Gangland 8/25/22

[Dr031718]

Andy Maloney, The U.S. Attorney Who Pulled The Trigger Against John Gotti, Dead At 90


Taps were played in Gang Land last week for Andrew Maloney, the pugnacious, street-smart West Point welterweight boxing champ-turned Brooklyn U.S. Attorney who lost one round against John Gotti before delivering a knock out punch to the Gambino crime family kingpin in a case that made mob history.

A former Manhattan federal prosecutor, Maloney also outboxed his law enforcement colleagues across the river at the Southern District of New York and legendary Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau to win the approval of the U.S. Department of Justice to put Gotti back before another Brooklyn jury.

Maloney, who died last week at the age of 90, made sure he played a role in the 1992 trial that ended the reign and celebrity status of the Dapper Don five years after his stunning acquittal of racketeering and murder charges.

Maloney suspected from the get-go that Gotti had fixed the case. He told his prosecutors that right after the acquittal, and vowed he would play a role in bringing Gotti down if the FBI made another case against him. He relished his role in the trial that sunk the late Gambino boss, and sent him to prison for life.

While delivering the opening statement in the case, he cocked his forefinger and his thumb into in the shape of a handgun, pointed it at Gotti, and pulled the imaginary trigger with a smile on his face as he told the jury: "This is a case of a Mafia boss brought down by his own words, his own right arm, and in the course of it, bringing down his whole family."

On the day that Gotti's "right arm," turncoat underboss Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano was slated to take the stand, FBI agents spotted the son of a slain mobster whom Gravano had comforted out of guilt for being part of the murder plot against his father. The son was seated in the first row, on the aisle where Sammy Bull was sure to see him, and Maloney complained about it to the judge.

"Your honor," Maloney argued, "he's there for one reason, to intimidate and try to make Mr. Gravano perhaps clam up."

Maloney's sharp jab not only got the wannabe hood Joseph (Little Joe) D'Angelo pushed back into the second row, it also told Gotti and company that the government wasn't going to be pushed around as it had been in the mob boss's first trial.

Almost every day Gotti's minions produced known celebrities like Jay and the Americans singer Jay Black, and civil rights leader Roy Innes, actors John Amos and Mickey Rourke, to sit in the first row of the courtroom. Maloney, during breaks in the action would whisper to me or Gene Mustain, my Daily News colleague covering the trial, "I wonder who they're going to bring in tomorrow."

Another courtroom well-wisher for the gangster was actor Anthony Quinn, who had met Gotti at a Manhattan restaurant they each frequented. When Quinn tried to shake Gotti's hand and wish him luck, he was blocked by deputy U.S. marshals. Instead the actor who portrayed a Pope in The Shoes of the Fishermen, and a tough NYPD detective in Across 110th Street, mouthed the words, "Sorry John," to Gotti. Maloney waited until until after Gotti was no longer in the courtroom before chatting up defense lawyer Albert Kreiger.

"Albert," said Maloney, "tomorrow the good guys are going to bring in Clint Eastwood."

In an earlier recess, while Krieger was on the government side of the courtroom, and Gotti summoned his lawyer, "Krieger, over here," the attorney jokingly whispered, "Andy, if you keep talking like that, I'm going to wind up in the trunk of a Cadillac."

In his summation, Maloney told the jurors that if they believed Gotti had headed a "murderous and treacherous crime family, you would be less than human if you didn't feel some persoanl concern." Krieger and his co-counsel leaped to their feet to object. The judge told the jurors to ignore that remark. After Maloney concluded his closing remarks, the judge refused Krieger's request to grant a mistrial.

In explaining his remarks, Maloney said he was merely underscoring the obvious: If they accepted the evidence, which incuded Gotti's tape recorded words admitting three murders, "they'd be less than human if they didn't have some fear."

Maloney's remark may have been unlawyer-like, but 30 years later it seems to make perfect sense.

Five years earlier, in March of 1987, Maloney did bite his tongue when he was pressed by the media to explain how the jury could have acquitted Gotti, Public Enemy Number One, along with his brother Gene, and five other cohorts of all charges.

