October 17, 2024 • 49 mins
The murder of Bonanno capo Sonny "Black" Napolitano sets the stage for Joseph Massino’s ascent as the last don, revealing the deadly consequences of betrayal in the Mafia's ranks.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're listening to Law and Order Criminal Justice System, a
production of Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
In the criminal justice System, landmark trials transcend the courtroom
to reshape the law. The brave many women who investigate
and prosecute these cases are part of a select group
that is defined American history. These are their stories. August seventeenth,
(00:33):
nineteen eighty one, Eltingville, Staten Island.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
The pickup was scheduled for just past nine sunny. Black
Nepolitano placed his keys on the bar, along with his
prize diamond pinky ring and.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
A wat of cash.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
He told the bartender he had a sinking feeling that
he wouldn't be needing them anymore. Sonny got into a
Lincoln town car which took him over with the Verizano
Bridge to a small house on Staten Island. For years,
he had been a good earner for the Banano family,
but he made one unforgivable mistake. He vouched for someone
(01:12):
who turned out to be the enemy.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
One of the closer Austra rules is if you vouch
for a guy and he turns bad, it's on you
and the penalty could be death.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Sonny knew the score. As he descended the stairs to
the basement, the door slam shut behind him and he
was shoved to the floor.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
There was a setup crew, there was a murder crew,
and there was a cleanup crew, so multiple people involved.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
The first shot grazed his ear, then he heard the
gun jam. Sprawled on his knees, Sonny looked up at
the gunman and said, hit me one more time and
make it good. The second gunman fired.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
You're not with the mob because you want to be.
It's the gangster that decides whether you're his associated on
If you like.
Speaker 5 (02:13):
Your life, you will vote to acquit.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I'm aniseg and NICOLASI.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
My father should have been a dead man.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts. This is law and
order criminal justice system.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I didn't get hired as an FBI agent. What I
got hired as was a grade to file coler, which
was a position that doesn't even exist anymore. And my
very first job in the FBI was filing fingerprint cards
in alphabetical order.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Extremely exciting work, but I.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Managed to work my way up through the ranks.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
You can blame it on the hardy boys or shirlofe homes,
but Jack Stubing, like many of us, developed a passion
for crime solving at a young age. He just happened
to make a career of it, first as a file
clerk and then eventually as a supervisory special agent at
the FBI.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
The first actual organized crime book I ever read was
about the Banano family. When I became a supervisor, I
tried to instill in young agents that you should know
the history of these things because it's all about human
relationships and how we got to where we are. And
it's one of the reasons that at West Point they
(03:36):
study battles that happened a thousand years ago, because the
technology may change, but human beings remain human beings. And
part of success in organized crime investigations is the ability
to predict the future, basically, and you want to predict
what's going to happen before it happens.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Know your history. Predict all easier said than done, especially
when you're dealing with an adversary as unpredictable as the
American mafia with the mobs elaborate org chart of bosses, underbosses, capos,
and soldiers. Keeping track of the nicknames alone would test
(04:18):
even the most dedicated of crime solvers. Thankfully, Special Agent
Jack Steubing loved a good mystery, and he had his
sight set on a big one. Throughout the second half
of the twentieth century. The rise and fall of the
Banano crime family had more twists and turns than an
act at the Christie novel, and in the years after
(04:41):
the Commission trial, Jack was tasked with taking them down
once and for all.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
The Bananas were an absolute mess. To put it bluntly,
they had had problems going back to the nineteen sixties.
Joe Banano was the founding member of the Banano family,
but he was also the youngest member of the Commission
at the time because he was a young, wise guy
from the Old Country. And even though that he was
(05:10):
on the Commission, he was trying to gather support from
some of the other families to institute himself as the
Boss of bosses. Despite the Commission. Commission got wished to
this thing before he was able to make his move,
and they chased them out of New York. The titular
Boss was now living in Arizona having been chased out
(05:33):
of New York, and they were rutorless. There were these
constant factions within the family that led to the assassination
actually of Carline Gallante and the rise of Joe Messino.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
The rise and reign of Joe Messino, perhaps the most
ruthless and resilient of the New York bosses, a man
who would become known as the Last Don.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
He was a hijacker. He was not an educated man,
but he was a smart man. He was very clever,
very street wise. Obviously, he was brutal, reputed to do
his own work. In other words, he wasn't afraid to
use violence as a tool against somebody personally, wouldn't just
(06:23):
order somebody else. He would participate in acts himself if necessary.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
By the time he was in his thirties, Messino had
earned a coveted role as protege to Rusty Rostelli, who
in nineteen seventy three had taken over the top spot
in the Banano family. Messino's appetite also earned him the
nickname Big Joey.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
He was a good earner and he was very interested
in food. He ran a catering business back in the
day before there were the kind of sophisticated food trucks
and stuff that they have now that go to fairs
and that kind of thing. There were essentially pickup trucks
with stainless steel bodies on the back of them, and
(07:07):
they sold sandwiches to construction sites and places where people
were working out in the field. And in Joe's case,
these trucks were also used there's good mechanisms for taking
bets and making loan shark loans, and conducting other business
that generated more income for him than selling sandwiches.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
After the Bananas got burned by undercover FBI agent Joe
Pistone aka Donnie Brasco and were banished from the Commission,
the family was forced to pivot into new illsicit markets,
and during that time Joe Messino crew in status.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
As the years went by, he grew in power within
the family and became a captain and had his own crew.
He rose through the ranks through guile violence, basically to
head the family after the death of Rusty Rostelli.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
A position he secured in large part thanks to the
nineteen seventy nine assassination of rival Carma Galante and the
triple murder of the three Capos in nineteen eighty one.
And remember, the Bananos had been left largely unscathed by
the Commission trial, so by the end of the eighties,
as the other families were weakened by prosecutions and a
(08:29):
revolving door of turncoats, they were poised to fill that
power vacuum. As the new head of the family. Messino
was becoming arguably the most powerful mafia leader in the country,
(08:52):
not to mention the only full fledged New York boss
who was not in prison or dead.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Messino, you know, I mean, he's been referred to as
the last Godfather. He was the force to be reckoned with.
He really was de facto the boss and bosses by
this point.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
And he aimed to keep it that way, determined not
to make the same mistakes other bosses had made that
exposed them to federal prosecution.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Messino was pretty sophisticated in a street wise way, but
also he sort of had a fondness for technology. He
sometimes used the walkie talkies on his operations. He would
have electronic sweeps of his social club to detect bugs.
There's a famous story that they had installed a bug
(09:45):
in one of his clubs and he managed to find
it within two days. So he was somebody who was
constantly on guard against infiltration.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Just as Vincent Gigante was called the Chin earned a
similarly descriptive nickname, he was known as the.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Ear It's like Valdemort, he who must not be named.
The ear Thing was partially this myth that Messino created
for himself, where he was everywhere and all seeing and
would hear you know if anything was amiss within his empire.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
But Messino's greatest advantage over his predecessors. After watching the
government round up his rivals, he had gotten wise to
their playbook.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
We had a case where we had infiltrated one of
their clubs. We were able to install bugs and CCTV
inside the club, and we could see on the CCTV
that when they were talking to each other they would
be whispering in each other's ears. They just assumed that
the place was bugged, and a acted accordingly.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
These bugs had been the hallmark of the Commission case,
but in many ways, federal law enforcement had been a
victim of their own success. Decades of black bag ops
and surveillance had served to strengthen those mobsters that had
managed to survive.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
This combination of factors that no one within the family
had turned. Our informant coverage was spotty at best. They
were very cautious about electronic surveillance. We just weren't making
any headway.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
So for this next chapter in their spy versus spy
battle with the mob, the FBI needed a new game plan,
a whole new type of agent. They would have to
be sophisticated, fearless, and most of all, relentless. Enter the accountants.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
In the mid nineties, I went to my ASAC, the
Assistant Special Agent in charge of the Organized crime branch
in New York, and I said, you know, everything we
have tried has not worked. Now, I've been toying with
this idea that maybe if we could get some forensic
accountantcy in here, maybe they could make some headway where
(12:10):
we can. My ASAC said, all right, well, let's see
what I can do. He obtained for me two forensic
accountants by the name of Jeff Selette and Kim McCaffrey,
and they were both brand new agents. They were eager, enthusiastic, smart.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
And their real superpower each was a whiz with numbers.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
So my name is Kimberly McCaffrey, and I started in
New York. I spent nine years there working organized crime.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Like many agents, Kim McCaffrey had grown up familiar with
some of the faces and names of organized crime.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
I grew up in southern New Jersey. Obviously it was
on the local news all the time. I would always
see John Gottie. I would always see how he walked
with a swagger. Even as a kid, I never quite understood.
