Inside the American Mob (2013–…): Season 1, Episode 4 - Taking Down the Mob - full transcript

DEVECCHIO: Greg Scarpa was

a well-respected and feared
member of the Colombo family.

He'd done a lot of work for
the family - work-meaning hits.

A limousine driver

used to take his
daughter to school,

and there was a point in time
when the limo driver tried

to assault his daughter.

And Scarpa, he went out
and gave the guy a pretty

sound beating. And it wasn't
enough for him.

Shortly thereafter
the limo driver was

shot to death and his body was
dumped on one of the streets



of Brooklyn.

Now, one day I ask him,
I say, there was a body

found in Brooklyn on such and
such a street, and he smiled.

He didn't say anything, but the
smile told me he did the work;

he knew I knew he did the work.

None of my top echelon
informants would ever tell me

that they committed a murder.

Indicate to me, maybe? Yes.

Tell me they did it?
No. So if you

want the information on that
secret society how else are you

going to get it if you
don't talk to killers,

people that are criminals,
there's no way you're going

to get that information.

I mean, you're going to get
it from what, your priest?



Your rabbi? Local deli guy?
That's not happening.

NARRATOR: IT'S THE EARLY 1980S.

THE SECRET SOCIETY KNOWN AS LA
COSA NOSTRA REMAINS THE MOST

POWERFUL ORGANIZED CRIME
FORCE IN THE COUNTRY,

UNTOUCHED BY THE LAW.

MOB BOSSES BRAZENLY GUN DOWN
THEIR OWN MEMBERS INCLUDING

OTHER BOSSES IN THE
STREETS OF NEW YORK CITY.

JOE COLOMBO, JOE GALLO, CARMINE
GALANTE, SONNY BLACK NAPOLITANO,

SONNY RED INDELICATO.

SOMETHING HAS TO GIVE.

GIULIANI: This is not just a
group of individual criminals,

not just individual crimes.
It's not even just a conspiracy.

This is a long-term, 30, 40, 50
year old organized business.

And the business is committing
murder, committing extortion,

committing gambling

But I always thought there were
delusions of grandeur with these

people. Garbage. It's a
really bad organization.

And let's expose it
and get rid of it.

NARRATOR: THESE MEN ARE
WITNESSES TO THAT SECRET

HISTORY, STEPPING OUT OF THE
SHADOWS TO TELL THEIR STORIES

FIRSTHAND.

SOME REMAIN CONCEALED
FOR PERSONAL SAFETY,

FEARFUL OF AN ORGANIZATION THAT
HAS NEVER TRULY BEEN BROUGHT

TO JUSTICE.

BUT THE ARRIVAL OF THIS
AMBITIOUS YOUNG PROSECUTOR,

RUDOLPH GIULIANI, IN THE 1980S,
MARKS THE BEGINNING OF A CRUSADE

THAT WOULD SHAKE THE
MAFIA TO ITS CORE.

HE KNOWS THE MOB FIRST HAND
FROM THE STREETS OF BROOKLYN.

GIULIANI: My father

would describe anybody who
operated in a gang as a bully.

If you need 2 or 3 men to fight
your battles you're not a real

man, my father- a real man
can fight his own battles.

NARRATOR: BY THE TIME
HE BECOMES THE U.S. ATTORNEY

FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT
OF NEW YORK IN 1983,

GIULIANI SEES THE
MAFIA AS HIS BATTLE.

GIULIANI: It was very, very
helpful that Italian American

was doing this.

I realized that I could
play a unique role;

that my name helped to be able
to deal with this more honestly.

I thought I could just say
the truth, there is a mafia,

it does exist,

Italian Americans are the
exclusive members of it,

it's a disgrace to
Italian Americans,

it's a disgrace to America,

and the best thing for
us to do is wipe it out.

No criminal organization in
the history of our country

has ever infiltrated legitimate
institutions of society,

including our political
institutions,

the way the mafia
was able to do.

This was tremendous power.

NARRATOR: IN ORDER TO
BRING DOWN THAT POWER,

GIULIANI MUST TARGET THE
LEADERSHIP OF THE MAFIA

A HANDFUL OF MEN KNOWN
COLLECTIVELY AS THE COMMISSION,

THE BOSSES OF THE FIVE NEW
YORK CRIME FAMILIES: GAMBINO,

COLOMBO, BONANNO,
GENOVESE, AND LUCCHESE.

GIULIANI: The New York
commission truly governed

the five families
in New York City

and had very specific powers.

LEONETTI: The commission
is like our supreme court.

CHERTOFF: It's like the board
of directors of a company.

WALDEN: The commission was
the body that was supposed

to resolve all disputes
among the five families,

settle grievances, decide
whether to authorize murders

and divide the booty.
I think it's fair

to say that they were
trying to keep the peace.

GIULIANI: If the Bonanno
family wanted to kill somebody

in the Genovese family

then that had to go
to the commission,

and there had to
be a vote on it.

It was a business.

NARRATOR: KEY TO THAT BUSINESS
IS A CODE OF SILENCE,

A CODE THAT HAS BEEN IN
PLACE FOR FIVE DECADES.

BUT IN 1983, THE LEGENDARY
RETIRED BOSS OF THE BONANNO

FAMILY, JOE BONANNO, FLAGRANTLY
BREAKS THAT TRADITION

AND PUBLISHES THIS TELL-ALL
BOOK, MAN OF HONOR.

GIULIANI READS THAT BOOK AND
RECOGNIZES INSTANTLY WHAT

BONANNO HAS GIVEN HIM - AN
UNINTENDED ROADMAP TO THE INNER

WORKINGS OF THE COMMISSION.

GIULIANI: It was a Saturday
afternoon I'll never forget it

and I was reading
Joe Bonanno's book.

Thought it was really strange
he would write this book

because he had an awful
lot of information in it.

GOLDSTOCK: You have Joe Bonanno,
one of the heads of the original

families, calling himself a man
of honour and discussing the mob

in the book.

CHERTOFF: Bonanno's book Man of
Honour actually lays out

the history of the mob.

It goes way back
over the decades.

