Honor Thy Father (48 page)

“This credit card is waiting, he signs the name. Maybe he looks at the two documents, the credit invoice and the receipt he gets for five seconds, maybe ten, maybe three, but surely no more than that, brings the credit invoice, brings the receipt to Mr. Bonanno and that’s the end of it. A minor, insignificant detail in his life of no consequence, nothing to alert him.

“Eight months later he is brought before a grand jury, questioned by U.S. Attorneys and they show him not the two slips separately in the form in which he may have seen them for three seconds, but together on a photostat, and he is asked whether he saw these tickets, which they are not, and he does not at that moment in time remember the occasion on which he signed Torrillo’s name and he says he does not recall the tickets.

“That’s the perjury. That is the wicked, dreadful perjury, and the government is going to say to you, ‘It is impossible, it is impossible that he could have forgotten that episode seven, eight months before,’ and that will be the issue as to perjury with regard to Mr. Notaro.

“Was it impossible for him to forget it eight months later? I submit that you will have little difficulty using your common sense and experience in understanding that a man could forget the episode, and if you see something you wrote which is not your signature but another name which you never used before and never used since, that you don’t necessarily recognize it as something that you wrote, particularly if you are on the witness stand under oath confronted by a group of jurors and under considerable personal attention.

“That will be the issue. I don’t think you will have any difficulty in acquitting Mr. Notaro of everything in this case. Thank you very much.”

“All right,” Judge Mansfield said. “Mr. Phillips, call your first witness.”

“Jeanne Sands,” said Phillips.

Miss Sands, the hostess at Pancho’s Mexican Restaurant in Tucson, walked into the courtroom from the door in front of the jury box. A fast-stepping attractive woman in her thirties who seemed to have just been to a beauty parlor, Miss Sands was duly sworn and was shown by the prosecutor a Diners’ Club receipt signed by Don A. Torrillo.

“Do you remember the circumstances under which you made that receipt out?” Phillips asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“What were they?”

“We were pretty busy,” Miss Sands recalled, “so the waitress who had served the table brought it to me at the register and asked me if I would take it back to the table for signature.”

“Did you take it back to the table for signature?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How many people were at that table?”

“Six.”

“Did somebody sign that receipt?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you see the person in the courtroom who signed that receipt?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Would you point him out, please?”

“Yes,” Miss Sands said, edging up on her chair, and looking toward the defendants’ table. “The gentleman in the blue suit.”

“At which table, the first table or the second table?” Judge Mansfield interrupted.

“The second table.”

“And as you look at the second table, going from right to left, which person is it?” the judge asked.

“The second one.”

“The second person,” Judge Mansfield repeated, adding, “the record will show that the witness has identified the defendant Bonanno.”

Bill Bonanno felt the eyes of nearly the entire courtroom focusing on him, but he continued to look straight ahead toward the judge’s bench and the court stenographer’s quick-tapping fingers. He was indeed in court, he thought, and he reminded himself that, if convicted and unable to get bail, he could be sent from this courtroom directly to a federal vehicle that would transport him to prison; and it would not, as in the past, be for thirty or ninety days. As he was thinking, half-listening to Miss Sands being cross-examimed by Krieger, Bill could faintly hear the street traffic eleven floors below, the horns and trucks shifting gears, the drilling of a construction gang, the gongs from a distant clock or church tower. The gongs were loud, carrying into the courtroom, and the judge interrupted the witness’s testimony to explain to the jury in a genteel manner: “We are listening to the melodic tones of the bell from St. Andrew’s. Wait until it is completed. At least it is more palatable than some of the tones you may be hearing.” The judge added, smiling, “That last remark was not intended to mean either counsel or the witnesses. I was speaking of the sounds from outside.”