I'm like, guys, if we know he's the head of
a mob family, why can't we arrest him. I didn't
understand how he could just walk around when we all
(13:14):
knew he was such a bad guy.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
But Kim's path to crime fighting was not a direct one.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
I started as a phyzed major and changed my major
three times till I finally graduated with an accounting major.
I majored in accounting not because I thought I would
have a great fulfilling career as a CPA. I majored
in accounting because it actually came naturally to me. It
was fun going through all the numbers every day. But
(13:44):
I really did want to use my accounting skills. It
sounds so cliche, but to change the world to make
things better.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
So after getting her degree, Kim stopped buy an FBI
field office and filled out an application.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
On my first day, one of my supervisors when I
first got to the New York office, said Hey, if
you had your dream career here, what would it be?
And I was like, you know, I would love to
use my accounting skills to combat organized crime. He said, Oh,
do I have the perfect person for you to meet.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
That person was Jack Steubing, who had the novel idea
of recruiting CPAs to combat the mob.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
At that point, I was slated to go to Squad
C ten in New York to work the Banana organized
crime family. Jeff and I became partners, and the rest
is history. I guess.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
So, how would this work? How would a few accountants
accomplish what it had taken hundreds of FBI personnel to
do before them.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
The idea of forensic accounting isn't just crunching numbers. That's
what regular accountants do. What the forensic accountants do is
put those numbers into the organized crime context. What here
is legitimate money, what is bad money?
Speaker 1 (15:12):
And if the numbers added up, the results would prove
to be even more reliable than human witnesses.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Bank records don't change. You can kill an informant, you
can bribe people, you can do all manner of things,
But you can't change the records that are in the
banking system. They're always lurking there, and many of them
you don't even know exist, And it's great evidence.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
The fact is that at its heart, the mob is
all about money, and who better to trace a money
trail than an accountant.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
One thing Jeff always said was what do financial records
tell you? Well, they give you leads like cut off
the numbers, and it gives you a pattern of life,
Like if we look at any one of our statements,
it's a financial surveillance, like, oh, you like to go
to Chipotle, you shop at Target, this is where you vacation.
(16:09):
Who are you getting money from and who are you
sending money to? And why look at someone's tax returns,
especially a mob boss. Why are they getting W two's
from particular corporations they're clearly not working there. Look at
the in and outflows of money, and then understand the
(16:29):
people behind them, and then you look into those people
and figure out who will actually talk to you, look
for the weak link.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
And the plan was to deploy these methods against the
boss of bosses, Joe Messino. But even Jack had to
admit this was a bit out of his wheelhouse.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
I mean, I had taken some accounting classes in community college,
but I was no forensic account and I didn't know
what I was looking for when I subpoenaed bank records.
Unless it said in the memo loan shark payment, I
would have had no idea what it was I was
looking at.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Luckily, his agents were experts in decoding the secrets in
the stacks of checks, bank statements, and shady receipts that
had accumulated from years of property seizures.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
As I recall, Jeff was the first to arrive, and
I had a box of these checks that from when
I was a case agent. Well, he opens his box
up and starts going through the box, and he goes, oh,
this is evidence of structuring. Oh, this is evidence of
money learning. Oh this is evidence of tax of asion.
Speaker 5 (17:36):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I don't, Frank, I'm looking at the same stuff he said.
He is, Hakim, I don't see what he sees. I said,
I'm going to take whatever's in my head about the
Banano family and put it in your head, and you
mix it up with your accounting skills and see what
you can do.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Armed with pencils, paper and their trusty Excel spreadsheets, Kim
and Jeff got to work sorting through thousands of documents
in putting the pieces together. The endgame, follow the money
and hit them where it hurts.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Traditionally, an organized crime, you sort of expect to go
to jail at some point in your career, but what
you don't expect is when the government takes your money
away while you're in jail. So that was what we
had planned. Not only do we want to put them
in jail, but we want to take all their money,
or we want to have that hanging over their head
(18:28):
that maybe they will talk to us for the first time.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
They decided to start right at the top with Joe
Messino and his underboss, sal Vitali, who was also his
brother in law.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
They had the same CPA. So the first thing we did,
as our nerdy accountant selves, was we subpoenaed their accounting records.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Not wiretaps, not stakeouts of smoke filled social clubs, receipts,
stacks and stacks of receipts. Safe to say, this was
a whole new side of the FBI.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
I always kind of laugh because you had some old
school agents on the squad who were going out on
surveillance every day or doing old school type of things.
And how excited were Jeff and I when we brought
back nine boxes of financial records and were filling in
Excel spreadsheets.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
I'm shaking my head because I would have walked by
your office so fast.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
I was like, and that's exactly what most people did,
but to us, like, we're so excited, So I don't
think anyone wanted to be on our team at that point.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
And the gangsters themselves weren't their only targets. It was
also their facilitators, the network of people who were helping
them move their money and attempt to disguise it as legitimate,
which led to the uncovering of one of the more
novel laundering schemes in criminal history. If you actually believe
their tax returns, Messino, Vitally and their respective wives were
(20:01):
among the luckiest people in New York. Why they were
reporting thousands and thousands of dollars of lottery winnings.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
Yeah, we see that on their tax returns. Joe, sal Josie, Diana,
They're all winning the lottery at various points. Anyone around
Joe Messino is winning the lottery all the time. We
knew that really wasn't real. That was a way for
him to launder his money. It would have been clever
if maybe they just won it once, but with the
(20:33):
volume of times that they and their friends or family
members won it, it just obviously became a red flag
for us.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Here's the scheme, as Messino and Vitally imagined it. You
have a lot of cash from a legal activity, and
you need to clean it to make it look like
it was earned legitimately.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
And in New York there's a lot of bodegas. The
owners of the bodegas, these are the people selling the
lottery tickets. So I have a lot of cash and
I tell the owner, Hey, if someone wins the lottery,
I'd like to buy their ticket. Because that legitimate person
who wins the lottery, they have to claim it, they
have to pay taxes on it, and that's less money
(21:16):
for them. But if Joe Mosino buys your lottery ticket
from you, you get more money. You don't have to
claim it on your taxes. He doesn't care about paying
the taxes on it because he has so much cash
that he needs to legitimize. And that's sort of the
way the scheme worked.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
But their lucky streak would eventually run out, partly due
to the FBI's work with an unlikely partner, Barry Weinberg.
He was our first big break. Barry Weinberg was the
owner of several parking lots in Lower Manhattan. His name
was nowhere on the Banana Org chart, but it kept
(21:56):
popping up on checks to and from Messino and wives.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
We're just wondering why the boss and the underboss' wives
are receiving income from parking lots in Lower Manhattan. In particular,
we're wondering why a man by the name of Barry
Weinberg is receiving checks from Messino and Vitally. Let's figure
out who he is and what he's all about.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Well, it turns out that Barry was a character almost
as colorful as the gangsters he was in bed with.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
Barry Weinberg was a very successful businessman who was infatuated
with the mob. He was an associate of Richie Cantarella.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Richie Cantrella was a Banano captain and confidant of sal Vitally.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
Barry Weinberg owned parking lot leases all over Manhattan, super wealthy,
and he was pretty much extored out of a portion
of those leases and forced to sell to the wives
of Joe Messino and Salvatally so that they could legitimize
their income.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
So Weinberg was a victim of the bananas, but also
an accomplice who walked the fine line between the legitimate
and criminal worlds of New York City.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
In vision like an older, wheeling, dealing guy in Lower Manhattan,
chain smoking, super nervous, always had a cigarette in his hand.
He once described W two wage earners as schmucks, and
then Jeff and I just looked at him, like, you
do realize that we are W two wage earners And
(23:47):
he's like, oh, sorry, sorry, you know, very fast talking.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
He was just a character. And in addition, Barry had
an achilles heel that Kim and Jeff were happy to exploit.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
Barry's downfall was that he liked really young women, and
he had a lot of ex wives, and he had
a lot of children, and he didn't like to pay
his taxes. I think he had evaded close to fourteen
million dollars in income taxes with his various businesses.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Money that largely went right back out the door in
the form of alimony and child support.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
We sort of assessed that Barry Weinberg was not the
type of guy who was willing to go to prison.
