Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
PROLOGUE
BROOKLYN, MAY 5, 1981
CHAPTER 1
AGRIGENTO PROVINCE, SICILY, 2006
CATTOLICA ERACLEA, SICILY, 1924
NEW ORLEANS, JANUARY 19, 1925
CHAPTER 2
HARLEM, 1928
PASSAIC, NEW JERSEY, 1931
WASHINGTON, D.C., 1932
CHAPTER 3
CATTOLICA ERACLEA, 1940s
CHAPTER 4
HALIFAX, CANADA, FEBRUARY 1954
MONTREAL, 1950s
CHAPTER 5
PALERMO, SICILY, OCTOBER 1957
NEW YORK, 1960
MONTREAL, 1960s
CHAPTER 6
BOUCHERVILLE, QUEBEC, MAY 16, 1968
MONTREAL AND TORONTO, NOVEMBER 1966
CHAPTER 7
MONTREAL, 1969
MONTREAL, DECEMBER 1972
NEW YORK, EARLY 1970s
CHAPTER 8
CATANIA, SICILY, 1972
CHAPTER 9
MONTREAL, MAY 1972
MONTREAL, SEPTEMBER 1972
CHAPTER 10
CARACAS, VENEZUELA, 1973
CHAPTER 11
MANHATTAN, AUGUST 1973
MONTREAL, 1974
MONTREAL, 1975
CHAPTER 12
QUEENS, NOVEMBER 4, 1976
BROOKLYN, 1977
MONTREAL, 1977
CHAPTER 13
MONTREAL, FEBRUARY 1976
MONTREAL, LATE JANUARY 1978
CHAPTER 14
MANHATTAN, JULY 1978
VALLEY STREAM, LONG ISLAND, JUNE 5, 1979
BROOKLYN, JULY 12, 1979
CHAPTER 15
MANHATTAN, NOVEMBER 16, 1980
CHAPTER 16
FIUMICINO AIRPORT, ROME, 1980
CHAPTER 17
BROOKLYN, SPRING 1981
CATTOLICA ERACLEA, SICILY
CHAPTER 18
BROOKLYN, SPRING 1981
CHAPTER 19
BROOKLYN, MAY 5, 1981
THE BRONX, MAY 6, 1981
QUEENS, MAY 24, 1981
QUEENS, FALL 1981
CHAPTER 20
ATLANTIC OCEAN, OFF SAVANNAH, GEORGIA, MAY 6, 1982
NEW YORK, EARLY 1980s
CHAPTER 21
THE BRONX, SUMMER 1981
CHAPTER 22
MANHATTAN, JANUARY 1985
MONTREAL, SPRING 1992
CHAPTER 23
CARACAS, VENEZUELA, 1982
CARACAS, FEBRUARY 1988
MONTREAL, SPRING 1993
CHAPTER 24
IRELAND’S EYE, ATLANTIC COAST, OCTOBER 1987
SEPT-ÎLES, QUEBEC, OCTOBER 1988
MONTREAL, SUMMER 1989
ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND, FALL 1990
CHAPTER 25
WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA, 1993
LAKE WORTH, FLORIDA, 1993
CHAPTER 26
CENTRAL SQUARE, NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 1993
CORNWALL, ONTARIO, AUTUMN 1994
CHAPTER 27
MONTREAL, DECEMBER 1993
PUERTO CABELLO, VENEZUELA, DECEMBER 1994
MONTREAL, JANUARY 1995
MONTREAL, JUNE 3, 1995
CHAPTER 28
NEW YORK AND MONTREAL, 1994
CHAPTER 29
LUGANO, SWITZERLAND, AUGUST 1994
MONTREAL, EARLY SEPTEMBER 1990
COAST OF COLOMBIA, AUGUST 17, 1994
MONTREAL, AUGUST 30, 1994
BERN, SWITZERLAND, AUGUST 31, 1994
MONTREAL, MARCH 1995
CHAPTER 30
QUEENS, JUNE 1991
LOWER MANHATTAN, MAY 1992
MONTREAL, JULY 1991
MANHATTAN, FEBRUARY 1995
CHAPTER 31
LONG ISLAND, MARCH 1999
BROOKLYN, MARCH 1999
WHITE PLAINS, NEW YORK, MARCH 1999
MONTREAL, 2001
CHAPTER 32
MONTREAL, 1990
TORONTO, APRIL 1993
SAINT-DONAT, QUEBEC, FEBRUARY 1995
CHAPTER 33
MONTREAL, 1995
MONTREAL, APRIL 2000
MONTREAL, MARCH 2001
CHAPTER 34
TORONTO, JANUARY 2001
CHAPTER 35
TORONTO, JULY 15, 1998
TORONTO, SUMMER 2000
TORONTO, OCTOBER 3, 2000
WOODBRIDGE, ONTARIO, OCTOBER 2001
TORONTO, MAY 2002
MONTREAL, MAY 30, 2002
CHAPTER 36
MONTREAL, MAY 21, 2003
CHAPTER 37
MONTREAL, JANUARY 20, 2004
BROOKLYN, DECEMBER 31, 2003
MONTREAL, JANUARY 2004
NEW YORK AND MONTREAL, JANUARY 20, 2004
CHAPTER 38
NEW YORK, 2001
BOCA RATON, FLORIDA, MARCH 2002
BROOKLYN, OCTOBER 2002
CHAPTER 39
BROOKLYN, JULY 30, 2004
QUEENS, FALL 2004
CHAPTER 40
BROOKLYN, MAY 2004
OTTAWA, 2005
MONTREAL, AUGUST 6, 2004
BROOKLYN, 2005
CHAPTER 41
LAVAL, QUEBEC, MARCH 2005
MONTREAL, MAY 2005
ROME, FEBRUARY 2005
NEW YORK, AUGUST 17, 2006
CHAPTER 42
LAVAL, QUEBEC, SEPTEMBER 14, 2006
MONTREAL, JUNE 2003
MONTREAL, AUGUST 30, 2006
MONTREAL AND LAVAL, NOVEMBER 6, 2006
MONTREAL, NOVEMBER 22, 2006
EPILOGUE
PRINCIPAL SOURCES AND REFERENCES
Acknowledgements
INDEX
About the Authors
