Salvatore Vitale testimony notes (Persico trial)

[chin_gigante]

Testimony of Salvatore Vitale
US v Alphonse T. Persico, John J. DeRoss
US District Court, EDNY
November 29, 2007

Bonanno Family

- When Salvatore Ferrugia served as Acting Boss, he was a “gopher” for Joseph Massino and Philip Rastelli
- Massino and Gerlando Sciascia were really calling the shots and Ferrugia was a powerless figurehead
- Vitale thinks Dominick Napolitano was lured to his death thinking he would have to explain to Joseph Massino and Stefano Cannone how an FBI agent had infiltrated his crew
- Vitale testified Napolitano and Anthony Mirra were killed over the Donnie Brasco affair
- Vitale didn’t know why Cesare Bonventre was killed
- When Massino went on the lam in the 1980s, Gabriel Infanti was left in charge on the street and would contact him two or three times a week
- Massino later told Vitale that Infanti was going to be killed for talking to the FBI
- Vitale later came to the assumption that Massino had lied about Infanti being an informant
- Anthony Spero told Vitale he was “not happy” about the Infanti murder but was involved in it anyway
- Massino appointed Spero as Consigliere
- From the late 1980s to 1992, Vitale was helping Spero to run the Family
- “I do what I’m told, when he tells me to do it. He is the senior statesman. He is – he is the only official person we have home. I am just acting on his behalf and Mr Massino’s behalf”
- Spero and Vitale authorised three murders without consulting Massino
- Massino was made aware of these murders when he was released from prison
- Vitale was promoted to official Underboss after Massino came home
- Spero and Vitale decided to have Russell Mauro killed without consulting Massino
- “I think Spero was fully authorised to murder as the official Consigliere of the Family”
- Mauro was killed in James Tartaglione’s social club
- Vitale was very concerned about the plan to kill Mauro because he was worried that social clubs could be bugged
- Vitale had been similarly alarmed when he found out the three Captains were to be killed in a club
- Mauro was comfortable going to the club for a fraudulent stock deal
- When Spero was arrested in the 1990s, Massino appointed an individual to assist Vitale in running the Family
- Vitale believes the first person to assist him in Spero’s place was Louis Attanasio
- Attanasio was a Captain on the committee and not the Acting Consigliere
- Vitale believes James Tartaglione then replaced Attanasio when he went to prison, and Sciascia then replaced Tartaglione
- When Spero was briefly released from prison, he was unable to function in a leadership position because of his parole restrictions
- Salvatore Tozzi was killed on the sneak
- Massino asked Joseph Chilli, Tozzi’s Captain, if he had any enemies of problems
- Massino instructed all the Captains to investigate what happened to Tozzi
- Massino believed that a Bonanno Soldier named “Joe Brigante” killed Tozzi
- Vitale didn’t ask Massino why he suspected Brigante and doesn’t know if anyone ever asked Brigante
- Brigante’s Captain was either Chilli or Frank Porco
- Vitale did not class the murder of Frank Santoro as a sneak kill because Vincent Basciano admitted it after the fact
- It would only be considered a sneak kill if Basciano covered up his involvement
- Vitale felt Massino started pushing him out around 1995 but it went “full scale” in 1999
- “Mr Massino and I were having major fall-out and he put me on a shelf. Not physically on the shelf, but I was only privy to certain information. He segregated me from the Captains […] He is too smart to put me fully on the shelf. In other words, he just segregates you from the men. He tells you to stay in Long Island because you can’t be – you’re hot. I’m hot. That is not socialize with each other. You stay out there. I’ll stay here. I’ll worry about the men here. You take care of yourself”
- Vitale had invited “certain women” whose husbands were in jail to his son’s wedding in June 1999 and Massino was slighted over it
- Vitale would only therefore talk to other Captains when it suited Massino
- Examples he gives of when it suited Massino were planning the Sciascia murder and setting up a meeting with Alphonse Persico

