WEBVTT - 4 - Breaking Omerta 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:06.560 You're listening to Law and Order Criminal Justice System, a 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:11.760 production of Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts. 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:17.640 In the criminal justice system, landmark trials transcend the courtroom 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:21.080 to reshape the law. The brave many women who investigate 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:24.000 and prosecute these cases are part of a select group 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:33.120 that is defined American history. These are their stories. April 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:38.440 nineteen eighty three, The home of Joe Bonano, Tucson, Arizona. 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:42.479 You have said the US government has tried to destroy you, 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:43.840 that's sure. 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:44.960 Why have they. 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:46.159 Failed to destroy you? 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:47.479 They haven't failed you. 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:50.640 They haven't failed well yet they may still get you. 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:51.360 For sure. 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:56.680 All my life I've been misunderstore it. I just the 0:00:56.800 --> 0:00:58.400 rule of my family. 0:00:58.360 --> 0:00:59.200 As a father. 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:04.119 When Joe Banano, the head of the Banano crime family, 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:07.440 went on sixty Minutes in nineteen eighty three, he did 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:10.959 something nobody had expected him to do. He admitted the 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:15.360 very existence of the mafia. In his book, he all 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:19.440 but confirmed the cooperation between the five major crime families, 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:23.840 including things like dividing territory and sharing profits. 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:27.160 Why was your fight to survive? 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.000 To protect your life? 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:32.480 Make sure dot you so sick? 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:37.399 Banano was promoting a memoir of his life in crime, 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:40.880 a public display of hubris that would have been unheard 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:44.440 of in Lucky Luciano's day. So while being the first 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:48.160 former boss to publicly acknowledge the existence of the mafia, 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:51.400 Banano had also made a grave miscalculation. 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:56.760 Back then, every time an OC figure was arrested and 0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:00.520 go to Troo or something like that, the defense atorneys. 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:04.520 Their argument was this stake organized crime, lacos and nostra. 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:07.680 This is like a miss. This is a government's theory. 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:11.079 I mean, this doesn't exist. So that was the defense 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:12.040 back then. 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:17.160 Charlotte Lang is a former FBI supervisor who spent years 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:18.919 investigating organized crime. 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:23.840 What had happened was Banano. His book was about his 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:28.560 problems with the Commission, and he basically tells you that 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:32.400 the commission existed, and he hid out from the four 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:34.799 other bosses for a period of time. 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:38.760 The commission was like the executive board of the five 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:43.480 families running and ruining New York City and beyond, and 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:47.520 Banano's admission of its existence gave law enforcement a new 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:51.120 angle of attack, because proof of a commission meant a 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:54.640 way to link the families together and prove a conspiracy. 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:59.000 No longer would crime bosses be insulated from the ruthless 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:02.640 and violent crimes of their underlings. They could be held 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:07.600 responsible for every act of extortion, theft, bribery, or murder 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:11.160 that occurred at their behest. In short, it was a 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:14.880 game changer and an opportunity not lost on Charlotte Lang, 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.799 her FBI partner Pat Marshall, and the newly appointed US 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:19.919 Attorney for New York. 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:23.440 I had in one morning and Pap turned to me 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:27.679 and he said, Rudy wants that book that Bonano wrote. 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:31.360 Through the eyes of New York's top cop. Banano's book 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:34.080 was essentially a manual for taking down the mob. 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:38.119 Question you here increasingly now is who is Rudolph Juliani 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:39.560 and what does he want? 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:44.160 What he wanted was clear, put these bosses in front 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:48.000 of a jury and behind bars. 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:00.920 You're not with the mob because you want to be. 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:04.040 It's the gangster that decides whether you're his associated on. 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:08.000 If you like your life, you will vote to acquit. 