Instead of ducking, like all U.S. Attorneys do today when they suffer even minor setbacks, the tough ex-boxer took his medicine. "They perceived there was something wrong with our evidence," he said.

What he didn't say to the public, he said privately to his devastated prosecution team later that day.

As Mustain and I wrote in our updated version of Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti in 2002, Maloney told his prosecutors that while they may never be able to prove it, he believed "the case was fixed."

"Look," Maloney told prosecutors Diane Giacalone and John Gleeson, "You will be replaying the trial for the rest of your lives. It'll never go away, but I'm telling you, Gotti was too cool during the trial, especially for the verdict."

Andrew Maloney "I don't care who they are," he continued. "When the jury's out for a week, defendants start to sweat. We may never prove it, but the case was fixed," he continued, ending with a flourish. "What happened in (Judge Eugene) Nickerson's courtroom wasn't justice. It was fraud. We may not get Gotti for that, but we will get him."

As it turned out, of course, Maloney was proved to be right about the acquittal, and Gotti: The case was fixed, and the government did "get him" the next time around.

Maloney was appointed by President Reagan as U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn in 1986, 15 years after he had toiled ten years as an AUSA in Manhattan. He oversaw the murder and rackteering convictions of Luchese boss Vittorio (Vic) Amuso, and acting Colombo boss Victor (Little Vic) Orena, who went to trial two weeks before he retired and was found guilty in December of 1992, three weeks after Maloney left the office.

In a statement, U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said Maloney had "a passion for doing justice" and a "supreme confidence in his prosecutors that resulted in amazing work during his tenure" as the 33d U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, which encompasses Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Long Island.

"The Office excelled under Andy's leadership, with landmark organized crime cases that rocked the underpinnings of New York's Mafia families," said Peace, noting they were "just a few of the monumental cases that are Andy's legacy."

"The generation of attorneys who became great prosecutors under Andy's influence and leaders in the legal community are too numerous to name, but they too are his legacy," said Peace. "We thank him for his service and immense contribution to making the EDNY the gold standard for prosecution offices in the United States."

Maloney is survived by his six children Tara, Eileen, Tracey, Andrew, Patrick and Kate and his 12 grandchildren. He will be laid to rest alongside his wife of 65 years, Eleanor, who died six weeks ago, at The United States Military Academy at West Point, NY.

Accused Bloods Leader Pleads Guilty In Murder-For-Hire Slaying Of Sally Daz

In a bit of a surprise, Bushawn (Shelz) Shelton, the accused Bloods leader charged with plotting and carrying out the murder-for-hire slaying of Bonanno crime family associate Sylvester (Sally Daz) Zottola on behalf of Zottola's son Anthony, has copped a plea deal on the eve of trial.

Shelton, who had been facing life in prison if convicted, has agreed to serve up to 40 years in prison in the case that is slated to go to trial on the Tuesday after Labor Day.

Shelton, 38, pleaded guilty before Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Raymond Dearie, who recently bowed out of the upcoming trial.

His plea came as the jury selection by the judge who will preside over the trial of Zottola and the two accused Bloods members who are charged with being part of the hit-team that killed Sally Daz in a McDonald's drive-thru eatery, was put off until August 29.

Judge Hector Gonzalez was forced to postpone the jury selection process due to a COVID breakout at the Metropolitan Detention Center where Zottola is housed. The units where the alleged gunman Himen (Ace) Ross and getaway driver Alfred (Aloe) Lopez in the Sally Daz rubout are housed are not affected. But jury selection cannot continue without Zottola.

In a proceeding before Judge Dearie, Shelton pleaded guilty to two murder-for-hire counts as part of an unusual plea agreement that gives both Shelton and the government the right to vacate the guilty plea if the sentencing judge decides not to mete out a prison term between 35 and 40 years followed by five years of supervised release.

The agreed-upon prison term is below sentencing guidelines for the crimes, but both sides said it is "appropriate" and they agreed to explain their reasons if the sentencing judge questions the suggested prison term, according to the agreement.

Each of the murder-for-hire counts in the indictment carries a statutory maximum prison term of life, but Shelton was allowed to plead guilty to "lesser included" charges calling for a maximum of 20 years with a proviso that the sentences he gets must be consecutive.

