Gangland:7/7/16

[Dellacroce]

July 7, 2016 This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci

Motor City Mobsters Whacked Jimmy Hoffa, Not Gangsters From New Jersey And Pennsylvania

Nearly 41 years after the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, and a year after Gang Land published an exclusive account about Hoffa's murder by investigative journalist Dan E. Moldea, the leading expert on the late Teamster's Union president, Gang Land's own mob-historian says the theory espoused by Moldea — as well as the FBI — about the great Mafia mystery is all wet.

In response to numerous reader inquiries about the case, Andy Petepiece opines in a special Ask Andy report this week that it's a "safe bet" that none of the "usual suspects" from New Jersey or Pennsylvania who've been cited by Moldea — and the FBI over the years — had anything at all to do with Hoffa's murder, or the disposal of his body back on July 30, 1975.

Motor City mobsters from Detroit were the likely perpetrators, writes Petepiece, who credits a murderous mob associate named Ralph Picardo with concocting erroneous accounts linking Genovese capo Anthony (Tony Pro) Provenzano and Pennsylvania mob boss Russell Bufalino to Hoffa's killing in a successful ploy to escape a lengthy prison term for a 1974 murder.

Informed about Petepiece's take, Moldea, who stands by his account, said simply: "Andy has earned the right to be wrong." Moldea says his account of "what happened, who did it, and where Hoffa ended up," is the "most plausible" theory about the mysterious case. In his account, which follows Andy's analysis of the sensational case, the prize-winning author disclosed his "best underworld source" about the Hoffa murder.

By Andy Petepiece

Ask Andy: FBI Bought A Bill Of Goods From Little Ralphie Picardo

After 41 years, no one really believes that anyone is going to find Jimmy Hoffa — alive or dead. But even if someone does discover his remains, it's a safe bet that the usual suspects from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, whose names have been bandied about for decades, had nothing to do with Hoffa's demise, or the disposal of his remains.

This includes Pennsylvania Mafia boss Russell Bufalino, Genovese capo Anthony (Tony Pro) Provenzano, soldier Salvatore (Sally Bugs) Briguglio, Teamsters Union official Frank (The Irishman) Sheeran, and Philip (Brother) Moscato, the mob-connected owner of a dump on the Hackensack River where Hoffa's remains were supposedly disposed of 40 years ago.

I say this with all due respect to the FBI, and my good friend Dan Moldea, who has written extensively about the subject and who knows more about the late Teamsters Union president than anyone.

I believe they, the media and the entire law enforcement community were all taken in by Ralph (Little Ralphie) Picardo, a low life murderer with ties to Tony Pro who came up with a tall tale to get out of a 17-to-23 years prison term for the slaying of a New Jersey man.

To begin with, it makes no sense that North East mob families would be given the task of whacking Hoffa, whose murder was likely sanctioned by the Mafia Commission since he was such a prominent national figure. He was an associate of the Detroit family. They could do it without raising Hoffa's suspicions. And too many things could go wrong with a plan involving a New Jersey hit team traveling to Detroit, killing Hoffa and then transporting his body 600 miles for burial in the Garden State.

The only so-called evidence that links Tony Pro's guys to the hit are the words of Picardo, who told the FBI he learned about Hoffa's demise from gangster buddy Steve Andretta in August of 1975, less than a month after Hoffa disappeared.

At the time, Picardo was not a happy camper. He had a very strong motive to find a way to freedom. Tony Pro's crew had taken his business interests when he was in jail. The only thing of value he had was his connection to Tony Pro and the suspicion he was involved in the Hoffa hit. Andretta's visit after the Hoffa hit provided the link.

Isn't it highly unlikely that Andretta would tell Picardo about the sensational killing of Hoffa while he was on one side of a glass partition talking to him on a prison phone that could easily be bugged? It's hard to believe that any gangster, even the dumbest alive, would do such a thing.