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:12.000 I'm Anisee and Nicolazzi, my father should have been a 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:17.400 dead man from Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts. This is 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:27.159 Law and Order Criminal justice system. Did you know anything 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:31.640 about organized crime before you are now assigned to an 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:33.159 organized crime task force. 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:33.680 No. 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:39.000 I had seen the movie The Godfather, but that was it. 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:44.320 Charlotte's story of becoming an FBI agent is a unique one. 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.720 When I was in college, the first two years, I 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:51.240 was in pre med because I was either going to 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:54.640 be a psychiatrist or veterinarian, was what I was thinking. 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:58.719 And after I finished my sophomore year, I thought to myself, 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:00.880 I don't want to do this. I would read the 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:05.039 Washington Post and I saw this article the CIA was 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:08.880 recruiting people. A friend of mine who was really really 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:11.920 close to I said to her, I said, I'm seriously 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:15.200 thinking of putting in for it, and she goes, oh, no, no, no, 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:18.040 no no. And she told me why because she had 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:20.479 a good friend who was a CIA agent. You don't 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:22.480 want to do this. You won't be able to keep 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:26.640 your pets and everything like that. So I thought to myself, 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:29.160 the FBI, Well that's kind of similar. 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:33.520 So instead of the CIA, Charlotte applied to the FBI, 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:38.520 thinking she'd travel the world instead. Charlotte soon ended up 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:42.200 in New York working one of the most notoriously difficult 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:46.440 beats in the Bureau Organized Crime. Adding to the challenge, 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:51.240 remnants of the FBI's outdated g man culture, man being 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:52.200 the operative word. 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:57.039 A particular supervisor said to me, I didn't ask for you. 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:01.440 Women can't work organized crime. You will be the only 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:05.080 woman on this squad as long as I'm here. That 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:07.440 was my introduction to Welcome to New York. 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:12.640 But despite the challenges, Charlotte hit the ground running, getting 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:14.840 her first assignment from Jim Kostler. 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:18.040 Jim said to me, I'm going to put you on 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:23.200 the Genevieve's squad until everybody's here and we're up and running. 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:27.280 Charlotte joined street teams, rounding of low level gangsters and 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:28.000 drug dealers. 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:31.960 I mean, yes, it was dangerous in many instances, but 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:33.000 it was exciting. 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.400 Her skills were soon recognized, even by the boss who'd 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:40.320 believed that women didn't belong working organized crime. 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:44.640 He quickly realized that he could depend on me. 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:50.240 Charlotte was eventually partnered with Pat Marshall to gather evans 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:53.080 that would later be crucial to the Commission case. 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.760 So the squad that I was assigned to was the 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:02.960 Bonano family squad, and there were a couple ti capos 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:05.920 in the family that we were going to zero in on. 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:09.880 And part of that was looking to the past, namely 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:14.160 the assassination of Carmine Galante. While it occurred a couple 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:18.280 of years before Charlotte joined the Bureau, they sensed its significance. 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:23.040 We all knew that to kill a boss in a family, 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:26.880 you had to have the commission approval. So, in other words, 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:29.680 if you a boss of a family and you go 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:33.440 to a meeting where there's only four of you, it's like, 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:39.240 you know, somebody is in trouble at that particular point. 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:42.880 Which means if they could solve Galante's murder, they might 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:46.680 have the evidence they needed to prove a criminal conspiracy 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:51.360 between the five families, and like Domino's Down, they would fall. 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:57.560 And while Charlotte and the FBI were gathering their evidence, 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:01.640 the ambitious new US Attorney for New York, Rudy Giuliani, 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:05.560 was tasked with a different job, assembling a rockstar team 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:09.200 of young lawyers to take on the city's most infamous criminals. 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:13.360 My name is Michael Cherdoff, and in nineteen eighty five 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:17.920 was a relatively new assistant United States Attorney in the 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:20.720 Southern District of New York U S Attorney's. 