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00:00:00John Gotti, until recently the most notorious Mafia boss in America.
00:00:17For a decade, Gotti flouted all attempts to put an end to his criminal career.
00:00:22He became public enemy number one.
00:00:24A succession of Mafia defectors have put Gotti and his fellow Mafia bosses in jail for life.
00:00:32Omerta, the vow of silence under pain of death, is no longer sacred.
00:00:40Philip Leonetti pled guilty to seven murders and planned countless others.
00:00:46He ran Philadelphia and Atlantic City for the mob.
00:00:49He is one of the highest ranking figures ever to betray the Mafia.
00:00:53Tonight, he speaks for the first time on television.
00:00:59Everybody would be looking to kill me.
00:01:01I testified against a lot of families.
00:01:03There are people all over the country looking to kill me.
00:01:08And I'm very careful, and I'm going to make the best of it, the best I can do.
00:01:14Leonetti spent just five years in jail for his crimes.
00:01:17Today, he's a protected witness.
00:01:19John Gotti is amongst those he betrayed to earn his freedom.
00:01:23I went to a grand jury, and I told him everything I knew about John, and the meanings we had,
00:01:31about him saying he killed Paul Castellano, about him saying he got the okay from the commission.
00:01:36And I would testify about the family, him being the boss, the structure of his family.
00:01:47Those who betray the Mafia are under sentence of death.
00:01:50John Gotti would kill anybody, any time, any place, and just the snap of a finger, he'd issue contracts to kill people.
00:02:02Today, John Gotti is serving a life sentence without parole in America's maximum security jail at Marion, Illinois.
00:02:15We are the final stop in the security ladder as an inmate has worked his way into this type of facility.
00:02:25putting Gotti behind bars was the FBI's greatest coup against the Mafia.
00:02:35It was achieved by placing bugs in the Ravenite club, the secret headquarters of America's most powerful Mafia family.
00:02:45John Gotti had been in there for 20 years, and this rat-fucking-greeks name's Bill,
00:02:49you tell this point, I'll meet John Gotti, and you'll settle your motherfucking head off, you cocksucker.
00:02:56You're going down there, listen to me, now, now listen, you're going there, you'll settle your motherfucking head off,
00:03:03and you're no better than the king of that.
00:03:04With a matter of days, we knew that John Gotti would be our best witness at any future trials.
00:03:13He was loose. He should have been more careful, especially after the first case.
00:03:18He should have been more careful where he talked.
00:03:21He was very loose like that.
00:03:24And he's paying for it now.
00:03:28Before paying the penalty for his crimes, Gotti was the most powerful godfather in America.
00:03:34The latest in a long line of Mafia bosses to run New York's Gambino family.
00:03:39He inherited the riches of an underworld empire whose power and infrastructure for more than half a century.
00:03:50In the early 1900s, it was the prospect of wealth and a better life that attracted the immigrants from the old world.
00:03:57And it was those who turned to crime and extortion who became the founding fathers of the American Mafia.
00:04:02Italian immigrants settled in their own neighborhoods, importing a distrust for the authority of their new country
00:04:08and exporting the traditions of secret societies like the Mafia from Sicily.
00:04:12It's a way of life.
00:04:14It's a way you're brought up.
00:04:17And it's something that started way back from when the Italian people first came over here.
00:04:23And they were, they were like suspicious of law enforcement people because the law enforcement people at that time were a lot of Irish people.
00:04:32And naturally, they didn't get along with the Italians and they didn't get no relief when they went to courts.
00:04:38So, you know, it's, they started.
00:04:41They started their own thing to help one another.
00:04:43And this formed out a society.
00:04:46You know, the Mafia formed one way.
00:04:48This is La Cosa Nostra.
00:04:50It's different.
00:04:52This is our thing.
00:04:52Our thing, Cosa Nostra, is the name given to the American Mafia.
00:05:02From Italy, they brought a structure and tradition with its roots in the armies of ancient Rome and the Mafia families of Sicily.
00:05:11Cosa Nostra consists of a hierarchy of ascending ranks.
00:05:14From the soldiers on the street to the commanding officer, the head of the family, the godfather.
00:05:22The boss.
00:05:24He's the boss of the family.
00:05:25The buck stops with him.
00:05:27He oversees everything, every family function.
00:05:30And he's the only guy that can make somebody.
00:05:34Then you have the underboss who takes over when the boss isn't around.
00:05:38Or, you know, whatever the boss tells him to do, he does.
00:05:41And then you have the captains.
00:05:43The captains, they'll report to the boss or the underboss, whichever way the boss wants it.
00:05:48And lets them know what's going on.
00:05:50And you have the soldiers who report to the captains.
00:05:53They let their captain know what they're doing in business.
00:05:57Or even like with our family, if you're going to go on a vacation, you let your captain know where you're going.
00:06:02You leave where you're going to be.
00:06:05And when you're coming back, just in case we need you.
00:06:09And then you have the associates that everybody has, you know, to hang around.
00:06:13Some guys are moneymakers that are protected by our family.
00:06:16The consulier is the counselor to the boss.
00:06:22He cancels the boss if there's any problems.
00:06:26If the boss decides to kill anybody, talks to the consulier about it.
00:06:30And asks his opinion and states the reason why he wants to kill this guy.
00:06:35And then he weighs it and see if he's right.
00:06:39And he'll agree with them or disagree.
00:06:42But they always agree with the boss, you know.
00:06:45The boss is the boss.
00:06:47For half a century, this secret and highly organized crime syndicate was almost untouchable.
00:06:53In the 1940s and 50s, one of the most notorious bosses was Albert Anastasia, known as the Mad Hatter.
00:06:59He ran his own group of contract killers, Murder Incorporated, and seized power by killing his previous boss.
00:07:06Well, he took over the family from Vincent Mangano.
00:07:11And from what I hear, he had Mangano killed.
00:07:15And then he just went, he was just out of hand.
00:07:18You know, he was killing people for nothing.
00:07:21And somebody had to take him out because he was just running amok.
00:07:28And then he was charging for memberships, which is against everything that supposedly they stand for.
00:07:35But I think it was just more of a reason to get him killed than, you know, than anything else.
00:07:4120 years later, history repeated itself.
00:08:03The barbershop murder of Albert Anastasia was organized by Carlo Gambino, paving the way for Gambino's succession.
00:08:11These are the home movies of a mafia family.
00:08:16The young Dominic was brought up by his uncle, Nino Gaggi, an up-and-coming mafioso.
00:08:24The well-dressed men who were frequent guests at the family home were, in fact, some of New York's most dangerous gangsters.
00:08:33Carlo Gambino and his brother-in-law, Paul Castellano, later to head the family, are amongst his earliest childhood memories.
00:08:41The earliest was from when I was real young, four or five years old, just at family gatherings, birthday parties, anniversaries.
