The Sixth Family (52 page)
Authors: Lee Lamothe
“I couldn’t tell you. I was not living in Canada,” he answered. But, Pagano was asked, did Alfonso Caruana ever speak to him about such relationships?
“We spoke once about it, that there was a person who was going into the Canadian government and was from the same village as Alfonso [Caruana]. From Siculiana,” Pagano said in a September 21, 1999, interview.
“He was from the same village as Alfonso [Caruana]. … I don’t know this person,” Pagano said. This was the kind of information that the Sicilian Men of Honor liked to keep secret from outsiders. And, although Pagano was one of Alfonso Caruana’s closest business partners, he was neither family nor a Sicilian and that made him an outsider.
“They don’t talk about it. It’s like I told you, these are things they keep to themselves,” he said. Investigators could not help but note that Alfonso Caruana’s family was based in Siculiana, a small Sicilian town in Agrigento province. Alfonso Gagliano is from Siculiana as well.
Mobsters are certainly more likely to claim access to a politician than an elected official is to acknowledge an association with gangsters. It may have been only an empty boast.
These scandals over Gagliano and John Franco, the ball player, that would later emerge from the Bonannos’ visit to Montreal were never envisioned by the gangsters at the time. The troubles stemmed, after all, from allegations of mere social—non-criminal—interaction. Of more importance to the Bonanno representatives at the time was the message they had for Vito from Massino, who continued to watch in dismay as the Sixth Family distanced itself even further from the Bonanno Family.
What was the purpose of their visit to see Vito?
“Well, to make them understand that they still had ties with New York,” Lino said. “That you [need to bring] the family closer together because, I guess, they might have lost ties.”
MANHATTAN, FEBRUARY 1995Despite the warm reception in Montreal extended to the New York gangsters, relations between the Sixth Family and the Bonanno Family were growing chilly. Montreal continued to withdraw from Bonanno affairs. Accordingly, life for Sciascia in New York was becoming similarly unpleasant. Increasingly at odds with the Bonanno Family leadership, he also had to contend with the notoriety of the drug case he had faced with LoPresti. Even with his acquittal, the charges and the Angelo Ruggiero tapes had given him an unwanted high profile among American and Canadian police. Although he often visited Canada while carrying out his drug-trafficking schemes, he had never obtained Canadian citizenship, remaining both a citizen of Italy and a permanent resident in the United States. His application to legally relocate to Canada was a tough sell. The process dragged on until February 1995, when Susan Burrows, an official at the Canadian Consulate in New York, notified Sciascia’s lawyers that she wanted to interview Sciascia in person.
Burrows had been well briefed on the Sixth Family and their business associates, and if Sciascia thought he was to face a test of his knowledge of Canadian history or to recount his investment potential as an immigrant, he was in for a surprise.
“Do you know Salvatore Ruggiero?” Burrows began.
“Yes,” a cautious Sciascia replied. “We met in the pizza place. His seven children used to hang out there,” he said of his California Pizza franchise at the Green Acres Mall. “We were friends. He was always ordering pizzas … that’s where my problems started.”
And, Burrows asked, how about Cesare Bonventre?
“I may have met him a few times,” Sciascia said, “through [Sal] Catalano.”
“Baldo Amato?” Burrows continued.
“I am the godfather of Mr. Amato’s daughter. I knew his father in Italy,” Sciascia said. “I see him once in a while—at his daughter’s birthday, etc.”
“Do you know Giuseppe LoPresti?”
“We were friends in Italy,” Sciascia responded. “He was a godfather at my daughter’s confirmation. He passed away.” No mention of murder; no mention of his involvement in it.
“Okay, Mr. Sciascia,” Burrows continued, “do you know Giuseppe Bono?” Again he nodded.
“Yes, he lived near my house. He asked my daughter to be his flower girl. I haven’t seen [the Bonos] since they were married and went back to Italy,” he said.
“Do you know Nicolò or Nick Rizzuto?”
“Yes, he was my
paesano
in our town of 5,000 in Italy. He lived on the same block, about 10 houses away from me. I met him once in Canada when my niece got married, then I used to see him at weddings. I haven’t seen him in a long time.” Burrows asked him about the circumstances of Nick being stopped at the border by U.S. Customs agents with documents for Sciascia’s Peugeot in his possession. Sciascia said it was “a mistake” that Nick had the papers.
paesano
in our town of 5,000 in Italy. He lived on the same block, about 10 houses away from me. I met him once in Canada when my niece got married, then I used to see him at weddings. I haven’t seen him in a long time.” Burrows asked him about the circumstances of Nick being stopped at the border by U.S. Customs agents with documents for Sciascia’s Peugeot in his possession. Sciascia said it was “a mistake” that Nick had the papers.