The Colombo War

- Vitale learned that the problem in the Colombo Family started when Victor Orena was “looking to take the Family from Junior Persico”
- Orena and Benedetto Aloi asked to see Vitale and Spero at the Chelsea House on Cross Bay Boulevard
- At the meeting, they were told that Orena had called an administration meeting and said that Persico didn’t deserve to be the Boss because he had admitted “there was such a thing as organized crime” in his defence in court
- For this reason, Orena said he was going to take over the Family
- Colombo Consigliere Carmine Sessa walked out of the meeting with two or three Captains
- Orena told Vitale and Spero that he had seen Sessa on his block looking to kill him
- Orena let them know he would take care of Sessa and that faction, and he wanted to know what the Bonanno Family’s position was
- Vitale and Spero said they were neutral
- Vitale attended a Commission meeting in a hotel in Manhattan to discuss the problems with the Colombo Family
- Andrew Russo and Vincent Aloi were instructed to attend
- Russo represented the Persico faction, and Aloi represented the Orena faction
- Either Sciascia or Anthony Graziano represented the Bonanno Family with Vitale
- Steven Crea and Joseph DeFede represented the Lucchese Family
- Peter Gotti and Nicholas Corozzo represented the Gambino Family
- Liborio Bellomo and Michael Generoso represented the Genovese Family
- Vitale believes Bellomo was Acting Boss and Generoso was Consigliere at the time
- “The West Side changes hats every week. They could be Acting Boss today, next week they’ll be Consigliere, the next week they’ll be – be Underboss. Whatever suits them that week”
- Bellomo did most of the talking and instructed Aloi and Russo to go into another room and not come out until they resolved their differences
- Aloi and Russo came out still agitated with the situation unresolved and left
- “Barney from the West Side would say: These murders gotta stop, they can’t go on like this. By us being neutral, I think the Colombos for lack of a better word picked up steam on it. We weren’t taking no position at that time. We would try to talk to them and try them to resolve your differences but they wouldn’t”
- The remaining attendees then took a vote and decided to put their weight behind the Persico faction
- They believed if the Orena faction saw that the Commission was no longer neutral they would get the message and come back into the fold
- At the end of the meeting, it was decided to allow the Persico faction and the other four Families to induct five new members each

Liaising with the Colombo Family

- In the late 1990s, the Bonanno Family had “numerous beefs with the Colombos that they weren’t addressing”
- Massino instructed Vitale to get in touch with the Colombo Family to resolve the beefs
- Joel Cacace, the Colombo Consigliere, asked Vitale if it would be okay if he spoke to Thomas Gioeli because he (Cacace) had too much heat on him and couldn’t get out of the neighbourhood
- Vitale would pass the messages to Cacace through Gioeli
- Richard Cantarella had a beef with the Colombo Family over the collection of a $25,000 debt
- Anthony Graziano also had a beef over a gambling debt
- An individual around John DeRoss owed $90,000 to a bookmaking operation owned by a Bonanno member called John [possibly Zancocchio]
- Vitale spoke to Gioeli about the situation, who told Vitale to send John and Peter Rosa to DeRoss’ club
- DeRoss was very congenial, and the money was paid
- John agreed to cut the debt to $45,000
- Vitale never met DeRoss
- One time, Vitale met with Gioeli at the Huntington Hotel on Route 110 in Melville
- Gioeli handed Vitale a list of proposed Colombo members, but Vitale refused to take it
- Gioeli said he was going to give the list to the Gambino Family, and they would approve it