00:08:57It was very big with them.
00:08:58So everybody would always gather in 40, 50 people.
00:09:04You know, and they were all there.
00:09:05Carlo, Paul, of course my uncle.
00:09:12People, a lot of people that I didn't know at the time, who later turned out to be, you know, pretty big people.
00:09:19Anastasia's execution heralded a period of uncertainty.
00:09:25The danger was that his supporters would seek revenge on those who had killed him.
00:09:30Alliances had to be formed to avoid a vendetta.
00:09:33When, after Albert got killed in Manhattan, we kind of all locked down in the house.
00:09:42Nobody went out of the house.
00:09:43Everybody stayed in because they didn't know if there was going to be a full-fledged war.
00:09:46And that's actually when Carlo took over, after Albert was killed.
00:09:49And then everything kind of, I remember like everything kind of changed, because when Carlo took over, everybody's stock went up.
00:10:00You know, my uncles included, you know, Paulie's.
00:10:06That was about the earliest memories, I'd say from five to ten years old.
00:10:10I remember it like it was yesterday.
00:10:12In the early autumn of 1957, with the support of the other families, the way was now clear for Carlo Gambino, the illegal immigrant from Sicily, to become the new boss.
00:10:23This was the birth of the Gambino family.
00:10:26Sweet little old man.
00:10:28You know, he was small.
00:10:31You know, he looked like he wouldn't hurt a fly.
00:10:34Very quiet.
00:10:35You know, so-spoken.
00:10:36He was very much like a grandfather type.
00:10:39You know.
00:10:39Especially when you're a kid, because you don't, you don't know what he does.
00:10:44I didn't know what anybody in the family did.
00:10:46You know, I just knew nobody really got up and went to work.
00:10:50By chance, Mafia bosses were arrested as they gathered to hold a summit meeting in the autumn of 1957
00:10:57to ratify the changes in leadership precipitated by the murder of Albert Anastasia.
00:11:02Three weeks later, three weeks following the assassination of Albert Anastasia, out of sequence,
00:11:13all of the La Cosa Nostra organizations around the United States had a national meeting, a national commission meeting.
00:11:22It was held at Appalachian, New York, a rural area in the upper part of New York State.
00:11:28And we know now that one of the purposes of that was to explain who was now in charge in New York.
00:11:34Vito Genovese has taken over from Frank Costello.
00:11:39Albert Anastasia is no more, and Carlo Gambino will now be the head of that family.
00:11:45With news of the Appalachian arrests, America woke up to discover organized crime on a scale they had never dreamt of.
00:11:57When, as a recorded fact, you apprehended 66 out of more than 100 people at one location
00:12:05who had come from Northern California, Southern California, the state of Colorado,
00:12:10the state of Arizona had come from Illinois, had come from Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
00:12:18America had never dreamed up to that moment that such a convocation could or did happen.
00:12:27Appalachian was proof not only of the mafia but also of their secret government, the commission.
00:12:33Yet those arrested were soon released, and it would be almost another three decades
00:12:37before there was sufficient evidence to prosecute the commission itself.
00:12:43The commission is the power, is the strength of the mob.
00:12:49Sometimes there's always problems, and they sort of work them out.
00:12:57There could be problems with bosses, there could be problems with a lot of things.
00:13:00So they have a commission for this reason, and they'll stay united.
00:13:07But they have everything to say.
00:13:10They usually set the rules and everything, but it changes over the years
00:13:14because you get new commission bosses and so forth and so on.
00:13:18Right now I don't think they got a commission because it seems like everybody's in jail.
00:13:22All the commission bosses.
00:13:24They're made up of the boss of each family in New York, the five families.
00:13:29And Philadelphia had a seat on the commission, and also Chicago.
00:13:35They're very powerful.
00:13:36They run the La Cosa Nosta families all over the United States.
00:13:40They're the ones that make the laws for all the families.
00:13:44And they're the laws everybody has to abide by.
00:13:48They're like our Supreme Court.
00:13:50Despite the revelations of Appalachian and court hearings that followed,
00:14:03it was nearly three decades before the commission itself was prosecuted.
00:14:08How long have you lived there?
00:14:11The roots of mafia power were embedded deep within American society,
00:14:15nowhere more so than within the most powerful labor unions of New York.
00:14:20Control of the Brooklyn waterfront enabled organized crime
00:14:24to extort businesses and divert union funds.
00:14:27What do you do for a living?
00:14:29Longshoremen, Steve Adule.
00:14:30How long have you been engaged in that?
00:14:34Since I had a member, sir.
00:14:36All right.
00:14:37Counsel.
00:14:38Mr. Anastasia, have you ever been arrested?
00:14:44I don't know what you mean, Albert, if I was arrested, sir.
00:14:48I did was arrested.
00:14:50Well, you know what I mean.
00:14:51I'm in charge of somebody else to come out.
00:14:54Free, sir.
00:14:56Now, would you forget being arrested for homicide?
00:15:00I just told you I did was arrested, sir.
00:15:02When was that?
00:15:03In 1925?
00:15:07That's right.
00:15:09And what was the charge made against you at that time?
00:15:13Pardon of the call, sir.
00:15:20The union was part of the Gambino family.
00:15:25Antony Anastasia died in 1963.
00:15:33But the control of the union by the Gambinos survived through a family connection.
00:15:43It is better for us as a union to get longer contracts because...
00:15:50Antony Scotto had succeeded his father-in-law, Antony Anastasia, both as the head of the Longshoremen's
00:15:57union in Brooklyn and as a capo in the Gambino family.
00:16:01Antony, his political influence was very, very strong.
00:16:06He had served as the King's County chairman for the election of Jimmy Carter when Jimmy
00:16:14Carter became president of the United States.
00:16:16At the time, he was being investigated by the FBI.
00:16:20President Carter was coming to New York to attend a big labor luncheon, and he had the
00:16:26White House call Anthony Scotto to find out would he be attending that dinner because
00:16:33he wanted to chat with him about the upcoming election in 1980.
00:16:38Anthony Scotto turned from that conversation with a staff person in the White House to someone
00:16:45in his office and said, you know, they say the FBI is investigating me, but they can't
00:16:50be that very close to me.
00:16:51Otherwise, wouldn't they tell the president of the United States not to call me or come
00:16:56and see me?
00:16:57That's how powerful he was.
00:16:58He could be dealing directly with the president of the United States as a political ally.
00:17:03Scotto's political connections were the legacy of the skills and powers of the godfather
00:17:12of Carlo Gambino.
00:17:15The Longshoremen's Union was just one of the unions they controlled.
00:17:19When I was with the family, he had all the unions, the Garmin Center, the docks, a lot of
00:17:27gambling, loan sharking, and it was a big shush-shush, but narcotics, you know, he had all the connections
00:17:35in Sicily, you know, and that was the mainstay.
