S1 08 Cr 763 (JG)
United States District Court Eastern District of New York
Trial testimony of Michael D’Urso
10 July 2009
Going on record
- Michael ‘Cookie’ D’Urso was born and grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
- As a teenager in the 1980s, his cousin Sabatino ‘Tino’ Lombardi got D’Urso a job at Ruggiero’s Restaurant in Little Italy
- Lombardi was a loanshark working for owner Joseph Zito
- ‘Joe Zito was a well-respected soldier that could probably have been a captain any time he wanted to. He just didn’t want the headaches of becoming a captain.’
- D’Urso started off working as a busboy at the restaurant, working up to waiting tables and parking cars
- At the same time, D’Urso ‘established an affiliation’ with the Genovese family and got involved in drug dealing and credit card fraud
- He studied at Pace University for two years before being arrested for bank fraud
- D’Urso pleaded guilty, was sentenced to one-to-three years, and was released after less than a year in prison
- When he got out, D’Urso went to work for an electrical contractor
- D’Urso’s new boss was having financial difficulties and needed money to keep the business going
- D’Urso’s boss had been around Ruggiero’s and knew his cousin to be a loanshark
- D’Urso borrowed money from Lombardi at one or two points and then lent it to his boss for an extra point
- D’Urso ended up making a few hundred dollars a week on the debt and went into the loansharking business
- Eventually, Lombardi started experiencing money problems of his own and couldn’t lend his cousin cash
- Lombardi took D’Urso to his superior, Salvatore Aparo
- D’Urso began borrowing money directly from Aparo and at that point officially went on record with Joe Zito
- As the years went on, D’Urso ended up on record with Aparo
- At the time, both Zito and Aparo were soldiers under captain Rosario Gangi
The Genovese family
- D’Urso was on record with the Genovese family for about eleven years and ended up proposed for membership
- At the time he was proposed, a member only had to be Italian on his father’s side
- D’Urso was ‘treated differently’ than many other associates because Joe Zito and Sammy Aparo made it known he was up for membership
- A lot of members treated D’Urso as if he was already made, and he was taught some of the rules
- For instance, D’Urso was told that some families allowed drug dealing but others didn’t
- ‘I knew that Vincent the Chin Gigante was totally against it.’
- D’Urso came to know that the strength of the Genovese family was concentrated in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, Harlem/ the Bronx, and New Jersey:
- When asked to list crews operating in other boroughs, D’Urso identified Alfonso Malangone and John Gagliardi in Brooklyn, and Ciro Perrone, Anthony Federici, and Federico Giovanelli in QueensThe power of the family came from really two areas. One of them which was where Vincent Chin Gigante, which was called the West Side down in the Village in Manhattan, and the other one was up in Harlem, which was the Bronx area and Fat Tony Salerno years ago was the acting boss of Vincent the Chin Gigante, and then there was another faction that was well-represented out in New Jersey. So – but I was mostly familiar with the ones in Manhattan and the Bronx rather than Jersey.
- ‘There’s a lot of people everywhere.’
- D’Urso also described some of the changes that took place in the hierarchy:
- When Bellomo went to prison, Muscarella took over his crewIn the 1990s, early 90s, Barney Bellomo became acting boss. Then when he was incarcerated, evidently that’s when my problem came to be, an individual, first another individual called Quiet Dom Cirillo took over a little while, the word on the street. Then Frank Farby, and I know that first-hand from my altercation with him. Then after Frank Farby, Ernie Muscarella took over for a while. So, I don’t know who is there today, but that’s from my recollection of the people that took over while Chin was there.
- Pasquale Falcetti then took over as captain when Muscarella was elevated to acting boss
- Ross Gangi’s crew was later taken over by Peter DiChiara, with Sammy Aparo as acting captain
- Allie Malangone was taken down ‘because he was going to be incarcerated’ and Alan Longo succeeded him as captain
- ‘Then he [Longo] assumed the higher role which he became the go-between guy between the five families and would settle the disputes or bring messages between the five families on behalf of the Genovese crime family.’
Carmine Polito
- On 30 November 1994, D’Urso and his cousin Tino Lombardi were shot while playing cards in a social club
- D’Urso was shot in the head and lived, but Lombardi was killed
- The only other individuals in the club when the shooting happened were Carmelo Polito, Mario Fortunato, Angelo Cerasulo, Anthony Bruno, and John Imbrieco
- Because of this, D’Urso believed they had to be his attackers
- Prior to 1994, D’Urso doesn’t recall having any bad blood with Polito
- In fact, it was Lombardi who originally introduced his cousin to Polito
- After the shooting, D’Urso talked to Ross Gangi about what happened
- ‘He told me protect yourself, carry a gun, and I was seeking permission to retaliate, which he said he’d get back to me on.’
- Gangi came back and instructed D’Urso not to retaliate because Polito had been involved in a bank robbery with members of Allie Malangone’s crew
- Gangi had also participated in that robbery, and it was feared that Polito might cooperate with the authorities if he survived an attempt on his life
- Despite being told not to do anything, D’Urso retaliated anyway
- ‘Carmine Polito got shot in the head, survived, but the other individuals, you know, we didn’t get a chance to carry it out.’