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:24.840 Office Michael Chertoff is a former Secretary of Homeland Security 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:27.760 and the co author of the US Patriot Act. But 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:30.200 when he started in the US Attorney's office, he was 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:33.720 still pretty green, a recent law school graduate eager to 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:34.600 earn his stripes. 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.960 So I started in the four of eighty three. I 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:41.560 tried three or four small cases in what they called 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:45.079 general crimes in order to begin to just get accustomed 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:49.040 to trying cases in front of a jury in a courtroom. 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:52.600 But with his command of the courtroom, Michael quickly attracted 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:55.760 the attention of his superior, who was eager to surround 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:59.200 himself with just the right personalities and skill sets for 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:00.920 his fight against the mob. 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:05.600 The assignment actually came to me in eighty four, and 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.960 what happened was I had been in general crimes, and 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:11.440 the US Attorney at the time, whose name will be 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:15.080 very familiar to you, Rudolf W. Guliani, reached out to 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:18.120 my unit chief and said, I've got an idea for 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:21.640 a case I want to prosecute and try myself. I 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:24.560 want you to assign Michael Cherdoff to help me do that. 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:27.240 Who helped me put the case together, do the investigation, 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:30.240 and then he can assist me at the trial. My 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:33.199 unit chief came to me and said, the US Attorney 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:35.040 would like you to work on this case with him. 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:37.640 He'll try it, but you'll get an opportunity to be 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:41.600 at the trial and participate and do the investigation. And 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.320 it's a great opportunity. So I said, fine, I'm happy 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:44.760 to do it. 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:47.680 Michael's first step was learning to plan. 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:51.560 The way the US attorney was thinking about it was 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:54.960 this there had been a series of cases under the 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:59.959 Racketeering Statute that were focused on attacking an entire organi 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:05.240 crime family as an organization, because the Racketeering Statute really 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:08.000 allowed you, for the first time to build a case 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:12.600 that was organizationally focused in not just individual crimes. 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:16.480 In other words, it was custom made for taking down 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:16.880 the mob. 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:22.360 And his idea was supposing, instead of just looking family 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:26.560 by family, we do a case involving the board of 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:31.120 Directors of the American Mafia, which is known as the Commission. 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:35.000 And central to their strategy would be Joe Banano's ill 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:37.880 conceived criminal memoir, and in the. 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:42.040 Book he discussed his experiences as a mob boss, including 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:46.600 talking about being on the Commission, and Giuliani thought, well, 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:50.440 that's great, this is a roadmap to a case involving 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:53.280 the Commission. And actually we're going to try to force 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:57.040 Banana to testify so we can actually use his evidence 0:10:57.080 --> 0:10:58.560 about the background of the Commission. 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:01.760 But it was harder to deal with than they'd hoped. 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:04.720 By this time, he had moved to Tucson, Arizona, and 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:07.080 was claiming to have a number of health issues. 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:11.040 Even in nineteen fifty seven he feigned his heart attack 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:14.240 and that he would die if he had to travel. 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:19.160 But Giuliani was persistent. At first, Banana claimed he was 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:22.000 too ill to go to New York and provide testimony, 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:24.040 so the government went to him. 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:28.000 Well, of course, Rudy being Rudy, he was like, we're 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:30.160 going out there and we're going to do it at 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:30.880 the hospital. 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:36.240 Just picture the scene. It's an entire army of agents, prosecutors, 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:39.599 defense attorneys, judges all getting on a plane. 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:43.560 This was like this traveling show from New York. This 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:47.240 was like big news in Arizona because his famous United 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:50.280 States attorney in New York who's taking the mob down, 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:55.000 is coming to Tucson. And so what happened was we 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:59.560 had this proceeding as to whether he was physically fit 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:03.280 enough to testify. Of course, his doctor gone on and 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.360 said that he had this going on, and that going on. 