The FBI, which was floundering around making no progress, was delighted with the story he told them four months later in November. There is no report of him passing a polygraph exam, but even if he did, since then no one has found any evidence that confirms his account.

With Picardo's information, the FBI developed this theory on the Hoffa murder: Bufalino, the boss of the tiny Northeast Pennsylvania family had given the contract to Tony Pro. Detroit mob capo Anthony (Tony Jack) Giacalone lured Hoffa to a fake peace meeting with Provenzano. Hoffa was picked up by his associate, Charles (Chuckie) O'Brien, and taken to a home where he was killed.

Provenzano associates Briguglio, his brother Gabe, and Thomas Andretta had all flown to Detroit by private plane and did the job, the theory goes. Some allege that Frank Sheeran was involved in some way. Hoffa's body was placed in a 55-gallon drum and driven to Jersey City for disposal by a Gateway Transportation truck.

Neither the FBI, nor anyone else, has come up with any evidence to support this theory.

Even the feds realized it was nuts to think that gangsters would drive a body from Michigan to New Jersey to dispose of it. In January of 1976, a little more than a month after the FBI got a federal judge to authorize a search of Brother Moscato's dump, the Department of Justice announced it had decided not to bother.

The FBI could not place Provenzano or his three cohorts in Detroit on July 30, the day Hoffa disappeared. Despite pressure that included a 63 day contempt sentence, Steve Andretta denied the Hoffa murder story, and telling it to Picardo. Giacalone had a solid alibi and denied planning to meet Hoffa. The feds found evidence that Frank Sheeran drove into Detroit the next day with Bufalino, but could not prove that either was in town on July 30. Finally, Picardo's claim that Bufalino was an acting Genovese family boss with a tremendous amount of clout, was false.

Here's my take on the plot.

Tony Giacalone lured Hoffa to a supposed peace meeting. The evidence for that is a reminder note that Hoffa left on his desk. In addition, Hoffa told others about this meeting. Outside the Machus Red Fox restaurant, Hoffa was picked up, probably by Giacalone's brother Vito (Billy Jack), maybe with a few others. Billy Jack's presence would make sense to Hoffa since he was to meet with his brother. Billy Giacalone's location that day has not been pinned down. Hoffa may have been killed in the car, or somewhere else. His body was most likely buried in the Detroit area. It was a very small group that greatly decreased the likelihood that an informer could learn of it, and spill the beans. All the Detroit characters are dead now, thus there is little chance we will ever get a full account of the famous hit, let alone find Hoffa's body.

There is no hard evidence to support my theory, either. But it makes more sense than the elaborate, convoluted plan that Little Ralphie concocted.

I also dismiss the claim by Frank Sheeran that he flew into Detroit on a private plane to join up with the New Jersey mobster at a home where Hoffa was killed. Other than his words, no evidence of his flight in and out of Pontiac Michigan, or any other details he supplied, have been proven.

By Dan E. Moldea July 30, 2015

The Disappearance Of Jimmy Hoffa: Forty Years Later

The mystery of Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance on July 30, 1975, has confounded the nation for 40 years. Even as the trail has waxed and waned, and the baffling cast of sketchy characters is dying off, the FBI and the media still keep an eye peeled for the one clue or confession that will lead to the final resolution of the mystery, perhaps even the recovery of the remains of the long gone 62-year-old ex-boss of the Teamsters Union.

Based on the evidence, including my own contributions to the case, I believe that what I am presenting here is the most plausible theory to date as to what happened, who did it, and where Hoffa ended up.

The Hoffa murder was a three-act drama with different characters in each act: In Act One, Hoffa went to the Machus Red Fox restaurant in a Detroit suburb in anticipation of a meeting with two Mafia figures, Anthony (Tony Jack) Giacalone of Detroit and Anthony (Tony Pro) Provenzano of Union City, New Jersey. Supposedly, neither man showed up.