00:17:41When the heroin business really moved from France to Sicily, he had, you know, all the connections
00:17:47there.
00:17:48He used to have, on 18th Avenue in Brooklyn, there's a lot of the, what they call the grease
00:17:52balls, the Sicilians from Sicily.
00:17:54And he had all of them.
00:17:57They were all loyal to Carlo.
00:18:02In public, Carlo Gambino described himself as a labor relations consultant.
00:18:09In private, control of unions gave him power over some of New York's major industries.
00:18:15Carlo Gambino saw the future of the mob in legitimate business, and he understood that
00:18:21that relationship between organized crime and legitimate business had to be strengthened.
00:18:28These were not just gangsters back then.
00:18:31They were good businessmen and great politicians.
00:18:37They knew how to work the system.
00:18:39They worked the system so well that it responded by virtually ignoring the growth of organized
00:18:47crime.
00:18:48Despite the occasional arrest, the Mafia's powers of the 50s through to the 70s virtually unscathed.
00:18:54The FBI under J. Edgar Hoover stubbornly refused to acknowledge the existence of the American
00:18:59Mafia.
00:19:00This young gangster, Vincent the Chin Gigante, was arrested in 1957.
00:19:08Vinny, did you give yourself up because you were afraid?
00:19:11No.
00:19:12He was soon released and survived to become one of the most powerful Mafia bosses in the
00:19:161990s.
00:19:17In the summer of 1976, after a life of crime untroubled by law enforcement, Carlo Gambino
00:19:29passed away peacefully.
00:19:32It was the Mafia's equivalent of a state funeral.
00:19:36As the Gambino family mourned the passing of their founding father, Mafia bosses from across
00:19:42America came to pay their final respects to a godfather who had become a legend.
00:19:50Not since Appalachian had so many Mafia bosses gathered together in one place.
00:19:59Well, the heads of all the families came in from as far as California.
00:20:03You know, there's, what, 25, 26 families.
00:20:09And they were all there, because that's what he was.
00:20:11He was the capo de tute capi, they call it, you know, the boss of bosses.
00:20:15Yeah.
00:20:19Now there was a vacancy for a new boss of bosses.
00:20:22Paul Castellano, who had married Carlo Gambino's sister, was the leading candidate.
00:20:26Under the rules, the appointment of a new boss had to be approved by the commission and agreed
00:20:36within the family.
00:20:38If there are rival candidates, it can lead to civil war.
00:20:46Neil de la Croce was another contender for the throne.
00:20:49He had been a candidate back in 1957 after the murder of Albert Anastasia.
00:20:53Instead, Carlo Gambino had taken over and made him his underboss.
00:20:58Everybody was kind of worried, because you didn't know who was going to be the boss now.
00:21:03And we had, like, two real factions of the family.
00:21:06There was the New York, the Manhattan faction, and the Brooklyn faction.
00:21:09And that basically came down to whether Paulie was going to be the boss, Castellano, or
00:21:13Neil de la Croce.
00:21:15When Carlo Gambino expired, I think people in law enforcement would have
00:21:20put a bet down that the most likely successor was
00:21:25Anielo de la Croce.
00:21:26He was a very powerful man.
00:21:29He had the eyes of a killer.
00:21:31If you look in his eyes, you knew he was a very bad man, a powerful man.
00:21:35He had a very strong personal contingent within the family that
00:21:39certainly would have wanted him to rise to that position.
00:21:42The child, who had grown up within the bosom of the Gambino family, found that he was now
00:21:48to play an important role in the battle for the succession to the throne.
00:21:52In the early 1970s, Dominic Montiglio had gone to Vietnam, joining the army against the
00:21:58wishes of his family.
00:21:59When the war broke out, I just felt that was the right thing to do.
00:22:05Of course, he was totally against it.
00:22:07And that was another one of the times when I understood who we were.
00:22:11You know, one of the things he told me, he says, you die for us, not for them.
00:22:14And I said, for who?
00:22:15He said, the government.
00:22:16He said, if you're going to die, you die for your family.
00:22:19And I said, well, this is my country, and this is the way I feel about it.
00:22:21And I went off much to his dislike.
00:22:25On his return from Vietnam, Montiglio's skills as a soldier were much in demand.
00:22:31My uncle told me one afternoon, he said, go to Roy, over to the Gemini Lounge, and there's
00:22:37a package.
00:22:38Let him give you the package and bring it back home.
00:22:42Get your wife and the kids.
00:22:43They were all gone to my brother's house in Staten Island tonight.
00:22:46So I said, well, what's going on?
00:22:48And he said, we're going to make poorly tonight.
00:22:52Okay.
00:22:52I went to the Gemini, picked up the package.
00:22:56It was a carbine, an M2 carbine, military.
00:23:01And my uncle told me that at 7 o'clock, the Manhattan faction was coming over, and that
00:23:07Paul Tommy Bellotti and him would be downstairs in his kitchen, and they were going to either
00:23:13make Paul the boss, or there was going to be a big war.
00:23:17He said there wasn't supposed to be any weapons at the meeting, but he was going to tape a
00:23:24gun underneath the kitchen table.
00:23:25And he said for me to get upstairs in my living room, and put the carbine together, load it
00:23:32up, and there was a driveway that I could overlook, and that's the entrance they had to use to go
00:23:39in.
00:23:39I don't know if anybody that came out, because they would all be dead already inside my uncle
00:23:47Paul, Tommy.
00:23:49And about, I guess about 7 o'clock, a car pulled up with Paul and Tommy, and then maybe
00:23:5410 minutes later, the Manhattan crew got there and went downstairs, and I just sat in the
00:24:00window with the sights down on the driveway, and I saw the Manhattan crew come out in about
00:24:05a half hour, maybe less.
00:24:08They got in the car and drove away, and then Nino knocked on my door.
00:24:11Paul and Tommy had already left also.
00:24:14Nino knocked on my door, and he says, come on down.
00:24:15We just made Paul.
00:24:16Paul is the new boss.
00:24:17And that was his ascension to the throne that night.
00:24:24And he did the same thing that Carlo did.
00:24:26He made Delacroix the underboss.
00:24:29He used the same philosophy, and it worked again.
00:24:32It was only 20 years later.
00:24:38But it was Paul Castellano who took over the mantle as the head of the Gambino family.
00:24:42He chose as his right-hand man and bodyguard a vicious gangster, Tommy Bellotti.
00:24:48Paul Castellano appeared to be just another successful businessman.
00:24:52He was an interesting man.
00:24:54He was very gentle, soft-spoken, loved business, read the Wall Street Journal every day, was
00:25:02very well self-taught, and loved to meet people and discuss business.
00:25:09He was really into business, buying businesses, merging businesses, and loved the stock market,
00:25:17and loved business in general.
