Speaker 1: You're listening to Law and Order Criminal Justice System, a
Speaker 1: production of Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts.
Speaker 2: In the criminal justice System, landmark trials transcend the courtroom
Speaker 2: to reshape the law. The brave men and women who
Speaker 2: investigate and prosecute these cases are part of a select
Speaker 2: group that is defined American history. These are their stories.
Speaker 2: November thirtieth, nineteen ninety four, Williamsburg Social Club, Brooklyn, New York.
Speaker 1: It's a scene right out of the movies. Cigar smoke
Speaker 1: hung thick in the air as a group of men
Speaker 1: faced off in a card game.
Speaker 3: It was late in the evening. They were playing a
Speaker 3: Italian card game called Continental.
Speaker 1: The stakes were high, and tensions over one man's growing
Speaker 1: debts were even higher. One man calls someone's bluff. Another
Speaker 1: pulls a gun, and when the smoke cleared, two men
Speaker 1: lay bleeding across the card table, one shot multiple times
Speaker 1: in the back, another once in the head. The other
Speaker 1: players cleared out ahead of the approaching sirens. If police
Speaker 1: were looking for answers, it wouldn't come from them.
Speaker 3: Everybody knew there was a lot more to it than
Speaker 3: just some guy got shot in a social club.
Speaker 1: The San Giseppe Social Club was a wise Guy favorite,
Speaker 1: and the double murder had all the markings of a
Speaker 1: mob hit, except for one major difference. One of the
Speaker 1: men had survived his wounds.
Speaker 4: The gun was so close to Derso's head that the
Speaker 4: speed of the bullet as soon as it hit the
Speaker 4: scullet came down his neck, so he wasn't dead, but
Speaker 4: he was knocked out. They thought he was dead, and over.
Speaker 1: The next several years, that survivor of a point blank
Speaker 1: gunshot would plot a unique kind of revenge as a
Speaker 1: secret weapon in the government's fight against organized crime, and
Speaker 1: just might be the final nail in the coffin for
Speaker 1: a generation of mob bosses.
Speaker 4: You're not with the mob because you want to be.
Speaker 4: It's the gangster that decides whether you're his associated on.
Speaker 5: If you like your life, you will vote to acquit.
Speaker 1: I'm Aniseega Nicolazzi.
Speaker 6: My father should have been a dead.
Speaker 1: Man from Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts. This is Law
Speaker 1: and Order criminal justice system. In the years following the
Speaker 1: commission trial, the New York Mob was like a wounded animal,
Speaker 1: struggling but still dangerous, maybe more than ever, especially when
Speaker 1: a man like Vincent Gigante could run his Genevese gang
Speaker 1: from prison, and an army of made men were getting
Speaker 1: wise on how to avoid prosecution. By the mid nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: the Five Families had taken significant blows to their respective leaderships,
Speaker 1: but these were organizations that had survived crackdowns, mass indictments,
Speaker 1: and even all out wars. Exterminating the mafia from every
Speaker 1: corner of the criminal underground would not happen overnight. After all,
Speaker 1: there were still plenty of up and comers ready to
Speaker 1: step into vacant leadership roles and willing to unleash an
Speaker 1: unprecedented wave of violence to secure their newfound power.
Speaker 3: My name is Christopher Blank. I was a member of
Speaker 3: the Brooklyn DIA's office from nineteen eighty four to twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three. I went from a line assistant to an
Speaker 3: executive ADA in charge of organized crime investigations and grand
Speaker 3: jury presentations and trials. I just started in this work
Speaker 3: when Castellano got killed outside of Sparks.
Speaker 1: With his resume, Chris Blank is the kind of lawyer
Speaker 1: who could probably walk into most law firms in the
Speaker 1: country and write his own ticket. But for this recently
Speaker 1: retired prosecutor serving his community, in this case, the people
Speaker 1: of New York was his higher calling, especially when it
Speaker 1: came to prosecuting organized crime.
Speaker 3: Being a lawyer was never about making more money than
Speaker 3: the next guy. To me, it was more about the
Speaker 3: opportunity to do the right thing, and being a prosecutor
Speaker 3: in these kinds of cases was to me the epitomy
Speaker 3: of that kind of practice.
Speaker 1: During his career, he also learned that it can feel
Speaker 1: like a never ending battle against an enemy so skilled
Speaker 1: at self preservation.
Speaker 3: This applies across the board to all sophisticated criminals running
Speaker 3: corrupt criminal organizations, whether they're Russian, Chinese, or Eastern European
Speaker 3: or even street crime gangs that are becoming more sophisticated.
Speaker 3: They have developed a layering system, a hierarchy system that
Speaker 3: insulates the bosses from ever being prosecuted because they're never
Speaker 3: the ones out on the street, on the front line
Speaker 3: exposing themselves to law enforcement.
Speaker 1: And the shooting at the Williamsburg Social Club was a
Speaker 1: unique opportunity to examine this hierarchy up close and ultimately
Speaker 1: exploit its weaknesses.
Speaker 3: The Social Club was the actual social club that Sonny
Speaker 3: Black and Donnie Brasco had their interactions.
Speaker 1: In Donnie Brasco was the name used by undercover FBI
Speaker 1: agent Joe Bistone, who infiltrated the Banano crime family from
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six to nineteen eighty one, resulting in over
Speaker 1: two hundred indictments, one hundred convictions, and one great movie.