So our plan and our hope was to arrest Barry
in a covert way without anyone in the family knowing
about it, and to have Barry make a decision whether
he wanted to go in front of the magistrate judge
(24:51):
that day for his tax evasion crimes, or he wanted
to go along his normal daily activities but wearing a
wire for the FBI.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
And so Kim and Jeff partnered with the n MIPD
to affect a car stop of Weinberg's Mercedes, careful to
do it far from the prying eyes of Banano spies.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
We were close behind in a van and then they
asked him to get out of the car and they
put him in the van and he met Jeff and
I for the first time. He was pretty surprised to
meet us that day. We just introduced ourselves and we
basically gave him his options and it took him about
ten seconds to decide. He said, where were you six
(25:34):
months ago? Give me the wire for Barry Weinberg. Loyalty
took a back seat to self preservation. It was the
first piece in a case against the Last Dawn, one
that wouldn't just lead to charges of tax evasion and
money laundering, but the murder of one of his oldest friends,
Sonny Black. Nepolitano. Special agent Jack Stubink's team of forensic
(26:10):
accountants had tracked payments to and from Banano boss Joe
Messino to a New York businessman named Barry Weinberg. Not
one to entertain a lengthy prison term, Weinberg quickly agreed
to cooperate, and he would do it the old fashioned
way by.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Wearing a wire.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
Part of his decision was one he was not willing
to go to jail, but two because a few months prior,
he was actually assaulted by Richie Kintarella. Although Barry had
made the Banano family a ton of money, they felt
that it wasn't enough, and he got beat.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Up because he wasn't earning enough or producing enough.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
I mean that's what they thought. But he literally had
made them millions of dollars. They basically said, I hate
these guys, and give me the wire and I'll do
whatever you need me to do. We wired him up
right then and there. We didn't want to change his pattern.
We didn't want anything to change, so he literally went
right back out wearing.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
A recording device, and just like that, the forensic accountants
were back to using human intel and assuming all the
risk that goes with it. After all, this was not
a low stakes game. If Weinberg was suspected of working
with the Feds, there was a good chance he wouldn't
be left to run parking lots. He'd be buried under one.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Barry hung out with Richie Cantarella and his crew pretty
much every Monday through Thursday at Deniko's. It was a
restaurant in Little Italy. Our goal with Barry was to
have him just wear that wire every day and just
see what they talked about.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
The slick haired Richie Cantarella, also known as s Lackhead,
was Banano captain who had once murdered his own cousin
at the behest of Joe Messino, and thanks to his
extortion of Barry Weinberg, he, along with Messino and Vitali,
was also the proud co owner of several parking lots
(28:15):
in Lower Manhattan.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
And what Barry did explain was when the wives of
Joe and Sal purchased interests in the parking lots. They
were not for what they were worth. He was told
to do that and he really had no choice. So
that's what those checks were for, was for their interests
in the parking lots, which now they earned income from
(28:39):
working there. And that's how Richie earned all of his
money too.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
It's extortion.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
It's no show jobs because they're definitely not working there.
They couldn't even tell you where those parking lots were.
Everything that Barry made, he was supposed to give a
portion to Richie, who then gave it to Joe and Salar.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Lots like windows in concrete were not sexy, but they
were profitable, and they turned out to be a lynchpin
in dismantling a much larger criminal enterprise. I can't stress
how integral Barry was. I don't know that anyone would have.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Cared or noticed who he was if we didn't find
those three checks that were written to him. Through the
work that he did, we got a lot on.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Richie thanks to Weinberg's wire, the FBI collected over one
hundred tapes of incriminating statements from Cantarella and his crew,
and in October of two thousand and two, Richie Cantrella
was arrested and charged in a twenty four count Rico indictment.
Also arrested another Banano captain named Frank Copa. It became
(29:49):
a race to see which made man would be the
first to flip to Cantrella's dismay. Copa beat him to
the punch.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
Although Barry broke it open and Frank Copa crushed it.
We thought we were arresting him on an extortion charge
against Barry Weinberg that he was going to face eighteen
months until Frank told us about the murder of Sunny
Black Napolitano, and I will tell you the truth. We
(30:18):
had no idea he was involved in that murder, or
that fifteen other people were involved in that murder. Joe
Messino was involved in that homicide. There was a setup crew,
there was a murder crew, and there was a cleanup crew,
so multiple people involved, and we were like, wow, okay.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
The murder of Dominic Sonny Black Neapolitano was the violent
finale of the most infamous chapter of Mafia. Lore Neapolitano
was the Banano captain that would forever be known as
the man who allowed an undercover FBI agent named Jopstone
to work undetected for nearly sake years within the Banano organization.
(31:03):
FBI agent Joseph B.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
Stone was known to the underworld as Donnie Bresco, a
trusted Jules thief who leaders of the Banano family promised
eventual membership in the Cosa Nostra.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Unsurprisingly, the price for Napolitano's mistake was his life. It
would be Sunny Black's murder that would ultimately bring the
entire Banano family to its knees because, according to Frank Copa,
Joe Messino, the last on himself, was directly involved in
the hit, and when it came to bringing indictments against
(31:37):
the mob, a murder charge just hits harder.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Frank Copa when he starts talking about the murders. Now
people are facing life in prison, that's a different story
than facing eighteen months.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
But still they were a long way from the finish line.
To make those charges stick, they would need the help
of another unassuming star of the criminal justice system.
Speaker 5 (32:03):
Mitra Hermosi. And I was an Assistant United States Attorney
in the Eastern District of New York, working in the
Organized Crime and Racketeering section of the Criminal Division.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Much like Jack Steubing's accounting acolytes, Mitra did not take
a typical path to her career as a federal prosecutor.
Speaker 5 (32:24):
Born in Brooklyn, I am the child of immigrants. But
my parents were like, Okay, you have three options in life, doctor, lawyer,
or professor. And I'm like, I don't love science that much,
and professor who wants to get a PhD. So I
ended up as a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
But what she never expected was that just a few
years into her career she would be taking on the mob.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
Did I think I would be in the organized crime section.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
No? Never.
Speaker 5 (32:57):
It seemed so in tense and stressful, and it was
a lot of trial work, and you have to think
on your feet, and there's these defendants from very violent
people to very sophisticated business people.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
And talk about baptism by fire. In two thousand and one,
after the indictments of Frank Coopa and Richie Cantrella, Mietro
was tasked with prosecuting a case against the most powerful
mob boss in New York, Joe Messino.
Speaker 5 (33:29):
So I'd been in the OC unit for just under
a year. I'd been working on Columbo matter cases and
the Messino case had been the brainchild like the blood,
sweat and tears of a prosecutor who was a couple
of years senior Greg Andres, and he really needed help.
It had gotten so big, a really large racketeering case,
(33:52):
and so I said, all right, let's bring Mitre to
help you. Then the next couple of years we're just
all Banano all the time.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
And at the center of that case was unraveling the who,
what and why of Sonny Black's murder.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
One of the Coosinoustra rules is if you vouch for
a guy and he turns bed, it's on you and
the penalty could be death.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
And as Jack Stubing explains, according to Frank Copa, it
was Joe Messino himself who demanded that his close friend
Sonny Black pay the ultimate price.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
He was going to kill Lefty guns Gerio, the soldier
in Sonny Black's crew who formed the closest friendship with
Donnie Brasco. And the reason that Lefty was not killed
was because the FBI came and scooped him up off
the street and arrested him and play him in prison.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Sonny Black would not be so lucky. In Messino's own words,
he had to end, I quote give him a receipt
for the Donny Brasco situation.
Speaker 5 (34:58):
Sonny Black's death was the first murder charge we had
for Messino. Sonny had brought Donnie Brasco in didn't realize
he was an FBI agent. They never forgave him for
doing that. So Sonny Black had to be murdered.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
And so while the nineteen eighty one hit may have
served mob justice, it might also prove to be Messino's downfall.
Speaker 5 (35:22):
The beautiful part about a racketeering case is you could
go back thirty forty years. There can only be a
ten year gap between crimes. But as long as you
have a criminal activity every ten years and the last
one being within two three years of indictment, then you
can go back to their teenage years for the criminal
(35:44):
conduct you charge.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
So, despite Sonny Black's murder happening over thirty years prior,
Messino could still go down. Here's Cam again on the
team tasked with making those charges stick.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
We had three prosecutors, Greg andres Mita, Hermosi and Robert Hennock.
Greg was the lead, and then they broke it up
by cooperators. Each prosecutor handled certain cooperators and witnesses.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
The three pronged attack was critical in managing the cooperating witnesses,
which now included Frank Coopa, Richie Cantarella, Barry Weinberg, and
another Banano associate named Augustinos Gazzari. All of the men
were being offered a chance to testify against their boss.
Speaker 5 (36:34):
Not one is allowed to talk to, or see or
hear from anyone else because you don't want them trying
to coordinate stories. So they cooperate, they're plucked out, they're
put somewhere, depending on who they are, a safe house,
a prison, or the like, and it's a lonely life
for them for a while then, because they're by themselves
(36:55):
for the most part, and they're not allowed to talk
to friends or family.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
So let's talk a little about the cooperation process. If
you believe what you see on TV, flipping a witness
can seem to be only about using threats of jail
time to coerce damning testimony from a suspect who would
otherwise be prosecuted for another crime. But in reality, securing
cooperation and testimony you can use in court is not
(37:23):
so baldly transactional or so easy it can be a
long process. You have to build trust and most importantly,
ensure that the information you are getting is completely true.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
When they decide to cooperate, we sort of go through
their whole history, so they pretty much have to tell
us about every crime they've committed, whether they've been indicted
for it or not. We have to make sure they're
truthful because you know, as a prosecutor, if they then
get on the stand and they didn't tell us something,
or they didn't plead guilty to something that they did,
(37:59):
that is going to basically taint their entire testimony. And
that is the job of a defense attorney to ruin
their credibility.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Even when you're dealing with career criminals, their testimony can
be as good as anyone's as long as the witness
is believable.