GIULIANI: And as I'm reading it
all of a sudden it just snapped

in my mind.

He is describing a
perfect RICO enterprise.

NARRATOR: RICO. A LAW THAT'S
BEEN ON THE BOOKS SINCE 1970,

AND WILL BECOME GIULIANI'S
MOST POWERFUL WEAPON

IN THE GOVERNMENT'S
FIGHT AGAINST THE MAFIA.

IT STANDS FOR RACKETEER
INFLUENCED CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS

AND AT THE HEART OF THIS STATUTE
IS AN ELEGANTLY SIMPLE IDEA.

TAKING ON THE MOB ISN'T ABOUT
TAKING DOWN ONE CRIMINAL,

IT'S ABOUT TARGETING
THE ENTIRE ENTERPRISE.

BLAKEY:Organized
crime is a group.

Some of them are out
doing the bad activity,

some of them are on trial,
some of them are in prison,

and some of them
are being recruited.

It's a merry go round, and if
all you do is take individuals

off the merry go round, you have
no impact on the merry go round.

NARRATOR: THE TERM
'RACKETEERING' IS A CATCHALL

THAT DESCRIBES ALL OF THE
MOB'S ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES,

FROM EXTORTION AND LOANSHARKING
TO UNION INFILTRATION

AND MURDER.

BUT RATHER THAN TYING THESE
CRIMES TO AN INDIVIDUAL MOBSTER,

RICO TIES THEM TO A CORRUPT
ORGANIZATION - IN THIS CASE,

AN ORGANIZED CRIME FAMILY.

IF PROSECUTORS CAN PROVE THE
HEAD OF THIS ORGANIZATION THE

BOSS OF THE FAMILY IS AWARE OF
AND SANCTIONS THE STREET-LEVEL

CRIMES, THEY'LL FINALLY HAVE
THE ABILITY TO GO AFTER HIM.

GIULIANI: You don't
just put them in jail

you take their property
away from them.

You take away from them
their bank accounts,

you take away from them
the restaurants they own,

you take away from them
the unions they control.

BLAKEY:RICO was

a major change in how you tried
cases and thought about cases.

GOLDSTOCK: Investigators
can start thinking about

for the first time,

what the organization looked
like, how it was structured,

who ran it, who conducted what
criminal activities and then tie

all those criminal activities

together in one indictment.

RAAB: For the first time if you
proved that a boss knew anything

about this ongoing enterprise

they could get a life sentence.

NARRATOR: ALTHOUGH RICO'S BEEN
ON THE BOOK FOR OVER A DECADE,

NO ONE FIGURES OUT HOW TO USE IT

AGAINST THE MAFIA UNTIL GIULIANI
READS JOE BONANNO'S TELL ALL

BOOK.

GIULIANI: I'm reading it,
you've got this big chart,

and it shows the succession
of the commission.

What we should do is

we should take that chart,
which ended about 1966.

And then we should take it
and we should bring it to 1983

and we should fill in
the line of succession.

If we fill in the
line of succession

I now have a perfect
racketeering case.

NARRATOR: BUT TO FILL IN
THAT 17-YEAR GAP AND GO AFTER

THE COMMISSION, GIULIANI MUST
FIRST BUILD AN ELITE TEAM,

STARTING WITH THIS PROSECUTOR.

CHERTOFF: I was approached about
working with Giuliani on putting

together a case.
And it was going to be

focused on the bosses of the
five La Cosa Nostra families

that dominate the mafia in
the United States of America.

GIULIANI: Michael was a young
new assistant U.S. Attorney

We went down to Washington,

we asked to meet with the
Attorney General and

the Director of the FBI, Bill
West. We went down there.

and gave him a briefing.

We made this big chart.

This is the evidence
we have now,

and these are the things
we have to fill in.

YOUNG GIULIANI: This
club is in Manhattan...

GIULIANI: So we had a plan for
how we were gonna do that.

If we take out the
commission of the mafia,

we blow a hole right
in their heart. And it was a

case frankly that a lot of
people thought we couldn't win.

GIULIANI: I'm going to
need 50 or 60 more agents.

I'm gonna need more resources.

I'm gonna need really
good tech people,

and they may have to come over
from the national security side.

NARRATOR: HIS PLAN IS TO
STRIKE THE HEAD OF THE BEAST,

THE COMMISSION, THE
MAFIA'S RULING BODY,

WHICH PRESIDES OVER AN
ARMY OF VIOLENT GANGSTERS.

STEP ONE: FIND OUT HOW THE
ORGANIZATION REALLY WORKS.

KOSSLER: We reorganized the
office so that we would be able

to investigate specifically
one family at a time.

NARRATOR: EVEN WITH
THE REORGANIZATION,

INFORMATION ABOUT THE
LEADERSHIP IS HARD TO COME BY.

BUT THE FEDS DO HAVE ONE ACE UP
THEIR SLEEVE - THE INTEL GLEANED

BY FBI AGENT JOE PISTONE DURING
HIS FOUR YEAR INFILTRAION

OF THE BONANNO FAMILY UNDER
THE ALIAS DONNIE BRASCO.

HIS INSIDE KNOWLEDGE PROVIDES
LAW ENFORCEMENT WITH ITS FIRST

DETAILED BLUEPRINT
OF COSA NOSTRA.

GIULIANI: Pistone's infiltration
was a massive breakthrough

in terms of gathering names,

identities, who really
controls what area.

Some guy that you might
suspect was a big deal

because he was acting
like a big deal really wasn't.

Some other guy really was
the guy calling the shots.

JOHN MARKS: Pistone
gave you that?

GIULIANI: Pistone gave us
a real leg up on that.

He broke the mystique that you
couldn't infiltrate the mafia.

That mystique was very, very
important in getting people

to cooperate.

It makes the hand
shake a little.

And it gives you a chance
to start turning them,

getting more information.

NARRATOR: THIS LEADS TO STEP
TWO IN GIULIANI'S PROSECUTION

OF THE COMMISSION: FLIPPING MADE
MEMBERS OF THE MOB TO BECOME

PAID INFORMANTS
FOR THE GOVERNMENT.