Speaker 1: The club was already on law enforcements radar as a
Speaker 1: monster hangout, but by nineteen ninety four, after the commission trial,
Speaker 1: many were keeping a much lower profile than their predecessors,
Speaker 1: and congregating clubs easily targeted by the FEDS was not
Speaker 1: any mobster's idea of a good time.
Speaker 3: It had now become a local, non organized crime oriented
Speaker 3: Italian social clubber Italian guys from Neighborhood and Williamsburg got
Speaker 3: together to play cards and have family events that wasn't
Speaker 3: available to them in their apartments in their homes.
Speaker 1: Which is not to say that the violence that erupted
Speaker 1: in the early hours of that November day was unknown
Speaker 1: to the neighborhood, which had long been a stronghold of
Speaker 1: the Genovese crime family, but it was a reminder that
Speaker 1: the specter of the mob had far from vanish from
Speaker 1: the everyday life of ordinary citizens inside the club. The
Speaker 1: first officers to arrive took in the crime scene. One
Speaker 1: man was dead on the floor, shot multiple times in
Speaker 1: the back. The other had a bullet wound to the
Speaker 1: back of his head, but incredibly, he was still breathing.
Speaker 1: Paramedics removed both from the scene, one to the hospital
Speaker 1: and one to the morgue. Witnesses were scarce, at least
Speaker 1: ones that were willing to talk to police. Cards and
Speaker 1: chips were scattered on the floor, so detectives assumed a
Speaker 1: disagreement over the card game turn violent, but given the
Speaker 1: club's history and reputation, they also had to consider the
Speaker 1: possibility that this was a hit. The first step would
Speaker 1: be identifying the victims. The man in the hospital who
Speaker 1: survived a bullet to the head was Michael Cookie Durso,
Speaker 1: and the man in the morgue was his cousin. Here's
Speaker 1: special Agent Mike Campy, a New York native who became
Speaker 1: one of the FBI's experts on the inner workings of
Speaker 1: the Five Families.
Speaker 4: Michael Durso grew up in Brooklyn, the Green Point section
Speaker 4: of Brooklyn. His cousin first cousin was Tino Lombardi, and
Speaker 4: Tino Lombardi worked at Riggierio's restaurant. Eventually Derso worked at
Speaker 4: the restaurant.
Speaker 1: As Chris Blank tells it, Derso Lombardi as more like
Speaker 1: a brother.
Speaker 3: He adored his cousin. They were a team, and they
Speaker 3: were as close as his cousins could be.
Speaker 1: But to detective surprise, despite their thick files unknown mob members,
Speaker 1: neither Derso or Lombardi showed up on any of the
Speaker 1: org charts of the five families, which, according to Campy,
Speaker 1: is not to say that they didn't dabble in the life.
Speaker 4: Growing up in the neighborhood. Derso was a tough kid.
Speaker 4: He could bench over four hundred pounds. He was on steroids.
Speaker 4: He did some time in prison for a check cashing scheme.
Speaker 4: I believe he was on the news as Cashanova's because
Speaker 4: they would sort of engage the tellers into conversation as
Speaker 4: they were banging out bad checks.
Speaker 1: So he's basically flirting to get over to commit the crimes. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is what I had not heard before.
Speaker 4: And they called him cashanovas him and his cousin.
Speaker 1: Eventually, the two Kashanova's graduated from small time grifts to
Speaker 1: loan sharking, bookmaking, and running illegal after hours card games,
Speaker 1: all of which required an intimidating physical presence, which Derso
Speaker 1: had in spades, and the tacit approval of the local
Speaker 1: crime family, who would never let a good profit go
Speaker 1: unnoticed without getting their cut.
Speaker 3: Derso, who was a nicknamed Cookie, was very smart and
Speaker 3: Lebarda was smart and were connected to a old time
Speaker 3: geneviezk guys from Manhattan, Sami Paro and Joe Zito.
Speaker 1: So Derso and his cousin were promising up and coming
Speaker 1: gangsters with well connected friends, but they were not made men.
Speaker 1: They weren't officially part of the family.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: Over the course of the last eight episodes, we've talked
Speaker 1: about bosses, under bosses, capos, and soldiers, but there's another
Speaker 1: important cog in the wheel of organized crime. The associates.
Speaker 1: Associates have a holy unequal partnership with sworn members of
Speaker 1: a crime family. They may be partners in a criminal
Speaker 1: scheme or racket, maybe even friends, like in the case
Speaker 1: of associate Pite Savino and Vincent Gigante. But unlike made men,
Speaker 1: associates do not benefit from the family's profit sharing or
Speaker 1: their protection. In fact, some associates may even have more
Speaker 1: in common with the victims of the mob than with
Speaker 1: the mobsters themselves, because often their partnerships with the crime
Speaker 1: family are not of their own choice.
Speaker 4: When you're hanging out with people affiliated with organized crime
Speaker 4: and they love showing money, they want to pick up
Speaker 4: the tab, they want to pay for things. That is
Speaker 4: the process of facilitating an association with you. At some
Speaker 4: point in time, they're going to tell you that you're
Speaker 4: with them.
Speaker 7: All of a.
Speaker 4: Sudden, you become a victim of extortion, and you don't
Speaker 4: have a choice because over time, the implied threat is
Speaker 4: your family's in jeopardy. See that's the thing about associates.