The procession of government witnesses continued through the day. There were the Diners’ Club employees who explained the company billing procedures, its policy against nonholders’ using a card, and they also recalled the day when the debt-laden Torrillo card had been removed from circulation—March 11, 1968. There was the young salesman, the owner’s son, from Bloom’s shop in Tucson who had waited on Bill on March 11 when Bill attempted to pay for purchases worth $200 with Torrillo’s card. And there was the lady cashier from Bloom’s who, because the bill was more than $50, had telephoned the Diners’ Club credit office in Los Angeles, which in turn had telephoned New York because Torrillo’s card was registered there.

As Bill sat in court listening to the cashier’s testimony he remembered that he had not really been worried while waiting in Bloom’s that afternoon, overhearing the conversations on the telephone—first the cashier, then the manager talking to the Diners’ Club official, and then Bill himself was called to the phone and asked bait questions by the man on the other end, questions intending to trick him, and they had. Bill remembered, after admitting to the name “Torrillo,” being asked if he still was employed by a certain firm, if he still had a house at a certain address, and—since Torrillo had been affiliated with several firms and had several properties, being a realtor of some sort—Bill replied affirmatively, which was a mistake.

After that conversation, the store manager confiscated the card, cutting it into two pieces, and now Bill heard the cashier telling the courtroom how he behaved at that moment: “He didn’t seem real angry at Diners’…. He seemed angry that a man in his firm in New York had neglected to pay the bill.” He remembered calling Perrone, collect, from Bloom’s, reaching him at the warehouse in Brooklyn; and Perrone, apologizing, assured him that there was nothing to worry about, Perrone would talk to Torrillo, and Torrillo would take care of it right away. Perrone had always presented himself to Bill as a kind of partner of Torrillo’s—they had deals going together, Perrone had said, and so when Perrone told Bill that he would get Torrillo to “take care of it,” Bill 424/> assumed that he would and could. As proof of Perrone’s close relationship with Torrillo, Bill had only to recall that it was Perrone who in 1966 had produced Torrillo to take title to Bill’s East Meadow home in order to satisfy the Dimes Savings Bank, which wanted someone less controversial than Bill liable under the mortgage. The house was in Torrillo’s name during the period that Bill was using the credit card; and Bill had even considered himself in a kind of remote partnership with Torrillo, through Perrone, and thus he had no hesitancy about taking the card and signing Torrillo’s name after Perrone said it was all right with Torrillo.

Then, hours after Bill had spoken with Hank Perrone from Bloom’s store, Perrone was dead. The next thing that Bill heard about Torrillo was that he was in deep trouble with the law on something other than the credit card issue; Torrillo was being questioned by detectives, Bill had heard, and was possibly willing—in return for his own freedom—to become the government’s key witness against Bill in a federal case alleging, among other things, credit card theft.

And now on this Monday in November 1969 in federal court, Don Torrillo represented the government’s main hope in putting Bill Bonanno behind bars. Since Bill would most likely not take the stand, being in Krieger’s view too vulnerable on many subjects that the government wanted to probe, the outcome of the case would undoubtedly depend on Torrillo’s performance in front of the jury and on whether or not Krieger and Sandler could destroy Torrillo’s credibility as a witness. Before Krieger and Sandler left the courtroom on the first day of testimony, they learned that they would soon have an opportunity to test that credibility, for the prosecutor informed Judge Mansfield that on the following day the government’s witness would be Don A. Torrillo.

A
T 10:30 A.M. ON
N
OVEMBER 11, THE SECOND DAY OF
testimony in the case of
United States of America
vs.
Salvatore V. Bonanno and Peter Notaro
, the government called its key witness, Don A. Torrillo. Torrillo was a thin, rather short dark-haired man in his thirties wearing horn-rimmed glasses, a dark suit, white shirt and striped tie; and as he took the stand he sat with his shoulders hunched slightly forward and his hands loosely clasped in his lap.