FAT SAL: The most powerful tool
that the government has against

organized crime

is a cooperating witness. A rat.

MCDONALD: And their motivation
for doing that is, I guess,

three fold. One, to get money.

Two, to curry favor
with the investigators.

And three, to enhance their own
positions of power in organized

crime because they're only gonna
give information up against

their rivals.

GIULIANI: Law enforcement
work requires infiltration.

You can't do all
of it through bugs.

Because you don't
know what to wiretap,

you don't know what to bug.

So that's why informants,
they are the key.

NARRATOR: AND ONE FBI AGENT
IS PARTICULARLY SUCCESSFUL

AT TURNING MOBSTERS INTO
INFORMANTS; THIS MAN,

FBI AGENT LIN DEVECCHIO.

JOHN MARKS: What would be the
opening conversation with a guy

like this? What's the way in?

DEVECCHIO: Well, what you
wanna do is to find him alone.

You put him under surveillance
and you see where he goes.

And when you catch
him alone somewhere,

you stop him and talk to him.

That's how we developed
Gregory Scarpa.

NARRATOR: THAT INFORMANT,
GREGORY SCARPA,

WILL BECOME ARGUABLY THE MOST
IMPORTANT OF ALL PAID INFORMANTS

IN THE CASE AGAINST
THE COMMISSION,

AND THE CORNERSTONE IN
GIULIANI'S COMING WAR.

FAT SAL: Greg Scarpa Sr., Grim
Reaper nobody called him that

to his face, you know what
I mean, he was called Greg,

but behind his back he
was the Grim Reaper.

That was his nickname
because he was so vicious.

I was in the credit card
business with Greg Scarpa.

I would sit down and talk to him
everyday and he would give me

pointers where to go and
use the credit cards.

That's the type of guy he was.
He was a mad hatter.

God knows how many
people he killed.

He smiled at ya, stick a
knife right in your neck.

But he'd smile at you
while he's doing it.

Real friendly guy.

CALANDRA: Greg Scarpa,
he was, he was a monster,

he was a mad dog in
the neighbourhood.

If he was walking on the
same side as my sidewalk back

in the day, I'd probably
cross the street.

That guy killed everything.
Women, children...

he killed everything.

DEVECCHIO: He'd previously been
an information for an agent

by the name of Tony
Valano and had been

closed for a number of years.

And I figured, he was
an informant before,

maybe he'll talk again.

And I knew where he lived.
And I went out there one day

and parked my car and I
waited about half an hour

just to see if anybody
else was coming by.

If there were any wise guys
going to his house I would have

gone back to the office.

I saw him come out of the house.

And I got out of my car...
and basically he said.

He says, what the
xxxx do you want?

And you know, it's
a good opening.

And I told him, I said,
my name's Lin Devecchio,

I'm an FBI agent.
SCARPA: Yeah, and...?

DEVECCHIO: And I said to
him, I need an education.

I need a schooling in the life.

I was a good friend
of Tony Vilano's.

He told me before he died if
you ever need help from a guy,

go see Greg.

Tony never told me that but
that's what I told Scarpa.

And he said to me
Let me think about.

Do you have a number
where I can reach you?

I gave him a
confidential number.

About two weeks
later he called me.

He said, Do you
know who this is?

I said, Yeah I know who this is.

He said, Meet me at my house
tomorrow at 10 o'clock,

come alone.

And a relationship
started from there.

NARRATOR: SOON SCARPA
STARTS TO DELIVER THE GOODS.

ONE OF HIS FIRST TIPS TURNS OUT
TO BE ACCURATE AND GRUESOME.

THE LOCATION OF BURIED
BODIES, MOB MURDER VICTIMS.

DEVECCHIO: The body that we
exhumed in a social club

in Brooklyn was Dominic Scialo,

nicknamed Mimi Scialo,
was the victim.

Greg Scarpa, he didn't do
that work to the best of our

knowledge but he provided
the names of the guys that

did and where the
body was buried.

Mimi's body was buried in a
shower curtain in the basement

under on a dirt floor.
And actually below that,

below him, there was another
body that had been there for

years and years and I'm not
sure the medical examiner ever

identified that body.

NARRATOR: THE BODIES CONFIRMS
SCARPA'S VALUE TO THE FBI.

DEVECCHIO: He'd keep us updated.
Anytime somebody got made,

somebody died, who was
loansharking, who was gambling.

He had information
on all five families.

NARRATOR: SCARPA'S TIPS LEAD
TO THE NEXT STEP IN GIULIANI'S

CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE COMMISSION.

GIULIANI: The ability to
do wire taps and bugs,

without the informants that the
FBI developed on the inside we

couldn't have done the wiretaps,
we couldn't have done the bugs.

I mean, that was vital.

NARRATOR: THE FIRST TARGET
IN THE ELECTRONIC ASSAULT,

THE LUCCHESE CRIME
FAMILY, BASED IN HARLEM.

THEY HAVE A CONTROLLING INTEREST
IN THE NEW YORK GARBAGE INDUSTRY

TO THE TUNE OF MILLIONS

THEIR BOSS IS THIS GUY
OLD SCHOOL GANGSTER

TONY DUCKS CORALLO

MCDONALD: Tony Ducks
Corallo ran that family

for many years.

RAAB: He was arrested
often and somehow

He managed to beat
all these raps.

He ducks everything.
It's Tony Ducks.

NARRATOR: BUT TONY
DUCKS HAS A WEAKNESS,

A SPECIAL FONDNESS FOR AN
EXPENSIVE SET OF WHEELS,

HIS JAGUAR,

A TIP GIVEN TO THE FBI BY NONE
OTHER THAN GREGORY SCARPA.

DEVECCHIO: I had
asked Scarpa about

where do they discuss things?
And he happened to mention

they talk about
it in the Jaguar.

MCDONALD: He was chauffeured
around by a fellow by the name

of Avellino.

GOLDSTOCK: We knew if we
could get a bug in the car,

there was no place
for them to go,

the conversations would
be studio quality.

It gave us a unique opportunity.

DEVECCHIO: Scarpa furnished
the probable cause

for a judge to sign
off on a Title III,

an electronic intercept,
to put in that car.