Speaker 4: I try to explain, it's the mobster's choice. You're not
Speaker 4: with the mob because you want to be. It's the
Speaker 4: gangster that decides whether you're his associator.
Speaker 1: On associates like Derso and Lombardi aspire to be made
Speaker 1: men equals with the ones extorting them, but in reality
Speaker 1: they were pawns in a larger game, interchangeable and if necessary, disposable.
Speaker 4: One of the recordings I made that demonstrates the hypocrisy
Speaker 4: The life was with Jackie de Ross. Jackie de Ross
Speaker 4: was an acting boss of the Colombo family, and we
Speaker 4: made a recording where de Ross identified associates as suckers.
Speaker 4: They think they're in the life, but we.
Speaker 8: Just use them.
Speaker 4: I believe that's almost a verbatim quote.
Speaker 1: Ambitious associates were lured in with promises of profit protection
Speaker 1: and the prestige of becoming made down the road, but
Speaker 1: their existence was often much bleaker.
Speaker 4: There's so few associates that ended up becoming inducted into
Speaker 4: a family, and it's because you need these other supporting
Speaker 4: cast members to generate cash for the family, but they're used.
Speaker 1: Which brings us back to the night at the social
Speaker 1: club in Brooklyn where Derso and Lombardi ran their regular
Speaker 1: card game.
Speaker 3: They were good up and coming associates of organized crime,
Speaker 3: learning from their mentors and getting into their own little
Speaker 3: loan sharking activity and paying tribute and eventually getting into bookmaking.
Speaker 3: So they were on the rise.
Speaker 1: As you can imagine, Gambling was also a great way
Speaker 1: to create repeat business, and two of their best customers
Speaker 1: just happened to be mobsters.
Speaker 4: Derso and Lombardi have a social club in Brooklyn and
Speaker 4: Carmei and Poledo, Mario Fortunado, and others would gamble at
Speaker 4: this club card games.
Speaker 3: Polito and Fortunado were not as highly respected, although they
Speaker 3: were also anxious to be thought of as tough guys
Speaker 3: in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Carmea and Pallito was also a chronically unlucky gambler, and
Speaker 1: he was up to his eyeballs in debt to Drso
Speaker 1: and Lombardi, a predicament that might get a man in
Speaker 1: serious trouble, but being a mobster kept him in the
Speaker 1: game and presumably out of the hospital. But Polito resented
Speaker 1: being in hawk and so he concocted a scheme to
Speaker 1: clear his debts. The plan to ambush Drso and Lombardi
Speaker 1: during a card game. Robbing the pot might even put
Speaker 1: cops off the scent while netting Pollito a few bucks
Speaker 1: to defeat his gambling habit. And because their targets were associates,
Speaker 1: they didn't need permission from the boss, nor would they
Speaker 1: likely face a serious reprimand. But as they would soon
Speaker 1: find out, the hit would still have major consequences. Here's
Speaker 1: Chris Blank and Mike can't be on how it all
Speaker 1: went down.
Speaker 3: Sally Lombardi and Derso, who were cousins and were very
Speaker 3: tight were in the club, and Mario Fortunado and Carmin
Speaker 3: and Polito were in the club. Mario his brothers run
Speaker 3: the Fortunado Bakery, which is a very famous bakery on
Speaker 3: Manhattan Avenue, not too far away from the social club.
Speaker 3: They were playing a Italian card game called Continental. Time
Speaker 3: went on and kids from the neighborhood came by. Their
Speaker 3: reason for coming in the club was to shoot and
Speaker 3: kill both Derso and Lombardi, those two guys for Anthony
Speaker 3: Cherissulo and Anthony Bruno.
Speaker 4: Because Derso was so muscular and had a tendency of violence,
Speaker 4: they shot him in the back of the head first.
Speaker 3: Lobardo was shot several times and he was killed. Cheri, Sulo,
Speaker 3: and Bruno ran away, and Fortunado and Polito both ran away,
Speaker 3: so leaving Derso down on the floor shot in the
Speaker 3: back of the head and Lobarti down on the floor dead.
Speaker 1: In the ensuing investigation, local police failed to gather much information.
Speaker 3: Nobody was willing to tell the full story of what
Speaker 3: went down. They were trying to piece it together and
Speaker 3: I'm sure they were shaking the trees with their informants
Speaker 3: in the area trying to get answers, and they might
Speaker 3: have had a thumbnail sketch of what they thought might
Speaker 3: have happened, but not enough to bring to.
Speaker 1: A prosecutor and their best witness. Drso, even after recovering
Speaker 1: from his injuries, was still playing good soldier and refused
Speaker 1: to talk to police.
Speaker 3: The tradition in this case was you don't talk to anybody.
Speaker 3: I think Derso felt that he would be able to
Speaker 3: get satisfaction by bringing his case that Fortuneo him Pluto
Speaker 3: should have to answer for the shooting.
Speaker 1: In other words, Derso thought he could get his justice
Speaker 1: straight from the Genovise bosses for whom he had been
Speaker 1: a loyal earner for years.
Speaker 3: Drso was out running his organized crime life and trying
Speaker 3: to get satisfaction from the Genevie's crime family when he
Speaker 3: came to realize that Pleato and Fortunato were backed by
Speaker 3: a different capo and he was a powerful Genevie's guy,
Speaker 3: and continued to be a powerful guy to the end
Speaker 3: of his.
