Surviving the Mob (22 page)

As the summer of 1996 approached, Andrew found himself in dire financial trouble. His California marijuana connection proved to be less reliable than it first appeared and that income was inconsistent. Unable to commit street crimes as he had in the past, he was bringing in only enough money to pay his basic expenses and pick up a cheap car to get him from place to place. His already-grim situation was growing steadily grimmer.

“My ex-wife was always looking for more money for our son’s support. Wild Bill Cutolo was still insisting that I pay back a bogus loan. And Danny Cutaia was beating the war drums, saying that I’d been involved in Robert Arena’s murder. That scenario was the most hurtful because I would have done anything in my power to save Robert, even if it had meant dying with him and going out in a blaze of glory. So being accused of killing him was a hard pill to swallow.

“Around that time, I started seeing a girl named Charlotte. She was the niece of Greg “The Grim Reaper” Scarpa. He was a capo in the Colombo family and ran one of the most notorious crews in organized-crime circles. Greg had died a couple of years earlier and Charlotte and her aunt used to tell me a lot of stories about him. She was smart and knew how to keep a secret. We hit it off really well and before long she became my close friend as well as a love interest. We were almost inseparable.

“One day I got a beeper message from a Genovese bank-robbery crew I knew. There was a potential score coming up and they wanted me to take a look at it. It involved robbing a specific Brinks armored truck that operated out of the yard in downtown Brooklyn. The information was that if we robbed the truck around Christmas time, it would be carrying around three million dollars. I met up with [notorious bank robber associated with the Bonano family] Paul Mazzarese. Paul was older and grandfatherly looking, but he knew his stuff when it came to banks. Paul and me picked up that
truck when it left the yard and followed it all day. Afterward, we talked about it. Paul said that he had an idea for something we could do a lot sooner than Christmas. That interested me, because in my financial situation, I didn’t think I could last that long.

“Paul lived in New Jersey. He cashed his checks at a Sovereign Bank branch. He noticed that the Brinks money truck came every Thursday and dropped off bags of money. But the procedure was lax: The bags were left on the floor next to the vault until an employee got around to putting them inside. And there was no partition in that facility between the customers and tellers. You could get to the money bags by simply jumping over the counter.

“So we switched our focus from robbing the armored truck in Brooklyn to taking down the bank in New Jersey. Our plan was for four of us—Paul, Tommy Scuderi, Joe Miraglia, and me—to do the robbery on the Thursday before a holiday weekend. I knew from doing bank burglaries that they usually brought in a hundred and fifty thousand or so more than usual then to fill the ATM machines for the long weekend. The next upcoming holiday with a three-day weekend was Labor Day.”

The week before Labor Day, the four of them waited at a diner along the highway for the truck to pass and followed it to the bank to get the timing down. They then bought some tape the same color as the letters and numbers on their license plates so they could cover the real letters and numbers with fakes.

The Wednesday before the robbery, they went to the bank for a final look. Paul explained everyone’s job one last time. He lived in a senior-citizen complex exactly 60 seconds from the bank. He’d drive Tommy and Andrew to the bank and park in the lot where they could keep an eye out for the Brinks truck. After it arrived, Tommy and Andrew would get out of Paul’s car and go inside to do the robbery.
Paul would then drive around behind the bank and wait for them. Joe would be in a car across the street monitoring a police scanner. As the up-front man, Andrew would walk in first, followed by Tommy a few seconds later. Andrew would go straight to the counter, jump over, and grab the money bags on the floor next to the vault. Tommy would wait at the counter and help him carry the bags out and handle any uncooperative employees or customers. After they got the money, they’d hop in Paul’s car and drive to his place. Joe would follow close behind. Then they’d all wait there until the heat died down.

“That night I sat in my apartment in Manhattan Beach and said a little prayer before I went to bed. A bank robber’s prayer. I said, ‘Lord, things haven’t been too good lately. And I would never pray for you to help me steal. But I’m going to do what I’m going to do tomorrow and I’m asking you to watch over me.’”

The next morning, Andrew got up early, was picked up by Tommy and Joe, and drove to Paul’s. After doctoring the license plates, they left for the bank. They’d done a dry run of the escape route the night before and were ready to do the job. Like clockwork, the Brinks truck pulled in within an hour after the bank opened. And just like they figured, there were two extra bags of money for the holiday. The guard loaded the bags on a hand cart and wheeled them into the bank. Back outside in a couple of minutes, he got into the truck and drove away.

“I exited Paul’s car followed by Tommy and we headed for the bank. I had on doctor’s-exam gloves and a sweatshirt that covered a bulletproof vest, sunglasses, and a New York Yankees ball cap. The bank had four or five customers at the time. I kept my head straight, went directly to the counter, and jumped over it. I heard a couple of screams, but kept my focus on the money bags. I grabbed the first two and threw them over the counter to Tommy. Then I took the other two
bags and jumped back over the counter. Some guy decided to be a hero and made a move at me. Tommy pulled his handgun, grabbed the guy, and threw him on the floor. There must have been a lot of wax on the floor, because the guy slid quite a distance.