He seemed calm and relaxed; and, after the prosecutor, Walter Phillips, began the questioning, Torrillo’s responses were delivered in an unhesitating and polished manner, suggesting an above-average education and a facility with words. After having established that Torrillo was acquainted with Hank Perrone, Phillips led Torrillo into describing a meeting that he had had in a barbershop with Perrone in January 1968. At the time of the meeting, The Banana War was very much in the headlines—it was two months after the triple murder in the Cypress Garden Restaurant in Queens, and two months before Perrone was killed; and the shop in which Don Torrillo met Perrone and Bonanno was in a neighborhood where the Bonanno organization had gambling and other interests. In the barbershop, Perrone asked Torrillo if he knew of a travel agent who would accept a personal check in payment for airline tickets; after Torrillo said he did not, Perrone asked if he knew of an agent who would accept a credit card. When Torrillo said that he did, Perrone asked if he could use Torrillo’s card to charge two airplane tickets to California. Torrillo agreed.

“Before you left the barbershop,” Phillips asked, “did anything unusual occur?”

“There was an incident,” Torrillo said, explaining that as he was leaving the shop with Perrone—Bonanno by this time having driven off in his own car—an old man in the shop said something to Perrone, causing him to turn in a violent rage and say, “You don’t tell me anything…”

“I object to this,” Krieger called out in the courtroom, “this is out of the presence of the defendant”—meaning that Bonanno, who had left the barbershop, was uninvolved with what Torrillo was now describing. But after the attorneys conferred with Judge Mansfield at the sidebar and after Phillips argued that the barbershop scene had a bearing on Torrillo’s fear of Perrone, the judge allowed Phillips to pursue the questioning; and Torrillo, after recalling Perrone’s anger, added that Perrone hit the old man and knocked him down.

Torrillo then testified that he proceeded to the travel agency, saying nothing to Perrone about the old man, and that Bonanno was waiting at the agency when they arrived. There the tickets were purchased with Torrillo’s card, and Perrone promised to reimburse Torrillo after returning from California. Not only did Perrone never do so, Torrillo said, but Perrone not long after his return from California arrived at Torrillo’s home in Elmhurst, Queens, early one evening, very angry, and said, “I have been calling you for a day and a half. What’s the matter with you? Why don’t you return my calls?” Then Perrone said that he needed the card again for two more tickets, demanding the card; and, Torrillo testified, he gave it to him. As Torrillo walked to the door with Perrone on that evening, Torrillo said he saw Peter Notaro sitting in the car parked in the driveway.

“Did you thereafter receive any bills or receipts from the Diners’ Club?” Phillips asked.

“Yes.”

“Where did they come from?”

“From all over the country,” Torrillo said.

Krieger interrupted, asking, “May we have when he received these?”

“Yes,” Judge Mansfield said, “fix the time.”

Torrillo said he did not exactly know when he began to receive the bills, but that it was after Perrone had taken the card.

“Did you give Mr. Perrone permission to use your card or authorization?” Phillips asked.

“No, I didn’t,” said Torrillo, adding that he had also not given permission or authorization to Bill Bonanno or Peter Notaro.

“Did you pay any of these bills?” Phillips asked.

“No, I didn’t.”

“When did you first tell Diners’ Club that the card was being used without your authorization?”

“Approximately a month after Mr. Perrone’s death.”

Phillips later asked Torrillo if he had seen Perrone in a bar called the Posh Place, which was on Second Avenue some blocks from the barbershop, and was a hangout for members of the Bonanno organization.

“Yes, I did,” Torrillo replied, and when asked by Phillips if he had noticed anything unusual at that time—this being before Perrone’s visit to Torrillo’s home to get the card—Torrillo recalled that in the Posh Place he had noticed that Perrone was carrying a gun.