Speaker 5 (38:17):
What people I think don't appreciate is how much time
you end up spending with a witness one to see
are they being truthful? Can we give them a cooperation agreement?
Because most witnesses think, oh, eighty percent of the truth
is fine, right, Like maybe I can just delete myself
(38:39):
from that murder, right, like who cares there?
Speaker 3 (38:42):
Or other people?
Speaker 5 (38:43):
And so there's a little bit of back and forth
with them to make them realize, like, no, if you
want to cooperate, you have to tell us everything right,
every criminal activity that you have committed, and then we
have to corroborate it, because otherwise there's no point. So
it's a ton of work leading up to granting someone
(39:05):
a cooperation agreement saying I trust them they're being truthful
about every act of violence or criminal activity or everything
they've said.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
The most important witness so far in the government's case
against Messino was Richie Cantrella. He was the one whose
voice was most often captured on Weinberg's hidden wire.
Speaker 5 (39:28):
Richie Canerella ended up being my cooperator, and he was
very high up in the organization, acting underboss at some point.
And so I go to this big meeting with Richie.
There's all the agents, Kim and Jeff and Greg's there,
and he's talking about a murder. He's like, oh, yep, yep.
So we were in the house, we were going down
(39:50):
the stairs and then he was dead. We all were like,
he was dead, Huh, how did that happen? Did he
have a heart attack, struck by lightning?
Speaker 3 (40:01):
What happened?
Speaker 5 (40:02):
Well, no, he was shot, and so you're just like, Okay, Ritchie,
who shot him? Finally, you know, after like forty five minutes,
he's like, I shot him. It was a learning experience
for Richie as well, to be like, Okay, I have
to be fully honest about how the murders occurred, who
(40:26):
was there, and who did.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
What, Considering how much Cantrella knew it would not be
a short process, and that can lead to an unlikely
familiarity between prosecutors and witnesses, which is actually a critical
element of establishing trust.
Speaker 5 (40:44):
For that year or two where he's now in a
safe house and we're visiting him at least once or
twice a week. You walk in and mitrad, did you
see the view?
Speaker 3 (40:56):
You know?
Speaker 5 (40:56):
And he would talk to me about his favorite TV show,
with the kind of clothes he bought his wife and
what did I think, do you think she'll like something?
So it becomes a funny rapport you have with them.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
There was one story in particular that put Richie's gallows
humor on full display.
Speaker 5 (41:18):
I had gotten engaged before joining this case with the
thought of, Okay, you'll be married within a year, let's say,
But this case took so much time and it was
supposed to go to trial, but then the trials kept
getting delayed and my wedding kept getting delayed, which I
didn't mind. But at some point I'm with Richie and
(41:42):
he sits and goes to Meumitra, what's going on with
your fiance. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like,
you need me to send someone to talk to him. No, Richie,
He's like, all right, you just let me know. Like, Richie,
you're not supposed to be saying stuff like that anymore.
You're a changed man, right, He's like, no, No, I'm
just saying, you know, sometimes men need a little talking to.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
Cantrella's cooperation proved to be the tipping point. Slowly, prosecutors
gathered more names, which led to more arrests, which led
to more cooperating witnesses.
Speaker 5 (42:17):
You start out with one individual, he then has so
much information. Once he cooperates, you're able to go after two, three, four,
and then it was like a domino.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Effect among mobsters. The writing was on the wall, flip
now or face the music.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
At this point, we have multiple people talking to us,
we have multiple murders. There's just so many different parts.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
And Jack's plan is starting to work.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
Oh gosh, yeah, it was working from like day two,
but it's just exploded at this point.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
For Mitrin her fellow prosecutors, it was an embarrassment of riches,
but not always so glamorous.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
All of them.
Speaker 5 (43:02):
I had to travel. They're in prison at the time,
right Like, we're not treating them to a fancy hotel.
A couple were in safe houses. We would be staying
at like little divy hotels. Visiting these people all throughout
the country and prisons, spending hours upon hours prepping these
witnesses in these locations. I'll choke. I've spent more time
(43:25):
in prisons than people who have actually committed some crimes.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
For many of these career criminals, they were not just
giving up their bosses and in some cases their families.
They were betraying their identity, their entire way of life.
One cooperating witness was Richie Cantarella's cousin, Joey Demico.
Speaker 5 (43:49):
When he first came in to cooperate, he was really
struggling with cooperating and at one point he had cut
his wrists. He walks in to meet us and his
lawyer is like, oh, Joey, not his head's not in
a good place. But he was also a very good
witness for us.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
And sometimes the burden of cooperating was easier for some
than others, like in the case of James Tartaglioni, also
known as Big Louie.
Speaker 5 (44:19):
Big Louie, he ends up wearing a wire and gets
really great evidence. As I'm preparing him, we're just talking
about his testimony, and he says, you know, the good
thing is Mitro. Whatever happens, I know I'm going to heaven.
And I just looked at him and thought, Okay, murders
(44:41):
be damned right, because he was involved in several murders.
And I'm like, what about the murders. He's like, but
that's work, Metro, it's work that doesn't count. I go
to church, I'm really good to the grandkids.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
Work is work, like okay.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
But of all all the mobsters that became cooperators, none
was a bigger get than Messino's second in command, sal Vitali.
Speaker 4 (45:09):
Salvitally was Joe Messino's underboss, and he was also his
brother in law. Josie Messino and Salvatally were brother and sister.
When Joe and Josie got together. Sal was young, like
seven years old. Joe was like a brother to Sal.
Speaker 5 (45:28):
Messino taught him how to swim. They'd known each other
since they were kids, and they were partners right they
were involved in the Three Captain's murders together. As Messino
rose in the organization, he took Vitally with him. Sal
just was Messino's right hand all throughout Messino's career.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
But in the epic saga that is the American Mafia,
a proximity to power just feeds the desire for more,
and Sal and Joe's relationship was destined to say, especially
when Messino had to do a short stint in prison
for a hijacking conviction and left Vitally in charge of
the family. Here again is Jack stubing.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
With the rise of Vitally as the underboss. It's my
personal opinion that he probably got a little too big
for his breeches. I mean it's not he won't be
the first guy who was a number two guy who
temporarily became the number one guy and said, Jesus pretty good,
I like it. He started pressing the capos for more tribute.
(46:37):
I have heard that he was disrespectful to some of
his underlings. He started to lose support within the family
and he got a little too comfortable in his acting
boss slot, and Messino began to distrust him as a result.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
When Messino was back on the street, tensions came to
go ahead.
Speaker 5 (47:01):
And then once Messino's out of prison, I think he
just got so many other people saying bad things about Vitalian,
claiming that Vitali isn't as loyal to Messino as he thinks.
There's no honor among thieves. Then Messino's like, fine, let's
kill Vitally.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
Knowing his life was in danger. Made Vitali the perfect
candidate to turn against Messino. It would be an act
of self preservation with perhaps a side of revenge.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Next time on Law and Order Criminal Justice System.
Speaker 4 (47:42):
Joe Messino practically raised Salvitally, and here he was betraying
a family oath.
Speaker 5 (47:49):
The tension, it was palpable, the glares, the death stairs
that are coming.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
When you really know what this life is. The movies
portrayed of this otherhood of honorable men, hello of crap.
Speaker 5 (48:03):
I couldn't tell you who the boss of the Genoese
crime family was today if you asked me to bat order,
because I don't even know that the.
Speaker 3 (48:09):
Government knows.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
Law and order criminal Justice System is a production of
Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts. Our host is Anna Sega Nicolazzi.
This episode was written by Walker Lamond and Anna Sega Nicolazzi.
Executive produced by Dick Wolf, Elliott Wolf, and Stephen Michael
at Wolf Entertainment on behalf of iHeartRadio. Executive produced by
(48:39):
Alex Williams and Matt Frederick, with supervising producers Trevor Young
and Chandler Mays and producers Jesse Funk, Noams Griffin and
Riema Elkali. This season is executive produced by Anna Seagan Nicolazzi,
story producer Walker Lamond, Our research are Carolyn Talmage and
(49:01):
Luke's dance editing in sound design by Rima Alkali, original
music by John O'Hara, original theme by Mike Post, additional
music by Steve Moore, and additional voice over by me
Steve Zernkelton. Special thanks to Fox five in New York,
(49:22):
ABC and CBS for providing archival material for the show.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio and Wolf Entertainment, visit the
iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or Wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Thanks for listening.