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:10.560 Banano's doctor was a member of his family and just 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:15.000 a med student. But the government had their own expert too. 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:19.320 We had a doctor from New York who had examined him. 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:22.720 And this doctor, of course was stellar, and with his 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:25.200 credentials in every sale the cent, there's no reason why 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:26.960 he can't travel to New York. 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:34.000 Still, Banana refused to travel or cooperate, but Giuliani wasn't done. 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:36.959 He asked the judge to hold Banano in contempt of court. 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:41.600 The judge complied, and from there Banano went to prison, 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:45.280 the longest time that this aging mobster had ever been 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:48.200 locked up, and he stayed there for over a year. 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:52.720 With or without Joe Banano's testimony, they would need hard 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:56.640 evidence proving that the five families had conspired to commit 0:12:56.720 --> 0:13:13.920 crimes of all shapes and sizes, including In nineteen eighty five, 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:17.640 Michael Cherdoff was a young federal prosecutor in the office 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:21.200 of then US Attorney Rudy Giuliani, who was building a 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:23.560 case that they hoped would take down the New York 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:27.520 mob once and for all. The scope of the investigation 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:28.439 was huge. 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:33.199 There had been a series of family based investigations going on, 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:38.120 and some of those involved very extensive electronic surveillance wire 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:39.679 tapping your bugs. 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:43.920 In addition to secret recording devices. The FBI embarked on 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:48.679 more target emissions too, surveilling specific suspects to witness their 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:54.200 interactions with other mobsters firsthand. Here's former FBI agent Charlotte Lang. 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:57.600 There were certain days where I used to say to myself, 0:13:57.640 --> 0:13:59.840 I can't believe I'm getting paid to do that. 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:05.320 On multiple occasions, Charlotte was sent in undercover infiltrating the 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:09.800 Genevese family to eavesdrop on conversations. 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:11.600 When we had information from the wires, like when fat 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:14.920 Tony Sellerno would meet with Paul Castellano, and of course 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:18.200 they would go to really nice restaurants in New York 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:22.360 and we would go in maybe two women, sometimes there 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:24.880 were three of us, try to get at a table 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:29.240 close to observe what was going on two. 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:32.560 Of New York's most infamous mob bosses, Tony Sellerno of 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:36.640 the Genovese family and Paul Castellano, head of the Gambino family. 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:40.400 It was no small feat to go after Paul Castellano. 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:44.800 At the time, the Gambino family was arguably the most 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:48.560 powerful of all the families, and Castellano sat at the top. 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:52.800 He was a savvy businessman known for his cutthroat approach 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:56.480 to negotiating major deals. When it came to the financial 0:14:56.520 --> 0:15:02.840 dealings of the mob, Castellano was arbitern. For Charlotte, listening 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:05.400 in on a mob boss was just another day at work, 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:09.240 and as it turned out, the female FBI agents had 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.360 some advantages that the old guard had underestimated. 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:16.840 Karin Higgins, who was on the Columbo squad, she was 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:21.240 about seven months pregnant, and so when we went into 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:23.840 this restaurant, I spotted them. As soon as we came 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:26.200 through the door, I said to the may Or D, 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:28.920 I said, can we sit over there, as you could see, 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:32.160 my friend is pregnant and she shouldn't be sitting in 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:33.680 a draft or anything like that. 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:37.960 The Maitre d sat the women directly next to Castellano 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:42.680 and Salerno, access unheard of from any of their male counterparts. 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:45.240 When we went back to the office to write up 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:48.320 the three to two of what we saw what we heard, 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:51.400 I said, I didn't think this was ever going to 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:54.720 come to an end. They were very animated because they 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:58.560 were disputing the profits that were coming from the shakedowns 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:00.560 of the cement companies. 