Care has been taken to trace ownership of copyright material contained in this text; however, the publisher will welcome any information that enables them to rectify any reference or credit for subsequent editions.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Lamothe, Lee, 1948-The sixth family : the collapse of the New York Mafia and the rise of Vito
Rizzuto / Lee Lamothe & Adrian Humphreys.—Rev. ed.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN : 978-0-470-73832-0
1. Rizzuto, Vito. 2. Bonanno family. 3. Mafia—United States—Biography. 4. Mafia—Canada—Biography. 5. Heroin industry—United States. 6. Drug traffic—United States. 7. Mafia—New York (State)—New York—History. 8. Mafia—Québec (Province)—Montréal—History.
I. Humphreys, Adrian, 1965- II. Title.
HV6452.N48L.1092 C2007-906344-6
Production Credits
Printer: Friesens
John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
6045 Freemont Blvd.
Mississauga, Ontario
L5R 4J3
FP
To the memory of my mother
Elsie Mae Lamothe (December 4, 1919 - March 20, 2006)
—L.L.
To the memory of my grandfather
H.G. Humphreys (March 12, 1905 - June 19, 2001)
—A.H.
Q: How many organized crime families are there in New York?
A: Five.
Q: What are the names of the five New York crime families?
A: Lucchese, Gambino, Colombo and the Genovese.
Q: And what’s the fifth family?
A: Us, the Bonanno Family.
—Testimony of Salvatore “Good-Looking Sal” Vitale, former
underboss of the Bonanno
Mafia family, United States
Courthouse, Brooklyn, New York, June 28, 2004.
“For the past 25 years, Montreal has been the key that turns the lock of America. The one holding that key becomes the pinnacle. … The Rizzuto family was able to promise a transport between the Mafias of Europe and the Mafia of America. Riches were promised for all.”
—A leading anti-Mafia investigator with the Carabinieri, Italy’s
federal police force, 2006.
PROLOGUE
BROOKLYN, MAY 5, 1981
“Don’t anybody move. This is a holdup.”
The words were clear despite the muffling effect of a woolen ski mask pulled down over the long, thin face of Vito Rizzuto, a 35-year-old Sicilian who called Canada’s French-speaking city of Montreal his home. Vito was slumming it in New York City this day, more accustomed as he was to receiving nods of respect in Canada and Sicily as the son of a powerful mafioso, or relaxing on the coast of Venezuela, where his family controlled massive drug-trafficking interests. On May 5, 1981, Vito found himself bursting from a closet in a rundown Brooklyn social club, waving a pistol and shouting out stick-’em-up clichés.
It was a casually dressed but powerful group of men who suddenly stopped their chatter and, startled by the sudden appearance of masked and armed men, looked up at Vito and three colleagues as they emerged from the narrow confines of the darkened closet. Gathered before them were the top men in the Bonanno Mafia Family, perhaps the most deadly and storied of New York City’s notorious Five Families, which between them control much of the continent’s underworld. The Bonanno captains, each a leader of crooks operating under the family’s banner, had been summoned to an “administrative meeting” by Joseph Massino, a senior Bonanno captain often called “Big Joey” by his mob colleagues, a nod at first to his substantial girth and later to his position of power. Officially, peace was the sole item on the meeting’s agenda, talks meant to mend an unseemly rift between factions within the family that had grown from quiet disdain to open hostility and brought it to the brink of out-and-out warfare.
