Gangland November 7th 2024

[Dr031718]

Stevie Gallo, Little-Known, Well-Liked Wiseguy Nephew of Crazy Joe, Checks Out at 74

Crazy Joe Gallo was a rebel mobster whose revolt against his mob boss ended in defeat. Bob Dylan sang that "the sun turned cold over President Street and the town of Brooklyn mourned" when Gallo was shot to death in a storied rubout in Umberto's Clam House. More than 50 years later, the legacy of Joseph (Crazy Joe) Gallo is alive and well in the Genovese crime family.

Scores of New York wiseguys attended the two-day wake of Stephen (Stevie) Gallo, a little-known, but well-respected Genovese wiseguy who died last week. Gallo, 74, was a nephew of the larger-than-life gangster who was a pal of the late Law & Order star Jerry Orbach and a scourge of Colombo family loyalists who killed him as he celebrated his 43d birthday.

Three months before Crazy Joe was killed on April 7, 1972, he showed up in Brooklyn Federal Court to support his nephew. Stevie, then 22, had been charged with possessing and selling $2200 worth of cocaine in Red Hook, where Joe, his brother Larry, Stevie's dad, who died of cancer in 1968, and his younger brother, Albert (Kid Blast) were born.

As Stevie and two codefendants were being arraigned, Crazy Joe approached the bench and "nervously interrupted the proceedings" and told U.S. Magistrate Max Schiffman, "Your Honor, I know I don't have standing here, but I am his uncle," according to accounts in The New York Times and the New York Daily News on January 8, 1972.

"Sit down," the judge ordered, stating that young Gallo had competent counsel. It's not likely that Crazy Joe had a positive impact on the proceeding. But he certainly didn't have a negative one. Gallo was released on a $5000 recognizance bond. The others were held on $25,000 bail.

A broad spectrum of wiseguys were among the mourners who paid their respects to Gallo's widow and family members at the Aievoli Funeral Home in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. They included acting Luchese boss Michael (Big Mike) DeSantis, Gambino family consigliere Lorenzo Mannino, and Genovese capos Daniel Pagano and John (Johnny Hollywood) Brescio.

Gallo, of Brooklyn and Frenchtown, NJ, where he owned a horse farm about 35 miles from Trenton, died October 27. Following a funeral mass at the Sacred Hearts & St. Stephen Church, on Halloween, which would have been his 75th birthday, he was interred at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, where his father Larry, who died from cancer in 1968, is also buried.

Among the many floral arrangements that adorned the two rooms in the funeral parlor that were set aside to accommodate the turnout, was a large one that was about five feet high in the shape of a full sized horse with four legs, a head and a tail, according to one mourner, a longtime pal. "I never seen anything like it," he said.

"He was a dynamite guy. Everybody loved Stevie," said Gallo's pal. "He owned a few horses and loved to ride," his pal told Gang Land. "He rode until his health went on him four or five years back," he said, adding that Gallo's health problems included kidney disease and a hip replacement.

Sources say the well-heeled, lowkey mobster, who had arrests for bank fraud and making false statements in addition to the 1972 cocaine arrest — but no convictions that Gang Land was able to find — was inducted into the crime family more than 20 years ago.

Law enforcement sources say that for years Stevie was under capo Matthew (Matty The Horse) Ianniello, who died in 2012. They were mum, however, about his recent mob superior or any recent criminal activity that they knew about him.

"That's because they don't have any," laughed a usually reliable underworld source. "For years," the source continued, "all he had, and was involved in, was the restaurant," a reference to Casa Bella Restaurant on Mulberry Street, which has an interesting Ristorante CaSaBella logo on its website that ties it to its original owner, Bonanno soldier Michael Sabella.

Years ago, Gang Land was told a tale about the restaurant that went back to the late 1970s when FBI agent Joe Pistone was infiltrating the Bonanno crime family. Allegedly, wannabe family boss Carmine (Lilo) Galante — who was killed in July of 1979 — was in the CaSaBella at the same time as Pistone. That's very doubtful, but the tale wasn't completely made up.

Pistone was there one night having dinner with a few mobsters, who knew him as jewel thief Donnie Brasco, when the "restaurant's strolling guitarist came to our table," and a girlfriend of one of the wiseguys "requested the theme from The Godfather," Pistone wrote, which the guitar player quickly played.

But in the mid-1980s, after Pistone implicated Sabella in bribing an FBI agent in Milwaukee, Sabella was not only facing charges — they were eventually dropped and he was charged civilly — but he was strapped for cash and forced to sell the place.