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:06.000 Salerno was also a major focus in the investigation, particularly 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:09.680 because the Genovese family was so involved with the construction industry, 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:14.120 and as Michael Cherdoff explains, that concrete business was big 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:16.920 business for the mob, including the Commission. 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:21.840 It was all about this construction issue. How they controlled 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:26.119 all the concrete being poured to build buildings in Manhattan, 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:29.160 and two percent went to the family that controlled the 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:32.400 particular labor union, and the other two percent went to 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:35.200 the Commission to be divided up among the members of 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:36.920 the Commission and their families. 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:40.400 So basically, the money first went to the top and 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:43.960 then trickled down within each family from there, and the 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.880 FBI heard all about it. The Concrete Club, as it 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:51.600 became known, would become key evidence, so its inner workings 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:55.880 became extremely familiar to the prosecutors working the case, including 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:58.920 another prosecutor who soon joined the team. 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:04.320 My name is John Savarice, and I was an assistant 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:07.640 US attorney in the US Attorney's Office for the Southern 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:11.119 District of New York here in Manhattan. I think I 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.359 didn't know a whole lot more than anyone who saw 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:17.919 the Godfather movies knew all of which of course I 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:21.760 had seen because they're terrific films, but you very quickly 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:26.400 realized that that's Hollywood and it's not, in fact, anything 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:28.119 like what the Mob is really like. 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:32.719 John was assigned to assist Michael Chertoff and Rudy Giuliani. 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:36.560 So the first things I started working on was helping 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:40.600 to put witnesses into the grand jury, helping to assemble 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:43.760 additional evidence that would go into the grand jury, and 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:48.440 helping to craft what would be the ultimate superseding indictment, 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:50.120 the one that we went to trial on. 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:54.800 By this time, enough evidence had been gathered that prosecutors 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:57.199 felt ready to present their case to a grand jury, 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:01.000 which meant this case was likely heading for true and 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:04.800 one of the central pieces to their case would be concrete. 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:09.120 What we were doing was trying to build out what 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:13.320 is called the Club scheme or the club aspect of 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:17.800 the Commission case, and that was the whole narrative around 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:23.159 the extortion of the concrete industry in New York to 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:28.479 extract penalty from each concrete contractor in order that they 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:33.280 be assured labor peace because the Mob had infiltrated the 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:36.280 chief unions that did that kind of work. 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:41.639 Labor unions cooperated because of bribes, corrupted leadership elections, and 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:43.480 of course physical violence. 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:48.760 And so the threat was, if you don't pay us 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:52.040 what we want, we'll shut your job down. We'll have 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:56.000 the union that we essentially control go out on strike, 0:18:56.400 --> 0:19:00.280 and that is devastating obviously to a construction company. 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:06.000 The Mob pushed city construction costs up by about twenty percent. 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:09.320 By the late eighties, it was reported that as much 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:13.119 as seventy five percent of New York's construction industry was 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:14.399 controlled by the MOB. 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:19.280 We spent a lot of time with several leaders of 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:24.119 construction companies that had been victimized by this commission driven 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:28.560 scheme to get an understanding of what building projects were 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:33.120 impacted by the scheme, how they felt, what drove them 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:35.879 to do what they agreed to do, and why. 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:40.560 But the cooperation of these legitimate business owners was given 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.000 at great risk to lives and livelihoods. 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:48.359 I do remember getting the strong sense of the fear 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.600 that they felt from Ralph Scopo, who was sort of 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:54.040 the chief enforcer of the scheme. 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:58.480 Ralph Scopa was a member of the Columbo family. While 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:01.960 he sat as president of their youth union. Concrete contractors 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:04.760 were forced to pay thousands of dollars for labor peace 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:07.760 a one percent kickback was given to Scopo on their 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:11.000 projects such as the public library in the Bronx, a 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:14.119 police station in Brooklyn, and in addition to the city 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:16.879 jail on Rikers Island. He was a man who was 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:18.560 not afraid to intimidate others. 