Speaker 1: Life, and so his demands for retribution fell on deaf ears. Derso,
Speaker 1: not being a made member of the mob, didn't benefit
Speaker 1: from the same oaths of protection or revenge. Despite the
Speaker 1: indignity of that slight, Derso was willing to stay loyal
Speaker 1: and stay quiet about who killed his cousin and left
Speaker 1: a bullet in his skull. But soon his loyalty would
Speaker 1: be tested again, this time thanks to a dispute with
Speaker 1: a made man. Here again is Mike Campy.
Speaker 4: Derso had betters gamblers that bet had in office, and
Speaker 4: the guy that took the bets was I'm not making
Speaker 4: this up, it's hilarious, was a guy named Johnny Zero. Apparently,
Speaker 4: Zero realizes some of dersa those betters that bet pretty
Speaker 4: big consistently lost, so he decides one day to set
Speaker 4: the bets side rather than record them and keep the
Speaker 4: money for himself. Well, the betters hit I think it
Speaker 4: was about thirty thousand dollars or something like that forty
Speaker 4: and Zero doubled down. So he did the same thing again,
Speaker 4: now it was like seventy eighty thousand, and when Durso came,
Speaker 4: he explained it, and that facilitated a call to Zero's boss.
Speaker 1: Derso demanded that Zero's boss make good on what he
Speaker 1: was own.
Speaker 4: He gets call from an unknown mail, and the unknown
Speaker 4: mail describes how you can't touch my guy. Don't ever
Speaker 4: touch my guy. Now he doesn't identify himself, and Derso
Speaker 4: finds it insulting. He goes back to the office, calls
Speaker 4: the unknown mail up on the phone, and basically in
Speaker 4: a vulgar, disrespectful manner, says, I can't beat your guy,
Speaker 4: and he proceeds to give Johnny zero of beating. So
Speaker 4: Derso basically hangs up on this guy because he felt
Speaker 4: that he was disrespected.
Speaker 1: The confrontation earned Derso a quick reprimand from a portly
Speaker 1: Geneviz capo known as Sammy Meatballs.
Speaker 4: He gets a call from Sammy Meatballs directing him to
Speaker 4: come down immediately to meet with him. He goes down
Speaker 4: to see Sammy in Little Italy and Sammy describes how
Speaker 4: Frank Farbi Surperco is the current acting plust of the
Speaker 4: Genevese family. Nobody in the Genovese family really knows but
Speaker 4: a select few, and apparently Derso insulted Farbi on the phone.
Speaker 4: It was Farbi that was on the phone calling Derso,
Speaker 4: and Farbi wants to kill Derso.
Speaker 1: Derso had been in the dark that the guy on
Speaker 1: the other end of the phone was the acting Genevi's boss.
Speaker 1: He had already survived one hit, he found himself again
Speaker 1: on the Genevie's most wanted list.
Speaker 4: That was the second thing that rubbed Derso the wrong way.
Speaker 4: It really infuriated him that he couldn't retaliate on his
Speaker 4: shooting and his cousin's murder. And now you've got the
Speaker 4: acting boss of the Genevese family wants to kill him.
Speaker 1: But his new Genevese enemies had underestimated the associate because
Speaker 1: if Derso couldn't get justice their way, he would get
Speaker 1: it another.
Speaker 3: That was kind of the last straw for Derso. He's like,
Speaker 3: you know, I've done all these things. I've made all
Speaker 3: this money for them. I've stayed quiet even though I've
Speaker 3: been shot in the head and my close cousin has
Speaker 3: been murdered. They've done nothing to help get to the
Speaker 3: bottom of this or exact retribution for this on my behalf.
Speaker 3: And now they want to kill me. So I'm done.
Speaker 3: So he literally, on his own initiative, contacted the FBI,
Speaker 3: came in and agreed to wear a body wire.
Speaker 1: After years of trying to earn his way into the
Speaker 1: FO the Genevese crime family, Derso decided to swap sides.
Speaker 1: Armed with a wire hidden inside an FBI customized Rolex,
Speaker 1: Derso became an informant, swearing revenge on the men that
Speaker 1: killed his cousin, but to get the goods and watch
Speaker 1: them all go down, he had to stay alive. Despite
Speaker 1: being just an associate. Michael Cookie Drso had been a
Speaker 1: strong and loyal earner for the Genevies, but after the
Speaker 1: attempt on his life, he knew exactly where he stood
Speaker 1: in the MOP pecking order. Here again, his former Brooklyn prosecutor,
Speaker 1: Chris Blank.
Speaker 3: Deursa was smart. He understood what he was doing. He
Speaker 3: knew why he wanted to be a member of organized crime.
Speaker 3: He knew the benefits and he knew the costs. He
Speaker 3: was successful at when this came down, he made a
Speaker 3: decision that all the things that attracted me to this
Speaker 3: are basically bs. Everybody's out for themselves, nobody's protecting me,
Speaker 3: and I'm going to protect me and my family from
Speaker 3: these people, and I'm going to come on board. And
Speaker 3: I know what that means. That means I have to
Speaker 3: tell the full story, hold nothing back, and do whatever
Speaker 3: they asked me to do.
Speaker 1: Derso was not held by any sworn oaths of loyalty,
Speaker 1: but he surely knew that by cooperating with the FBI
Speaker 1: he was risking his life.