- D’Urso acknowledges he could have been killed for retaliating without permission
Vito Guzzo
- D’Urso knew Vito Guzzo since he was a teenager but the two didn’t become friendly until after D’Urso got shot
- Vincent Restivo, son of Bonanno captain Louis Restivo, introduced D’Urso to Guzzo
- Guzzo was proposed for membership in the Colombo family and answered to captain Pasquale Catalano
- In 1996, Guzzo came to see D’Urso and asked for a .9mm he (Guzzo) had sold to D’Urso a few weeks earlier
- D’Urso handed it over, believing Guzzo would use it either for a robbery or to kill someone, but didn’t ask any questions
- One night, weeks later, Guzzo called D’Urso and asked to see him
- In Middle Village, Queens, Guzzo explained that John Borrelli was looking to kill him (Guzzo) and Anthony Tabbita
- Guzzo and Tabbita had been sitting on Borrelli looking to kill him
- ‘He said you know what it’s like. You know, being shot, he says you know, I want to get this kid before he’s able to get us.’
- Joe DiLeo, the man supposed to be the driver that night, couldn’t make it, so D’Urso agreed to take DiLeo’s place
- ‘It took weeks and ultimately, John Borrelli ended up dead.’
- Guzzo also asked D’Urso to help him kill Vincent Ricciardo
- ‘Vito had come to find out that he helped kill Vito’s father and Vito wanted revenge. So I also said if he needed me at the time, just let me know when he was ready and I would assist him.’
- Guzzo had already made an attempt on Ricciardo’s life years before becoming friendly with D’Urso
- Ultimately, nothing ever happened with Ricciardo
- When Guzzo got shot, Patty Catalano learned that John Schneider was responsible
- Catalano asked D’Urso and several of Guzzo’s friends to go to a gym that Schneider worked out in
- ‘Four of us went to see if he was at the gym. I waited in the car. This kid Phil Sherado (ph) went in there, didn’t see him, and we went back and we reported it to Patty Catalano he wasn’t there.’
- D’Urso wasn’t involved in anything else regarding Schneider after that
Frank Farby
- D’Urso never met Frank Serpico but spoke to him over the phone and was ‘very aware of him’
- D’Urso had handed been screwed out of $81,000 by a bookmaker friend of his named John Zero
- D’Urso turned over legitimate bookmaking customers to Zero but ended up paying them out of his own pocket when they won and Zero neglected to lay off the action to other books
- After this happened twice, D’Urso gave Zero a beating and demanded to talk to whoever Zero worked for
- A meeting was arranged the next day with Zero’s superior, Mac Castellano, in Middle Village
- On the way to the meeting, D’Urso’s beeper started going off from different numbers in Long Island
- D’Urso stopped his car to return one of the calls and got into an argument
- ‘It’s this individual on the phone belligerent on the phone, screaming, yelled at me. Threatening me. So him and I got into a heated discussion […] He threatened my life, I threatened his life.’
- After this phone call, D’Urso’s beeper started going crazy from Sammy Aparo trying to contact him
- Aparo told D’Urso not to meet Mac Castellano because it was probably a set up
- However, D’Urso was willing to do what it took to get his $81,000 back and risked going to the meeting
- He contacted Castellano and rearranged their meet to take place elsewhere
- D’Urso set it up so the area they talked in would be surrounded by his (D’Urso’s) guys
- When they did come face-to-face, D’Urso and Castellano had a ‘great conversation’ and D’Urso got $10,000 back
- D’Urso then went downtown to talk to Aparo about what happened
- ‘Sammy’s telling me, you were on the phone with our new boss Frank Farby, he wants to kill you.’
- Over the following weeks, several sitdowns took place to determine whether D’Urso should be killed for how he talked to Serpico
- As far as D’Urso saw it, he had no idea Zero and Castellano worked for Serpico and was just trying to cause ‘havoc’ over the phone to get his money back
- Serpico, Aparo, Joe Zito, Ross Gangi, Alan Longo, Ernie Muscarella, Pasquale DeLuca, and Arthur Nigro attended sitdowns over D’Urso’s fate
- Aparo kept D’Urso in the loop on what was happening:
CooperationSammy one day comes back and says to me, he says, listen, he says this looks very bad. He says if I call for you and I ask you to come, he says to me, don’t come. He said I’m just calling you because I’m told to call you, but don’t come, and go wherever you got to go. Basically letting me know there was a good chance I’d get killed.
- D’Urso became disillusioned with the Genovese family after his issue with Frank Serpico
- ‘Your cousin gets killed, nobody helps; you get shot in the head, nobody helps; you got screwed for money, you can’t get your money and on top of it they want to kill you. So I made up my mind that I think that it was time at that point to get out or try and get out of the life.’