00:25:20Paul Castellano was a butcher by trade, so it was only natural that he went into that business
00:25:27on the retail level.
00:25:31And he was a millionaire in his own right in the meat industry.
00:25:35The Godfather became the distributor of one of America's largest food suppliers, Purdue
00:25:47Chicken.
00:25:49How did he get that contract, do you know?
00:25:51I don't know.
00:25:52I don't know.
00:25:53The government alleged that he got the contract because Mr. Purdue felt that by using him,
00:25:59he would eliminate any labor problems.
00:26:01That was never proved, and it was just an allegation.
00:26:12A world away from the supermarkets of Manhattan, in Canarsie, a rundown section of Brooklyn,
00:26:18Paul Castellano was earning millions of dollars a year from just one mafia crew.
00:26:23Their main activity was an organized car theft ring.
00:26:28The operation was masterminded by a capo who lived in luxury in a million-dollar house on
00:26:33Long Island.
00:26:39Roy DeMeo was a psychotic killer whose crimes would eventually lead to the downfall of the
00:26:45Godfather.
00:26:46In the late 70s, he reported to Nino Gaggi, Dominic's uncle.
00:26:56His business deals were run out of a seedy bar on Flatlands Avenue known as the Gemini
00:27:01Lounge.
00:27:02It was there that Dominic Montiglio began his career in the mafia.
00:27:06He introduced me to Roy as one of his friends, and the days following, we went to a bar Roy
00:27:17owned on Flatlands Avenue called the Gemini Lounge, and I met the people he had around him,
00:27:24who Nino said, you know, he said they're real sleepers, they're young kids, and they're
00:27:28just, you know, big-time money earners, and they were all killers, you know, and we used
00:27:36to go on Friday nights, every Friday night for about, well, four or five months, me and
00:27:42Nino, to the Gemini, and then it got to where the crew, Roy's crew, Nino felt, was doing a
00:27:50little bit too much to bring heat to them.
00:27:53So he stopped going, and I just had to go on Friday night, so I was the liaison between
00:27:58Roy and his crew, and Paul.
00:28:02You know, I'd take care of all the business between Roy and Paul, because Roy had to go
00:28:06through me to see Paul, and Paul really didn't want to see him too much, because that crew
00:28:11was bringing so much heat, you know, they were doing so much, stolen cars, and drugs,
00:28:15and killings, and that Paul felt that if he could keep Roy at arm's length, it would be
00:28:22less safer, for him.
00:28:26The money from Roy DeMeo was secretly delivered to Castellano's Staten Island mansion, known
00:28:32as the White House.
00:28:34The boss of bosses kept his distance from the street crimes of the family.
00:28:41But when another group of vicious killers in Manhattan began to cause problems for the
00:28:46Mafia in the late 1970s, the boss of bosses was forced to intervene personally.
00:28:56Disputes arose over building contracts at New York City's convention center between the
00:29:02Westies, an Irish gang who ran some of the construction teams, and the Mafia.
00:29:07They were also suspected of killing a powerful Mafia figure.
00:29:11In the late 70s, there was a very notorious group, a disorganized Irishman called the Westies
00:29:19on the west side of Manhattan.
00:29:22And they were causing problems, they were fringing on some Gambino and Genovese territories.
00:29:26So in late 1977, I'm sorry, in the late 1970s, Castellano decided to enlist their support.
00:29:35He had a meeting with Jimmy Coon and Mickey Featherstone, who were the leaders of Westies,
00:29:40and was able to have that faction become a part of the Gambino family.
00:29:45Well, the Westies were a lot like the DeMeo crew in the sense where they'd kill you for nothing.
00:29:50I mean, they were even worse than the DeMeo crew, you know, as far as just having no reason.
00:29:54I mean, they killed just to have fun, you know.
00:29:59So, yeah, nobody messed with them.
00:30:03The Italian mob never could control the West side.
00:30:06They never had control over the Irish.
00:30:08They just could never do it before.
00:30:11And they thought it would be beneficial to them.
00:30:14We connected up with them.
00:30:16And Jimmy thought it would be beneficial, so we started associating with them.
00:30:21Well, Mickey was probably the most feared of all the Westies, you know.
00:30:26I mean, to me, Mickey's, you know, a nice guy.
00:30:32I never had to, you know, but from what you hear, you know, I mean, I met Mickey when I met him.
00:30:38He was all another kind of person that I expected.
00:30:41But you heard that Mickey would just kill people and forget about that he even did it.
00:30:45Well, people didn't pay up either in Shylock money or Shakedown money.
00:30:50They were told that I would come and I would be the one to get them.
00:30:53Either hurt them or kill them.
00:30:54And you did that?
00:30:56Sure.
00:30:57Yes.
00:30:57The Westies were ruthless killers and loan sharks.
00:31:06Lending money at extortionate rates of interest, they used violence and murder to force repayment.
00:31:12They also borrowed money themselves from loan sharks, sometimes killing them to get rid of their debt.
00:31:18No one knows exactly how many people they murdered as they devised a gruesome method for getting rid of the evidence.
00:31:25This was a favorite disposal place for the Westies of bodies.
00:31:30And the Westies would cut the bodies up, bring them up here and have them disposed of through a contact of theirs.
00:31:42And the bodies would be somehow, or the parts, shot down to the bottom of these facilities and then shot out into the river.
00:31:53The Westies made a fatal mistake when they murdered Ruby Stein, a mafia loan shark who was a big money earner for the New York families.
00:32:03Danny Grillo stepped out from behind the kitchen door and he called something out to Ruby and Ruby turned and looked at him and Danny shot him.
00:32:12And Danny gave the gun to Coonan and Coonan shot him.
00:32:19Richie Ryan and Jimmy Coonan dragged him into the ladies' room where they dismembered his body.
00:32:25Cut him up.
00:32:25I was waiting for Richie Ryan.
00:32:29I wanted to talk to him about what happened.
00:32:32And, uh, Nick Degree came out just with the head in the bag, put that in the trunk of his car, I mean the front seat of his car, then opened up his trunk and put the other body parts in different bags, black garbage bags in the trunk.
00:32:47And he drove off to wherever it was going to be dumped.
00:32:54The body was taken to the Westies' dumping ground at the sewage plant on Randall's Island.
00:33:00But their usual efficient disposal of corpses went wrong, and evidence of their crime came to the surface.
00:33:07And this is where Ruby Stein's body, for example, uh, was disposed of, and eventually surfaced out in, uh, or his torso, uh, Rockaway, near Kennedy Airport.
00:33:26Now, what the Westies were doing were killing Italians, which, you know, was getting real dangerous.
00:33:35And eventually, uh, Big Paul Castellano wanted us to call the Westies down for a meeting, and it was to find out if they were, in fact, the ones that killed Ruby Stein, and to bring them into our fold.