You're listening to Law and Order Criminal Justice System, a
production of Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
In the criminal justice System, landmark trials transcend the courtroom
to reshape the law. The brave many women who investigate
and prosecute these cases are part of a select group
that is defined American history. These are their stories. August seventeenth,
(00:33):
nineteen eighty one, Eltingville, Staten Island.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
The pickup was scheduled for just past nine sunny. Black
Nepolitano placed his keys on the bar, along with his
prize diamond pinky ring and.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
A wat of cash.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
He told the bartender he had a sinking feeling that
he wouldn't be needing them anymore. Sonny got into a
Lincoln town car which took him over with the Verizano
Bridge to a small house on Staten Island. For years,
he had been a good earner for the Banano family,
but he made one unforgivable mistake. He vouched for someone
(01:12):
who turned out to be the enemy.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
One of the closer Austra rules is if you vouch
for a guy and he turns bad, it's on you
and the penalty could be death.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Sonny knew the score. As he descended the stairs to
the basement, the door slam shut behind him and he
was shoved to the floor.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
There was a setup crew, there was a murder crew,
and there was a cleanup crew, so multiple people involved.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
The first shot grazed his ear, then he heard the
gun jam. Sprawled on his knees, Sonny looked up at
the gunman and said, hit me one more time and
make it good. The second gunman fired.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
You're not with the mob because you want to be.
It's the gangster that decides whether you're his associated on
If you like.
Speaker 5 (02:13):
Your life, you will vote to acquit.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I'm aniseg and NICOLASI.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
My father should have been a dead man.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts. This is law and
order criminal justice system.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I didn't get hired as an FBI agent. What I
got hired as was a grade to file coler, which
was a position that doesn't even exist anymore. And my
very first job in the FBI was filing fingerprint cards
in alphabetical order.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Extremely exciting work, but I.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Managed to work my way up through the ranks.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
You can blame it on the hardy boys or shirlofe homes,
but Jack Stubing, like many of us, developed a passion
for crime solving at a young age. He just happened
to make a career of it, first as a file
clerk and then eventually as a supervisory special agent at
the FBI.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
The first actual organized crime book I ever read was
about the Banano family. When I became a supervisor, I
tried to instill in young agents that you should know
the history of these things because it's all about human
relationships and how we got to where we are. And
it's one of the reasons that at West Point they
(03:36):
study battles that happened a thousand years ago, because the
technology may change, but human beings remain human beings. And
part of success in organized crime investigations is the ability
to predict the future, basically, and you want to predict
what's going to happen before it happens.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Know your history. Predict all easier said than done, especially
when you're dealing with an adversary as unpredictable as the
American mafia with the mobs elaborate org chart of bosses, underbosses, capos,
and soldiers. Keeping track of the nicknames alone would test
(04:18):
even the most dedicated of crime solvers. Thankfully, Special Agent
Jack Steubing loved a good mystery, and he had his
sight set on a big one. Throughout the second half
of the twentieth century. The rise and fall of the
Banano crime family had more twists and turns than an
act at the Christie novel, and in the years after
(04:41):
the Commission trial, Jack was tasked with taking them down
once and for all.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
The Bananas were an absolute mess. To put it bluntly,
they had had problems going back to the nineteen sixties.
Joe Banano was the founding member of the Banano family,
but he was also the youngest member of the Commission
at the time because he was a young, wise guy
from the Old Country. And even though that he was
(05:10):
on the Commission, he was trying to gather support from
some of the other families to institute himself as the
Boss of bosses. Despite the Commission. Commission got wished to
this thing before he was able to make his move,
and they chased them out of New York. The titular
Boss was now living in Arizona having been chased out
(05:33):
of New York, and they were rutorless. There were these
constant factions within the family that led to the assassination
actually of Carline Gallante and the rise of Joe Messino.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
The rise and reign of Joe Messino, perhaps the most
ruthless and resilient of the New York bosses, a man
who would become known as the Last Don.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
He was a hijacker. He was not an educated man,
but he was a smart man. He was very clever,
very street wise. Obviously, he was brutal, reputed to do
his own work. In other words, he wasn't afraid to
use violence as a tool against somebody personally, wouldn't just
(06:23):
order somebody else. He would participate in acts himself if necessary.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
By the time he was in his thirties, Messino had
earned a coveted role as protege to Rusty Rostelli, who
in nineteen seventy three had taken over the top spot
in the Banano family. Messino's appetite also earned him the
nickname Big Joey.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
He was a good earner and he was very interested
in food. He ran a catering business back in the
day before there were the kind of sophisticated food trucks
and stuff that they have now that go to fairs
and that kind of thing. There were essentially pickup trucks
with stainless steel bodies on the back of them, and
(07:07):
they sold sandwiches to construction sites and places where people
were working out in the field. And in Joe's case,
these trucks were also used there's good mechanisms for taking
bets and making loan shark loans, and conducting other business
that generated more income for him than selling sandwiches.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
After the Bananas got burned by undercover FBI agent Joe
Pistone aka Donnie Brasco and were banished from the Commission,
the family was forced to pivot into new illsicit markets,
and during that time Joe Messino crew in status.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
As the years went by, he grew in power within
the family and became a captain and had his own crew.
He rose through the ranks through guile violence, basically to
head the family after the death of Rusty Rostelli.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
A position he secured in large part thanks to the
nineteen seventy nine assassination of rival Carma Galante and the
triple murder of the three Capos in nineteen eighty one.
And remember, the Bananos had been left largely unscathed by
the Commission trial, so by the end of the eighties,
as the other families were weakened by prosecutions and a
(08:29):
revolving door of turncoats, they were poised to fill that
power vacuum. As the new head of the family. Messino
was becoming arguably the most powerful mafia leader in the country,
(08:52):
not to mention the only full fledged New York boss
who was not in prison or dead.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Messino, you know, I mean, he's been referred to as
the last Godfather. He was the force to be reckoned with.
He really was de facto the boss and bosses by
this point.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
And he aimed to keep it that way, determined not
to make the same mistakes other bosses had made that
exposed them to federal prosecution.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Messino was pretty sophisticated in a street wise way, but
also he sort of had a fondness for technology. He
sometimes used the walkie talkies on his operations. He would
have electronic sweeps of his social club to detect bugs.
There's a famous story that they had installed a bug
(09:45):
in one of his clubs and he managed to find
it within two days. So he was somebody who was
constantly on guard against infiltration.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Just as Vincent Gigante was called the Chin earned a
similarly descriptive nickname, he was known as the.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Ear It's like Valdemort, he who must not be named.
The ear Thing was partially this myth that Messino created
for himself, where he was everywhere and all seeing and
would hear you know if anything was amiss within his empire.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
But Messino's greatest advantage over his predecessors. After watching the
government round up his rivals, he had gotten wise to
their playbook.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
We had a case where we had infiltrated one of
their clubs. We were able to install bugs and CCTV
inside the club, and we could see on the CCTV
that when they were talking to each other they would
be whispering in each other's ears. They just assumed that
the place was bugged, and a acted accordingly.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
These bugs had been the hallmark of the Commission case,
but in many ways, federal law enforcement had been a
victim of their own success. Decades of black bag ops
and surveillance had served to strengthen those mobsters that had
managed to survive.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
This combination of factors that no one within the family
had turned. Our informant coverage was spotty at best. They
were very cautious about electronic surveillance. We just weren't making
any headway.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
So for this next chapter in their spy versus spy
battle with the mob, the FBI needed a new game plan,
a whole new type of agent. They would have to
be sophisticated, fearless, and most of all, relentless. Enter the accountants.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
In the mid nineties, I went to my ASAC, the
Assistant Special Agent in charge of the Organized crime branch
in New York, and I said, you know, everything we
have tried has not worked. Now, I've been toying with
this idea that maybe if we could get some forensic
accountantcy in here, maybe they could make some headway where
(12:10):
we can. My ASAC said, all right, well, let's see
what I can do. He obtained for me two forensic
accountants by the name of Jeff Selette and Kim McCaffrey,
and they were both brand new agents. They were eager, enthusiastic, smart.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
And their real superpower each was a whiz with numbers.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
So my name is Kimberly McCaffrey, and I started in
New York. I spent nine years there working organized crime.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Like many agents, Kim McCaffrey had grown up familiar with
some of the faces and names of organized crime.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
I grew up in southern New Jersey. Obviously it was
on the local news all the time. I would always
see John Gottie. I would always see how he walked
with a swagger. Even as a kid, I never quite understood.
I'm like, guys, if we know he's the head of
a mob family, why can't we arrest him. I didn't
understand how he could just walk around when we all
(13:14):
knew he was such a bad guy.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
But Kim's path to crime fighting was not a direct one.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
I started as a phyzed major and changed my major
three times till I finally graduated with an accounting major.
