King of the Godfathers: "Big Joey" Massino and the Fall of the Bonanno Crime Family (31 page)

Massino’s cooperating with the government delayed his sentencing in his racketeering case until June 23, 2005. Garaufis’s courtroom again filled and in the crowd of spectators were Donna Trinchera, the wife of slain capo Dominick Trinchera, her daughter, Laura, as well as Donna Sciascia, the daughter of murdered Canadian mobster Gerlando Sciascia. The appearance of Sciascia’s family members was a clear sign that Massino would also be wrapping up that murder case with a guilty plea.

At 12:48 P.M., a grim-looking Massino entered the courtroom from the holding cell. He was wearing a gray suit and had an open-necked white shirt. He sat at the defense table next to attorney Edward McDonald. Unlike his demeanor during trial, Massino appeared nervous. He kept scratching his face and putting his hand up to his mouth. In the back of the courtroom were FBI agents Jeffrey Sallet and Kimberly McCaffrey. Sallet had been transferred to Washington, D.C., with a promotion while McCaffrey continued the delicate task of handling Massino.

Neither Josephine Massino nor her daughters were in court. Minutes earlier, Josephine had entered Garaufis’s chambers with her attorney and acknowledged to the judge that she had signed a forfeiture agreement. She was owner of record for some of the properties listed and Garaufis had to be satisfied that Massino’s wife had signed off on what was to be a massive surrender of most—but not all—of the property she and her husband had acquired. Her spouse was not present in the room. After the formality with the judge was over, Josephine Massino left the courthouse, although she was unable to avoid being spotted by
Daily News
reporter John Marzulli.

At 12:51 P.M. in the hushed courtroom, Garaufis asked Massino to stand up. The judge had a few preliminary questions, asking the mob boss how far he had gone in school. Massino answered by saying the eighth grade at PS 73. Prosecutor Greg Andres, who had entered the courtroom with a large cup of coffee from a local gourmet shop, handed up to Garaufis the cooperation agreement Massino had signed earlier that day. So it was official, Joseph Massino the mob boss had signed on as a government witness.

It was well known that upon his conviction for racketeering in July 2004 Massino was going to get life in prison without parole, as well as a stiff fine. Massino acknowledged to Garaufis that he was indeed guilty of the crimes for which he had been convicted by a jury. By doing that, he squelched any chance of appeal and dropped the pretense that he was innocent. The Sciascia murder case was still open—but not much longer.

At 1:06 P.M., Massino said “yes your honor, guilty” when asked if he had orchestrated the Sciascia murder. Garaufis asked Massino to explain.

“As boss of the Bonanno family, I gave the order to kill George from Canada,” said Massino.

That simple sentence in itself was amazing not just because Massino admitted his guilt but also because he had dropped the pretension that the crime family was his patrimony. He didn’t say “Massino” crime family as he wanted the enterprise to be known. No, Massino instead acknowledged the supremacy of Joseph Bonanno’s legacy. It was the “Bonanno family.” Massino had just been renting the hall.

Pressed by Garaufis, Massino said that the killing was carried out by “Johnny Joe,” who he said was a “goodfella,” Patty DeFilippo, and “Mikey Nose.” By his words, Massino implicated John Spirito, whose full name he didn’t know, DeFilippo, and reputed Bonanno member Michael Mancuso in the Sciascia murder.

Part of Massino’s bargain with the prosecutors was that he had to turn over a great deal of his wealth to the government. He didn’t write a check for the $10 million, but he could have come darn close. Massino agreed to give the federal government $10,393,350 in assets. An astonishing $9 million of that was in cash ($7.3 million) and other assets like gold bars. He also turned over the property housing the CasaBlanca Restaurant in Queens as well as two other buildings on Fresh Pond Road. Those properties had been held in Josephine’s name. The staggering amount of cash showed that Massino had done very well for a neighborhood tough who never made it out of grade school.

Although the forfeiture agreement didn’t spell it out, Massino was able to work out a deal that allowed his wife to keep title to the marital home in Howard Beach, his family’s home in Maspeth where his elderly mother lived with her other son, John, and the old house off Grand Avenue where Josephine Massino had been raised. Josephine was also able to keep title to some real estate in Queens and Florida, the agreement indicated, something that allowed her to garner rental income.