00:33:56And the meeting was at, um, Tommaso's Restaurant on Bay 8th Street, 86th Street.
00:34:02It was a mafia sit-down in Brooklyn.
00:34:04The Westies were suspected of murdering Ruby Stein.
00:34:08The mafia wanted to recover his black book, a record of millions of dollars out on the street in loans.
00:34:14If the Westies admitted the murder and taking the book, the mafia would kill them in revenge.
00:34:19The talk was about finding out about this black book that Ruby Stein left behind.
00:34:25It was, uh, like I told you the names of customers, and it had quite a few million dollars in it.
00:34:31Of, you know, of, you know, Shylock money, which customers had won.
00:34:36And, uh, well, if we denied killing Ruby, we wouldn't know what his black book was, you know.
00:34:41So, that's the story that was stuck to how could we know what a black book was if we had nothing to do with Ruby's death.
00:34:48And, uh, that lasted for just a minute or two, and Paul cut it off.
00:34:54And we went right into, uh, what our relationship would be with the Westies and the Gambinos.
00:35:03Featherstone and his boss could have been killed for what they had done.
00:35:07But the presence of Paul Castellano inside Tommaso's restaurant allayed their fears.
00:35:12The thing was, once we knew Paul was there, we knew we were safe.
00:35:18Because if somebody's going to be whacked, he's not going to be sitting in the restaurant.
00:35:24Castellano set out new rules under which the Westies would operate with his protection.
00:35:29That anything we did to make money, that we made money on, the Gambinos would get 10% of the profits.
00:35:37And, uh, we weren't allowed to kill anybody anymore on, uh, spur of the moment, you know, without asking permission.
00:35:51And, uh, we would become under the Gambino, we would be under the Gambino's wing, which is under their protection.
00:36:00And, uh, we would have more power on the Westside as far as if there was trouble with other mob people from different areas of the city.
00:36:15They would be told who we were with, and they would back off.
00:36:25Featherstone, the second in command, spent just four years in jail for his crimes.
00:36:29He testified against the Mafia and the Westies, and is now free under the Federal Witness Protection Program.
00:36:38In the late 70s, the alliance between the Westies and the Mafia represented the height of their respective powers.
00:36:44The most advantageous thing was that they could get the money to put out on the street, you know, um, that was number one.
00:36:53Number two, they could get the okays to do certain businesses without stepping on anybody's toes.
00:37:01Um, and in turn, they delivered the Westside to the Gambino's.
00:37:07So it was a, it was a, a pretty good, um, alliance, you know.
00:37:12One of their rackets on the Westside was controlling employment on one of the city's main tourist attractions, the World War II aircraft carrier, the USS Intrepid.
00:37:27Friends and associates were given jobs, and when the managers objected, the Irishmen threatened to cut the ship loose and float it down the Hudson.
00:37:35But the Westies were also hardened killers, a skill that Castellano and the Gambino family could well appreciate.
00:37:43As a result of this, Paul had his own little murder-for-hire gang who would do any kind of killings or strong-arm work anywhere in the city.
00:37:54And, uh, because of that, they were always known as, like, Paul's secret army.
00:37:57Because he was, like, a secret weapon, any dirty work, Paul had all these Westies who would go out and kill anybody, anyplace, any time.
00:38:05What was Roy DeMeo's job?
00:38:07Roy's job was to oversee the operation of the Westies, uh, give them the orders, and also, more importantly, bring back the money,
00:38:12which they would earn to pass on to Gaggi and ultimately up to Castellano.
00:38:18If anything, the Westies were even more brutal than the Mafia themselves.
00:38:24Untroubled by law enforcement, they simply co-opted the Westies to do much of their dirty work.
00:38:29With the Westies under the supervision of the DeMeo crew, the Gambino family was at the peak of its powers in the late 70s.
00:38:37You know, we really missed you.
00:38:40You're talking about...
00:38:41Probably the two most feared crews that I have since Marvel Incorporated, back in the 40s.
00:38:52You know, I mean, people were terrified of both crews.
00:38:56To have them together, you know, was incredible.
00:39:01You know, it was a big coup.
00:39:04It was a coup which had gone largely unnoticed by law enforcement.
00:39:14The legacy of 30 years of neglect was still being felt in the late 1970s.
00:39:19It was only then that the FBI developed a coherent strategy by setting up dedicated squads to shadow each of the five New York families.
00:39:28The largest is the Gambino squad.
00:39:30In 1980, we had to start from ground zero.
00:39:33The FBI had not worked the family as such for a number of years.
00:39:38So basically, for the first year, we had to do intelligence, identify all the key players, identify the boss, center boss, what they were doing, where they were talking, all the particular criminal activities, and put together a big intelligence package.
00:39:51Were you surprised back then that, in fact, you knew remarkably or relatively little about Gambino family?
00:40:01When we took over the squad in 1980, there was not an open case on Paul Castlano, who was the boss, Neil Delacroix, the underboss, or Joanne Gallo.
00:40:09To me, that was surprising.
00:40:12Under the leadership of Bruce Mao, a veteran of the Cold War, all that was about to change.
00:40:17One of their first intelligence targets was the underboss, Neil Delacroix.
00:40:22As early as 1977, the police had, in fact, started to accumulate surveillance film on the comings and goings at the Ravenite Club in Little Italy.
00:40:32The FBI began to identify who these figures were and what they were doing.
00:40:36They caught an early glimpse of the gangster who was later to haunt them with his mocking jibes of invincibility, John Gotti.
00:40:43Well, it was Delacroix's club, John Gotti, Angelo Agirio, Willie Boy.
00:40:55That was the Manhattan faction of the Gambinos.
00:40:59And we very rarely went to each other's clubs.
00:41:06You know, it was like the Christmas time.
00:41:09You know, everybody made the rounds.
00:41:10And, um, I was in the Ravenite maybe seven, eight times.
00:41:15And it was always, it was either on a Christmas or just to bring a message.
00:41:20And, you know, I never would hang out there.
00:41:23You know, we stayed basically in Brooklyn.
00:41:27Over in Queens was another Gambino social club, the Bergen Hunt and Fish Club, which was now also targeted by the FBI.
00:41:34This seemed to be an even more promising location to launch their new assault on the mafia.
00:41:41And in 1981, uh, after a lot of work, a lot of intelligence, and a lot of contact with informants,
00:41:47we discovered what we considered to be the weak link.
00:41:50And that was known as the Bergen Hunt and Fish Crew led by John Gotti.
00:41:53The FBI zeroed in on John Gotti's closest friend, an overweight, chain-smoking gangster called Angelo Ruggiero.
00:42:02In, uh, 1981, uh, we were able to install electronic listening devices in the home of Angelo Ruggiero,
00:42:12who was a very close associate of John Gotti, and, uh, he was then a member of the Gambino crime family.