GOLDSTOCK: Because we had
physical surveillance on

Avellino in the car for
such a long period of time,

we knew that it would
be very difficult to do this.

He was never far
away from the car,

and it would have been virtually
impossible to do it where

he parked the car at night.

And so there was a
short period of time,

we had to get it
right the first time.

We didn't want to be caught.

if we were, we would never
have the opportunity again.

TECH AGENT: You gotta
connect the transmitter...

GOLDSTOCK: And the tech unit
really practiced for this.

They got a car
that was the same,

and then we essentially took
it apart to figure out where

we would get the best recording

They had to figure
out how to get off

the dashboard, how to install
it, how to connect it.

TECH AGENT: Mount the
transmitter right on the bottom,

he won't see anything...

GOLDSTOCK: And then
they started to time themselves.

So there would be
practice runs, literally

using a stopwatch.

TECH AGENT: Make sure
you pull those wires out,

make that connection real good.

GOLDSTOCK: Installing it,
connecting it to the battery,

reinstalling everything,
getting out, and not

leaving anything behind
AGENT: How you doing in there?

Good, good... You got it?

And then, once we got it down to
the time, we now looked for the

opportunity to put it in.

NARRATOR: IT'S MARCH, 1983,

AND FBI AGENTS ARE
POISED FOR ACTION,

RIGHT MOMENT TO PLANT A BUG
INSIDE THE JAGUAR OF LUCCHESE

FAMILY BOSS AND
TONY DUCKS CORALLO.

GOLDSTOCK: We saw him pull in,

we saw where he parked, we
saw him go into the location,

and then the tech unit
began to do its thing.

And then they went in.
the stopwatch went again.

They had plastic because they
had to make sure that no drop

of rain got into the car.

And the pressure was not only
getting the bug in on time,

but ensuring that there was
no indication that they had

ever been there.

And we started instantaneously
getting terrific recordings.

AUDIO RECORDING: We
have to think about it.

That the life was
good enough for you.

If we really believe in it,
why wouldn't we want our son.

If I were a doctor I
would be saying to my son

since he's a little kid
you're gonna be a doctor.

Or if I was a lawyer I would
be looking for my son to be

a lawyer.

So they must feel that if this
life is good enough for me,

I still want it for my son.

Otherwise, we're really saying
that this xxxx life is no

xxxx good. It's for the birds.
Right?

GOLDSTOCK: Within a day or two,
Corallo was in the car saying

that he was the
boss of the family.

NARRATOR: TOM MIX SANTORO IS
ALSO IN THE JAGUAR TALKING.

HE'S THE UNDERBOSS OF
THE LUCCHESE FAMILY,

AND THE TALK IS ALL ABOUT
COMMISSION BUSINESS.

SANTORO: Okay. So in the next
ten days he will be the Boss of

the Family, but he can't sit
on the Commission.

CHERTOFF: So you get a complete
picture of what the Lucchese

family is doing.

NARRATOR: BUT THE LUCCHESE
FAMILY IS ONLY ONE OF THREE KEY

TARGETS IN THE COMMISSION CASE
- PROSECUTOR RUDOLPH GIULIANI'S

EFFORT TO DISMANTLE ALL FIVE OF
THE NEW YORK MAFIA'S FAMILIES.

ANOTHER, THE GENOVESE FAMILY.

AND THE FACE OF THE GENOVESE
IS THIS GUY, FAT TONY SALERNO.

KALLSTROM: Fat Tony Salerno
was- was quite a character.

Very, very powerful guy.

Reporter: Do you have
something to say, Tony?

Tony: Yes, go xxxx yourself.
Reporter: Thank you.

RAAB: He was recruited at an
early age as a little tough kid,

a knee breaker, a jawbreaker.

NARRATOR: THE GENOVESE ARE
MAJOR PLAYERS IN THE PORTS,

GARBAGE HAULING,
AND LABOR UNIONS,

AND YET THEIR HEADQUARTERS
IS THIS DIVE IN HARLEM,

FAT TONY SALERNO'S DOWN
AND DIRTY HOME BASE,

NOW AN FBI TARGET

KALLSTROM: He had
this grungy, beat up

candy store slash club
up in East Harlem.

GIULIANI: So Fat Tony would
come down to his social club

in East Harlem.

However, when he left, he would
always leave his social club

guarded 24 hours a day.
Day and night.

NARRATOR: SO THE FEDS JUST CAN'T
GO IN THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR.

KALLSTROM: On either side
of the street, you know,

there's four story buildings.

and who knows who's
looking out these windows.

And you gotta go up to the front
door and you gotta go through

the lock.

GIULIANI: Finally,
over a Thanksgiving

weekend, Fat Tony, out of
the goodness of his heart

let his men off.

NARRATOR: BUT THE FBI STILL
NEEDS TO OVERCOME A MAJOR

OBSTACLE: GETTING INSIDE.

KALLSTROM: We had to get
underneath the club.

It was a filthy basement.

One of my best technical
agents, John Kravek

Crawled his way
into the basement.

It was dark and muddy down there
and who knew what was in there.

You know, you're operating
with red light Pen lights.

And they were drilling a hole up
through the floor to get into

Tony's little candy store.

There were rats in that
basement the size of cats.

And I'll never forget John
calling me on the radio

I was out in the command car

cause one of these rats bit
him in the back of the ankle.

But we got away with it.

GIULIANI: They were able to
get in, wire the whole place.

And it was a gold mine.

NARRATOR: THE FBI NOW HAVE
BUGS PLANTED IN THE JAGUAR OF

LUCCHESE BOSS TONY DUCKS CORALLO
AND THE SOCIAL CLUB OF GENOVESE

BOSS FAT TONY SALERNO.

JUST TWO IN A GROWING NETWORK OF
SURVEILLANCE BLANKETING THE MOB

NEW YORK CITY.

Wiretap: This is what
I'm looking for you see?

Let's designate somebody
for that office.

Do you follow what
I'm bringing at? Yeah.

We want to put a delegate.
Then it's our xxxx union.

Not that's its
Jimmy Brown's union.

Not that it's Paul
Castellano's Union.