Donna Sciascia had filed a letter with the court but asked that it not be disclosed. However, Laura Trinchera, the daughter of one of the slain three captains, allowed her letter to be read in open court and Garaufis did so for the benefit of the public and the news media. Trinchera’s letter was the heartfelt statement of a daughter who never got to grow up with her father and lived for years not knowing where he had gone.

“I am grateful that our family now has closure and now my father is resting in his proper place,” said Trinchera. “We now have a place to go and say our prayers.

“As far as Mister Massino, he took the opportunity to live out his life, to see his family grow. He took that away from us,” she said. “I am here today to support Mister Massino’s facing mandatory life in prison. I feel that better late than never.”

Garaufis had been presiding over the Bonanno crime family cases for over two years and wanted to have his own say. There had been sixty-seven members and associates of the crime family named in various indictments and fifty-one, including Massino, had been convicted. The overwhelming majority had pled guilty.

“The evidence produced at Joseph Massino’s trial last year told a sobering story of an organization devoted to the pursuit of crime and corruption. That evidence detailed the system utilized by organized criminals—and in particular, the Bonanno/Massino crime family—to conduct business, extract revenue from both legitimate and illegal activities, and enforce its rules against members and non-members alike,” said Garaufis.

The judge said that the rituals and personalities of the mob “have been deeply romanticized in the popular media of the past thirty years, seemingly with ever-increasing frequency.” But the true nature of that life made it prey on human frailty, greed, weakness, and fear, he said.

For the Sciascia murder, Massino was given a life sentence that was to run consecutive to the life term he received for his conviction in July 2004. He was saddled with a $250,000 fine as well.

Since he was cooperating, Massino would be able to seek a reduction in his sentence, assuming the government was happy with his cooperation and filed on his behalf a letter with the court saying so. These so-called 5K letters, named after a section of the federal sentencing guidelines, had become like gold to Mafia cooperators because they could lead to freedom from a long prison sentence.

The sentencing of Joseph Massino took about forty minutes. When it was over, a dour Massino quickly shuffled his way out of the courtroom in the company of federal marshals. He didn’t look at any of the spectators. But those who did see his eyes peered into his soul and found nothing. His gaze was as cold, gray, and dead as gunmetal.

Epilogue

Over the years, the death of the American Mafia has been solemnly pronounced many times. In the 1970s, one local New York prosecutor predicted the mob would be dead in a couple of years. When the ruling Cosa Nostra Commission members were convicted in 1986, federal prosecutor Rudolph Giuliani announced that the governing body had been dismantled.

History turned out to be different. The Mafia gained strength through the 1990s. The Commission simply gained replacement members and continued meeting well into the time when Giuliani became mayor of New York City. The simple fact that law enforcement agencies continue to spend time, energy, and money on Cosa Nostra investigations is an indication that the mob is still with us.

But the world of the Mafia in the United States is much different from what it was in the 1930s, when Joseph Bonanno took over the clan that bears his name. No longer is the family composed of leaders who hailed from the same ancestral land around Castellammare del Golfo in Sicily. Those leaders had died off and took with them the ideals of loyalty and solidarity that had been a part of Sicilian culture that allowed the Mafia to flourish. That is not to say that loyalty and solidarity were gone from the mob. Joseph Massino took pride in those ideals when he was rising up in the mob. He remained fiercely loyal to Philip Rastelli and the old notion that the boss was to be followed no matter what.

But for every mafioso like Massino there was another who didn’t value loyalty. The modern Mafia had become, as organized crime expert Ronald Goldstock observed, a group of individual criminals with individual goals of making money. With money as the quest of mob life, group loyalty is actually a very tenuous thing. With the right pressure from law enforcement, individual mafioso can be made to turn on each other, says Goldstock.

Some prosecutors are repelled by the amoral nature of men like Massino and those who were in the Bonanno family. The mafiosi are just plan scary to them. Sure, they play by rules. They are just not playing by the rules the rest of society plays by. Motivated by the goal of making money, the Mafia is just another nakedly capitalist venture impelled by greed, policing itself with murder when necessary. Joseph Massino then did what many in La Cosa Nostra have always done. He was ruthless when he had to be.