00:42:19Uh, Ruggiero had a, uh, particular problem, and that is, he talked too much.
00:42:23There was nothing the FBI liked more than wise guys who talked too much.
00:42:28Even within the mafia, Ruggiero was known as Quack Quack.
00:42:32With court approval, they put a bug in his home.
00:42:35That bug was just a goldmine of information.
00:42:37Uh, we obtained detailed information regarding the workings of the family,
00:42:41meetings at Castellano's house, all the politics, all the interaction,
00:42:44meetings at Delacroche's house.
00:42:46But more importantly, uh, we literally stumbled into a major narcotics operation,
00:42:51which was engineered by Ruggiero,
00:42:54which also implicated a fellow named Gene Gotti,
00:42:56John's younger brother, a guy named John Caniglia,
00:42:58other members of his crew.
00:43:00And it turned out to be a major, uh, heroin trafficking network.
00:43:04Don't see nobody talk to anybody. Just come right to my house now.
00:43:08The loose tongue of Gotti's friend was a breakthrough for the FBI.
00:43:12It not only provided evidence which they could use to bring a case against Angelo Ruggiero,
00:43:17it also provided them with what is legally known as probable cause,
00:43:21the required proof to place bugs in other locations.
00:43:26Now they could secretly bug the home of underboss Neil Delacroche.
00:43:31They could even contemplate what had previously been unthinkable,
00:43:35putting a secret microphone inside the house of the most powerful mafia boss in the country.
00:43:39He ran the Gambino crime family,
00:43:42and the Gambino crime family, uh, at that time,
00:43:46was the most powerful crime family in the United States.
00:43:48So, um, I have to say that he was, he was probably the most powerful mobster in the country.
00:43:55Within the space of two years,
00:43:57the FBI would achieve their most spectacular coup in the war against organized crime.
00:44:02Nobody really thought that, uh, you can make a criminal case against a guy like that.
00:44:09He was viewed as untouchable by law enforcement.
00:44:18New York City, capital of the mafia's organized crime syndicate.
00:44:22Five families run an empire which extends throughout the country.
00:44:27The most powerful of them all is the Gambino family.
00:44:32I don't think there really is, is a business that you could mention
00:44:37that isn't touched by the Gambino family in New York.
00:44:41In one way or another, you're paying the Gambino family,
00:44:44whether it's through a union, whether it's through a distribution company,
00:44:47or somehow they're going to touch on whatever you get.
00:44:52You know, the consumer is going to pay, somehow.
00:44:57At the height of their power in the early 1980s,
00:45:00the mafia were likened to a second government.
00:45:02They had the power of life and death
00:45:04and an enormous impact on the entire economy of America.
00:45:08What really affects the people here in the United States, in their pocketbooks,
00:45:13is the involvement of La Casa Nostra in industries, in legitimate businesses.
00:45:19And that's where the Gambino family was with both feet.
00:45:23They were involved in a whole variety of legitimate industries
00:45:26in the New York metropolitan area.
00:45:28And through that involvement, they were able to have a direct impact on the pocketbooks
00:45:33of the people here in New York.
00:45:35And indeed, it trickled down and had an effect throughout the United States.
00:45:40When I'm talking about industries, I'm talking about trucking.
00:45:42I'm talking about various manufacturing industries.
00:45:44I'm talking about construction.
00:45:46I'm talking about the carting business.
00:45:47I'm talking about the waterfront.
00:45:49So there are a whole variety of industries that the Gambino family either controlled
00:45:53through their involvement in running labor unions,
00:45:56or if they didn't control, they played a very significant role in.
00:46:00Control of legitimate business was the legacy of Carlo Gambino, the founder of the Gambino family.
00:46:12The legendary godfather passed away peacefully in the summer of 1976.
00:46:18His anointed successor was Paul Castellano.
00:46:22His inheritance was untold wealth and power.
00:46:24From a million-dollar mansion on Staten Island,
00:46:30he ran a criminal empire and an army of mafia soldiers.
00:46:39In the 1970s, a new breed of gangster appeared on the streets of New York.
00:46:45Ruthless, violent, and greedy,
00:46:48their trade was drugs, pornography, and death.
00:46:50Their activities would precipitate a clash with the old guard
00:46:54and ultimately lead to a civil war.
00:47:02In Little Italy, Gambino soldiers like John Gotti epitomized the new breed.
00:47:09Their brash style would attract greater attention from law enforcement
00:47:13and the disapproval of the older generation.
00:47:16But no one could argue with the enormous sums of money they earned for the mafia.
00:47:21Typical of the new breed was another capo in the Gambino family,
00:47:25Roy DeMeo.
00:47:26He was making millions for himself and the boss of the family.
00:47:31Roy was very important for two reasons.
00:47:35Number one, he was the muscle behind Paul Castellano.
00:47:40He was the, when they needed it, the DeMeo crew could deliver on orders from Nino
00:47:50to take care of business for Castellano.
00:47:55And then, secondly, Roy was what we call, and what they call, a moneymaker.
00:48:02And, uh, through all his illegal activities, he, uh, he could generate, uh, a lot of money.
00:48:15And not every, uh, not every wise guy can do that.
00:48:18But Roy was good at it.
00:48:21Dominic Montiglio grew up as a young child surrounded by a loving Italian family.
00:48:28His childhood memories are like something out of The Godfather.
00:48:31Some of the friends and relatives that came to visit were members of the powerful Gambino family.
00:48:38Dominic Montiglio's uncle was Nino Gaggi.
00:48:41He supervised the DeMeo crew and reported to Castellano.
00:48:45Dominic grew up to become a trusted go-between at the highest levels of the mafia.
00:48:49If Roy had, um, needed permission to do, to do something, you know, I would go to Paul Castellano
00:49:01and get the okay for Roy to do it.
00:49:04Um, I would bring, uh, Paul money from Roy on, um, Mondays.
00:49:12I'd go see Paul.
00:49:13I'd see Roy over the weekend.
00:49:14And he would give me X amount of money for Paul and X amount of money for my uncle,
00:49:21which I'd keep and give Paul his end.
00:49:26Um, and then if Roy needed to see Paul for, um, for something that I wasn't privy to,
00:49:32I'd have to go to Paul, tell him Roy wants to see you, go back, tell Roy, oh, it's okay,
00:49:36you can meet him here at this time, at this restaurant or whatever.
00:49:40That's basically what it was.
00:49:44Castellano's image as a respectable millionaire businessman was far removed from the reality
00:49:53of the street crimes committed by his family.
00:49:57The Canasi section of Brooklyn was the center for one of their most lucrative operations.
00:50:02They ran a highly organized ring of car thieves.
00:50:06Luxury cars were stolen to order, given new identities in backstreet garages known as chop shops,
00:50:12and then shipped to the Middle East.