Moving on, Burrows next asked about Vito Rizzuto.
“I know all the family,” Sciascia answered. “I have nothing to do with him. I see him at weddings and funerals.”
What about Paolo Renda?
“He lived across the street,” Sciascia said, adding that Renda was Vito’s brother-in-law. “I saw him a few times at family gatherings, nothing else.”
Six months later, Burrows notified him of the decision: “Having investigated further the responses to the questions which you gave me at your interview, I must confirm that I do consider you inadmissible to Canada.” She said she believed that Sciascia was a member of the Mafia and a danger to the public. On September 8, 1995, Joseph Sciascia, on his father’s behalf, appealed Burrows’s decision. Six weeks later, the immigration department certified that Sciascia was a danger to the Canadian public.
“George from Canada” remained in America.
CHAPTER 31
LONG ISLAND, MARCH 1999At a silver wedding anniversary party for the nephew of Sal Vitale, held at a family-owned restaurant in Hempstead, Long Island, Joe Massino—who had arrived late to the festivities—pulled his underboss aside. Sitting down together at the end of one of the tables, Massino told him shocking news.
“George has got to go.” This was Massino’s simple way of issuing a death sentence against Gerlando Sciascia, the Sixth Family’s representative in New York. The news was not received well by Vitale, who was fond of Sciascia and his old-school ways. Vitale knew better than to question his boss but he could not hide the look of distaste on his face.
“If you have any problems with it, I’ll get other people. I don’t need you,” Massino snapped.
“Whatever you want to do, Joe,” Vitale said, throwing his hands in the air in an overt sign of surrender. Vitale knew the rules: “I don’t have no right to know nothing,” he said later.
Massino then told Vitale to contact Patrick “Patty from the Bronx” DeFilippo, another Bonanno captain, to arrange the hit and, if they needed anything in the way of a car or a van to do the job, to call Anthony “TG” Graziano. DeFilippo was one of the Bonanno men who had traveled to Canada in 1966 for Vito Rizzuto’s wedding, only to be arrested by Montreal police.
Massino was a cunning boss. To carry out this sensitive piece of business, he had tapped two gangsters that he knew had their own motivation to whack Sciascia. Graziano was something of a nemesis to Sciascia, after Sciascia pressed his complaints over his drug use, and he would happily help to topple his rival. DeFilippo, too, had an ongoing beef with Sciascia over a large marijuana deal and would benefit if he were to be removed from the equation. As with the assassination of Bonventre—and any hostile move against the Zips—killing Sciascia required special handling.
The plan called for Sciascia’s death to be made to look like a drug deal gone awry—and nothing to do with the Bonannos. Sciascia’s body would be dumped on the street in the Bronx rather than made to disappear, as is typically the case in mob hits.
“It would look like George got caught up in his own dirt,” said Vitale. Massino also had made plans for the timing of the murder, one that showed how sensitive it was and how anxious he was for it not to point back to him. Massino was leaving the following morning for St. Maarten, a Dutch-run tropical island in the Caribbean.
“Try to get it done before I come home,” he said. He wanted to keep the fact that he had ordered Sciascia’s death from two organizations. “Number one, law enforcement wouldn’t know, and two, Montreal wouldn’t know,” Vitale said.
Keeping it from Vito and the Sixth Family was crucial, said Vitale, for the simple reason that they feared him.
“They have, like, 19 people; we didn’t want to get involved in a war,” he said of the official strength of the Montreal allotment of made Bonanno soldiers. The strength of the Sixth Family, of course, could not be measured in such a narrow way. As Vito would soon personally show Vitale and Massino, New York’s rigid structure meant little to him.
BROOKLYN, MARCH 1999It was with more secrecy than is typical of a mob hit that Massino and his handpicked men mapped out a plan of attack on Sciascia.