Sources say he sold the restaurant to Crazy Joe's younger brother Albert (Kid Blast) Gallo. He and other Gallo crew members were put on record by the Genovese family in a deal that was worked out by a legendary Park Slope skipper named Gaetano (Toddo) Marino to heal the wounds of the Gallo and Persico factions of the Colombo family.

Early last week, the same day Gang Land learned about Stevie Gallo's death, a short blurb on the Casa Bella website identified the proprietor as one Stephen Gallo, who had the nickname Bitsie.

Yesterday, the blurb stated that the proprietor was Bitsie Gallo. She is officially listed in New York state records as the restaurant's proprietor and sources say she has actually been running the restaurant for several years. Her official moniker is Adele Gallo, and she is also known even more officially as Mrs. Albert Gallo.

Back on January 29, 1962, Kid Blast Gallo and other crew members, including another crew member who was inducted by the Genoveses, Frank (Punchy) Illiano, ran into a smoky burning building at 73 President Street to save six children whose mother had left them unattended to run out to the store.

Kid Blast is now 94, and he doesn't run into burning buildings anymore. But Albert attended the wake of his nephew Stevie, and sources say he still can occasionally be seen at the Casa Bella restaurant that is owned by his wife.

Gallo family members did not respond to a Gang Land message that was left at the funeral parlor, and Gang Land is unable to report the identity of any other survivors. Bitsie Gallo declined to respond to message that was left for her at Casa Bella.

Bobby Manna, 94, Still Kicking & Still Looking For Compassion

Despite what you may have read on social media, Genovese wiseguy Louis (Bobby) Manna did not die in prison last weekend, the same way his mobster father did 72 years ago. The once powerful family consigliere is still alive, but not doing so well as he is in a prison hospital. This is why the ailing 94-year-old gangster is seeking a compassionate release that will allow him to live the rest of his days at home.

The feds say nuts to that. Manna should die behind bars, they insist, even though his conviction is for a single murder. This gives him just ten percent of the number of confirmed bodies on his record that the Murder Machine mobsters, Anthony Senter and Joseph Testa, had when they were ordered freed by the U.S. Parole Commission last year.

That came after they had served 35 years for 10 mob murders. No loud dissent was heard at the time from federal prosecutors. Not that anyone is keeping track, but numerous other drug dealers and gangsters have also been freed by federal judges after similar stretches behind bars after convictions for multiple murders.

In its last filing six weeks ago, the government stated that Newark Federal Judge Maryanne Trump Barry (yes, the once again future President's older sister) "had necessarily contemplated (Manna) spending the remainder of his life in prison" when she gave him 80 years for ordering the storied 1987 rubout of Irwin (The Fatman) Schiff, and for plotting to whack Gambino boss John Gotti and his brother Gene that same year.

"Nothing that has occurred in the intervening years has fundamentally altered the factors" that Barry considered in 1989 or that Judge Peter Sheridan considered last year when he wrote that "his numerous crimes were extremely serious and heinous" and he denied Manna compassion, wrote assistant U.S. attorney Alexander Ramey.

Sheridan has also denied two similar motions for compassion for Richard (Bocci) DeSciscio, now 82, the longtime Manna crony who was convicted of being part of the hit team that killed Schiff, the millionaire mob-linked businessman who was shot to death as he dined at the Bravo Sergio Restaurant on the Upper East Side on August 8, 1987.

In his filing with the newly assigned judge, Robert Kirsch, prosecutor Ramey noted that from the outset until his "sentencing, Manna failed to accept responsibility for his crimes" and refused to provide any mitigating information to probation officials. He argued that Manna should be ordered to complete the 80-year prison term that was handed down by Judge Barry, even though it would be highly unlikely that Manna makes it to the finish line which is November 7. 2054 — exactly 30 years from today.

Ramey didn't pretend otherwise in his memo. He noted that Manna "has roughly 30 years left on his sentence," and that despite the fact that he is "94 years old — turning 95 in December — and will not survive" his lengthy prison term, he does not deserve compassion even though "compelling and extraordinary reasons exist that justify compassionate release."

That is so, Ramey argues, even though Manna has a "low-level risk of recidivism," has numerous debilitating ailments, and that two prison wardens and the Bureau of Prisons approved his release under the First Step Act of 2018 in 2020 when a BOP social worker at his prison hospital stated that Manna appeared to "have the support and resources necessary for successful re-entry."

Manna's status as "a major figure in organized crime who occupied a leadership role in a racketeering conspiracy that planned to murder two individuals and successfully murdered another" along with his "violent and egregious conduct in the offenses," wrote Ramey, "weigh against any reduction" in his sentence.