- D’Urso first met with the government in late 1997 or early 1998
- D’Urso acquired another lawyer (Miranda Fritz, who has previously prosecuted him for bank fraud in the 1980s) and met twice with AUSAs from the Eastern District of New York
- D’Urso was not aware that he was under investigation at the time of his first meeting with the government
- At a second meeting a few months later, D’Urso admitted he had been present when somebody was murdered, causing a third meeting to be arranged
- In June 1998, the day of his scheduled proffer session, D’Urso was arrested for the murder of John Borrelli
- Within 24 hours, D’Urso pleaded guilty and entered a cooperation agreement
- He was then released on bail so he could wire up and further assist the government’s investigation
- D’Urso made approximately 500 recordings for the FBI, taping conversations with hundreds of suspects
- While cooperating, D’Urso received $7,300 a month from the government
- Due to his agreement, D’Urso wasn’t able to collect money from his loansharking customers but he still owed Sammy Aparo $4,000 a month
- $4,000 of the $7,300 went to Aparo, with the rest going to D’Urso’s expenses
- D’Urso was pulled from the street in April 2001
- After almost three years, the case was winding down and D’Urso had heard his cooperation deal was at risk of being leaked
Unions
-D’Urso knew the Genovese family to be heavily involved in the longshoremen’s union in New Jersey and Florida, the Javits Centre, and 32BJ among others
- In approximately 2000, D’Urso met Patty Falcetti and began regularly meeting with himThere was also another individual named Glen McCarthy who ran a bunch of smaller unions. He was close with Benny Eggs who was the underboss at one time. […] They were all over. They were in Westchester. I didn’t get all the particulars at Glen’s unions, but he had multiple different unions. We actually used to go to him and ask his opinion as a consultant on some of the matters we had.
- D’Urso understood Falcetti to run the longshoremen’s union and ‘pretty much’ be in charge of the New Jersey waterfront
- It was explained to D’Urso that the Gambino family was forbidden from doing business on the New Jersey side of the port
- ‘Chin didn’t want them in Jersey at all.’
- A couple of weeks after they first met, Falcetti introduced D’Urso to Thomas Cafaro
- Cafaro was partners with Barney Bellomo and Charles Tuzzo and ran trucking companies on the waterfront in New Jersey and Florida
- An associate, Cafaro was ‘always close with the hierarchy’ and ‘could have been made any time he wanted’
- Cafaro was very close with Bellomo and also was best man at Andrew Gigante’s wedding
- When Ernie Muscarella took over Bellomo’s crew, he inherited all of Bellomo’s guys except for Cafaro
- Cafaro was instead put with Tuzzo because Tuzzo was more familiar with the docks
- Cafaro’s trucking business also started to decline after Bellomo was jailed
- D'Urso frequently met Falcetti and Cafaro in Florida, where he was introduced to George BaroneThey started letting other friends into the business when Barney Bellomo was incarcerated. Basically, he was laying out money from his pocket in some instances. […] People that were close to Chin or Chin’s kids or to the hierarchy at the time. They got preferential treatment because they were giving back tribute payments as well. Barney wasn’t here and his business tailed off a little bit.
- D’Urso noted that Barone ‘pioneered’ the Genovese family’s involvement in the waterfront
- Once a year, Falcetti organised a tribute payment for Barone from associate Burt Guido
- D’Urso met Barone while chauffeuring Falcetti in Florida as he delivered Guido’s payment
- Guido had been on record with Barone until Vincent Gigante took him away
- At that point, Guido was working for a company operated by Andrew Gigante in Florida
- Barone was very bitter about this and asked Andrew Gigante for a tribute payment of $90,000 to $100,000 at Christmas
- ‘Normally, during Christmas people show their appreciation for their help. If you got businesses, guys around, you have legitimate businesses that you help, they usually put together a Christmas package for you.’
- Because of this altercation, Barone got thrown out of the New Jersey waterfront and moved to Florida
Michael Coppola
- When he was less privy to the goings-on at the waterfront, D’Urso learned about Michael Coppola’s involvement from Joe Zito
- D’Urso was present for a conversation where Zito’s nephew asked him for a union job
- Zito tried to put it off and told his nephew he hadn’t seen Ralph Coppola or Michael Coppola
- D’Urso asked if the two Coppolas were related and found out they weren’t
- D’Urso came to learn that Ralph Coppola was at the Javits Centre and Michael Coppola was on the docks
- During his cooperation, D’Urso never met with any members of the New Jersey faction, though he heard about them
- Tino Fiumara was ‘a name that kept getting spoken about’
- Fiumara was highly regarded and ‘viewed as someone who would eventually take over the family’
- Michael Coppola’s name also came up
- Joe Zito, Sammy Aparo, and Thomas Cafaro told D’Urso that Coppola was a good guy
- Cafaro and Chuck Tuzzo would meet with Coppola while he was on the lam to give him money
- On one occasion, Frank Serpico and Scop DeLuca were pulled over on the Triboro bridge while on their way to meet with Coppola
- Cafaro ultimately stopped seeing Coppola because he didn’t want to get blamed if law enforcement arrested him at one of their meetings