Two weeks earlier, Massino met directly with DeFilippo in Danny’s Chinese Restaurant on Cross Bay Boulevard, not far from the boss’s Howard Beach home. It was there that Massino assigned him this “piece of work,” as he typically referred to the murders he was ordering. DeFilippo, a decidedly inexperienced assassin, then started scheming and by the time Vitale met with him to discuss it, he had the plot thoroughly mapped out.
Outside DeFilippo’s York Avenue apartment in Manhattan’s upscale East Side, he and Vitale walked the streets as they spoke in private, Vitale said.
“Joe sent me. You know what we got to do?” Vitale asked him.
“I’m all set up,” DeFilippo replied.
“You need a car? I could get a car,” Vitale said.
“I don’t need a car,” DeFilippo said.
“Patty, do you need a car?” Vitale repeated. DeFilippo insisted he did not.
“How are you going to do this? Explain it to me,” said Vitale.
“I’m going to kill him in Johnny Joe’s truck,” DeFilippo said, naming John “Johnny Joe” Spirito, a trusted Bonanno associate. DeFilippo was going to use his ongoing dispute with Sciascia as a crafty way to lure him to his death. Sciascia was to be told that another mobster was ready to mediate a sit-down between them to settle their beef, and to meet DeFilippo in Manhattan and from there he would be driven to the meeting. Like Bonventre, Sciascia was a suspicious and crafty man. DeFilippo felt sure Sciascia would not get into a strange car, so they would use a vehicle familiar to him to put him at ease—a white Mercury Mountaineer sport utility vehicle driven by Spirito.
“He’ll be comfortable getting into Johnny Joe’s truck. He knows Johnny Joe,” DeFilippo told Vitale. Once Sciascia was dead, Spirito would drive the body to the Bronx and dump it in the street, DeFilippo said. For that he would earn his membership into the Bonanno Family. DeFilippo had the plot carefully arranged, including asking Michael
“Nose” Mancuso to be nearby in his gold Nissan Altima as a back-up shooter if anything went wrong, Vitale said.
The next day, at the York Grill near DeFilippo’s home, Vitale passed two guns and a silencer to DeFilippo.
“Does it work? Did you try it?” asked an anxious DeFilippo.
“No,” replied Vitale. “You want to try it? Let’s go for a ride.” The two hopped into a black Lincoln Town Car and Vitale drove through the streets of midtown Manhattan while DeFilippo fired a few rounds through the open sun roof. As they left the car to return to the diner, Vitale grabbed hold of DeFilippo to ensure he had his attention for an important message.
“Joe told me to tell you: Hit him high, hit him low,” Vitale said, meaning, in gangster parlance, to alternate between firing bullets into the head and into the chest—up and down, up and down—to leave no mistake about the outcome.
“I got it. Don’t worry,” said DeFilippo. Test-firings, silencers, back-up shooters, instructions on inflicting maximum damage—again, special precautions.
On the day DeFilippo intended to strike, he called Throgs Neck Jewelers on East Tremont Avenue—a store where Sciascia could often be found, run by John Chiazzese, a relative of Sciascia’s known by some as “John the Jeweler”—and left what was meant to seem like a conciliatory message: “We will work out our differences,” DeFilippo said and asked Sciascia to meet him at the intersection of 79
th
Street and First Avenue in Manhattan at 9 p.m.
th
Street and First Avenue in Manhattan at 9 p.m.
When Sciascia arrived at the jewelry store, nothing in his demeanor suggested he suspected this day would be the last day of his life. He jotted down on a slip of paper, in his unsteady handwriting, where he was to meet DeFilippo: “PAT D. 79 ST AV 1.” That evening, he parked his black Jeep Cherokee on the east side of Second Avenue between 79
th
and 80
th
streets, walking the block and a half to his rendezvous with DeFilippo. At the intersection, Spirito pulled his Mountaineer to a stop and Sciascia settled into the luxury interior of the SUV’s rear seat. In the front passenger seat was DeFilippo. At some point during the ride, seven .25-caliber bullets, fired from the front and just inches away, ended Sciascia’s life a month after his 65
th
birthday.
th
and 80
th
streets, walking the block and a half to his rendezvous with DeFilippo. At the intersection, Spirito pulled his Mountaineer to a stop and Sciascia settled into the luxury interior of the SUV’s rear seat. In the front passenger seat was DeFilippo. At some point during the ride, seven .25-caliber bullets, fired from the front and just inches away, ended Sciascia’s life a month after his 65
th
birthday.
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