In Act Two, Hoffa was picked up and taken to the location where he was murdered.

In Act Three, his body was disposed of.

This is a story about Act Three with passing references to Acts One and Two.

The first public break in the case came on December 4, 1975, when Salvatore and Gabriel Briguglio and Stephen and Thomas Andretta, four long-time associates of Tony Provenzano, appeared before a federal grand jury in Detroit and invoked their Fifth Amendment rights rather than answer any questions about the murder of Jimmy Hoffa.

The Briguglio and Andretta brothers had been implicated by Ralph Picardo, who had placed them on the FBI's radar screen. At the time, Picardo was serving 20 years for manslaughter in Trenton State Penitentiary. According to Picardo, Steve and Tom Andretta, along with an accountant used by all three, had visited him at the prison a few days after Hoffa disappeared. While Steve and Ralph were alone, Steve allegedly gave him some specific details about how the Hoffa murder had been executed.

Picardo quickly made his way to the law-enforcement community and cut himself a deal. When he told his story, he suggested that Sal Briguglio had actually killed Hoffa, adding that Hoffa's body was placed in a 55-gallon drum and shipped via a Gateway Transportation truck to an unknown destination in New Jersey.

When pressed by the FBI to speculate on the actual location of Hoffa's body, Picardo suggested "Brother Moscato's dump," which was the PJP Landfill in Jersey City, where other victims of the Provenzano group had allegedly been laid to rest. But this lead about Phillip (Brother) Moscato's landfill was nothing more than Picardo's educated guess, so the FBI stated that it was looking for the remains of a missing loan shark named Armand Faugno when they searched the landfill.

Later, during my exclusive face-to-face interview on October 25, 1976, with the Briguglio brothers and Steve Andretta, as well as with Tom Andretta by telephone, all of them denied any role in Hoffa's murder. No real surprise there, but I couldn't help but notice the extent to which they tried to dispel Picardo's account of Hoffa's murder and where his body was most likely buried.

Sally Bugs Briguglio, Hoffa's alleged killer, scoffed to me during our recorded interview, "They said we took Hoffa from Detroit, put him on a truck, brought him all the way down here in a fifty-five gallon drum, and we put him in Brother Moscato's dump."

Other potential suspects who invoked the Fifth Amendment before the grand jury in December 1975 were Rolland McMaster, and his brother-in-law, Stanton Barr. McMaster was a powerful Teamsters organizer and former Hoffa ally who had a falling out with Hoffa after the Teamsters president went to prison for jury tampering and pension fraud in March 1967. Charles (Chuckie) O'Brien, a Hoffa stepson who was labeled a suspect by the FBI when agents learned he had borrowed a car from Tony Jack Giacalone's son Joseph on the day Hoffa disappeared, also took the Fifth before the grand jury in September of 1975.

In 1976, I disclosed in a Detroit Free Press story that McMaster had used a 32-member goon squad to shake down trucking companies and solicit payoffs in return for labor peace. In a follow-up piece, I revealed that this same unit was also behind numerous acts of violence aimed at pro-Hoffa supporters in Detroit's Local 299, Hoffa's home local. One of McMaster's crew was Jim Shaw, a driver for Gateway Transportation.

Notably, Stan Barr, who was McMaster's alibi for the afternoon that Hoffa vanished, was the head of the steel division of Gateway Transportation.

McMaster and Stan Barr both acknowledged to me that they were together on the afternoon Hoffa disappeared, but they insisted they were out of town for much of the day. McMaster had owned a private home just five minutes from the Red Fox restaurant where Hoffa was last seen, as well as a farm about twenty minutes away in nearby Milford Township in Wixom, Michigan.

In May 2006, FBI agents raided the farm looking for Hoffa's remains based on information provided by Donovan Wells, a former business partner of both McMaster and Barr. At the time, Wells was in a federal prison in Lexington, Kentucky. He and his family lived on McMaster's farm at the time Hoffa disappeared.