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:23.560 We had a tape recording of Ralph Scopo in a 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:28.359 conversation with one of these contractors and he referenced something 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:33.000 that had been in the newspapers about a mob hit 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:37.760 someone who had been murdered. He said roughly something like, well, 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:41.359 you know, you don't want that to happen to you, which, 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:45.400 of course was terrorizing the person on the receiving end 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:47.320 of that message. 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:51.359 But despite the huge scale of the operation, most of 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:55.280 these transactions were handled in person by mob members, and 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:58.720 this worked to the FBI's advantage because it's easier to 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:01.400 tail a couple of soldiers than the commission itself. 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:07.199 It's happening usually in cash, person to person, and we 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:11.960 did have tape recorded evidence at trial of various members 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:15.000 of the mob who were the kind of footmen on 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:17.120 the ground running the scheme. 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:20.720 And because it was also profitable, it was something that 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:24.119 all five of the families participated in, so cracking the 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:27.080 Concrete Club would be the surest way to prove their 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:33.960 criminal cooperation. So law enforcement worked from all angles, planting 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:38.720 bugs and wire taps, conducting surveillance, hoping to gather incriminating 0:21:38.800 --> 0:21:42.160 conversations about the Concrete Scheme that could be used in court. 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:44.800 And the results spoke for themselves. 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:47.600 Did you still on your opinions? 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:48.920 Yeah? 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:52.199 Gable only to win? 0:21:54.760 --> 0:21:56.200 Hey, I done, glad book. 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:01.560 That's little Ralphie Scopo talking to a man named alphonsald Ambrosia, 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:14.159 a fellow member of the Colombo family, and they But 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:17.880 Ralph Scopo and fat Tony Sealerno weren't the only mobsters 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:21.439 that Charlotte kept tabs on. In the last episode, we 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:24.520 talked about the nineteen eighty two bug planted in the 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:29.879 black Jaguar of the Luksey Captain Salvator Avellino won. 0:22:30.280 --> 0:22:32.320 Provided that your guys, price is right. 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:40.240 Could price it's the same as DNA price. 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:49.440 When you have a boss, an underboss and Consiglieria being 0:22:49.520 --> 0:22:54.200 driven around and they're chatting away about all their illegal activities. 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:57.520 I mean, it was a treasure trove of information. 0:22:57.680 --> 0:23:01.919 That Jaguar in the and the Jaguar bug would be 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:05.320 a critical source of information in the government's case against 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:09.760 the commission. Another piece of evidence they wanted the cooperating 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:14.040 testimony of one of the conspirators themselves. Every time a 0:23:14.040 --> 0:23:17.520 mobster was picked up on charges and facing possible jail time, 0:23:17.840 --> 0:23:20.480 it was an opportunity to trade up for a higher 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:23.960 ranking member of the family. Members of the mafia were 0:23:24.040 --> 0:23:28.160 notoriously hard to flip, but the more incriminating evidence the 0:23:28.240 --> 0:23:32.960 FBI gathered, the stronger their leverage, and eventually they hit peterr. 0:23:34.440 --> 0:23:38.119 Then we had another boss by the name of Angelo Leonardo, 0:23:38.680 --> 0:23:41.439 and he was the boss of the Cleveland family, and 0:23:42.000 --> 0:23:44.800 he went to jail for drug charges. 0:23:45.840 --> 0:23:49.040 But would this Cleveland mob boss agree to cooperate and 0:23:49.119 --> 0:23:53.080 provide evidence from the witness stand The FBI was patient 0:23:53.359 --> 0:23:54.800 and persistent. 0:23:55.280 --> 0:23:57.479 And there was an agent in Cleveland that used to 0:23:57.520 --> 0:24:00.680 go and visit him, say hey, Angelo, how you doing 0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:04.240 and everything I got So basically this agent got Angelo 0:24:04.600 --> 0:24:05.119 to flip. 0:24:06.400 --> 0:24:11.439 Lenardo was facing life for narcotics trafficking, so ultimately, in 0:24:11.480 --> 0:24:15.240 exchange for a reduced sentence, he agreed to spill everything 0:24:15.280 --> 0:24:15.680 he knew. 0:24:16.880 --> 0:24:20.800 He would basically say, how it works. You have associates, 0:24:20.960 --> 0:24:25.200 you have soldiers, you have made members. I called him 0:24:25.240 --> 0:24:29.919 Ange because we got to spend a Christmas together. Ange's 0:24:30.000 --> 0:24:34.000 story was his father was the head of the family 0:24:34.160 --> 0:24:38.600 at one particular point, but his father was murdered, and 0:24:39.119 --> 0:24:42.000 the story goes, I think Ange might have been a 0:24:42.080 --> 0:24:46.639 teenager at the time, and his mother walked him down 0:24:46.680 --> 0:24:49.960 to a particular building and she handed him a gun 0:24:50.320 --> 0:24:53.679 and said, you go in there and you kill so 0:24:53.840 --> 0:24:57.399 and so, because she had determined that's who had killed 0:24:57.520 --> 0:25:00.960 her husband. And that's what Angelo did to this club, 0:25:01.520 --> 0:25:03.440