As Torrillo continued to testify, Bill Bonanno sat listening, looking toward Torrillo but not directly at him, realizing that if he did he might suggest to the jury, through a facial expression or gesture, his private thoughts about Torrillo, which were not flattering, but which if sensed by the jury would certainly not favorably reflect upon his own image, such as it was. Bill was in a peculiar situation in the courtroom. While he was a defendant in an important case, and while the trial coverage in the press associated him with the Mafia (and was possibly being read or heard by the nonsequestered jury), he would not be speaking in his own behalf to these eight women and four men in the jury box who each day observed him, watched him sitting next to Krieger, noticed the way he was dressed, the way he combed his hair, saw him whispering to Krieger and occasionally writing notes on a yellow pad at the defense’s table. He felt that he was on trial every second he sat in the courtroom—his every movement, every twitch, might be under observation, might confirm in a juror’s mind what he was or was not. While Bill did not dress any more conservatively for this trial than he normally did, he kept reminding himself that his appearance was on trial, his face and eyes were on trial, and so he was careful not to look too directly at Don Torrillo.

After Phillips finished, Krieger stood to begin the cross-examination. Krieger began slowly and calmly, his tone becoming slightly more sharp and direct as he proceeded, and soon Bill became aware that Torrillo’s voice had lost some of its steadiness and Torrillo’s responses were not as quick as they had been when Phillips was asking the questions.

“Mr. Torrillo,” Krieger asked, “when did you meet Mr. Perrone for the first time?”

“When did I meet him?” Torrillo repeated. “I met him approximately the beginning of 1967, I believe.”

“1967?” Krieger asked, doubtfully.

“I believe,” Torrillo said. “It could have been 1966. The time sequence I don’t remember but I can pinpoint it by certain other items that happened.”

“I see. Well, there was a certain real estate transaction, was there not, in which Mr. Bonanno was involved, and Mr. Perrone was involved, and you were involved?”

“Correct,” Torrillo said, recognizing it as the time when he had taken title to Bill Bonanno’s house in East Meadow.

“And I suggest to you that that date was approximately November of 1966,” Krieger said. “Now, did you know Mr. Perrone prior to that transaction?”

“Yes. I had met him about two weeks prior to that transaction, two weeks to a month.”

“And you became rather friendly with Mr. Perrone after meeting him, just taking a date arbitrarily, say October 1966?”

“Yes.”

“And you had some business relationships with him, did you not?”

“Yes.”

“And those business relationships continued up until the time of his death?”

“Yes.”

“Now, was Mr. Perrone in a trucking business, or warehousing?”

“Something like that,” Torrillo said. “Trucking business, I believe.”

“Well, you visited him from time to time at his place of business, did you not?”

“Yes. I visited him before he even bought the business because I wrote an appraisal up on the building for him.”

Krieger asked Torrillo about a letter that Torrillo had written to the Diners’ Club dated April 17, 1968—which was a month after Perrone’s death—and in which Torrillo claimed to have lost his credit card. Krieger had a copy of the letter in his hand, and in it Torrillo also stated that he had written two previous letters to Diners’ Club concerning the “loss” of the credit card, complaining that he had received no reply to those previous letters from Diners’ Club. Krieger asked Torrillo if he had lied in the April 17 letter to Diners’ Club about the card being lost and about having written twice previously. Torrillo, after lengthy exchanges with Krieger and objections by Phillips, finally admitted that, yes, he had lied in the letter.

The courtroom was intensely silent now as Torrillo, shifting in the chair and adjusting his glasses, saw Krieger holding other documents in his hand, other instances in which Torrillo had lied. There was a document of May 28, ten weeks after Perrone’s death, which was an affidavit that Torrillo signed at the request of Diners’ Club in which he said that he had lost the card. And there was Torrillo’s testimony before a grand jury in July 1968—four months after Perrone’s death—in which Torrillo held to the version that he had lost the card and repeated the false statements that he had made in the letter of April 17 to Diners’ Club.

“And that wasn’t true?” Krieger asked, referring to Torrillo’s grand jury testimony.

“No,” Torrillo said, quietly.