The FBI's search warrant for McMaster's farm has never been released. But Wells told me in 2009 that he informed the FBI that a large hole had been dug on the north end of the property several weeks before Hoffa's murder. In addition, his wife, Monica, claimed that on the afternoon of Hoffa's disappearance, she saw two or three dark-colored cars speeding onto the property, roaring past the farmhouse on an adjacent dirt road, and heading towards the pre-dug hole.

But what had really piqued the FBI's interest was what Wells had seen and heard the night before Hoffa's murder. At a local restaurant, as Wells, McMaster, and Barr were having dinner, Tony Pro — in the flesh — suddenly appeared, slapped his hand on their table, and said: "It's going to be a great day tomorrow! A great day tomorrow! Right, Mac?" And he slapped McMaster on the back.

Provenzano then asked McMaster to accompany him to the bar for a private conversation.

While they were gone, Wells asked Barr what was going on. Barr replied that Provenzano and Hoffa were meeting the following day to settle their differences — and that Tony Giacalone was making the arrangements for the sitdown.

When Provenzano and McMaster returned to the table, Provenzano pointed to McMaster and Barr and asked, "Do you guys know where you're going to be tomorrow?"

McMaster responded, "Yeah, we're all straight on that."

The FBI never unearthed Hoffa's remains, or any evidence that he had been killed on McMaster's farm, but Don Wells — who passed an FBI polygraph test — provided the Bureau with important new information about Hoffa's disappearance in 2006: Rolland McMaster and Tony Pro were together at a restaurant in Detroit on July 29, 1975, the night before Hoffa disappeared. Wells also heard a portion of their conversation which was clearly about Provenzano's scheduled 2:00 P.M. meeting with Hoffa on July 30, as well as the need for McMaster and Barr to have established alibis for the afternoon when Hoffa was last seen.

After my interview with Wells, I visited my best underworld-connected source who was in a position to know the specific details about the Hoffa murder — but who disclosed information with the same frequency as a kosher butcher sells pork chops. To my surprise, he confirmed Wells's claim that Tony Pro was in Detroit the night before Hoffa vanished — something that Provenzano had always denied. However, he refused to say whether Provenzano was present at the scene of the murder the following day.

My source insisted that Ralph Picardo "basically had it right" but added that he had much more insight about the Hoffa murder. For instance, he told me that Vito Giacalone, Tony Giacalone's younger brother, had played an important role in the conspiracy, which had not been previously reported.

Nearly seven years later, on February 16, 2014, my best East Coast underworld-connected source died, taking many of the secrets of Hoffa's murder to his grave. However, as per our agreement, I am now free to reveal what he did tell me about the Hoffa case.

His words validate one of the FBI's earliest and best leads about the case, those provided by Ralph Picardo.

My source was Phillip Moscato, aka "Brother Moscato," the same man who owned the landfill on the Hackensack River in Jersey City that informer Ralph Picardo first mentioned as a likely site where Hoffa had been laid to rest following a stealthy 600-mile ride to New Jersey in a 55-gallon drum aboard a Gateway Transportation truck.

I first spoke to Moscato in a telephone call to his New Jersey home on April 28, 2007. He was very cordial and agreed to an interview.

I told Moscato that the first time I had heard his name was in early December 1975 after the Briguglio and Andretta brothers, along with McMaster and Barr, had appeared before a federal grand jury in Detroit.

Saying he had also been subpoenaed by that grand jury, Moscato told me he had known Salvatore Briguglio and Steve Andretta "since we were kids," adding, "Sally, as far as I was concerned, was one of the greatest guys. We hung out together. We had a little business together. Super guy."

Contrary to what had been previously reported, Moscato insisted that FBI agents were not looking for the remains of Faugno, a loan shark whom Sally Bugs was said to have murdered, during their search. "No, they were looking for Hoffa," Moscato insisted.