I majored in accounting not because I thought I would
have a great fulfilling career as a CPA. I majored
in accounting because it actually came naturally to me. It
was fun going through all the numbers every day. But
(13:44):
I really did want to use my accounting skills. It
sounds so cliche, but to change the world to make
things better.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
So after getting her degree, Kim stopped buy an FBI
field office and filled out an application.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
On my first day, one of my supervisors when I
first got to the New York office, said Hey, if
you had your dream career here, what would it be?
And I was like, you know, I would love to
use my accounting skills to combat organized crime. He said, Oh,
do I have the perfect person for you to meet.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
That person was Jack Steubing, who had the novel idea
of recruiting CPAs to combat the mob.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
At that point, I was slated to go to Squad
C ten in New York to work the Banana organized
crime family. Jeff and I became partners, and the rest
is history. I guess.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
So, how would this work? How would a few accountants
accomplish what it had taken hundreds of FBI personnel to
do before them.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
The idea of forensic accounting isn't just crunching numbers. That's
what regular accountants do. What the forensic accountants do is
put those numbers into the organized crime context. What here
is legitimate money, what is bad money?
Speaker 1 (15:12):
And if the numbers added up, the results would prove
to be even more reliable than human witnesses.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Bank records don't change. You can kill an informant, you
can bribe people, you can do all manner of things,
But you can't change the records that are in the
banking system. They're always lurking there, and many of them
you don't even know exist, And it's great evidence.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
The fact is that at its heart, the mob is
all about money, and who better to trace a money
trail than an accountant.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
One thing Jeff always said was what do financial records
tell you? Well, they give you leads like cut off
the numbers, and it gives you a pattern of life,
Like if we look at any one of our statements,
it's a financial surveillance, like, oh, you like to go
to Chipotle, you shop at Target, this is where you vacation.
(16:09):
Who are you getting money from and who are you
sending money to? And why look at someone's tax returns,
especially a mob boss. Why are they getting W two's
from particular corporations they're clearly not working there. Look at
the in and outflows of money, and then understand the
(16:29):
people behind them, and then you look into those people
and figure out who will actually talk to you, look
for the weak link.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
And the plan was to deploy these methods against the
boss of bosses, Joe Messino. But even Jack had to
admit this was a bit out of his wheelhouse.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
I mean, I had taken some accounting classes in community college,
but I was no forensic account and I didn't know
what I was looking for when I subpoenaed bank records.
Unless it said in the memo loan shark payment, I
would have had no idea what it was I was
looking at.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Luckily, his agents were experts in decoding the secrets in
the stacks of checks, bank statements, and shady receipts that
had accumulated from years of property seizures.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
As I recall, Jeff was the first to arrive, and
I had a box of these checks that from when
I was a case agent. Well, he opens his box
up and starts going through the box, and he goes, oh,
this is evidence of structuring. Oh, this is evidence of
money learning. Oh this is evidence of tax of asion.
Speaker 5 (17:36):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I don't, Frank, I'm looking at the same stuff he said.
He is, Hakim, I don't see what he sees. I said,
I'm going to take whatever's in my head about the
Banano family and put it in your head, and you
mix it up with your accounting skills and see what
you can do.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Armed with pencils, paper and their trusty Excel spreadsheets, Kim
and Jeff got to work sorting through thousands of documents
in putting the pieces together. The endgame, follow the money
and hit them where it hurts.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Traditionally, an organized crime, you sort of expect to go
to jail at some point in your career, but what
you don't expect is when the government takes your money
away while you're in jail. So that was what we
had planned. Not only do we want to put them
in jail, but we want to take all their money,
or we want to have that hanging over their head
(18:28):
that maybe they will talk to us for the first time.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
They decided to start right at the top with Joe
Messino and his underboss, sal Vitali, who was also his
brother in law.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
They had the same CPA. So the first thing we did,
as our nerdy accountant selves, was we subpoenaed their accounting records.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Not wiretaps, not stakeouts of smoke filled social clubs, receipts,
stacks and stacks of receipts. Safe to say, this was
a whole new side of the FBI.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
I always kind of laugh because you had some old
school agents on the squad who were going out on
surveillance every day or doing old school type of things.
And how excited were Jeff and I when we brought
back nine boxes of financial records and were filling in
Excel spreadsheets.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
I'm shaking my head because I would have walked by
your office so fast.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
I was like, and that's exactly what most people did,
but to us, like, we're so excited, So I don't
think anyone wanted to be on our team at that point.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
And the gangsters themselves weren't their only targets. It was
also their facilitators, the network of people who were helping
them move their money and attempt to disguise it as legitimate,
which led to the uncovering of one of the more
novel laundering schemes in criminal history. If you actually believe
their tax returns, Messino, Vitally and their respective wives were
(20:01):
among the luckiest people in New York. Why they were
reporting thousands and thousands of dollars of lottery winnings.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
Yeah, we see that on their tax returns. Joe, sal Josie, Diana,
They're all winning the lottery at various points. Anyone around
Joe Messino is winning the lottery all the time. We
knew that really wasn't real. That was a way for
him to launder his money. It would have been clever
if maybe they just won it once, but with the
(20:33):
volume of times that they and their friends or family
members won it, it just obviously became a red flag
for us.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Here's the scheme, as Messino and Vitally imagined it. You
have a lot of cash from a legal activity, and
you need to clean it to make it look like
it was earned legitimately.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
And in New York there's a lot of bodegas. The
owners of the bodegas, these are the people selling the
lottery tickets. So I have a lot of cash and
I tell the owner, Hey, if someone wins the lottery,
I'd like to buy their ticket. Because that legitimate person
who wins the lottery, they have to claim it, they
have to pay taxes on it, and that's less money
(21:16):
for them. But if Joe Mosino buys your lottery ticket
from you, you get more money. You don't have to
claim it on your taxes. He doesn't care about paying
the taxes on it because he has so much cash
that he needs to legitimize. And that's sort of the
way the scheme worked.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
But their lucky streak would eventually run out, partly due
to the FBI's work with an unlikely partner, Barry Weinberg.
He was our first big break. Barry Weinberg was the
owner of several parking lots in Lower Manhattan. His name
was nowhere on the Banana Org chart, but it kept
(21:56):
popping up on checks to and from Messino and wives.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
We're just wondering why the boss and the underboss' wives
are receiving income from parking lots in Lower Manhattan. In particular,
we're wondering why a man by the name of Barry
Weinberg is receiving checks from Messino and Vitally. Let's figure
out who he is and what he's all about.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Well, it turns out that Barry was a character almost
as colorful as the gangsters he was in bed with.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
Barry Weinberg was a very successful businessman who was infatuated
with the mob. He was an associate of Richie Cantarella.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Richie Cantrella was a Banano captain and confidant of sal Vitally.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
Barry Weinberg owned parking lot leases all over Manhattan, super wealthy,
and he was pretty much extored out of a portion
of those leases and forced to sell to the wives
of Joe Messino and Salvatally so that they could legitimize
their income.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
So Weinberg was a victim of the bananas, but also
an accomplice who walked the fine line between the legitimate
and criminal worlds of New York City.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
In vision like an older, wheeling, dealing guy in Lower Manhattan,
chain smoking, super nervous, always had a cigarette in his hand.
He once described W two wage earners as schmucks, and
then Jeff and I just looked at him, like, you
do realize that we are W two wage earners And
(23:47):
he's like, oh, sorry, sorry, you know, very fast talking.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
He was just a character. And in addition, Barry had
an achilles heel that Kim and Jeff were happy to exploit.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
Barry's downfall was that he liked really young women, and
he had a lot of ex wives, and he had
a lot of children, and he didn't like to pay
his taxes. I think he had evaded close to fourteen
million dollars in income taxes with his various businesses.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Money that largely went right back out the door in
the form of alimony and child support.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
We sort of assessed that Barry Weinberg was not the
type of guy who was willing to go to prison.
