LYNDA MILITO: My husband said to me, "You know Jimmy Hoffa, that Teamster boss? Well, he's in that stanchion over there," and he says to me, "I killed him."
CURTIS SLIWA, ANTI–ACTIVIST: There was this huge gorilla of a guy who popped-up with a .38, he had a silver .38 in his hand, he had a mask on, he had an Irish walking cap and he said, "Take this, you son of a bitch – pow!"
LAURA GARAFOLO, VICTIM’S DAUGHTER: He went up to him to make sure he was really dead and put two more slugs in my father's face.
For decades the Gambino crime family have been the brutal rulers of New York's underworld. But on February 7 this year it all came crashing down. * A federal and state task force in New York arrested scores of people in what they described as a Mafia takedown. Almost half of those arrested were full members of the notorious Gambino crime syndicate, including the boss himself, his deputy and six Mob captains.
JOHN MARZULLI: 62 people were indicted, which is a massive number of people to be indicted at one time.
The biggest fish caught in the FBI's net was John D'Amico, otherwise known as 'Jackie the Nose'. D'Amico is one of two bosses who share the role of godfather to the Gambino syndicate. The other boss is Nicholas Corozzo, known as 'Little Nick'. He managed to get away before he could be arrested and is now one of America's most wanted fugitives.
JOHN MARZULLI: It's just a fascinating beat to cover and you see some really extraordinary people - extraordinarily good and extraordinarily bad people.
As courts and crime reporter for one of New York's biggest tabloids, the 'Daily News', John Marzulli has spent more than two decades reporting on New York's Mafia families, and he says the years of work by law enforcement are slowly paying off.
JOHN MARZULLI: Since I've been covering organised crime the mafia's sort of characterised as being not as strong as it once was, as beleaguered, as under siege. Some crime families are described as being in great disarray because of defectors within their ranks.
Half an hour's drive from the heart of Manhattan, on a desolate stretch of north-west Staten Island, the headquarters of Andrews Trucking company lies abandoned. It provides few clues to its recent role but the hundreds of hours of conversations recorded here proved vital in nailing the Gambino clan. Every Mob bust has a rat and in this case it was Joseph Vollaro, the owner of Andrews Trucking who turned FBI informant after facing serious drugs charges three years ago.
JOHN MARZULLI: Vollaro is certainly a special witness in the sense that he was wearing a wire and he was dealing with very significant members of that crime family and recording their conversations unbeknownst to them.
Tapping into the Gambino family's darkest secrets has given the FBI some prize scalps, but it still leaves the authorities up against a virtual army of Mafioso. When it comes to made members of the Mob, it's estimated that there's at least 1,200 fully fledged operatives of the five crime families controlling the Italian underworld here in New York. And along with them are thousands more crooked businessmen, trade union officials and other criminal associates. Many of them are concentrated in areas regarded as classic Mob territory.
CURTIS SLIWA: In Staten Island – no matter where I stand – if I swung a dead cat over my head every fifth person I hit would be a member of organised crime.
I've come to Staten Island with Curtis Sliwa, a man who's made a habit of talking back to the Mob.
CURTIS SLIWA: And the new chichas and the new zips coming over from Sicily who replace the American in-breded mobsters choking on their lobsters with the sons and daughters of the geriatric, espresso-sipping psychotic killers of Sicily.
I'm a talk show host, I'm not the President of the United States.
Sliwa is well known as the civic hero who patrolled New York's streets and subways in order to make them safe and he still proudly wears his Guardian Angels jacket.
CURTIS SLIWA: And he's like even more of a screwball whack job and fruit loop trooper.
These days Curtis Sliwa is one of New York's best known conservative shockjocks, where he gets the chance to spread his anti-Mob message every day.
CURTIS SLIWA: Our number is 1800-222-KABC. Yours truly will return
Born and raised in one of New York's meanest neighbourhoods, Sliwa has an intimate knowledge of New York's Mafia clans and knows many of its grisly secrets.
CURTIS SLIWA: I can't tell you how many bodies are buried here. They probably would have found 30 or more 'cause this was definitely an organised crime burial ground.