It's theirs and ours.
Now, let's take somebody.

Let's take a son, a son-in-law,
somebody put them into

the office.

They got a job, let's take
somebody's daughter, whatever,

she's the secretary.
Let's staff it with our people.

KOSSLER: We have 25 wiretaps
or microphones, and we have

200 agents in the New York
office and we also had 100

detectives from the NYPD.

So, at any one given time we had
over 300 and some investigators

working on these matters.

NARRATOR: BUT THE MOST
CHALLENGING TARGET OF ALL

IS THE GAMBINO FAMILY AND ITS
BOSS, BIG PAUL CASTELLANO,

WHO ASPIRES TO BE THE
BOSS OF ALL BOSSES

MCDONALD: The most powerful
family was the Gambino crime

family. Paul Castellano was the
boss of the family in 1982.

POLISI: You know, he was at the
top of the family and all that

money was being kicked up to the
boss and he got a piece of it.

RAAB: He was a brother-in-law
and cousin of one

very powerful man,
Carlo Gambino,

for whom the family was named.

MCDONALD: He was a
very sophisticated,

almost businesslike boss.

FAT SAL: Paul Castellano,
he wasn't really a mobster,

he was more of a businessman.

If it had to do with money
he'd probably sell out

the whole family.

FRANZESE: Paul
Castellano was not a guy

that was spoken very
well about: you know,

he was a legitimate guy, he
had no business being boss,

you know, he backed in
through his relationship

with Carlo Gambino... so
we always heard that stuff.

POLISI: He was
never a tough guy.

He was just a guy who
just fell into it.

NARRATOR: CASTELLANO MAY BE
DESPISED BY SOME GUYS IN THE

LIFE, BUT HE HAS A HUGE EGO
AND THE REAL ESTATE TO MATCH.

KALLSTROM: Paul
Castellano had this

big mansion out
on Staten Island.

Paul's mansion was called the
White House and he tried to run

the family from the house.

RAAB: Now here he builds himself

this mansion, which he
deliberately names The White

House because he passes the word
along that he is as important

a sovereign, a leader, as the
President of the Unites States!

NARRATOR: THE ONLY WAY FOR
LAW ENFORCEMENT TO GET INSIDE

THE WHITE HOUSE IS
ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE.

MCDONALD: Bruce Mouw was the
head of the Gambino squad

and it was Mouw

who came to us and said let's
see if we can get a bug into

Paul Castellano's home. They
knew from their informants,

they knew from their physical
surveillance that many

significant players in
the Gambino family and indeed

other families were going
up to the hill to meet

with Castellano.

KALLSTROM: That was a
fortress that place,

with locks and alarms and
cleaning people coming

and going.

It was virtually never empty.

We spent weeks trying to figure
out when the best opportunity

was, and there really wasn't a
good opportunity.

WIRETAP: I can give you guys a
half a million dollars a year

without a problem...

NARRATOR: IN 1983, THE UNITED
STATES GOVERNMENT, LED BY U.S.

ATTORNEY RUDOLPH GIULIANI,
LAUNCHES AN ALL OUT ASSAULT ON

THE RULING BODY OF THE AMERICAN
MOB KNOWN AS THE COMMISSION.

NOW COMES THE BIGGEST
ELECTRONIC COUP OF THEM ALL.

THE FBI PLANTS A BUG AT
THE HEART OF THE BEAST,

INSIDE THE IMPENETRABLE WHITE
HOUSE OF GAMBINO FAMILY BOSS,

BIG PAUL CASTELLANO.

KALLSTROM: We basically put the
microphone in right in front

of 'em.

You can only imagine how we
did that because I'm not gonna

tell you.

NARRATOR: BUT SOME SAY
THIS IS HOW THEY DID IT.

RAAB: They damaged, from
the outside, his cable TV

and they sent over somebody,
two agents masquerading as

technicians to
repair his cable TV.

They bugged his telephone
and they planted bugs

in the baseboards of his rooms.

MCDONALD: I went
over to the FBI site

where they we doing the
monitoring of Paul Castellano's

house when we put the bug in
there and it was the first day

we were up and I said wow, this
is going to be incredible.

I'm going to hear them
talking about planning murders

and controlling labor unions.

And what did I hear?

They were talking about what
was better, Beck's or Heineken.

What they had for
dinner last night.

Where they were going
to go for dinner

the next night.

Paul Castellano was constantly
talking about his grandchildren.

And then they hit a gold mine,
then they'd get stuff that was

really significant, and they'd
get Castellano talking about how

they control the garment centre
and how they were involved

in all sorts

of significant
racketeering activity.

GIULIANI: At that point now we
had three or four simultaneous

bugs:

Corallo's Jaguar,
Castellano's study,

And Fat Tony's social club.

WIRETAP: We should
make some examples.

Other people ain't like
us, they talk about it...

NARRATOR: AND WITH THE
HELP OF THOSE BUGS,

ALL THE PIECES OF THE COMMISSION
CASE START COMING TOGETHER.

CHERTOFF: So you'll get one
version in the Jaguar and other

version in the social club and
you put them together and that

gives you a kind
of a multifaceted

view of a particular
criminal activity.

NARRATOR: THE BUGS OFFER
UNMISTAKABLE PROOF OF THE EXTENT

OF MAFIA COMMISSION POWER.

GIULIANI: The tape recordings

has them planning murders,
dividing up routes for

garbage collection,
dividing up restaurants,

dividing up the
garment industry.

All of this was on tape.

GOLDSTOCK: We now knew

the entire structure
of the family.

We were working with the Senate
Judiciary Committee that was

doing an investigation of
organized crime at the top.

And we gave them essentially
an organizational chart.

There was testimony at the
congressional hearing about this

and it was reported in the New
York Post the following day.

Corallo was having a
conversation with Avellino,

looking at the paper,
he said, you know,

for the first time they got it
right, how do they know this?

And in effect what
he did was say,

This is the structure
of the family.

NARRATOR: WORDS CAUGHT ON TAPE
ARE ONE PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE

OF THE COMMISSION BUT
PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE WOULD BE

EVEN BETTER.