00:50:15Every week, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from this one operation alone was delivered
00:50:20to Paul Castellano's home.
00:50:23The Godfather's mansion was known as the White House, but his wealth and power came from murder
00:50:28and torture.
00:50:30He was scared of Roy.
00:50:31That's what he was, not only about how much they were doing with pornography, the stolen cars,
00:50:40the drugs, and the killings, but I think he was scared of Roy because, you see, Roy's,
00:50:47the Mayo crew had one thing.
00:50:49They made you disappear.
00:50:50You know, they felt they could kill anyone as long as they made them disappear.
00:50:56And there was, and countless people went that way.
00:51:00They had it down with science.
00:51:01So Paul Castellano was a little intimidated, but he needed, he wanted to keep them around
00:51:06because of the amounts of money that they were bringing in.
00:51:09You know, it was massive amounts of money.
00:51:11The narcotics alone was bringing in $150,000 a week.
00:51:14So that's, it was just one part of it.
00:51:19The stolen cars, they were shipping to Kuwait, that was bringing God knows how much money.
00:51:26You know, pornography was bringing a lot of money.
00:51:32I would say that that crew alone was bringing in close to a quarter of a million a week.
00:51:39You know, that's not something you want to lose.
00:51:44Car theft and murder were not normally crimes that were linked together,
00:51:49but for the mafia, it was all in a day's work.
00:51:52To protect their own profits, the DeMeo crew did not hesitate to kill.
00:51:58Eventually, these unsolved murders came to the attention of the FBI.
00:52:02Suspecting a mafia connection, a task force was set up with the New York police,
00:52:07the FBI, and a special prosecutor.
00:52:09Artie Ruffles was the FBI case agent.
00:52:12Well, actually, they killed quite a few people over cars.
00:52:16Their car business was very important.
00:52:18And they killed a lot of people over the cars.
00:52:22It wasn't just the cars.
00:52:30From their Brooklyn headquarters, a bar called the Gemini Lounge,
00:52:34Roy DeMeo ran the car theft ring and his other operations, drugs and pornography.
00:52:39But the crew's speciality was getting rid of people.
00:52:42One contract was for the Godfather himself.
00:52:50Beneath the business suits, Castellano was as brutal as his street soldiers.
00:52:55When he discovered that his son-in-law was unfaithful and violent to his daughter Connie,
00:52:59seen with him here, he called on the services of his disposal experts.
00:53:03In true Sicilian tradition of revenge being a dish best eaten cold, he bided his time.
00:53:10After a couple of years, the contract was put out to kill Frankie Amato.
00:53:17Paul used his muscle crew, the DeMeo crew.
00:53:21And they lured Frankie over here to the club because they had heard Frank was in the storm window and screen business.
00:53:39So they lured him over on a pretext of getting new windows and screens.
00:53:44Once they had him inside, then they killed him.
00:53:48Subsequently, they had Paul, after a time had passed,
00:53:56had the DeMeo crew set him up and call him down to the apartment.
00:54:02And he went in and he came out in boxes.
00:54:06So Paul had him killed.
00:54:09And the DeMeo crew was the one that did it.
00:54:13The killing took place in this apartment building behind the Gemini Lounge.
00:54:18The body was never discovered.
00:54:25Roy's home was a world away from Canarsie, Brooklyn, where he worked.
00:54:29He owned a luxury house on Long Island,
00:54:32where he spent the weekends and said grace before meals.
00:54:36In the neighborhood, he had the reputation for being a good family man.
00:54:40This is a home video seized by the FBI which shows Roy DeMeo, the man on the right, in the company of his crew.
00:54:51Those who worked with him knew the truth about what he did, and they too became steeped in blood.
00:54:57Vicious young gangsters like Henry Borelli,
00:54:59a close friend of Dominic Montiglio, currently serving a life sentence in prison for multiple murder.
00:55:06Roy's cousin, nicknamed Dracula.
00:55:10Chris Rosenberg, a young psychopath who worshipped Roy as a father figure,
00:55:15and wanted to change his name to DeMeo so that he could join the Mafia.
00:55:18By the late 70s, DeMeo had a crew of serial killers whose activities were brutal even by Mafia standards.
00:55:27The myth that the Mafia murdered only its own is belied by the activities of the DeMeo crew.
00:55:34Almost anyone could fall victim to their brutality.
00:55:36The art of killing, making the bodies disappear, became a cold-blooded science.
00:55:45Exploits in the apartment behind the Gemini Lounge were a horrific testimony to the reality of Mafia violence.
00:55:51Usually, they'd get you in the apartment behind the Gemini.
00:55:55They'd use the reason for you to come there.
00:55:57And what would happen is, when you'd walk in the door,
00:56:04usually Roy or Henry would shoot you in the head with a silencer,
00:56:09pistol-equipped silencer,
00:56:11wrap a towel around your head to stop the blood from shooting all over the place.
00:56:16Usually, Chris Rosenberg would stab you in the heart to stop the blood from pumping.
00:56:22Then they'd take you to this bathroom and hang you in the shower
00:56:25and cut your veins on the side of your neck
00:56:28and bleed you for about 40 minutes
00:56:30until as much blood was out as they could get out.
00:56:35Then they'd put you on like a pool liner or a tarpaulin.
00:56:39And they would just take you apart, put you in plastic bags,
00:56:42and then usually in boxes.
00:56:45And you'd go to the Fountain Avenue dump in Brooklyn,
00:56:48which is the big trash dump in Brooklyn,
00:56:51where all the refuse goes.
00:56:53And Anthony Senta, his uncles or his cousins, had a carting company.
00:57:00And they would just throw it in the garbage truck,
00:57:02and it would go to the Fountain Avenue dump
00:57:03and never to be seen again.
00:57:06And that was the Gemini method.
00:57:09So this was a highly efficient way.
00:57:10Very efficient.
00:57:11It was like an assembly line.
00:57:13Everybody had their job.
00:57:14And, I mean, it got down to the point where I'd been in the apartment,
00:57:18where there was a body hanging in the shower,
00:57:21and they were sitting in the kitchen just eating meatballs and spaghetti.
00:57:24You know, just waiting for it to bleed out.
00:57:27You know, so it didn't matter to them, you know.
00:57:29All that mattered was money.
00:57:34Human life was cheap.
00:57:37In the new year of 1979,
00:57:39they bought half a million dollars' worth of cocaine in Miami,
00:57:43killing the suppliers to avoid payment.
00:57:45The drug deal and the double cross
00:57:47had been set up by Chris,
00:57:49Roy's right-hand man who changed his name to DeMeo
00:57:52because he wanted to be his son.
00:57:55But this time, the DeMeo crew had gone too far.
00:57:58Amongst their victims were well-connected Cuban drug dealers.
00:58:01The Cubans investigated what had happened
00:58:03and sent a hit team to New York.