The plea deal is surprsising because the government gets no advantages from it. It does not require, or even imply, that Shelton will testify for the government. His absence from the trial won't make it any easier for the government to convict Zottola since it will need to introduce all the text messages between them in order to win a conviction.

Shelton's absence also gives Zottola's lawyers the opportunity to try and blame the Bloods leader for the murderous activity against his father and brother with no chance of any counter attack by him.

Shelton admitted in court that he "was hired to murder" both Sally Daz and his son Salvatore. He also acknowledged that his actions resulted in the death of the father and an "injury to Salvatore Zottola." He stated that he understood what was contained in the plea agreement and that he was not promised any other considerations that weren't in the signed written agreement.

Several times during the session, Dearie held up the 10-page document and asked Shelton if he had read and understood everything in the agreement, and whether it contained everything that he and the government lawyers had agreed to in their discussions about the case.

Prosecutors can't use his guilty plea against Zottola, but they intend to use many coded texts between Shelton and Zottola at trial, according to their court filings. The feds say many of the texts were designed to read like conversations about a movie screenplay but were in fact talks about the failed plan to kill Salvatore Zottola in front of his home on July 11, 2018 and the successful scheme to whack Sally Daz on October 4, 2018.

Even though prosecutors cannot use any of Shelton's admissions against Zottola, prosecutor Kayla Bensing put on the record that the government would be able to prove that Zottola hired and paid Shelton to commit the crimes to which he has now pleaded guilty. Shelton's attorney Susan Marcus stated she agreed with the government's assertion.

While Dearie has opted out of presiding over the trial, he indicated that he would be the sentencing judge in Shelton's case. He scheduled his sentencing for December 15.

Shelton agreed to forfeit the $45,000 as well as the .32 caliber semi-automatic handgun and ammunition that the FBI seized when they arrested him a week after the murder of Sally Daz.

Grim Reaper Calls Blue Eyes Pate, The Suspect In The Bombing Death Of Frank DeCicco

He looked so much like comic actor Carroll O'Connor that Herbert (Blue Eyes) Pate liked to sign autographs as "Archie Bunker." But there was nothing funny about his talent with bombs, which he allegedly used with deadly effect to blow John Gotti's first underboss Frank DeCicco into the Brooklyn sky across the street from a mob social club in Bensonhurst.

Pate never faced the music for that killing, either with the Gambino crime family or with the law. But Pate is now beyond their reach, having died last year at the age of 80, as Gang Land recently learned.

Pate began serving a 10-year bid for fraud, tax evasion and weapons charges six weeks after he allegedly detonated the bomb blast that killed DeCicco in 1986. He was investigated for that and other murders after his release in 1996, but never charged.

Pate was on parole when he agreed with Luchese leaders Vittorio (Vic) Amuso and Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso to build and detonate a remote-controlled bomb in a plan to whack Gotti. The car bombing, a tactic usually avoided by New York’s crime families because of its potential for killing innocents, was in retaliation for the unsanctioned killing of Mafia boss Paul (Big Paul) Castellano, according to an FBI report about the April 13, 1986 murder of DeCicco.

Gotti, however, never showed up at the Veterans & Friends Social Club on 86th Street. Instead it killed his second in command, De Cicco, as he stepped into the car.

Pate used C-4 plastic explosive and a remote-control toy car to make the bomb and exploded it as he sat in his own car. He was so close to the powerful explosive that "his car was hit with glass and debris" from the blast, Casso told the FBI in 1994. Casso told the tale to the feds after he flipped in a failed bid to win his freedom as a cooperating witness. His account is believed to be accurate even though Casso himself was deemed by prosecutors as too pernicious a character to ever be put before a jury.

Casso told the FBI that he, Amuso, and Amuso's brother Robert, a crime family capo, were together in a nearby car and witnessed the explosion. He also told other investigators in recorded jailhouse calls about how Pate was often mistaken for O'Connor, the Archie Bunker character in the smash CBS TV show that aired from 1971 to 1983 as All In The Family and Archie Bunker's Place.