So our plan and our hope was to arrest Barry
in a covert way without anyone in the family knowing
about it, and to have Barry make a decision whether
he wanted to go in front of the magistrate judge
(24:51):
that day for his tax evasion crimes, or he wanted
to go along his normal daily activities but wearing a
wire for the FBI.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
And so Kim and Jeff partnered with the n MIPD
to affect a car stop of Weinberg's Mercedes, careful to
do it far from the prying eyes of Banano spies.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
We were close behind in a van and then they
asked him to get out of the car and they
put him in the van and he met Jeff and
I for the first time. He was pretty surprised to
meet us that day. We just introduced ourselves and we
basically gave him his options and it took him about
ten seconds to decide. He said, where were you six
(25:34):
months ago? Give me the wire for Barry Weinberg. Loyalty
took a back seat to self preservation. It was the
first piece in a case against the Last Dawn, one
that wouldn't just lead to charges of tax evasion and
money laundering, but the murder of one of his oldest friends,
Sonny Black. Nepolitano. Special agent Jack Stubink's team of forensic
(26:10):
accountants had tracked payments to and from Banano boss Joe
Messino to a New York businessman named Barry Weinberg. Not
one to entertain a lengthy prison term, Weinberg quickly agreed
to cooperate, and he would do it the old fashioned
way by.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Wearing a wire.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
Part of his decision was one he was not willing
to go to jail, but two because a few months prior,
he was actually assaulted by Richie Kintarella. Although Barry had
made the Banano family a ton of money, they felt
that it wasn't enough, and he got beat.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Up because he wasn't earning enough or producing enough.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
I mean that's what they thought. But he literally had
made them millions of dollars. They basically said, I hate
these guys, and give me the wire and I'll do
whatever you need me to do. We wired him up
right then and there. We didn't want to change his pattern.
We didn't want anything to change, so he literally went
right back out wearing.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
A recording device, and just like that, the forensic accountants
were back to using human intel and assuming all the
risk that goes with it. After all, this was not
a low stakes game. If Weinberg was suspected of working
with the Feds, there was a good chance he wouldn't
be left to run parking lots. He'd be buried under one.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Barry hung out with Richie Cantarella and his crew pretty
much every Monday through Thursday at Deniko's. It was a
restaurant in Little Italy. Our goal with Barry was to
have him just wear that wire every day and just
see what they talked about.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
The slick haired Richie Cantarella, also known as s Lackhead,
was Banano captain who had once murdered his own cousin
at the behest of Joe Messino, and thanks to his
extortion of Barry Weinberg, he, along with Messino and Vitali,
was also the proud co owner of several parking lots
(28:15):
in Lower Manhattan.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
And what Barry did explain was when the wives of
Joe and Sal purchased interests in the parking lots. They
were not for what they were worth. He was told
to do that and he really had no choice. So
that's what those checks were for, was for their interests
in the parking lots, which now they earned income from
(28:39):
working there. And that's how Richie earned all of his
money too.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
It's extortion.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
It's no show jobs because they're definitely not working there.
They couldn't even tell you where those parking lots were.
Everything that Barry made, he was supposed to give a
portion to Richie, who then gave it to Joe and Salar.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Lots like windows in concrete were not sexy, but they
were profitable, and they turned out to be a lynchpin
in dismantling a much larger criminal enterprise. I can't stress
how integral Barry was. I don't know that anyone would have.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Cared or noticed who he was if we didn't find
those three checks that were written to him. Through the
work that he did, we got a lot on.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Richie thanks to Weinberg's wire, the FBI collected over one
hundred tapes of incriminating statements from Cantarella and his crew,
and in October of two thousand and two, Richie Cantrella
was arrested and charged in a twenty four count Rico indictment.
Also arrested another Banano captain named Frank Copa. It became
(29:49):
a race to see which made man would be the
first to flip to Cantrella's dismay. Copa beat him to
the punch.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
Although Barry broke it open and Frank Copa crushed it.
We thought we were arresting him on an extortion charge
against Barry Weinberg that he was going to face eighteen
months until Frank told us about the murder of Sunny
Black Napolitano, and I will tell you the truth. We
(30:18):
had no idea he was involved in that murder, or
that fifteen other people were involved in that murder. Joe
Messino was involved in that homicide. There was a setup crew,
there was a murder crew, and there was a cleanup crew,
so multiple people involved, and we were like, wow, okay.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
The murder of Dominic Sonny Black Neapolitano was the violent
finale of the most infamous chapter of Mafia. Lore Neapolitano
was the Banano captain that would forever be known as
the man who allowed an undercover FBI agent named Jopstone
to work undetected for nearly sake years within the Banano organization.
(31:03):
FBI agent Joseph B.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
Stone was known to the underworld as Donnie Bresco, a
trusted Jules thief who leaders of the Banano family promised
eventual membership in the Cosa Nostra.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Unsurprisingly, the price for Napolitano's mistake was his life. It
would be Sunny Black's murder that would ultimately bring the
entire Banano family to its knees because, according to Frank Copa,
Joe Messino, the last on himself, was directly involved in
the hit, and when it came to bringing indictments against
(31:37):
the mob, a murder charge just hits harder.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Frank Copa when he starts talking about the murders. Now
people are facing life in prison, that's a different story
than facing eighteen months.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
But still they were a long way from the finish line.
To make those charges stick, they would need the help
of another unassuming star of the criminal justice system.
Speaker 5 (32:03):
Mitra Hermosi. And I was an Assistant United States Attorney
in the Eastern District of New York, working in the
Organized Crime and Racketeering section of the Criminal Division.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Much like Jack Steubing's accounting acolytes, Mitra did not take
a typical path to her career as a federal prosecutor.
Speaker 5 (32:24):
Born in Brooklyn, I am the child of immigrants. But
my parents were like, Okay, you have three options in life, doctor, lawyer,
or professor. And I'm like, I don't love science that much,
and professor who wants to get a PhD. So I
ended up as a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
But what she never expected was that just a few
years into her career she would be taking on the mob.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
Did I think I would be in the organized crime section.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
No? Never.
Speaker 5 (32:57):
It seemed so in tense and stressful, and it was
a lot of trial work, and you have to think
on your feet, and there's these defendants from very violent
people to very sophisticated business people.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
And talk about baptism by fire. In two thousand and one,
after the indictments of Frank Coopa and Richie Cantrella, Mietro
was tasked with prosecuting a case against the most powerful
mob boss in New York, Joe Messino.
Speaker 5 (33:29):
So I'd been in the OC unit for just under
a year. I'd been working on Columbo matter cases and
the Messino case had been the brainchild like the blood,
sweat and tears of a prosecutor who was a couple
of years senior Greg Andres, and he really needed help.
It had gotten so big, a really large racketeering case,
(33:52):
and so I said, all right, let's bring Mitre to
help you. Then the next couple of years we're just
all Banano all the time.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
And at the center of that case was unraveling the who,
what and why of Sonny Black's murder.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
One of the Coosinoustra rules is if you vouch for
a guy and he turns bed, it's on you and
the penalty could be death.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
And as Jack Stubing explains, according to Frank Copa, it
was Joe Messino himself who demanded that his close friend
Sonny Black pay the ultimate price.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
He was going to kill Lefty guns Gerio, the soldier
in Sonny Black's crew who formed the closest friendship with
Donnie Brasco. And the reason that Lefty was not killed
was because the FBI came and scooped him up off
the street and arrested him and play him in prison.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Sonny Black would not be so lucky. In Messino's own words,
he had to end, I quote give him a receipt
for the Donny Brasco situation.
Speaker 5 (34:58):
Sonny Black's death was the first murder charge we had
for Messino. Sonny had brought Donnie Brasco in didn't realize
he was an FBI agent. They never forgave him for
doing that. So Sonny Black had to be murdered.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
And so while the nineteen eighty one hit may have
served mob justice, it might also prove to be Messino's downfall.
Speaker 5 (35:22):
The beautiful part about a racketeering case is you could
go back thirty forty years. There can only be a
ten year gap between crimes. But as long as you
have a criminal activity every ten years and the last
one being within two three years of indictment, then you
can go back to their teenage years for the criminal
(35:44):
conduct you charge.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
So, despite Sonny Black's murder happening over thirty years prior,
Messino could still go down. Here's Cam again on the
team tasked with making those charges stick.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
We had three prosecutors, Greg andres Mita, Hermosi and Robert Hennock.
Greg was the lead, and then they broke it up
by cooperators. Each prosecutor handled certain cooperators and witnesses.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
The three pronged attack was critical in managing the cooperating witnesses,
which now included Frank Coopa, Richie Cantarella, Barry Weinberg, and
another Banano associate named Augustinos Gazzari. All of the men
were being offered a chance to testify against their boss.
Speaker 5 (36:34):
Not one is allowed to talk to, or see or
hear from anyone else because you don't want them trying
to coordinate stories. So they cooperate, they're plucked out, they're
put somewhere, depending on who they are, a safe house,
a prison, or the like, and it's a lonely life
for them for a while then, because they're by themselves
(36:55):
for the most part, and they're not allowed to talk
to friends or family.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
So let's talk a little about the cooperation process. If
you believe what you see on TV, flipping a witness
can seem to be only about using threats of jail
time to coerce damning testimony from a suspect who would
otherwise be prosecuted for another crime. But in reality, securing
cooperation and testimony you can use in court is not
(37:23):
so baldly transactional or so easy it can be a
long process. You have to build trust and most importantly,
ensure that the information you are getting is completely true.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
When they decide to cooperate, we sort of go through
their whole history, so they pretty much have to tell
us about every crime they've committed, whether they've been indicted
for it or not. We have to make sure they're
truthful because you know, as a prosecutor, if they then
get on the stand and they didn't tell us something,
or they didn't plead guilty to something that they did,
(37:59):
that is going to basically taint their entire testimony. And
that is the job of a defense attorney to ruin
their credibility.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Even when you're dealing with career criminals, their testimony can
be as good as anyone's as long as the witness
is believable.