00:58:06Dominic Montiglio acted as the intermediary
00:58:08between the Cubans and the Mafia.
00:58:10It was the Cuban crisis
00:58:11that their crew murdered five people on a drug deal.
00:58:17It was a father and son,
00:58:19two Jewish guys,
00:58:20and three Cubans.
00:58:22And I was hanging out with, like,
00:58:24one of the top Cubans in New York,
00:58:28Pedro Rodriguez.
00:58:29He used to call them Paz.
00:58:31And he came up to me at his apartment one night
00:58:33and showed me this name.
00:58:37And it was Chris DeMeo.
00:58:41I immediately knew who it was,
00:58:44even though he used to, you know,
00:58:46it was Chris, was Roy's right-hand man.
00:58:49Pedro Rodriguez had a team of 20 Cuban gunmen
00:58:52ready to go to war.
00:58:54When they discovered who was responsible for the double-crossed,
00:58:56they made an arrangement.
00:58:58His execution would be sufficient revenge
00:59:00for the murdered Cubans and the stolen drugs.
00:59:02And Pedro told me that all the Cubans in Miami wanted was Chris.
00:59:11Yes, there was Chris, Joey, Anthony was involved.
00:59:14All they wanted was the guy that set it up.
00:59:17They wanted it done where it would be in the newspapers.
00:59:21They wouldn't just take out word that, you know,
00:59:24the guy was gone.
00:59:25I had to be with the Cubans every day now
00:59:27because Roy knew that the only way to resolve this thing
00:59:31was to kill Chris.
00:59:33And the Cubans wanted it done,
00:59:35and he wasn't moving on it.
00:59:37And it was, I guess, about close to a month.
00:59:41And I had to go over with these Cubans.
00:59:43And I was carrying two pistols at the time every day
00:59:47because I knew one thing.
00:59:48If the Cubans were going to make a move on the DeMeo crew,
00:59:50I wasn't ever coming out of that apartment.
00:59:53So I was pressing for Roy to do this thing.
00:59:58What happened, the final straw,
00:59:59was there was a kid named Dominic Ragucci
01:00:02who was working his way through college
01:00:04selling vacuum cleaners.
01:00:06And if I'm not mistaken, he was half Puerto Rican,
01:00:09half Italian.
01:00:10And he was doing his paperwork in front of Roy's house.
01:00:13And at this point, Roy had become so paranoid.
01:00:15I mean, he was seeing Cuban hitmen behind the trees.
01:00:18He thought this guy was laying out
01:00:21to blow his house up or something.
01:00:23And it was in the middle of the day, in the afternoon.
01:00:26And him and Joey Dracula,
01:00:28who was his cousin, Joey Galliomo,
01:00:31they took off after these days.
01:00:32They came walking out with pistols.
01:00:34When the kids saw the pistols, he took off in his car.
01:00:36They jumped in the car.
01:00:38And they started chasing him.
01:00:40And this is broad daylight.
01:00:41They drove from the South Shore of Long Island
01:00:42to the North Shore of Long Island.
01:00:45Going fast.
01:00:47Roy's shooting out the window and driving.
01:00:49And Joey reloading the guns.
01:00:51And Joey's so nervous as he's reloading the gun,
01:00:53he's shooting holes in the floor of the car.
01:00:56And finally, this kid, Ragucci,
01:00:59they hit something.
01:01:00Anyway, they stopped him.
01:01:02And from what the witness is saying,
01:01:04from what Roy told me,
01:01:06he just took like a military stance
01:01:09and shot the kid like nine times.
01:01:12It came out who this kid was.
01:01:14He was just, you know,
01:01:15a kid working his way through college.
01:01:16And that was it.
01:01:17Roy got called down on it on a Monday night.
01:01:23And Nino told him,
01:01:25get rid of Chris.
01:01:26Settle this problem
01:01:27because we can't bother with this anymore.
01:01:29He's starting to get wacky on me.
01:01:30And they killed Chris.
01:01:33And they parked him in a car
01:01:35by Floyd Bennett Field
01:01:37by the Marine Park Bridge
01:01:39after they killed him.
01:01:41And they went by the car
01:01:42and they machine gunned it
01:01:43so it would make the newspapers.
01:01:45It was just a regular killing.
01:01:46Might not make the newspapers.
01:01:47And had to make the newspapers.
01:01:49Which it did.
01:01:50And I think that was the closest
01:01:52we came to having a war
01:01:53with someone other than the family
01:01:56in all the time I was ever with them.
01:01:59Because, I mean,
01:01:59the Cubans had sent people up from Miami.
01:02:01They were ready to go.
01:02:03You know.
01:02:04So, but that's the point
01:02:05that Roy had gotten to.
01:02:08He was so paranoid.
01:02:10And it just spread throughout the crew.
01:02:11So, and Danny Grillo,
01:02:15they murdered him.
01:02:17Chris, they murdered.
01:02:18You know, they just started
01:02:19killing each other.
01:02:23The Civil War dispensed justice
01:02:26mafia style.
01:02:27Those that survived
01:02:28became the targets
01:02:30of an FBI-NYPD task force.
01:02:33It was one of the most significant cases
01:02:35in the FBI's war against the mafia.
01:02:38Time was running out for Roy DeMeo.
01:02:41And as I got to know
01:02:44the gory details of this crew,
01:02:47it became more and more
01:02:48a personal war
01:02:52with the mafia
01:02:55that we should destroy
01:02:57an organization of this magnitude
01:03:00and that was capable
01:03:04of committing these heinous crimes.
01:03:06And it was great,
01:03:09with great satisfaction
01:03:10that we brought them down
01:03:13and prosecuted them.
01:03:19From a nondescript office
01:03:21in Queens,
01:03:22Bruce Mao still runs
01:03:23a team of agents
01:03:24targeting the entire Gambino family.
01:03:26The murderous exploits
01:03:30of the DeMeo crew
01:03:31were just one of his early investigations.
01:03:34As his agents
01:03:34tracked the DeMeo crew,
01:03:36Bruce Mao and the Gambino squad
01:03:38were also targeting
01:03:39the highest levels
01:03:40of the mafia.
01:03:41The strategy was to connect
01:03:42the crimes of the soldiers
01:03:44on the street
01:03:44all the way up
01:03:45to the Godfather himself.
01:03:47It was on the streets
01:03:50of Little Italy
01:03:51at the Ravenite,
01:03:52the Gambino family's
01:03:53Manhattan social club,
01:03:55that the police
01:03:55and the FBI
01:03:56had John Gotti
01:03:57under surveillance.
01:03:59Angelo Ruggiero
01:04:00was Gotti's top lieutenant.
01:04:03The overweight gangster
01:04:04never stopped talking.
01:04:05He was nicknamed
01:04:06Quack Quack
01:04:07and the end.
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