BRUCE MOUW'S GAMBINO SQAUD
GETS THE ULTIMATE TIP.

THE BOSSES ARE
GATHERING FOR A SITDOWN,

OFFICIAL COMMISSION BUSINESS.

MOUW: We got word of a
meeting in Staten Island.

NARRATOR: TWO OF MOUW'S AGENTS
STAKE OUT THE LOCATION OF THE

ALLEGED COMMISSION MEETING AND
BEFORE LONG THE BOSSES BEGIN

TO APPEAR ONE BY ONE.

BIG PAUL CASTELLANO.

TOM MIX SANTORO.
FAT TONY SOLERNO.

AND THE STREET BOSS REPRESENTING
THE COLOMBO FAMILY WHOSE BOSS

IS ALREADY IN JAIL.

MOUW: It was prime
evidence of showing

There is a commission,
here these guys are.

They're meeting at this house
surreptitiously and we got them

on film.

NARRATOR: ON TAPE, THE MOBSTERS
OF THE FIVE FAMILIES NOW CONFIRM

WHAT JOE BONANNO HAS WRITTEN IN
HIS TELL-ALL BOOK AND NOW EVEN

MORE INCREDIBLY, HE
GOES ON TELEVISION.

WALLACE: One of the most
infamous crime bosses

of all time, Joseph Bonanno,
agreed to sit down with us.

The commission, they
sit around and say, ok,

that man's going to go.
We're not going to do it.

BONANNO: No, the commission
would never say that,

the commission is nothing
to do with, to do this.

WALLACE: I'm wrong?

CHERTOFF: When he
went on 60 Minutes,

and he talked about the
structure of the mafia and the

structure of The Commission,
the mobsters watched it,

and we actually had
recorded conversations

where Corallo and Santoro, and
they would say did you see

the 60 Minutes show?

And did you see
what Bonanno said?

And then they would say

well, he lied about this but
he told the truth about this,

and this is right
and that's wrong.

He was even saying
there was a commission!

He was admitting that
there was a commission.

He did.

And uh, five bosses of New York.

On the TV, he didn't call it,
he just said I'm a father of

a family.

CHERTOFF: We were
actually able to

then use some of what Bonanno
said against these mobsters

because they had incorporated
his television appearance into

their own conversation.

NARRATOR: IT'S A LANDMARK PIECE
OF EVIDENCE THAT ESTABLISHES

ONCE AND FOR ALL THAT
THE COMMISSION EXISTS.

MEANWHILE THE WIRETAPS AND
BUGS ARE MAKING CLEAR

THAT THE COMMISSION BOSSES
HAVE THER DIFFERENCES.

GIULIANI: So these guys
would finish a meeting

of the Commission and they'd go
back to their various haunts,

right?

Corallo would get back into the
Jaguar immediately and he'd tell

his driver

We had a rough meeting today.

Fat Tony was being a
jerk, he's always a jerk.

Remember that vote
two years ago?

That came up again that vote to
kill so and so two years ago.

Persico's still complaining.

He voted against it and
everyone else voted for it,

what a mistake that was.

Then you would get Castellano's
version of that when he'd return

home to his study.

He'd bring all his men in and
he'd say That idiot Corallo's

objecting, he's bringing up
that murder of two years ago,

who wants to talk about that
damn murder of two years ago?

NARRATOR: BUT NOW THE US
ATTORNEY FROM BROOKLYN MUST

PROVE HIS CASE AGAINST THE CORE
LEADERSHIP OF THE AMERICAN MOB

IN COURT, SOMETHING NO
PROSECUTOR HAS EVER DONE.

IT'S 1985, AND AFTER A 2-YEAR
CAMPAIGN OF ELECTRONIC

SURVEILLANCE AND EAVESDROPPING
ON THE MAFIA'S BIG FAMILIES

U.S. ATTORNEY RUDY
GIULIANI IS READY STRIKE.

HE'S SET TO TAKE HIS CASE
AGAINST THE MOB'S RULING BODY,

THE COMMISSION, TO COURT.

HE CHOOSES THIS MAN, MICHAEL
CHERTOFF, AS LEAD PROSECUTOR.

CHERTOFF: It would
be fair to say

there was a lot of pressure to
bring this off without a hitch.

GIULIANI: Michael was a young
new assistant U.S. Attorney.

I assigned him to work
on the case with me.

We developed the case together
for 2 and a half, 3 years.

CHERTOFF: We had to do a
job that was unimpeachable.

Meaning not only that
we had to collect

sufficient evidence to convict
but we have to do it in a way

that wouldn't be subject
to being overturned.

NARRATOR: IT'S THE
MOST AMBITIOUS,

FAR-REACHING CASE AGAINST
THE MOB IN AMERICAN HISTORY,

THE CULMINATION OF YEARS
OF LAW ENFORCEMENT WORK.

FROM THE INFILTRATION OF THE
BONANNO FAMILY BY UNDERCOVER FBI

AGENT JOE PISTONE

AND THE USE OF PAID INFORMANTS
LIKE GREGORY THE GRIM REAPER

SCARPA TO A NETWORK OF WIRETAPS
LACING THE MAFIA'S VERY HOMES

AND SOCIAL CLUBS.

ON FEBRUARY 25TH
1985, IT BEGINS.

KOSSLER: It had leaked out
to the press that they were

gonna be

indicted, and my boss came in,
and I said to Tom, I said,

you know, we got a problem.

I just got a call
from the press office.

They know about the indictments.
We gotta go.

NARRATOR: LAW ENFORCEMENT
INDICTS AND ARRESTS 9 MEMBERS

OF THE COMMISSION, INCLUDING
GAMBINO BOSS BIG

PAUL CASTELLANO, LUCHESSE
BOSS TONY DUCKS CORALLO,

GENOVESE BOSS FAT TONY SALERNO.

REPORTER: As the
arrests continue,

the FBI said it was the worst
night ever for the mafia.

NARRATOR: FOR THE
FIRST TIME IN HISTORY,

THE RULING BODY OF THE
MOB, THE COMMISSION ITSELF,

WILL BE DRAGGED OUT INTO THE
HARSH LIGHT OF A FEDERAL

COURTROOM.