Speaker 5 (38:17):
What people I think don't appreciate is how much time
you end up spending with a witness one to see
are they being truthful? Can we give them a cooperation agreement?
Because most witnesses think, oh, eighty percent of the truth
is fine, right, Like maybe I can just delete myself
(38:39):
from that murder, right, like who cares there?
Speaker 3 (38:42):
Or other people?
Speaker 5 (38:43):
And so there's a little bit of back and forth
with them to make them realize, like, no, if you
want to cooperate, you have to tell us everything right,
every criminal activity that you have committed, and then we
have to corroborate it, because otherwise there's no point. So
it's a ton of work leading up to granting someone
(39:05):
a cooperation agreement saying I trust them they're being truthful
about every act of violence or criminal activity or everything
they've said.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
The most important witness so far in the government's case
against Messino was Richie Cantrella. He was the one whose
voice was most often captured on Weinberg's hidden wire.
Speaker 5 (39:28):
Richie Canerella ended up being my cooperator, and he was
very high up in the organization, acting underboss at some point.
And so I go to this big meeting with Richie.
There's all the agents, Kim and Jeff and Greg's there,
and he's talking about a murder. He's like, oh, yep, yep.
So we were in the house, we were going down
(39:50):
the stairs and then he was dead. We all were like,
he was dead, Huh, how did that happen? Did he
have a heart attack, struck by lightning?
Speaker 3 (40:01):
What happened?
Speaker 5 (40:02):
Well, no, he was shot, and so you're just like, Okay, Ritchie,
who shot him? Finally, you know, after like forty five minutes,
he's like, I shot him. It was a learning experience
for Richie as well, to be like, Okay, I have
to be fully honest about how the murders occurred, who
(40:26):
was there, and who did.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
What, Considering how much Cantrella knew it would not be
a short process, and that can lead to an unlikely
familiarity between prosecutors and witnesses, which is actually a critical
element of establishing trust.
Speaker 5 (40:44):
For that year or two where he's now in a
safe house and we're visiting him at least once or
twice a week. You walk in and mitrad, did you
see the view?
Speaker 3 (40:56):
You know?
Speaker 5 (40:56):
And he would talk to me about his favorite TV show,
with the kind of clothes he bought his wife and
what did I think, do you think she'll like something?
So it becomes a funny rapport you have with them.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
There was one story in particular that put Richie's gallows
humor on full display.
Speaker 5 (41:18):
I had gotten engaged before joining this case with the
thought of, Okay, you'll be married within a year, let's say,
But this case took so much time and it was
supposed to go to trial, but then the trials kept
getting delayed and my wedding kept getting delayed, which I
didn't mind. But at some point I'm with Richie and
(41:42):
he sits and goes to Meumitra, what's going on with
your fiance. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like,
you need me to send someone to talk to him. No, Richie,
He's like, all right, you just let me know. Like, Richie,
you're not supposed to be saying stuff like that anymore.
You're a changed man, right, He's like, no, No, I'm
just saying, you know, sometimes men need a little talking to.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
Cantrella's cooperation proved to be the tipping point. Slowly, prosecutors
gathered more names, which led to more arrests, which led
to more cooperating witnesses.
Speaker 5 (42:17):
You start out with one individual, he then has so
much information. Once he cooperates, you're able to go after two, three, four,
and then it was like a domino.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Effect among mobsters. The writing was on the wall, flip
now or face the music.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
At this point, we have multiple people talking to us,
we have multiple murders. There's just so many different parts.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
And Jack's plan is starting to work.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
Oh gosh, yeah, it was working from like day two,
but it's just exploded at this point.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
For Mitrin her fellow prosecutors, it was an embarrassment of riches,
but not always so glamorous.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
All of them.
Speaker 5 (43:02):
I had to travel. They're in prison at the time,
right Like, we're not treating them to a fancy hotel.
A couple were in safe houses. We would be staying
at like little divy hotels. Visiting these people all throughout
the country and prisons, spending hours upon hours prepping these
witnesses in these locations. I'll choke. I've spent more time
(43:25):
in prisons than people who have actually committed some crimes.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
For many of these career criminals, they were not just
giving up their bosses and in some cases their families.
They were betraying their identity, their entire way of life.
One cooperating witness was Richie Cantarella's cousin, Joey Demico.
Speaker 5 (43:49):
When he first came in to cooperate, he was really
struggling with cooperating and at one point he had cut
his wrists. He walks in to meet us and his
lawyer is like, oh, Joey, not his head's not in
a good place. But he was also a very good
witness for us.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
And sometimes the burden of cooperating was easier for some
than others, like in the case of James Tartaglioni, also
known as Big Louie.
Speaker 5 (44:19):
Big Louie, he ends up wearing a wire and gets
really great evidence. As I'm preparing him, we're just talking
about his testimony, and he says, you know, the good
thing is Mitro. Whatever happens, I know I'm going to heaven.
And I just looked at him and thought, Okay, murders
(44:41):
be damned right, because he was involved in several murders.
And I'm like, what about the murders. He's like, but
that's work, Metro, it's work that doesn't count. I go
to church, I'm really good to the grandkids.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
Work is work, like okay.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
But of all all the mobsters that became cooperators, none
was a bigger get than Messino's second in command, sal Vitali.
Speaker 4 (45:09):
Salvitally was Joe Messino's underboss, and he was also his
brother in law. Josie Messino and Salvatally were brother and sister.
When Joe and Josie got together. Sal was young, like
seven years old. Joe was like a brother to Sal.
Speaker 5 (45:28):
Messino taught him how to swim. They'd known each other
since they were kids, and they were partners right they
were involved in the Three Captain's murders together. As Messino
rose in the organization, he took Vitally with him. Sal
just was Messino's right hand all throughout Messino's career.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
But in the epic saga that is the American Mafia,
a proximity to power just feeds the desire for more,
and Sal and Joe's relationship was destined to say, especially
when Messino had to do a short stint in prison
for a hijacking conviction and left Vitally in charge of
the family. Here again is Jack stubing.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
With the rise of Vitally as the underboss. It's my
personal opinion that he probably got a little too big
for his breeches. I mean it's not he won't be
the first guy who was a number two guy who
temporarily became the number one guy and said, Jesus pretty good,
I like it. He started pressing the capos for more tribute.
(46:37):
I have heard that he was disrespectful to some of
his underlings. He started to lose support within the family
and he got a little too comfortable in his acting
boss slot, and Messino began to distrust him as a result.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
When Messino was back on the street, tensions came to
go ahead.
Speaker 5 (47:01):
And then once Messino's out of prison, I think he
just got so many other people saying bad things about Vitalian,
claiming that Vitali isn't as loyal to Messino as he thinks.
There's no honor among thieves. Then Messino's like, fine, let's
kill Vitally.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
Knowing his life was in danger. Made Vitali the perfect
candidate to turn against Messino. It would be an act
of self preservation with perhaps a side of revenge.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Next time on Law and Order Criminal Justice System.
Speaker 4 (47:42):
Joe Messino practically raised Salvitally, and here he was betraying
a family oath.
Speaker 5 (47:49):
The tension, it was palpable, the glares, the death stairs
that are coming.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
When you really know what this life is. The movies
portrayed of this otherhood of honorable men, hello of crap.
Speaker 5 (48:03):
I couldn't tell you who the boss of the Genoese
crime family was today if you asked me to bat order,
because I don't even know that the.
Speaker 3 (48:09):
Government knows.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
Law and order criminal Justice System is a production of
Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts. Our host is Anna Sega Nicolazzi.
This episode was written by Walker Lamond and Anna Sega Nicolazzi.
Executive produced by Dick Wolf, Elliott Wolf, and Stephen Michael
at Wolf Entertainment on behalf of iHeartRadio. Executive produced by
(48:39):
Alex Williams and Matt Frederick, with supervising producers Trevor Young
and Chandler Mays and producers Jesse Funk, Noams Griffin and
Riema Elkali. This season is executive produced by Anna Seagan Nicolazzi,
story producer Walker Lamond, Our research are Carolyn Talmage and
(49:01):
Luke's dance editing in sound design by Rima Alkali, original
music by John O'Hara, original theme by Mike Post, additional
music by Steve Moore, and additional voice over by me
Steve Zernkelton. Special thanks to Fox five in New York,
(49:22):
ABC and CBS for providing archival material for the show.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio and Wolf Entertainment, visit the
iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or Wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Thanks for listening.
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