Among those in the social club, feeling particularly uncomfortable, were three leading captains who formed the core of opposition to Joseph Massino within the family: Alphonse “Sonny Red” Indelicato, Dominick “Big Trinny” Trinchera and Philip “Philly Lucky” Giaccone. Other gangsters milled about uneasily with them.
Earlier, before the guests started trickling into the private, two-story Brooklyn club, Vito Rizzuto had arrived to make dark preparations with Massino and Salvatore Vitale, a slender New York mobster known as “Good-Looking Sal.” At the time, Vitale was a mere mob associate, but he would go on to become the underboss, the second most powerful position in a Mafia family. Vito allegedly brought with him from Montreal two close mob friends of his own, Emanuele Ragusa, whose daughter would later marry Vito’s son, and a veteran gangster identified by informants only as “the old-timer,” who was likely a Rizzuto relative with ties to the New York underworld.
The club was small and simply laid out; utility was chosen over decor for such private mob moments. Visitors passed through a narrow foyer into an unadorned room with a cloakroom to one side and stairs leading up to an area that was equipped to handle catering but in fact, primarily used to host a modest gambling racket by the club’s ownership group. This group included Salvatore “Sammy Bull” Gravano, who would soon become underboss of the Gambino Family under its notorious boss John Gotti and, later, a spectacular mob turncoat.
“The minute I walked into the club, in the foyer, Vito, Emanuele and the old-timer, we were issued the weapons, told to have ski masks that we’d put [on] in a closet in a coat room,” said Vitale. Vito and Ragusa took pistols and were appointed lead shooters. Vitale was handed a heavy-duty machine gun, what he called a “grease gun” because it blasted automatic gunfire, and the old-timer suitably went old school, taking a sawed-off shotgun. Playing around with his new toy, Vitale accidentally squeezed the trigger, wildly spraying bullets around the club.
“Don’t shoot unless you have to,” Massino scolded him. “I don’t want bullets flying all over the place.” Even mobsters get the jitters.
“We were in the closet, we all had our weapons loaded. We sat there and waited for the doorbell to ring,” said Vitale. “We left the door open a smidge to look out.”
The ringing of the bell at the club’s entrance signaled the arrival of the first of the invited guests.
Vito crouched low, peeking out from his vantage point. Through the swelling crowd and loud chatter from tough men all accustomed to having their say, Vito kept his eyes on one man, Gerlando Sciascia, a fellow Sicilian who was a long-time Rizzuto family friend. Sciascia was easy to pick out because of his thick, silver hair, brushed back off his forehead in a bouffant hairdo that any aging Hollywood hunk would envy. Everyone in the room knew Sciascia; the Americans called him “George from Canada” because he was Montreal’s representative in New York, while the Canadians stuck simply with “George.”
Breathing deeply beneath his mask, Vito watched for the secret signal that would draw him from the closet, a signal that came when Sciascia slowly ran the fingers of his lean, right hand through the silver hair on the side of his head.
That simple act of preening brought mayhem to the social club and radically changed the balance of power. This was not about robbery, despite Vito’s words when he confronted the gangsters. Nothing would be taken but three lives and the rights to an underworld throne.
“Vito led the way,” said Vitale, who was the last to scramble out of the closet. While Vito and Ragusa pointed their guns, Vitale and the old-timer jogged past them to block the club’s exit.
Big Trinny, one of the rebellious captains, seemed the first to realize they had been set up. Bellowing loudly, he threw his full 300 pounds headlong at Vito, who reacted by firing his pistol, making Big Trinny the first to die, although his flab-fueled momentum kept his body hurtling forward while other bullets pounded into him. Philly Lucky appeared to surrender, placing himself against a wall, his hands out-stretched. His submission was in vain. Peppered with bullets, he slid to the floor, dying from multiple bullet wounds to his head and chest.
Sonny Red turned on the heels of his brown cowboy boots and made a go at fleeing. In his bright orange T-shirt, however, he was an easy target. A shot to the back sliced through his backbone and burst out his chest. A second bullet hit him in his left side and whistled under the skin across the length of his rib cage before breaking through the flesh on his other flank; with its momentum suddenly sapped, the battered .38-caliber slug could not even pierce the fabric of his shirt a second time, falling instead into its blood-soaked folds. Sonny Red stumbled to the ground. Sciascia, anxious to join the fray, pulled out a pistol he had tucked in the back of his pants, pointed it down at the struggling gangster and fired it once into his left ear. The bullet tore downward through Sonny’s head, whipped out through his right cheek and grazed his right shoulder before slamming into the floor. The rebellion was over.