Speaker 3: I'm sure he didn't have to wear a wire, but
Speaker 3: his level of anger at the organized crime figures who
Speaker 3: failed to support him and back him up and get
Speaker 3: retribution led him to want to go further than your
Speaker 3: average cooperator and agreed to wear a wire, even though
Speaker 3: that would put his life in danger.
Speaker 1: Mike Campy ran point on the operation.
Speaker 4: My role in operating Derso was to generate criminal conversations
Speaker 4: involving not only the Genevese family, but others that interacted
Speaker 4: with the Genevese family.
Speaker 1: For Derso, it would mean making nice with the very
Speaker 1: men who threatened to kill him and continuing to kick
Speaker 1: up profits to the Genevese bosses who sanctioned it. But
Speaker 1: Derso had learned a thing or two about self preservation,
Speaker 1: and while the FEDS used his recordings to collect crucial
Speaker 1: information about Genevi's inner workings, Derso never lost sight of
Speaker 1: his own targets the men who killed his cousin.
Speaker 3: And for the next two years, Mike Derso was probably
Speaker 3: the most successful cooperator out in the street that the
Speaker 3: FBI ever had, and these recordings were all kept quiet
Speaker 3: until it became time for Drso to come in from
Speaker 3: the street.
Speaker 1: As a result of Derso's cooperation, prosecutors issued dozens of indictments,
Speaker 1: including the two men against whom Derso had sworn revenge.
Speaker 3: The FBI took a renewed look at what went down
Speaker 3: and decided they did have enough evidence to make a
Speaker 3: case and present it to the Eastern District and get
Speaker 3: an indictment of Fortunado and Polito.
Speaker 1: In the subsequent murder trial of Polito and Fortunado, Derso
Speaker 1: took the stant and described Polito as a degenerate gambler
Speaker 1: who conspired to kill him and his cousin to clear
Speaker 1: his debts. But among Polito's many mistakes was leaving Derso alive.
Speaker 1: Palito and Fortunado were convicted for the murder of Tino Lombardi,
Speaker 1: but not long after their convictions were actually reversed, but.
Speaker 3: Looked like a very solid case until a second circuit
Speaker 3: got its hands on it and decided that the shooting
Speaker 3: here was not a violent crime and native racketeering, but
Speaker 3: a personal beef and therefore didn't fit the federal statutory elements,
Speaker 3: and so they reversed the conviction, which was a shock
Speaker 3: to everybody.
Speaker 1: Meaning that the two men had to be tried again,
Speaker 1: but this time in state court, which is where former
Speaker 1: Brooklyn prosecutor Chris Blank entered the picture and would go
Speaker 1: on to lead the case. The case continued on its
Speaker 1: complex legal path, with a second trial, one acquitted and
Speaker 1: one convicted, and then yet another reversal, but that deep
Speaker 1: dive is a story for another day. By this time,
Speaker 1: Derso had entered witness protection, but before he disappeared, he
Speaker 1: and his roleex had also gathered evidence implicating a very
Speaker 1: high value target, Vincent Giganti's own son, Andrew Giganty. According
Speaker 1: to Mike Campy, a Genevie soldier named George Baron was
Speaker 1: owed some money by an associate, but was sent to
Speaker 1: prison before he could collect.
Speaker 4: When Baron went to prison, he facilitated a relationship for
Speaker 4: Andrew Giganty with this individual, and this individual ended up
Speaker 4: making tens of millions of day dollars with regards to
Speaker 4: the seaport.
Speaker 1: So when Barone pressed Gigante for this associate to pay
Speaker 1: his old debts, Andrew gi Ganty balked.
Speaker 4: And they found it insulting that Barone was demanding this
Speaker 4: money from this associate to the point that they wanted
Speaker 4: to kill him over like a modest amount of money
Speaker 4: that was owed to George Baron, like seventy eighty thousand.
Speaker 4: I mean, Chintz kids and relatives were making four hundred
Speaker 4: thousand dollars didn't have to leave their house. You couldn't
Speaker 4: give George seventy grand he's owed. I mean, it's so stupid.
Speaker 1: Instead, Andrew Giganty passed along the order to murder George Baron.
Speaker 1: And just to give you an idea of how deep
Speaker 1: Derso was when he was wearing that hidden wire in
Speaker 1: his rolex, it was Derso himself that was asked to
Speaker 1: do the hit.
Speaker 4: They were going to use Derso to kill Barone. And
Speaker 4: so at this point it was all right, we're ready
Speaker 4: to take it down. We've got sufficient evidence to charge
Speaker 4: Andrew Gigante, multiple players, including George Baron, who ultimately cooperated,
Speaker 4: and nobody expected Baron to cooperate. I think he realized
Speaker 4: the hypocrisy the life.
Speaker 1: It was another win for the Feds, but even more importantly,
Speaker 1: it was evidence that convicted Geneve's boss, Vincent the Chin Giganti,
Speaker 1: was still calling the shots from prison and using his
Speaker 1: son Andrew as his intermediary on the streets. And remember,
Speaker 1: Giganty was only serving a sentence of twelve years, so
Speaker 1: prosecutors had every reason to try and find ways to
Speaker 1: keep him in jail. Implicating him in a conspiracy with
Speaker 1: his son was a good place to start. Here's his daughter,
Speaker 1: Rita Giganty. They needed something to keep him there, otherwise
Speaker 1: he was getting out, and according to investigators, he was
Speaker 1: staying busy in prison, using his sons to rely his
Speaker 1: orders to the rest of the family.