Not an educated man, Massino had an innate intelligence and realized that being a terrorizing, headstrong thug was not the way to survive in the criminal life. He liked being low key and treated law enforcement with respect. Still, if Massino honored old values like loyalty and group cohesion, he was painfully aware that such things weren’t enough to guarantee the crime family could weather heat from investigators. Omerta might have worked to guarantee that mobsters in Sicily wouldn’t betray each other. But in the United States, where law enforcement techniques and laws had evolved to a degree never seen in Sicily, omerta became ineffective in ensuring that there would be no betrayal to police. Draconian prison sentences weakened many mafioso, particularly the elderly who hoped they could still live long enough to enjoy something of a life outside of a cell with their sons and grandchildren.

Massino recognized the old adage that you keep your friends close and your enemies closer. He allowed the sons and relatives of older mafiosi to become made members and by doing so gained another form of control over members. Relatives who were Bonanno members could act as a form of checks and balances on each other since they each had something to gain and lose through the crime family. Relatives could also become informants on each other since it was Massino who ultimately controlled punishments and rewards.

But it was family that actually caused the biggest problem for Massino. He elevated his wife’s brother to a high position of underboss in the Bonanno group. Salvatore Vitale had been a loyal underling to Massino as the latter rose through the mob. But while he was loyal, Vitale had problems as an administrator. Court testimony showed that a lot of the other mobsters didn’t like him. He didn’t garner the respect that an underboss should have been accorded. Some believed Vitale was an informant for about five years—although government records indicate that he wasn’t—and thought he should be killed. Witnesses testified that Massino even considered doing away with Vitale. Yet, some in the Bonanno family remembered that when questions were raised about Vitale’s loyalty and the suspicion that he might be an informant, it had been Massino who went around chastising people and telling them to stop spreading rumors.

Massino allowed Vitale to live. Massino would later be tape recorded in jail saying to Vincent Basciano that “to me, life is precious” and that he wouldn’t kill someone unless transgressions were proved “in black and white.” However, Massino didn’t really work that way. Massino didn’t hold courts of inquiry before a murder was allowed. He didn’t give the accused the right to file an appeal. His reasons for ordering murders seem to have been as much motivated by fear of informants than any real malfeasance. That being the case, he could have had Vitale done away with as well. It seems Vitale lived and brought about Massino’s demise because the crime boss was unable to take the step of murdering the man who had been so close to his own wife, Josephine. Family counted for something. It also cost him.

Though Massino had provided for Josephine and their daughters, he was not above using his own family to advance his stature with law enforcement. Court records show that when Massino was secretly tape recording Basciano in a federal jail, he claimed that Josephine had sent him messages about Bonanno family business and members. Massino obviously said that because he wanted to trick Basciano into revealing how he might be passing messages. What kinds of messages the crime boss actually received from his wife was something only he and she know for sure. But when Massino’s remarks about his wife became public, there were tough headlines about it. MOBSTER TAPE TIES WIFE TO BONANNO BIZ, said one headline in the
Daily News.
Those kinds of stories made it seem like Josephine had been running the crime family.

As much as Massino tried to be an astute judge of human nature and frailty, he was brought down by those qualities in others. Elderly mafioso Frank Coppa didn’t want to die in prison away from his grandchildren and decided to make a deal. Practical mafioso Frank Lino saw that when other Bonanno members decided to cooperate he had no way of beating the rap and also turned. Embittered mafioso Salvatore Vitale, marginalized by Massino, decided to lash out by cooperating. Even old cronies who were not in the mob like Duane Leisenheimer wanted to get on with their lives, raise their families while they were still young enough, and enjoy life.

Massino could instill fear and a grudging respect in his followers, but in the end that would never be enough to engender undying loyalty. Joseph Bonanno was right when he said that the old notion of the Mafia was gone. Cosa Nostra, “This Thing of Ours,” had become for each mafioso “My Thing.”

In the end, even Joseph Massino had to agree.