Curtis has taken me to a lonely part of Staten Island that locals stay away from because it's where the Mob allegedly disposes of its victims. Bleak and wild, it stretches for several kilometres from the Goethals Bridge, which connects the island to the mainland. When plans were announced by the racing association NASCAR to develop the site into a professional racing track, the Mafia, together with the FBI's key informant, Joseph Vollaro, conspired to devise a series of scams, including a so-called Mob tax on concrete for the site.
CURTIS SLIWA: There was obviously a lot of money to be made and organised crime - the moment the mere mention of NASCAR – they recognised that it was time to bisect and dissect and try to figure out how much they could get a square foot of concrete, 'cause you could imagine how many foundations, how many pilings, how many construction jobs would have had to go into just getting this land prepared for an asphalt professional NASCAR racetrack.
Alongside of the NASCAR scams, the 80-count indictment provides an astonishing and rare insight into how the Mafia has continued to flourish in America's largest city. Monikers like 'Domenico the Greaseball', 'Fat Richie' and 'Ernest the Eyes' give a wry touch to the charge sheet, but the detail is damning. Loan-sharking, fraud and the criminal infiltration of trade unions, labour racketeering, extortion, gambling and murder, in fact, the indictment provided a resolution to one of New York's most enduring cold cases.
JOHN MARZULLI: Probably the most interesting counts in the case are the murders. One of the more dramatic murders in the indictment is the killing of a New York City court officer in the 1970s.
Inside the foyer of Brooklyn's State courthouse on a far corner wall, a lonely plaque commemorates a man most people have long forgotten. His name was Albert Gelb, a young court officer who courageously stood up to the Mob and lost, with his life. And although police were certain of his killer's identity, the investigation faltered through lack of evidence.
DENNIS QUIRK, PRESIDENT, NY COURT OFFICERS ASSOCIATION: I knew him personally, he was a great person, dedicated officer, so for me it brings a great deal of satisfaction to get this guy and see the government try him and put him in a box where he's never coming out again.
This is a picture of Albert Gelb the year before he was killed receiving our top medal for saving someone's life who was choking.
Dennis Quirk is the president of the New York State Court Officers Association – the same position he held in 1976. He says just before his death Gelb arrested a group of mobsters who were assaulting a waitress. Unbeknown to Gelb, one of the mobsters was the Gambino's most trusted hit-man. Just a few weeks later the Mob struck back as Albert Gelb drove home from work.
DENNIS QUIRK: A minimum of two or maybe three shooters came out of the dark and shot from both - from the front window and rear window of the car, killing him.
During subsequent investigations there were many attempts by the Mob to scare off the city's court officials, including Dennis Quirk. Decades later his only regret is that he never got a chance to avenge his friend's murder.
DENNIS QUIRK: For a period of time I, instead of carrying my gun in my holster, I used to carry it in my jacket pocket, with extra ammo. I mean, at one point I wish they would have tried to take a shot, because I would have liked to have blown their brains out.
Albert Gelb's killer was finally brought to account in February's crackdown. In Mob circles his reputation for savagery and extreme violence are legend. And while nobody's sure exactly how many people he's killed, now everyone knows the name of New York's most feared hit-man – a Gambino clan loyalist called Charles Carneglia.
CURTIS SLIWA: When somebody had to do the really dirty work, Carneglia would volunteer. I mean, he'd have killed his mother if you asked him to do it.
But prosecutors are confident that Carneglia will now face justice after a life spent thumbing his nose at the law.
JUDGE RICHARD BROWN: So it's the old story - you can run but you can't hide, eventually we catch up with you.
Judge Richard Brown is one of New York's most active Mob-hunters and has put away his fair share of mafia men. Back in 1976, Albert Gelb was working as his court officer and Judge Brown was the last person to see him alive.
JUDGE RICHARD BROWN: The night that he died, I was sitting in night court. At the end of the session, which was usually around 1 o'clock in the morning, he escorted me to my car, put me in my car and sent me on my way, and that was the last I saw of him.
The shock of Gelb's murder inspired Richard Brown to take an unusual direction for a sitting judge. In court he'd presided over high-profile cases like the arraignment of the 'Son of Sam' serial killer, but Judge Brown decided to leave the comfort of the bench for the rough and tumble of Mob-busting as the District Attorney in the borough of Queens.
JUDGE RICHARD BROWN: We have a fair number of people that we are watching at all times here in Queens.