KOSSLER: I went to the
arraignment with the case agent,

and sat in the middle
of the courtroom,

just he and I, and as they
brought these guys in in cuffs.

And I just sat there and I
just said, this is a dream!

Called Bob Blakey, I said,
Bob, got news for ya. We did it.

Did what? he said.

I said We got an indictment
of the commission,

of La Cosa Nostra.
We did it, Bob!

BLAKEY:Now, all of the sudden
in the United States Federal

courtroom,

there was an indictment that
charged all these people

with all these things.

They laid out for
all of the world

to see and hear what the
FBI had come to know,

including the existence
of the Commission.

NARRATOR: THE RICO STATUTE, WILL
NOW BE PUT TO THE ULTIMATE TEST.

BUT CAN THE CASE REALLY WORK
AGAINST A PREVIOUSLY UNTOUCHABLE

CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE?

GIULIANI: What the RICO statute
allowed us to do is to first of

all categorize it correctly.

This is a long-term
organized business.

The business of
committing extortion,

committing loan sharking,
committing murder.

FAT SAL: The first time I heard
about the RICO act was during

the Commission trial and that's
when Rudolph Giuliani learned

how to use it and started
using the RICO act.

CHERTOFF: Well we knew this
was gonna be a historic case,

and this offensive in its
totality was designed the break

the economic power of the mob
and really send them back to

what they were when they were
essentially street gangs.

NEWSMAN: They call them the
underworld's board of directors.

Members of a 26 family mafia
commission controlling much of

America's organized crime.

REPORTER: Can you comment
at all about the charges?

CHERTOFF: But they were set
free on high bail.

And then the clock
starts to tick.

NARRATOR: IT TICKS
DOWN TO BLOODSHED.

ON DECEMBER 16TH, 1985, TEN
MONTHS AFTER HIS INDICTMENT,

GAMBINO BOSS PAUL CASTELLANO,
THE BOSS OF ALL BOSSES,

IS ASSASSINATED.

FAT SAL: They killed him.

They killed him right
in midtown Manhattan,

him and Tommy Bilotti.

MCDONALD: He was killed
over at Sparks Steakhouse.

NEWSWOMAN: A black Lincoln
Continental pulled up to

the door of Sparks
Steakhouse on East 46th...

DETECTIVE: The tentative
identification is that it's

Paul Castellano and Tom Bilotti.

CHERTOFF: I got a call
from one of the FBI agents

who was working on the
Commission Case saying

Paul Castellano just got killed.

MOUW: We got the call and I
sent out a couple of agents.

KOSSLER: They told me that
Castellano had been executed.

COFFEY: When I get there,
Castellano's body is laying

right under the awning

in front of Sparks' restaurant.

NARRATOR: AT FIRST IT'S NOT
ENTIRELY CLEAR WHO PULLED OFF

THE MONSTER HIT.

REPORTER: Are there
any eyewitnesses?

DETECTIVE: Well we haven't
come up with anybody that is

volunteering anything
at this point.

MOUW: I think 3 or 4 saw
something substantive.

Because everybody else knew it's
a mob hit, I didn't see nothing,

I don't want to get involved.

KOSSLER: The major part of
that commission case was

the extortion of the
cement business, so

when Castellano fell,
when he was shot,

his head was right
above this wet cement,

and I thought it was rather
appropriate at the time.

He died right there
in the cement.

CHERTOFF: So my reaction is,
well, all the work on Castellano

is gone because he's not gonna
go to trial.

NARRATOR: BUT THE
OTHER BOSSES WILL.

BROUGHT TO JUSTICE AT LAST IN
THE MAFIA TRIAL OF THE CENTURY.

GIULIANI: Boy
we're really getting to them.

They're really under tremendous
pressure when they start killing

bosses. We must
have them on the run.

NARRATOR: BUT CASTELLANO'S
MURDER DOESN'T STOP GIULIANI'S

PROSECUTION OF THE OTHER BOSSES.

GIULIANI: I didn't
see it as a set back,

I didn't see it as a
particular advantage.

I would have liked Castellano
around because when you have

the boss

it helps the prosecution
of the rest of the case.

But then we had so much evidence
it really didn't matter.

NARRATOR: IN SEPTEMBER 1986 TEN
MONTHS AFTER THE CASTELLANO HIT,

THE CASE AT LAST GOES TO TRIAL.

CHERTOFF: Well, you're
in a giant courtroom,

the ceremonial courtroom
in the U.S. courthouse

in downtown Manhattan,

so it's a very large
courtroom, very ornate.

The gallery's packed
with people watching.

These defendants are they
have a kind of a business-like

attitude, but it's clearly
a very tense situation.

DEVECCHIO: And there were over
75 tapes played to the jury,

there were photographs, there
were videotapes played.

So it was a vast
amount of evidence.

You know it was virtually
it was truly overwhelming.

CHERTOFF: Now as we're moving
along to trial we're continuing

to investigate and we're also
collecting more physical

evidence.

We subsequently add additional
figures to the case,

of which most notable
is Carmine Persico,

the boss of the Colombo family.

NARRATOR: CARMINE THE SNAKE
PERSICO MAKES THE RISKY DECISION

TO REPRESENT HIMSELF - A LAST
DITCH ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE THE TRAP

NOW CLOSING ON ALL THE BOSSES.

DEVECCHIO: Defending yourself
you have a fool for a client

is the timeworn legal
adage, and Persico, I mean,

I couldn't believe he did that.

First off his vocabulary
was- was, you know,

of what may be a 6th grader, and
I'm giving him credit for that.

NARRATOR: GIULIANI AND
CHERTOFF'S CASE AGAINST

THE COMMISSION ENCOMPASSES
A WIDE ARRAY OF CRIME,

BUT THE CENTERPIECE IS MURDER
THE INFAMOUS 1979 MULITIPLE

SHOOTING OF BONANNO FAMILY
BOSS, CARMINE GALANTE.

NEWSMAN: Galante was having
lunch in the courtyard of an

Italian restaurant in Brooklyn
when 5 men entered with

automatic rifles and
shotguns and opened fire.