Speaker 6: They were not made men. I won't even say that
Speaker 6: they worked for him. I would say that they were
Speaker 6: just involved by being the extension of his children. And
Speaker 6: if he said to them, go do this, go talk
Speaker 6: to this one, go talk to that one.
Speaker 1: They would go.
Speaker 6: Never in order to do anything, you know, drassically kills someone.
Speaker 6: My father would never allow for that.
Speaker 4: Vincent Chin Gigante, he did not induct his sons because
Speaker 4: he did not want law enforcement scrutiny on them based
Speaker 4: on that title of being a member at CAPO. On
Speaker 4: a level, it was very cautious and I think right.
Speaker 1: But whatever cover Gigante thought he had provided his sons,
Speaker 1: Andrew's involvement as intermediary provided a crucial point of leverage
Speaker 1: against the Genepese boss using the DERSA wires. The government
Speaker 1: decided to build an obstruction case against Andrew Giganty instead
Speaker 1: about proving once and for all that Vincent gi Ganty
Speaker 1: was still the man in control.
Speaker 4: I just figured, let me get the prison calls and
Speaker 4: I'll show he's running the show, and it.
Speaker 1: Would be one of those very phone calls on a
Speaker 1: very fateful day that would give the government an unexpected assist.
Speaker 1: September eleventh, two thousand and one.
Speaker 7: We were in the kitchen.
Speaker 6: My sisters were with me, and I said to my mom,
Speaker 6: what movie are you watching? Because I saw the first
Speaker 6: tower go down, and she goes, we are talking about that,
Speaker 6: I'm watching the news, and then all of a sudden
Speaker 6: I turned it up and we realized. Everybody realized what
Speaker 6: was happening. Within ten minutes after that phone rang and
Speaker 6: he's on the other end like a nervous wreck. Are
Speaker 6: the kids okay? Is anybody in the city right now?
Speaker 6: Because you know, he wanted to be reassured. So he
Speaker 6: was on the phone for a while and he's talking
Speaker 6: completely normal with my mother and they were talking like
Speaker 6: a conversation like me and you were talking.
Speaker 1: And that was it.
Speaker 6: That's that's how it all came down.
Speaker 4: When we got the prison call. So was Chin calling
Speaker 4: his family on nine to eleven to ask if everybody
Speaker 4: was okay, And so it was like, let's charge him
Speaker 4: with obstruction.
Speaker 1: Remember, Giganty was still claiming he was too mentally unfit
Speaker 1: to be a criminal mastermind, but the call to his
Speaker 1: family blew the charade. Here's prosecutor Andrew Weisman, the man
Speaker 1: who had first convinced a judge in nineteen ninety seven
Speaker 1: that Giganty was competent to stand trial.
Speaker 8: We ended up bringing a second charge against Giganty for
Speaker 8: obstruction for lying to the court repeatedly about his mental condition,
Speaker 8: and he ended up pleading guilty to that. Part of
Speaker 8: the reason he was charged was prosecutors take really seriously
Speaker 8: lying to prosecutors, lying to FBI agents, lying to the court,
Speaker 8: obstruction of court processes, because that's our lifeblood, how we
Speaker 8: build cases. It acts to give a deterrent to those
Speaker 8: people who think they can sort of hop on the
Speaker 8: stand or come in and meet with you and lie
Speaker 8: without any.
Speaker 7: Sort of risk.
Speaker 8: The second reason is because the sentence was really not appropriate.
Speaker 6: They basically told him, we have you on tape, you
Speaker 6: completely normal. Your whole family is talking to you like
Speaker 6: you're normal. So we're going to go after them for
Speaker 6: obstruction of justice if you don't say exactly who you
Speaker 6: are and what you've done.
Speaker 1: And this time the government held the ultimate upper hand.
Speaker 6: Once they told him he was coming after the family
Speaker 6: for obstruction of justice, he just admitted everything at that
Speaker 6: point and that was it. Everything ended. It was like, okay,
Speaker 6: whatever you want, and he gave him all the information
Speaker 6: that they wanted, and that's how it all came about.
Speaker 1: In the end, Vincent Giganty put his blood family in
Speaker 1: front of his crime family. He agreed to plead guilty
Speaker 1: to obstruction charges, a plea deal that would spare his
Speaker 1: wife and daughter from prosecution, but his son Andrew, who
Speaker 1: Giganty had tried so hard to protect, would have to
Speaker 1: face the music.
Speaker 4: Here's my campy, I charged Andrew Giganty, and I was
Speaker 4: at the arrest of Andrew Giaghatty at his house, and
Speaker 4: I remember how the jury box was filled with press
Speaker 4: to watch his statement and then watch Andrew and Chin
Speaker 4: plead guilty together. That day.
Speaker 1: It was an unprecedented capitulation by a mafia bos.
Speaker 4: It was like Chin basically acknowledging in a single word
Speaker 4: answers to the judge that he faked his crazy act
Speaker 4: for decades. And then he asked if he and the
Speaker 4: Sun could meet each other because they may not see
Speaker 4: each other again they're going to different prisons. And so
Speaker 4: the judge allowed it and they met in the hallway after.
Speaker 1: What was said between them was never recorded, but it
Speaker 1: would be the last in person meeting of father and son.