"Casso told me Pate had a remarkle resemblence to O'Connor," said one investigative source who questioned Gaspipe about the DeCicco bombing. The investigator also quizzed the deadly mobster about the 1985 killing of former NYPD detective Vincent Albano, another murder that Casso fingered Blue Eyes for, and one that the Brooklyn District Attorney's office took a second look at in 2009, without any success.

Gaspipe, who died in prison in 2020, told this source that when they were sitting in Manhattan restaurants, tourists and others, "would approach Pate and ask him for his autograph. He would make like he was annoyed that he was being bothered, but then he would sign it, Archie Bunker. And Gaspipe and the group would get a kick out of it."

Law enforcement officials have long maintained that Casso's accounts about the DeCicco and Albano murders were accurate, albeit unprovable, but they question the account in Casso: The Confessions of a Mafia Boss, a book by Philip Carlo, that Pate was involved in the theft of heroin from the NYPD property clerk's office between 1969 and 1972.

So did one investigative source who spoke to Casso about that. He told Gang Land: "Casso told me that the author used his literary license when he wrote that."

After his release from prison, Blue Eyes apparently left his criminal ways behind him, or at least was never again arrested. He could often be seen smoking a cigar in the yard next to his family home in Long Beach. The house featured dozens of figurines of clowns in a picture window that kids still enjoy stopping and looking at on their way to the beach.

"I didn't know him," said one Long Beach denizen, "But I would say hello to him when I went to the bagel store with my grandson. He loved to stop and look at the clowns in the window whenever we went for bagels," he said.

"He died in September from COVID and COPD," according to his widow Flora, who told Gang Land that her late husband had set up the clown-filled picture window. "He liked the clowns," she said

[JoeCamel]

Somethings up with that Plea…Sally Daz taking care of the family if he beats the case? Have to say though? The Blood ain’t a rat…else he’s out in 10-15

[JohnnyS]

Thanks for the post!

[Tonyd621]

That kid from the bloods is taking it on the chin. Not only is he doing three, four decades in prison, but the defense can muck his character up and blame him for everything in the trial. He's going to prison to avoid trial but he's probably going to get blamed for it at trial anyways...

[CornerBoy]

Somethings up with that Plea…Sally Daz taking care of the family if he beats the case? Have to say though? The Blood ain’t a rat…else he’s out in 10-15

so he will only do 10-15? did i misread that?

[Southshore88]

Thanks for posting

[johnny_scootch]

Somethings up with that Plea…Sally Daz taking care of the family if he beats the case? Have to say though? The Blood ain’t a rat…else he’s out in 10-15

so he will only do 10-15? did i misread that?

Yes you did misread. He got 40 years but if he turned snitch he’d probably only get 10-15 is what he’s saying

[Tonyd621]

It says it's consecutive not concurrent which to my knowledge means if you does 20 he has to another 20 I believe

[Waingro]

Thanks for posting.

[Cheech]

It says it's consecutive not concurrent which to my knowledge means if you does 20 he has to another 20 I believe

If theres any flies on you theyre paying rent

[Rocco]

Is Herb Pate related to the Pate bros in the Colombos?

[Tonyd621]

It says it's consecutive not concurrent which to my knowledge means if you does 20 he has to another 20 I believe

If theres any flies on you theyre paying rent

Take a line from the sopranos. Never seen that before on here.

[Boston+matt14]

I had been wondering whatever happened to Herbert Pate. Wouldn't the Gambinos have known about his involvement in the Decicco hit by the time he got out of prison in 96? I guess they weren't really in a position to do anything about it if he was still considered an associate of the Genovese.

[Pmac2]

Think pate brother was the Colombo member John pate. He was close to Allie persico but flipped in the early 90tys. I forgot we're I read it but had then as brothers. Think there was another pate to. And they all got shelved for continuing talking to the brother that flipped. I mean in the NY mob there so many brothers of guys who flipped. I wonder if Mikey Paradiso never talked to his brother again.

[Pmac2]

The blood guy took a plea and hopes the judge only gives him 30yrs or whatever. Atleast there's light at the end of the tunnel I guess. I mean on 35yrs in the feds you still gonna do atleast 27years give or take 1 or 2. That a fucking long time but atleast there's light