"What was the story with that?" I asked.
"Well, they said that me and Sally Briguglio buried Hoffa in my dump."
"They thought you were part of this?" I laughed.
"Yeah. Well, I was close with all them guys. And there was a rat by the name of Ralphie Picardo . . ."
"Ralph Picardo. He was in Trenton State Penitentiary."

Moscato laughed, "You've been doing your homework, huh?" He then continued, "Ralphie, I knew for years. I helped him out in business, in the trucking business. I helped him. Faugno helped him. Sally [Briguglio] helped him to get him started in his trucking business. He was around us a lot. And after he shot this guy, he wanted to get out of jail. So he goes and tells the FBI that he knows where Hoffa's buried. That he was with me and Sally when we buried Hoffa in my dump."

"Picardo said that he was with you and Sally?"
"Yeah. So he took them [the FBI] down there. They dug the dump up for three months."
"I thought they were looking for Faugno," I said.
"No," Moscato replied.
"In a fifty-five-gallon drum? They were looking for Hoffa himself?"

Moscato continued: "That was Hoffa in the fifty-five-gallon drum. [Picardo] said a pick-up truck brought . . . . the truck in and Hoffa was in it, and we buried him."
"I never heard that story that you were part of it. I never heard that one before," I replied.
"That's what it was all about," he said.

Although Moscato seemed cool, I was completely stunned.

This was new. Picardo never told that to the FBI. The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention while my stomach churned as I tried to digest this new information as we continued talking.

One obvious problem with Moscato's story was that Picardo had been jailed in May 1975 and was in prison at the time Hoffa disappeared two months later. Consequently, there was no way that he could have made a claim to have been present when Moscato and Briguglio buried Hoffa at the landfill.

So what was Moscato telling me, wittingly or unwittingly, in our first conversation, during a telephone chat? Was he actually admitting that he and Sal Briguglio, the likely killer of Jimmy Hoffa, had buried Hoffa's body at Moscato's dump?

Ten days later, I pressed Moscato about that when I met him for the first time at his home on May 8, 2007, and we continued our tape-recorded conversation about the Hoffa case. A tall, handsome man who was suffering from myriad health issues, Moscato had been a U.S. Army paratrooper and demolition expert during the Korean War. He owned more than 40 restaurants during his life, as well as an auto-repair shop and a stable of racehorses. And at one time, he was a scratch golfer.

I must admit that I liked and even respected this man, Phillip Moscato.

"Let me ask you," I said, "when I interviewed you over the phone — again this is in my notes — did you say that Picardo said he was with you and Sal when you guys buried the body at the dump?"
"Yeah."
"So he wasn't in jail then — in July '75?"
"The government took him out."
"No, no. In July '75. Was he in jail for manslaughter then?"
"I don't know. I don't know. But he took them down there. 'Oh, here's where [Hoffa] is.' And they dug and dug. 'No, it was over there. . . . No, it was over here.'"
I then asked, "He said he knew?"
"Yeah."

Clearly, Moscato was confused about the timing, but not about the facts. Picardo had to have accompanied federal agents to Moscato's dump to search for Hoffa's body after he flipped and turned state's evidence in November 1975.

I told Moscato: "We never thought that Hoffa was any place but Detroit. I mean, why would you move him? I mean, Detroit's capable. There are plenty of places in Detroit to take care of a body for heaven's sake."

Regarding the FBI's May 2006 dig for Hoffa's remains at McMaster's farm in Wixom, Michigan, Moscato replied with absolute certainty and unquestionable authority in his voice, "Put that to rest."

"So you don't think he's at the farm?" I asked him twice.
Moscato shook his head, No, both times.
"Do you think he was taken care of right there in Detroit? I mean, why not, right?"
Yet again, Moscato shook his head.

As I completely lost whatever poker face I had maintained during the interview, I replied somewhat sheepishly, "What are you telling me? He was at Moscato's dump?"