But at least Manna is still breathing. "I'm happy to say that the reports of Mr. Manna's death were fake news," said attorney Jeremy Iandolo. He told Gang Land he is "hopeful" that his pending third motion for compassion for Manna will be successful, and plans to speak to his client about the case later this week.

"It's a damn shame," said Iandolo. "My client's got a long list of ailments, he's convicted of ordering one murder — he's not the triggerman — and he's in prison while a lot of defendants who were serial killers have been released and are back on the streets."

Manna was just a budding wiseguy in his early 20s when his father, Mauro (Morris) Manna, died at the age of 56 while serving a three-to-five year prison term for receiving stolen goods at the New Jersey State prison in Trenton in November of 1952.

Mauro was indentified on November 4, 1952 as a major player in the Genovese crime family's rackets on the New Jersey docks in the 1940's and early 1950's in a two part series in the New York Daily News titled "Waterfront Sore Spot," a year before the now defunct Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor was created in 1953. Bobby Manna apparently decided to live his life like his old man. Now he may die like him too.

Surprised Sammy Bull Sez A Mob Boss Prez Would Be A Good Thing*

They worked pretty well together 25 years ago, but mob turncoat Salvatore Gravano was as surprised as the next guy — along with several former FBI agents — when he learned that fired FBI Director James Comey cited "Sammy the Bull" and argued in his tell-all book that President Trump sought the same loyalty from him that mob bosses demanded from their troops.

Nothing wrong with that, Gravano tells Gang Land.

"The country doesn't need a bookworm as President, it needs a mob boss," said Gravano, who famously brought down his Mafia boss, John Gotti, in 1992. That's especially so today when the President has to deal with powerful demagogues with nuclear weapons at their command, says the 73-year-old Sammy Bull, who said his health is "much better" since he got out of prison in September.

"Truthfully speaking now," said Gravano, "if you're gonna deal with the guy who runs North Korea, or the people who run Iran, or the Russian president, do you want a fucking bookworm to deal with them? Or do you want a gangster? You don't need a Harvard graduate to deal with these people. These guys are real gangsters. You need a fucking gangster to deal with these people."

Gravano said all of that — and much more — in an exclusive interview with Gang Land. The talk was sparked by Comey's new book, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership, in which Comey writes that during a private White House dinner a week after the inauguration Trump told him, "I expect loyalty. I need loyalty." Comey concluded: "The demand was like Sammy the Bull's Cosa Nostra induction ceremony."

During the interview — Gravano's first since his release after doing 17-plus years for drug dealing — the former mobster insisted that he was not endorsing Trump as he declared that a Mafia boss as Commander in Chief would be a good thing. Instead, he focused on the main point of the book by Comey, who as a prosecutor, used Sammy Bull as a witness in a 1993 case in which the mob defector helped the feds wrangle convictions of three mobsters for a John Gotti-ordered rubout.

"I don't want this to sound like I'm tooting Trump's horn," said Sammy Bull. "I'm saying you need a guy like me. A real gangster. No matter who it is. When you deal with people on that level, you gotta be a gangster," said Gravano, who insisted that his real-life gangster days are over.

He opined that a President needs the same toughness and moxie to beat back the likes of Kim Jong un, Hassan Rouhani or Vladimir Putin that Sammy Bull used when dealing with murderous mobsters in his own family, as well as mob rivals during the bloody 1980s and early 1990s, years when dead gangsters from three crime families littered the streets of New York.

"When I dealt with other families, their bosses, underbosses and guys like Roy Demeo and Gaspipe Casso, and all kinds of other crazy nut jobs," Gravano continued, "if I wasn't a gangster, and they didn't know I was a gangster, they would have swallowed me up."

"If you (the U.S. President) ain't going to act like a fucking gangster with them, (Kim, Rouhani, Putin) you are never going to get their respect, number 1, and number 2, they'll eat you up," he said.

One topic Gravano refused to go near, however, was whether he had any dealings with Trump in the 1980s — or ever met or spoke to him — while both were major players in the New York City construction industry. It seems likely they might have, since each had close ties to the convicted leader of Teamsters Local 282, John Cody. But Gravano would only state "no comment" on possible meetings or dealings with Trump.

For the record, as the Gambino crime family's main man in the industry, Sammy Bull controlled Local 282. And for years, while Cody's members worked on Trump building projects, Cody's girlfriend had a rent free apartment in Trump Towers, according to Wayne Barrett, who detailed Trump's ties to Cody and other wiseguys in his 1992 book, Trump: The Deals and the Downfall.