With over 2 million residents, Queens is New York's second-largest district by population. About 10% of its residents claim Italian ancestry and despite its relative prosperity its ties to the Mafia still run deep.
JUDGE RICHARD BROWN: It's the kind of situation where those of us in law enforcement have got to be very, very vigilant at all times to make certain of the fact that we stay on top of the Mob and we've come a long, long way in recent years in cutting into their ability to involve themselves into the kind of things that they do.
The Mob's influence is spread throughout Queens, but there are some neighbourhoods with a more concentrated Mafia population, like Howard Beach and the infamous Ozone Park, which was home to Gambino family Mob boss John Gotti Senior. When Gotti died from throat cancer in prison in 2002, he was denied a Catholic burial, but thousands came to witness his funeral procession.
NEWS REPORTER, ARCHIVE: The former Mob boss known as the 'Dapper Don' took one last trip through his neighbourhood – this time in a casket.
WOMAN: We've seen him in the area and we're just paying our respects, that's why we're out here.
Many here regarded the Godfather more as a Robin Hood style gangster than a sinister crime boss, but for those who got in his way it was a different story.
CURTIS SLIWA: The fact that I called him a drug dealer, he took great umbrage, great offence to that, even though he was a big-time drug dealer and to himself he decided he was going to try to shut me up because this was causing him untold grief.
After months of being publicly denounced, John Gotti Senior ordered a hit on the outspoken radio host and entrusted the job to his son, John Gotti Junior. The first attempt on Sliwa's life, by three mobsters with baseball bats, failed to kill him, so a second plan was hatched, this time using a stolen taxi to collect Sliwa as he made his way to work.
CURTIS SLIWA: And all of a sudden like a jack-in-the-box up front underneath the dashboard, there was this huge gorilla of a guy who popped-up with a .38, he had a silver .38 in his hand, he had a mask on, he had an Irish walking cap and he said, "Take this, you son of a bitch – pow!"
Seriously wounded, Curtis somehow managed to break out of the car and escape,
but the judicial efforts to bring the Mob to account over the attempted hit failed, leaving an angry Curtis Sliwa to continue his public campaign against the family.
CURTIS SLIWA: You can bet your last George Washington in your pocket I will continue to be John Gotti Junior's worst nightmare to talk about his and his dad's reign of terror.
That reign of terror is most apparent in the Mob's successful criminalisation of New York's construction industry. There are few cities in the world that can match the ongoing construction boom in Manhattan. The city is continually rebuilding itself, and as it does the Mob grows richer. Operating labour and protection rackets along with numerous scams allows the mafia to pocket hundreds of millions of dollars every year. Curtis Sliwa says it's become an accepted way to do business.
CURTIS SLIWA: Well, whether you're any of the gazillionaire builders in New York, you recognise you can't lay any concrete unless the Mob is pouring the concrete. Everything that moves in and out of a construction site right now has some type of affiliation with organised crime, and even if they're not directly involved, they pay their Mob tax.
As the latest indictment clearly shows, the Mob tax remains one of the most insidious economic threats to New York. John Marzulli says some of the city's biggest building projects are under perpetual Mob watch.
JOHN MARZULLI: There are major projects being built in the city right now which the FBI is trying to pay careful attention to, to see - to ensure that there is no Mob influence. There are stadiums being built for the Yankees and the Mets and these are very lucrative projects and when you're talking about tens of millions - hundreds of millions of dollars, there is money to be made in buying labour peace.
If New Yorkers are hoping the upcoming Mafia trials will provide a measure of justice, past experience shows there are no guarantees.
LYNDA MILITO: I didn't know how pretty I was until today, OK? I didn't know that I looked so good until people told me.
Lynda Milito was once married to the Mob, literally - her husband, Louie, was a sworn member of the Gambino clan.
LYNDA MILITO: Louie took me away from the meanness of my family and gave me a better life, but that better life got worse, OK, just worse.
Louie Milito was one of the Gambino's most trusted Mob captains and Lynda was privy to his private confessions. And perhaps the most significant is her claim that he admitted to killing the notorious Teamster's boss, Jimmy Hoffa.
LYNDA MILITO: When I was going over the Verrazano Bridge, my husband, we were having a fight, and my husband said to me, "You know Jimmy Hoffa, that Teamster boss? Well, he's in that stanchion over there," and he says to me, "I killed him."