Moscato barked, "I ain't telling you nothing. But I'm telling you that he ain't [at McMaster's farm]."

On June 18, 2013, in the midst of a much-publicized "new" FBI search for Hoffa's body, I called Moscato and asked him how seriously I should be taking this latest effort.

Moscato laughed and told me that this latest excavation of a field just north of Detroit would also amount to nothing. "I think I've already told you what happened," he said.

Dan E. Moldea is the author of eight non-fiction books, including The Hoffa Wars. Portions of this article were excerpted from Moldea's memoir, Confessions of a Guerrilla Writer, Second Edition, which was released today on Amazon.com. His research was aided by generous grants from The Nation Institute's Investigative Fund and The Charlotte von Stein Charitable Trust.

Frank Sheeran Did Not Paint Jimmy Hoffa's House

It would probably make a great movie, but with all due respect to author Charles Brandt, Frank (The Irishman) Sheeran did not whack Jimmy Hoffa 40 years ago today. As I politely told Robert De Niro last December, who still may play Sheeran in a movie adaption of Brandt's book, I Heard You Paint Houses, Sheeran has successfully conned a lot of people despite his conflicting versions of events.

Phillip (Brother) Moscato, who owned the landfill where Hoffa's remains were most likely disposed of, took many secrets about the killing to his grave. But he told me emphatically: "I can assure you that Sheeran had no role in the actual killing of Jimmy Hoffa." No ifs, ands, or buts about it from a guy who rarely spoke in declarative sentences.

As I wrote in my 1978 book, The Hoffa Wars, Sheeran was involved in the murder plot. But his main role was to convince Hoffa — who trusted his longtime Teamsters Union partner in crime with his life — that it was safe for him to get into a car at the Machus Red Fox restaurant in a Detroit suburb where Hoffa was waiting for what he thought would be a sitdown with Tony Provenzano and Tony Giacalone. Chuckie O'Brien was most likely in another car, and his actions, perhaps unwitting, were another ploy to lull Hoffa into a false sense of safety.

Sheeran threatened in a letter from his attorney to sue me for libel because I had accused him of participating in the murder conspiracy. But in 2003, when he was dying of cancer, rather than die virtually penniless, he gave himself a much bigger role in the famed murder so he could sell his life story, one that had been repeatedly rejected. I Heard You Paint Houses was published in 2004, a year after he died.

Indeed, as I alleged in my book 37 years ago and Brandt claimed in his book 26 years later, Mafia Boss Russell Bufalino — who was based in Pittstown, Pennsylvania, and had business dealings with Hoffa and Sheeran for years — authorized the murder. But Provenzano, a New Jersey-based Genovese crime family captain worked out the details. Tony Pro chose the hit team, and Sheeran wasn't on it.

The best evidence, based on what all the key sources have told law-enforcement authorities and/or me, is that Hoffa was driven to McMaster's farm where he was murdered by Sally Bugs Briguglio, and then stuffed into a 55-gallon drum, and shipped via a Gateway Transportation truck to his final resting place at Brother Moscato's landfill on the Hackensack River in Jersey City.

[Allie Boy]

Thank you. I was hoping for some NY stuff, but of course no can get enough of Hoffa.

[123JoeSchmo]

Wow a whole series on Hoffa. Not sure about anyone else, but this was really boring to read.

[Rocco]

Couldn't even get thru it. First Gangland about fucking Attorneys now Fuckin Hoffa... Uggh. Thanks for posting though.

[Cheech]

jerry strikes out again. not sure why i continue to pay

[Allie Boy]

jerry strikes out again. not sure why i continue to pay

You paid for this? Get your money back. I'd sue him.

[TommyGambino]

Yawn

[Cheech]

jerry strikes out again. not sure why i continue to pay

You paid for this? Get your money back. I'd sue him.

It's 5 dollars a month. I'll be ight

[phatmatress777]

Every year at this time he does the Hoffa bullshit


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