During his mobster days, Gravano owned a Brooklyn construction company. He also ran one in Arizona when he got out of prison in the 1990s before his arrest in 2000 for dealing ecstasy. Today, he says he pays close attention to the economy as he pursues other business "options" and believes, he said, that major issues like unemployment, education and health care would also improve if a mob boss was President.

"Politicians are always lying and they are robbing the country forever," said Gravano, echoing what Trump, and many of his staunch supporters said during and after The Donald's surprising victory over Hillary Clinton 17 months ago.

Comey's words in his book, and the amplification of them to ABC-TV's George Stephanopoulos on Sunday that Trump's loyalty remark was an "amica nostra" moment to him, may make Sammy Bull's ideas about the President, and the economy, somewhat relevant. But Gang Land thought that even the disgruntled Gravano would agree that a Mafia boss would worsen the bread and butter issues that affect most Americans.

"You gotta be kidding," Gang Land retorted, "Wouldn't a mob boss do the same thing, rob the public blind?"

"Not to the same extent," said Gravano. "I'll give you an example. We had the bread association. So we went to the bakers and told them to raise their prices. We told 'em everyone's going to make more money. You, the union, everybody's going to make more money. And we're going to make a little money. So a loaf of bread, hypothetically (he really used that word) goes up four cents or a nickel. We take a penny or two out of that, and everybody eats."

"The politicians do the same thing the mob does," said Gravano, "but they're the Mafia on steroids. They don't rob pennies. They want the whole loaf of bread."

"I'll give you another example," Sammy Bull continued, recalling a staged 1981 labor dispute between workers in a mob-controlled union who toiled for private sanitation companies that were controlled by an association headed by Gambino capo James (Jimmy Brown) Failla.

"I was in Paul Castellano's house one day, and there was a garbage strike. Jimmy Brown came up, and Paul told him, 'Listen. I was watching TV. Don't overdo these things. We got garbage piled up in front of schools, and hospitals. Go get that the fuck out of there. We don't want to hurt the general public. We want to make a few dollars more. Don't cripple the fucking city.' That was Paul's words to Jimmy Brown in front of me. And that, to me, is the mob."

When Gang Land noted that Sammy Bull was intimately involved in Big Paul's demise and was on the scene when his mob cohorts killed him, Gravano declined to go back on either his current remarks or his involvement in Castellano's murder, stating that he testified about "those reasons" at Gotti's trial, and several others back in the 1990s.

Gravano was Comey's key witness in a 1993 case in Manhattan Federal Court against wiseguys John Gambino, his brother Joseph, and Lorenzo Mannino, a trio charged in the 1988 murder of a rival gangster in Queens. The jury hung 11-1 for conviction on the murder, but the trio took 15-year-plea deals rather than take their chances a second time. But Gravano said he couldn't hazard a guess as to why Comey invoked his name to bash the President, noting that he had told numerous callers, including former FBI agents, the same thing in recent days.

The Bull said he hadn't spoken to Comey since the trial, and that he didn't recall ever telling Comey about his own induction in 1976 or a special one he handled for Gotti the same year he supervised the Queens slaying. (See below)

Gravano also declined to discuss the opinions that former G-men voiced to him about Comey's book. But three former agents told Gang Land that his book was a "disservice" to all current and former agents and that Comey and they would have been better served if he left the fallout of his firing and Trump's Presidency to special counsel Robert Mueller.

"If Comey knows so much about mob bosses," said one, "he should have taken the advice" that former Gambino underboss Aniello (Neil) Dellacroce gave FBI agents who tried to flip him in the emergency room of Beekman Downtown Hospital on February 26, 1985 when they arrested him on racketeering charges in the historic Commission case.

"The silent tongue is the golden tongue," said Dellacroce, whose death 10 months later, eased the way for Gotti and Gravano to whack Big Paul Castellano and take over the Gambino family.

* First printed on April 19, 2018, two years into The Donald's first term as President

[Dr031718]

Bobby Manna

[Dapper_Don]

thanks for posting

[JohnnyS]

Thanks for posting.

Good to finally get a pic of Stevie Gallo. I only ever had a description of him from surveillance of Petey Red's social club.

[JakeTheSnake630]

Bobby Manna

Any idea how old he is in this pic?

[gohnjotti]

Great write-up by Jerry. I knew he wouldn't let the Manna thing slide.

[Dr031718]

Bobby Manna

Any idea how old he is in this pic?

No the article didn’t mention how old the photo was

[Doobeez]

Great column this week. Thank you for putting it up, Dr..

[SonnyBlackstein]

Feds got some new pics hopefully we see. DeSantis, Mannino, Pagano & Brescio all in the same place.