NARRATOR: THE TRAIL OF EVIDENCE
GOES BACK TO THE IMMEDIATE

AFTERMATH OF THE CRIME WHEN THE
NYPD TRACKS DOWN THE GETAWAY CAR

SHORTLY AFTER GALANTE'S MURDER.

CHERTOFF: We discovered
that the car had been

identified within a matter of
an hour or so after the murder.

They had taken
fingerprints off the car,

so we had to figure out who
those fingerprints belonged to.

NARRATOR: THE
FINGERPRINTS LEAD NOWHERE,

BUT INVESTIGATORS
ALSO FIND PALMPRINTS,

AND THOSE HAVE A MATCH,
KNOWN BONANNO CAPTAIN,

ANTHONY INDELICATO.

CHERTOFF: And it turned out that
the palm prints matched.

There was a little bit of
evidence that Joe Pistone,

the undercover agent,

had, that members of the Bonanno
family had killed Galante,

and part of that was also
proven by the existence of

a videotape that
had been taken in 1979.

Shortly after the murder,
showing people who were believed

to be the murderers going
to meet with the underboss

of the Gambino family and
getting congratulated.

NARRATOR: THE PALM PRINT AND
SURVEILLANCE ARE DAMNING,

BUT GIULIANI AND CHERTOFF
ALSO HAVE A SECRET WEAPON

TO TIE GALANTE'S MURDER
TO THE COMMISSION

UNDERCOVER AGENT JOE
PISTONE AKA DONNIE BRASCO,

AND HE HELPS SUPPLY THE MOTIVE.

PISTONE: Galante controlled

all the importation of drugs
into the US for the mafia.

And Galante wouldn't share
with any of the other families.

So the other
families got together

and they decided he's go to go.

CHERTOFF: The reason this murder
was important in the case was

because it was one of those
relatively rare instances where

you can actually tie a murder to
the commission itself.

NARRATOR: WITH SUCH
A WEIGHT OF EVIDENCE,

THE FATE OF THE MAFIA'S
BOARD, THE COMMISSION,

IS ALL BUT SEALED.

REPORTER: The government called
Anthony Tony Ducks Corallo,

Carmine Junior Persico, and
Anthony Fat Tony Salerno,

the board of directors
of the mafia.

And today, after 6
days of deliberation,

a New York jury agreed, finding
them and 5 of their associates

all guilty of running a
racketeering and extortion

enterprise.

GIULIANI: We have now
proven in a court of law,

beyond a reasonable doubt, not
only that there's a mafia but

that there's a commission,
that it runs the mafia...

NARRATOR: THE COMMISSION CASE IS
THE CENTERPIECE OF AN ALL OUT

LEGAL ASSAULT ON THE MAFIA, AN
ASSAULT THAT INCLUDES CASES

AGAINST INDIVIDUAL FAMILIES,
BUT PERHAPS MOST IMPORTANT,

AGAINST LABOR UNIONS.

GIULIANI: And there we
were able to expose it,

bring it before a federal judge,
have the federal judge throw

everybody out of the teamsters,

throw everybody out of the
central state's pension fund,

let us bring in a monitor and
let us change the whole thing.

For some reason, that's when
I felt the sense

that we've done our job now.

I mean- now we have them in a
situation where they can never

quite reinvent themselves.

NARRATOR: AFTER
DECADES IN THE DARK,

LAW ENFORCEMENT HAS FINALLY
FIGURED OUT HOW TO FIGHT

COSA NOSTRA.

THE RICO LAW ENDS AN ERA IN THE
HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN MOB,

NOW FULLY VISIBLE
FOR THE FIRST TIME.

GIULIANI: First of all, ended
the debate about the mafia.

We proved in court, beyond a
reasonable doubt that there

is a mafia.

It took down all these
people that supposedly were

impregnable, the bosses.

It created chaos
in the organization.

And chaos in an organization is
a gold mine for law enforcement.

FRANZESE: I know people don't
like to give Giuliani credit for

this, but he was the guy that
used the statute effectively,

no doubt about it.

So yeah, I mean it
was eye opening.

Here's all the bosses, they're
getting convicted, they're gone.

They're going away.

I mean, this was a rumble
throughout all the families.

What happens now?

Reporter: The sentences were
handed down at the Federal Court

in New York.

The end of the trial
seen here is historic.

KOSSLER: And it brought them to
a point where we exposed them

for what they were.

Reporter: The single most
important campaign against

America's organized crime
syndicates for decades.

NARRATOR: WHEN THE TRIAL ENDS,
OF THE ORIGINAL 9 MEMBERS

INDICTED IN THE COMMSSION
CASE TWO ARE DEAD.

IN THE GAMBINO FAMILY, PAUL
CASTELLANO FROM A HAIL

OF BULLETS AND ANIELLO
DELLACROCE FROM CANCER.

ANOTHER, PHILIP RUSTY RASTELLI
OF THE BONANNO FAMILY RECEIVES

A SEPARATE TRIAL.

THE OTHER SIX RECEIVE
LIFE IN PRISON.

FAT TONY SALERNO OF THE GENOVESE
FAMILY DIES IN A FEDERAL

FACILITY IN 1992,

AND TONY DUCKS CORALLO
FOLLOWS HIM IN 2000.

COLOMBO BOSS CARMINE SNAKE
PERSICO IS SENTENCED TO SERVE

HIS 100 YEARS IN
A NORTH CAROLINA PRISON

WHERE HE STILL SITS TODAY.

WISE GUYS KEEP
WORKING THE ANGLES,

BLOOD STILL SPILLS
IN THE STREETS

BUT COSA NOSTRA IS
NOW A HEADLESS SNAKE.

MOUW: The mobsters call this the
Holocaust-The hit of the century

NARRATOR: ONE AMBITIOUS GANGSTER
IS POISED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE

OF THE CHAOS,

THE MOST FAMOUS MOBSTER
OF MODERN TIMES,

POLISI: He could kill
somebody in 30 seconds.

NARRATOR: JOHN GOTTI.

POLISI: Unbelievable
the power that he had.

CUTLER: He was always on.
He was bullet on.