Krieger paused momentarily, giving the jury time to consider what had just been said—Torrillo had admitted to perjury

Peter Notaro looked straight at Torrillo, as did Notaro’s attorney, Sandier. Notaro had been indicted for perjury because he had not recognized the charge slip on which he had signed Torrillo’s name for the plane tickets at the Tucson airport; whereas Torrillo’s grand jury testimony had not resulted in a perjury indictment.

Bill Bonanno sat looking at the table, while Krieger continued, “Mr. Torrillo, let me go to something else for a moment. Did you tell us on your direct examination that you were a travel agent at the present time?”

“Yes.”

“And how long have you been a travel agent?”

“Well, I have been in the travel business just about two years.”

“Pardon? I’m sorry, please keep your voice up.”

“I have been in the travel business about two years,” Torrillo repeated.

“Two years?”

“Just about. Mainly it just started to take hold this year, the beginning of 1969.”

“Well,” Krieger said, “you weren’t a travel agent back in January of ’68, were you?”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Were you a travel agent in January of ’68?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t have a place of business?”

“No,” Torrillo said, explaining that he was not the type of agent who sold tickets but rather one who conducted travel tours, packaged the tours and sold them.

“Now, that was your business in January of 1968?”—the time Torrillo met in the barbershop with Perrone and Bonanno.

“Well,” Torrillo clarified, “I was getting out of the real estate business, and I started picking up on this business.”

“Prior to that you had been in the real estate business?”

“Yes.”

“And what did your real estate business consist of?”

“I owned and operated rent-controlled apartment buildings.”

“How many?”

“Five.”

“Where?”

“Do you want the addresses?”

“Please.”

“446 East 116th Street; 416 East 116th Street; and 7 and 23 East Third; and 536 East Thirteenth Street.”

“These were all multiple dwellings?” Krieger asked.

“Yes.”

“Basically railroad flats?”

“Yes.”

“Now,” Krieger went on, “were you ever employed by Western Electric?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“1960. In that area.”

“And in what capacity?”

“As an engineering associate.”

“What does that mean?”

Torrillo seemed confused.

“That means that I was an engineering associate,” Torrillo said, finally, “whatever that means.”

“Well,” Krieger asked, “are you an engineer?”

“No.”

“Are you a graduate engineer?”

“No.”

“Did you ever go to college?”

“Yes.”

“And what degree did you get?”

“I didn’t finish.”

“Now, were you also at one time in the stock market business?”

“Yes, I was.”

“In what capacity?”

“Your Honor,” Walter Phillips said, rising, “I’m going to object. I don’t see any relevance to this testimony.”

“I will tie it up, if Your Honor please,” Krieger said.

Judge Mansfield overruled Phillip’s objection, and Krieger asked Torrillo: “What were you doing in the stock market?”

“I started in the Research Department and then as a salesman.”

“Now, you first got a Diners’ Club card in 1963, isn’t that so?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“And what was your income in 1963?”

“Oh, approximately $30,000. Thirty and change.”

“Pardon?”

“Approximately $30,000.”

“And in 1962?”

“It is hard for me to remember because there was a transition period between Western Electric and the stock market, and I was also in the army for a time in 1962. So I don’t remember.”

“You didn’t make any $60,000 in 1962, did you?”

“No.”

“And did you make an application to Diners’ Club in 1963 where you represented yourself to be—well, to have an annual income of $60,000?”

“Yes.”

“And characterized yourself as being the head of research of a brokerage house?”

“I was at the time.”

“You weren’t making any $60,000, were you?”

“No.”

“What did you make?”

“I made thirty, I think, for a year, but that sixty was projected earnings. That’s what I felt I would have made if I had finished it out.”

When Krieger asked Torrillo if he had any unpaid debts of his own in the Diners’ Club account before receiving bills that were incurred by Perrone and Bonanno, Torrillo admitted that he had—approximately $1,500 in bills, which included monies due on a monthly installment plan he had with Diners’ Club in addition to bills for Christmas gifts he had bought in 1967, and also one business trip he had made.