Hoffa's disappearance remains a mystery and the FBI will only confirm that Lynda's claims have been noted. But like Hoffa, Louie himself was soon to disappear, the victim of a Mob execution.
LYNDA MILITO: Well, this is a pretty famous face, and that's 'Sammy the Bull'.
'Sammy the Bull' was Louie's partner and the man Lynda believes was his killer. Certainly, Sammy, whose proper name is Sammy Gravano, had a ruthless reputation and unlike most other Italian mobsters he refused to follow the Mafia's strict code of honour.
LYNDA MILITO: I was afraid my children would be involved and anyone that says, "Well, they won't harm your kids..." Not in that era, not in that era, you understand what I'm saying? Sammy would kill anybody.
NEWS REPORTER: Prosecutors say he just couldn't let go of a life of crime.
Although the FBI suspected he was the killer, Sammy Gravano never confessed to Louie Milito's murder. He did, however, admit to killing 19 other people, and in one of the most astonishing acts of plea bargaining in history, the government gave him a 5-year sentence. Their price was Sammy turning federal witness against the Gambino crime family and its boss, John Gotti Senior. And when Gotti was put away, this opportunistic serial killer began a new life with his family in Arizona under full witness protection.
LAURA GARAFOLO: The fact that Gravano was given a pass after killing 19 people – you know, I mean, the murder was the worst part, but it just added so much to our pain and suffering that the government felt that our father's life and 18 others weren't worth enough to keep this man behind bars.
Laura Garafalo knows a lot about Sammy Gravano – he's one of the men who killed her father.
LAURA GARAFOLO: My father was a contractor in New York and he, at a point in time, was approached by people for Sammy Gravano. He was told that he needed to pay Gravano a percentage of everything he did – all the work that he did in New York – and my father refused.
That refusal came at a terrible cost when on August 8, 1990 Sammy hit back outside the family home in Brooklyn.
LAURA GARAFOLO: He was ambushed by five gunmen in two cars and he was murdered right there in the middle of the street.
Laura now spends most of her time in Miami, where she continues to campaign for justice on behalf of Sammy Gravano's 19 victims. Their campaign nearly resulted in more bloodshed when an attorney was engaged to launch a case against 'Sammy the Bull'.
LAURA GARAFOLO: Gravano did take out a contract on my attorney's life. So the mindset of Gravano never changed.
In fact, just months after Sammy Gravano began his new life in Arizona, he was caught trafficking massive quantities of the drug ecstasy. This time there was no way out and Gravano was sentenced to 20 years - cold comfort to the families of his victims who are still angry at the Government's plea deals with organised crime.
LAURA GARAFOLO: I want people to understand what the government did, how we were victimised, how my father was victimised, how other people are victimised by what the Government does with these informers. I think that their tactics are just as crooked and just as corrupt as the criminals they're arresting.
Despite the latest crackdown, few believe that it will really make a difference. For Laura, the FBI's recent display of handcuffed wise-guys means little.
LAURA GARAFOLO: To me it seemed like theatrics. It was very political. And it was basically the FBI banging on their chests saying, "Look what we did! Look, we're really fighting crime." If you were fighting crime, a guy that killed 19 people wouldn't be on the streets to peddle drugs to children in Arizona.
It's ironic that while New York's prosecutors are getting ready for the biggest mafia trials in a decade, vendors in the city's Little Italy district are busy cashing in on the Mafia brand name. But many see this romantic notion of New York's Mafia clans as part of the problem in tackling organised crime. Even though the Mafia's been wounded its tentacles remain in place. The city's Mob tax still stands and their core activities continue to prosper. And for Mob-weary New Yorkers like Curtis Sliwa, it's a menace that just won't go away.
CURTIS SLIWA: Some law enforcement officials do have this romanticised notion of organised crime and they actually like having them around, so they develop an affinity for them – it's sort of a love-hate relationship. And so rather than squash it, eliminate it, extinguish it once and for all, we ease up and then they're able to regrow and it's like pods – we have to live with the nightmare again.
Credits
Reporter/Camera
NICHOLAS LAZAREDES
Editors
WAYNE LOVE
SUE BELL
Producer
AARON THOMAS
Local Producer
TARA LIBERT
Original Music composed by
VICKI HANSEN