“At that time, a female customer came in and saw what was happening. She started screaming and ran outside. Tommy and I followed her out and went behind the bank. We threw the bags into Paul’s car, got in, and laid down on the back seat. As Paul pulled away, he’d have looked to any passersby like a grandfather out driving around all alone. We were safely inside Paul’s house in just about a minute after the robbery and Joe was right behind us.

“The traffic on the police scanner was that they were responding to a bank robbery and that roadblocks were being set up. They were also reporting that the robbers were a male and female team, because witnesses had seen me follow the screaming female customer outside. The cops pulled her over a block away and took her in for questioning. After a while, they figured out she wasn’t involved.

“I’d worked out an arrangement with Charlotte for me to contact her by beeper to let her know how the score went. If it was successful, I was to beep her one-four-three. In beeper lingo, that meant ‘I love you.’ I sent her the message, then shaved and took a shower, and everybody changed clothes. We bagged up our robbery clothes and gear and Paul’s wife disposed of everything. After that we counted the loot. The take was just under a half-million dollars. We split it four ways. Tommy and Joe had to take care of Sal DeMeo [their crew boss] from their end. According to protocol, I was supposed to kick some of my share up to Nicky. I didn’t, though. At least not right away.

“We stayed at Paul’s for several hours, eating, listening to the scanner, and watching the news. When we felt it was safe, Paul’s wife drove me back to Staten Island. Tommy and
Joe followed in Joe’s car with our money in the trunk. In Staten Island, I got in with Joe and Tommy and they drove me to my apartment in Manhattan Beach. I took my end of the score and we agreed to meet later that night and take Sal DeMeo out to dinner.

“After they left, I went to a pay phone around the corner from my place and called my mother. I told her to take a cab straight from work and meet me. When she got there, we grabbed another cab to her house. I put almost all of my money—a hundred thousand dollars—into her clothes hamper. I only kept a few dollars for myself.

“When the robbery crew met up later, we took Sal to a restaurant in Bay Ridge. Sal was a great guy and his guys really liked him. They chipped in five thousand apiece to him. We had a nice dinner and did some talking. Sal said he had a friend who owned his own armored-car service. He’d bid on a job and promised that if he got the bid, he’d provide us with the key to the vault and we could empty it out. We had our fingers crossed for the next two weeks that this guy would get the bid. But he didn’t, so we had to look elsewhere.”

In late September, Andrew received a phone call from Mike Yannotti. He said they needed to meet, so he could relay some messages from Nicky Corozzo. When the two men got together, Andrew found that Yannotti seemed to have developed a slightly different attitude toward him and his situation.

The first thing Mike told him was that the problem with Wild Bill Cutolo needed to be resolved. Mike and Nicky had heard about the New Jersey bank robbery and that Andrew had some cash. According to their thinking, it was time for him to settle the account with Wild Bill.

Andrew told Mike that he didn’t owe Wild Bill all the
money he claimed was owed. He refused to admit that his son had blown some of the stash he’d left and he was trying to get it back out of Billy’s friends. He wasn’t going to let Wild Bill shake him down and he didn’t care how pissed off he got.

“The next day Mike called me again and said he needed to see me right away. I went to his house and he said that he thought it was better if we talked outside. We’d go out through the garage in case anyone was watching the house. As I followed him down the steps, I remembered our dry run when we were planning to kill my brother-in-law. My heart started to race. I pulled the gun from my waistband and held it inches from the back of Mike’s head. If I was about to meet the same fate as Robert Arena, Mike wouldn’t be around to brag about it. At the first sign of a trap, he was a dead man. But as we entered the garage, enough light came in from around the overhead door that I could see we were alone. I put my gun away. When Mike reads this book—and I know he will—it will be the first time he’ll know what could have happened that day.

“After we got out to the back yard, Mike said that he and Nicky were considering killing Danny Cutaia. If they decided to do it, they’d want me to be a part of it. Then he went back to the Wild Bill situation and that it had to be taken care of.

“And then he said something that confirmed what I already thought. My problems with the parole people were related to Robert Arena’s murder. Regina had been telling me things she heard from Robert’s family. The cops thought I was involved and it was said the two detectives that came to the parole office that day were from Homicide. Like it or not, I was a suspect. Mike suggested that I turn myself in. He figured when they questioned me, they’d tip their hand as to how strong their evidence was and what kind of case they were building against him.

“I told him that I was doing better than I had in a long time. And I was. I had the cash from the bank score, was driving
a brand new Mercedes, and I’d resurrected my deal with the marijuana dealer in California. Money was starting to come in on a regular basis. And because I was on the run, it gave me an excuse not to have to see Nicky as much. I said that law enforcement was going to have to earn their money and catch me.

“When I left Mike’s, I figured he wasn’t very happy with what I’d told him. And I was pretty sure that trip down through the cellar was part of a setup. The next time, we wouldn’t be alone. I knew I had to take stock of what the future held and how much time I had before Wild Bill, Danny Cutaia, or Nicky made their move. Even that line about killing Danny could have been bullshit to keep me on the reservation. For all I knew, the three of them might be plotting together to get rid of me.”