William Cutolo

- Vitale met William Cutolo a couple of times but did not discuss anything criminal with him
- The first meeting took place at Bill Cutolo, Jr.’s wedding
- Cutolo was introduced to Vitale as a Colombo Family Captain
- When the two men shook hands, Vitale noticed that Cutolo was missing his right index finger
- The second meeting occurred when Vitale and Anthony Spero were walking in Sheepshead Bay and happened to bump into Cutolo
- Vitale later heard that Cutolo was “an Underboss”
- Weeks before Vitale’s son’s wedding, he had heard talk from Bath Avenue that Cutolo “was gone” or had “ran away”
- “Ran away” would be used to refer to an individual if they had been made to disappear
- This led Vitale to believe that Cutolo had been murdered
- Sometime after Vitale’s son’s wedding, Gioeli beeped him and told him Alphonse Persico wanted to meet with him (Vitale) and Massino
- Gioeli picked up Vitale and Massino at the Albatremento restaurant off the Belt Parkway and took them to a house in Brooklyn
- Persico and Joel Cacace were inside waiting
- Gioeli waited in the car park
- Vitale had been introduced to Persico socially in the 1980s by Angelo Ruggiero, but he had not met him as a member or seen him since
- Cacace introduced Persico as the Colombo Acting Boss
- Vitale introduced Massino as the “official Rappresentante”
- Vitale introduced Cacace to Massino as the Colombo Consigliere
- After all the introductions, Persico pointed to Cacace and said, “And for the time being he is, he is Acting Underboss”
- The meeting was mostly social, with Persico wanting to get acquainted with Massino
- Persico wanted to thank Massino for staying neutral and said he just wanted to put his Family back together
- They did not talk about Cutolo being murdered, but Persico said, “You can’t take what’s not yours”
- Vitale and Massino took this to mean Cutolo was trying to “take the Family” and that was why he was killed

2000 meeting

- After the meeting to resolve the Colombo War, the only other Commission meeting Vitale was aware of took place in 2000
- Vitale did not attend the meeting but was told what happened by Massino
- Massino represented the Bonanno Family
- Lawrence Dentico represented the Genovese Family
- Peter Gotti represented the Gambino Family
- Louis Daidone represented the Lucchese Family
- Joel Cacace represented the Colombo Family as Consigliere and Street Boss
- Either Dentico or Gotti brought up a debt owed by the Colombo Family
- Cacace then said something along the lines of, “We’ll let Wild Bill take care of it when he comes home”
- Massino and the rest of the Commission felt slighted over the remark
- Massino told Vitale that it was decided that every Family would be allowed to induct two additional members (who were not replacing deceased members) for the next five years
- Anyone who was incarcerated on a drugs charge could not be inducted until five years after their release from prison
- It was also decided that only full-blooded Italians could be inducted

[Hired_Goonz]

Thanks for breaking this all down Chin, your threads rule.

[Pogo The Clown]

Great breakdown. So the 2 members at Christmas thing was only for 5 years. So it would have ended in 2005.


Pogo

[johnny_scootch]

Another great post by Chin.

- Gioeli picked up Vitale and Massino at the Albatremento restaurant off the Belt Parkway and took them to a house in Brooklyn

Abbracciamento’s on the Pier was the last great wiseguy restaurant in Canarsie.

[CornerBoy]

jesus i haven't even thought of that place in yrs

[Antiliar]

Thanks for the detailed summary, chin

[Little_Al1991]

Interesting to see Barney’s perspective on the Colombo war, even though we would have guessed that he would have said this.

[Mikeymike12]

Canarsie Is a whole different area from years ago .....lol

[CornerBoy]

these notes that you take are amazing. thank you!

[JohnnyS]

Another great breakdown. Thanks for posting!

[Southshore88]

Great breakdown chin! Thanks for sharing

[Etna]

Great breakdown. So the 2 members at Christmas thing was only for 5 years. So it would have ended in 2005.


Pogo

Looks like they have their own numbers they make up - after the Colombo war 5 new members a piece and then 2 members for 5 years - they probably change it up depending on circumstances.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Why hasn't B. commented what a good write up this is?

[JohnnyS]

The current rules

To become a made member of LCN, an individual must be male and Italian. Originally, LCN families could initiate new members only to replace a deceased member, which ensured that the families maintained their relative sizes and did not dilute their talent pools in an effort to become larger. Later, these rules were adjusted to allow each family to add a small number of additional members each year even absent the death of an existing member. Once a new member is proposed, the member’s name is circulated to all five families for review and approval. After the new member is approved, the family holds a secret, ritualistic induction ceremony, after which the newly-inducted member is introduced to other members of the family.

Looking at recent events, Spirito jr supposedly inducted a bunch of new members without passing their names around and that's something that the Genovese family have done in the past. Gambinos were able to induct a Lucchese associate so either they passed his name around and then ignored the protest from the Luccheses or they just inducted him without passing the name around. Makes me wonder how much the rules are enforced these days.

[B.]

Why hasn't B. commented what a good write up this is?

?

His write-ups are A+ but I guess you're trying to do something weird again.