Speaker 1: On July twenty fifth, two thousand and three, Gigante's son
Speaker 1: Andrew was sentenced to two years in prison and fined
Speaker 1: two and a half million dollars for racketeering and extortion.
Speaker 1: Vincent Giguanty was sentenced to an additional three years. Two
Speaker 1: years later, at the age of seventy seven, he died
Speaker 1: in a Springfield, Missouri prison hospital.
Speaker 6: I was in my office it was after hours, and
Speaker 6: I got the phone call. That was my sister who
Speaker 6: called me and told me, and I dropped the phone
Speaker 6: just comen't believe it. And I hear my mother hysterical
Speaker 6: in the background, and I just said to her, get
Speaker 6: off the phone with me. I'm coming home. I was
Speaker 6: very much at peace with it because he was at peace,
Speaker 6: and I knew he didn't have his ego attached him anymore.
Speaker 6: Was I hurt, Yes? Did I cry?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 6: But it was more about my mother than it was
Speaker 6: about anything for me to be there for her, because
Speaker 6: I know.
Speaker 7: She was going to be devastated.
Speaker 1: In the years after her father died, Rita reflected on
Speaker 1: the kind of man he was, the pain and damage
Speaker 1: he had caused in her own ability to survive that trauma,
Speaker 1: feelings that culminated in a revealing memoir entitled The Godfather's Daughter.
Speaker 6: It wasn't until seven years after he passed did I
Speaker 6: publish it in two thoyd and twelve. If I was
Speaker 6: able to come through a set of sircumstances that were
Speaker 6: unbearable like that, that I can help others heal or
Speaker 6: empower others to know that they have the ability to
Speaker 6: do that, and The amount of people that I helped
Speaker 6: is why I did it.
Speaker 1: In the end, Michael Derso's testimony helped convict more than
Speaker 1: seventy mobsters and associates, including Gigante. For his cooperation, Derso
Speaker 1: received probation and a two hundred dollars fine. Following his testimony,
Speaker 1: he went into the federal witness Protection program. But even
Speaker 1: with a new identity in an undisclosed location, the former
Speaker 1: Mike Drso was not ready to drop his guard. In
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, Drso wrote an open letter to his former
Speaker 1: enemies that was published in The New York Post. In
Speaker 1: the letter, he warned them against seeking retribution. Derso threatened
Speaker 1: in the letter, and I quote, I am ready, able
Speaker 1: and willing to defend my family and myself. A bat
Speaker 1: and a knife won't help you, So if you come,
Speaker 1: you better bring a gun. Mike Campy says the mob's
Speaker 1: own success has also led to its demise.
Speaker 4: When you go back to the days, say the Lucky
Speaker 4: Luciano you had, Lucky Luciano, Vito Genavis, albert Anastasia Meyer, Lanski,
Speaker 4: you had a bunch of guys that sort of had
Speaker 4: a bond. When you have a small handful of people
Speaker 4: working together, I can see a bond, but when you
Speaker 4: increase it by hundreds and thousands of associates, it's just
Speaker 4: really dysfunctional and doesn't work the way you think it
Speaker 4: originally was intended to work.
Speaker 1: With every informant and witness they flipped, law enforcement was
Speaker 1: exposing major fault lines in a historically bulletproof criminal organization.
Speaker 8: The joke about the Columbus Family that one of the
Speaker 8: defense lawyers representing somebody in the Columba family said is
Speaker 8: that it was called the House of Pancakes, And I
Speaker 8: was like, why, because everyone's flipping Omeerta.
Speaker 1: The mob's ancient oath of secrecy and loyalty to the
Speaker 1: family was quickly becoming a thing of the past, as
Speaker 1: soldiers and bosses alike struck deals with prosecutors to stay
Speaker 1: at a prison, deals that involved ratting out their fellow mobsters.
Speaker 1: Safe to say, it was not always good for their
Speaker 1: long term health.
Speaker 3: There's one set of people that you can't cross because,
Speaker 3: as Aldiarco, the acting boss of the Lucazi crime family,
Speaker 3: told me, there's only one way you leave LCN, and
Speaker 3: that's feet first. Once you're a member of organized crime,
Speaker 3: an inducted member, you never leave, and so if you
Speaker 3: become a cooperator, you're not no longer a member of
Speaker 3: organized crime. You are simply what they consider an outlaw
Speaker 3: and you will be dealt with when they get their opportuny.
Speaker 1: And for those mobsters who stayed in, the impulse towards
Speaker 1: self preservation was sometimes even stronger and deadlier.
Speaker 4: A lot of the criminals have either an ego or
Speaker 4: a sociopathic personality where they're envious of each other and
Speaker 4: they at some point in time they want to off
Speaker 4: each other so that they can replace him in positions
Speaker 4: of powers.
Speaker 1: And with so many mob bosses being brought down, the
Speaker 1: turmoil and violence inside their organizations was often left unchecked.
Speaker 1: It was trust no one kill or be killed. For decades,
Speaker 1: the threat to the mob survival came from law enforcement.
Speaker 1: Now much of it came from within. And nowhere was
Speaker 1: this more evident than in one of New York's oldest
Speaker 1: crime families, the Bananos.
Speaker 7: The Bananos were an absolute mess. To put it bluntly,
Speaker 7: they had had problems going back to the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: Jack Stooping is a retired supervisory special agent at the FBI.
