which he sold food and drink as a cover for the more profitable activities of gambling and loan sharking. He franchised one of these routes out to Vitale for $16,000.
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