Speaker 1: A self described crime fighting fanatic who graduated from hardy
Speaker 1: Boys books to the manual of the FBI.
Speaker 7: The first actual organized crime book I ever read was
Speaker 7: Honor Thy Father, written by Gates Lease, and it was
Speaker 7: about the Banano family.
Speaker 1: And during his long career he would have a ringside
Speaker 1: seat for much of the dysfunction within the once invincible
Speaker 1: crime family.
Speaker 7: The Boss, the titular Boss, was now living in Arizona,
Speaker 7: having been chased out of New York. They were rudderless.
Speaker 7: There were these constant factions within the family.
Speaker 1: The Bananos had been kicked off the commission after the
Speaker 1: Donnie Brasco debacle, which had allowed the FBI to infiltrate
Speaker 1: their organization four years.
Speaker 7: As a result, nobody trusted the Bananos in the other
Speaker 7: four families. They were basically shunned. The Bananos, in self defense,
Speaker 7: because they had a generating income of their own, started
Speaker 7: exploring other avenues. They were among the pioneers in the
Speaker 7: boiler rooms and stock frauds and pump and dump schemes
Speaker 7: on Wall Street. They got more heavily involved in narcotics distribution.
Speaker 7: They just explored other avenues and nobody knew anything about
Speaker 7: them because they were basically operating on their own, but.
Speaker 1: Being kicked off of the commission and left out of
Speaker 1: the subsequent Commission trial proved to be a blessing in disguise.
Speaker 1: As the other families saw their bosses sent off to prison,
Speaker 1: much of the Banana leadership was left largely intact and
Speaker 1: out on the street.
Speaker 7: As a result of the fallout of the Commission case,
Speaker 7: we the FBI started to develop quite a number of
Speaker 7: turncoat mobsters. Virtually every cooperate reading witness that I interviewed
Speaker 7: from other families, because none of the Bananos had turned
Speaker 7: they said, well, I don't know anything about the Bananas
Speaker 7: because they didn't have a seat on the commission.
Speaker 1: So in Banano boss Rusty Rostelli died in prison in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one. It set the stage for the family's
Speaker 1: big comeback. He would be succeeded by a ruthless former
Speaker 1: capo who was determined to consolidate power and rebuild the family.
Speaker 1: His name was Joe Messino.
Speaker 7: He was brutal. He was reputed to do his own work.
Speaker 7: In other words, he wasn't afraid to use violence as
Speaker 7: a tool against somebody personally, would just order somebody else.
Speaker 7: He would participate himself if necessary.
Speaker 1: You may remember Messino from our first two episodes because
Speaker 1: it was Messino who helped orchestrate the nineteen seventy nine
Speaker 1: hit on rival Carmine Galante as well as the Three
Speaker 1: Capos murder.
Speaker 7: Messino is basically putting the band back together. For lack
Speaker 7: of a better term, the other four families were now
Speaker 7: much weaker because of all of these turncoats and prosecutions
Speaker 7: that were taking place, and so now it was the
Speaker 7: Bananos who were filling the power vacuum.
Speaker 1: And as the new head of the family, Messino was
Speaker 1: arguably the most powerful mafia leader in the country and
Speaker 1: the only full fledged New York boss who was not
Speaker 1: in prison.
Speaker 7: He was the force to be reckoned with. He really
Speaker 7: was de facto the boss and bosses. By this point.
Speaker 1: To the FBI, Messino would be known as Public Enemy
Speaker 1: Number one. To the world, he would be known as
Speaker 1: the last down.
Speaker 2: Next time on law and order criminal justice system.
Speaker 5: Traditionally, an organized crime you sort of expect to go
Speaker 5: to jail, but what you don't expect is when the
Speaker 5: government takes your money away while you're in jail.
Speaker 7: One of the cousin Austra rules is if you vouch
Speaker 7: for a guy and he turns bad, it's on you
Speaker 7: and the penalty could be death.
Speaker 5: You start out with one individual, he then has so
Speaker 5: much information. Once he cooperates, you're able to go after two, three, four,
Speaker 5: and then it was like a domino effect.
Speaker 2: Law and Order Criminal Justice System is a production of
Speaker 2: Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts. Our host is Ana Sega Nicolazi.
Speaker 2: This episode was written by Walker LeMond and Ana Sega Nicolazi.
Speaker 2: Executive produced by Dick Wolf, Elliott Wolf, and Stephen Michael
Speaker 2: at Wolf Entertainment on behalf of iHeartRadio. Executing produced by
Speaker 2: Alex Williams and Matt Frederick, with supervising producers Trevor Young
Speaker 2: and Chandler Mays, and producers Jesse Funk, Nomes Griffin, and
Speaker 2: Rima el Kali. This season is executive produced by Anna
Speaker 2: Sega Nicolazzi, story producer Walker Lamond. Our researchers are Carolyn
Speaker 2: Talmich and Lukes. Dance editing and sound designed by Nomes Griffin.
Speaker 2: Original music by John O'Hara, original theme by Mike Post,
Speaker 2: Additional music by Steve Moore and additional voiceover by me
Speaker 2: Steve Zernkelton Special. Thanks to Fox five in New York,
Speaker 2: ABC and CBS for providing archival material for the show.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio and Wolf Entertainment, visit the
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 2: favorite shows. Thanks for listening.