August 22, 2024 • 41 mins
The murder of Carmine Galante sends shockwaves through the underworld, as investigators begin to unravel a web of violence and power struggles hinting at a larger conspiracy among New York’s infamous Five Families.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're listening to Law and Order Criminal Justice System, a
production of Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
In the criminal justice system, landmark trials transcend the courtroom
to reshape the law. The brave many women who investigate
and prosecute these cases are part of a select group
that is to find American history. These are their stories.
July twelfth, nineteen seventy nine, Bushwick, Brooklyn.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
It was early afternoon on a hot summer day. The
residential neighborhood was usually quiet, but today was different. Something
was about to happen that would shatter the peace, a
scene never expected at the restaurant that sat in the
middle of the block.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
It was called Joe and Mary's in Brooklyn, which is
predominantly a neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
The lunch crowd had left and the restaurant was empty
except for a group that sat outside. A stocky man
with glasses was at a table in the center of
the back patio, chomping on an unlit cigar. He was
joined by two men.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
The individuals that he's meeting with are recognizing him as
a very powerful, formidable figure.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Sitting apart from the conversation were two other men. They
both wore leather jackets despite the brutal heat. They were
the bodyguards, and then chaos erupted.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Three men wearing ski masks carrying shotguns and handguns walk
through the restaurant, then walk out the back door to
the patio and immediately started firing.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
The shooters pumped round after round into the three men
at the table. The bodyguards did nothing to protect their boss.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
He's blasted with shotgun as well as hand gunfire.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
And then he falls back in his chair. Probably was
dead before.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
He hit the ground, a shotgun hol to his left eye,
his cigar still clutched between his teeth.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
There is a very famous fixture of him laid out
in the courtyard, clearly dead, with the cigar hanging from
his mouth.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
His name was Carmin Galante and he was the de
facto boss of the Banano crime family. It was a
murder that would capture the attention of the nation.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
Police today stepped up their search for two men who
were having lunch with my boss, Carmen Galante Thursday when gunman.
Speaker 6 (02:38):
Burst into the court order.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
The murder would send shockwaves through the city and its
vast criminal underworld.
Speaker 6 (02:44):
All of that set the scene new York Five families
were in chaos, and their leader was weak.
Speaker 7 (02:51):
He honestly believed nobody would have the post.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Killing nobody and unwittingly became part of one of the
most common sequential criminal cases in the history of New
York City.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Well, it's a huge shot in the arm. It sent
the message to them that we can prosecute these people.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
These bosses on the Commission had no idea what was
coming their way from the federal government. You're not with
the mob because you want to be.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
It's the gangster that decides whether you're his associated with.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
If you like your life, you will vote to acquit.
From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts, my father should have
been a dead man. This is Law and Order criminal
justice system. I'm Aniseeka Nicolazzi, a former New York City
(03:59):
homicide pross secutor who spent decades in the justice system.
My career was built in the courtroom, where the stakes
are high and the stories are real. Law and Order
was always my favorite TV series as a young prosecutor.
It became a reflection of the work I did every day.
Now I'm teaming up with the minds behind the iconic
(04:20):
TV show to bring you something brand new. This isn't
a scripted drama. These are the true stories that have
shaped the modern criminal justice system, told by those who
have lived it. For much of New York's history, crime
was synonymous with the mafia. The organization dominated the city
and their power baffled the federal government. So how did
(04:42):
one seemingly random murder of a mafia boss create a
defining moment in our legal system that led to the
downfall of the mob. For anyone growing up in New
York in the nineteen seventies, the infamy of organized crime
was hard to ignore.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
Crime was everywhere, and crime was very big business. It
involved violence, it involved murders, and it involved destroying a
lot of people's lives. My name is James Leonard Junior.
I've been practicing primarily as a criminal defense attorney for
the last twenty three years. I've worked extensively with organized
(05:24):
crime figures.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
James understands organized crime better than most. He's been studying
at the majority of his career and it's always been
a part of his life.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
So growing up in New Jersey as a teenager, I
would routinely buy the New York Daily News and the
New York Post. If you were following the tabloid newspapers,
tracking what was happening in organized crime was no different
than following a football team or a baseball team. You
(05:54):
would read about who was being charged, who had been murdered,
who the rumor next boss was going to be. Quite frankly,
I consumed all of it. I was fascinated in it,
just like I was interested in what was going on
with the Yankees of the Philadelphia Eagles.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
It's easy to understand how a young kid like James
could develop an interesting crime because crime was everywhere.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
It's been ten days since at least one of four
youths asked for five dollars from the passenger on the
Irt subway, and eyewitness quoted the man as saying, I
have five dollars for each of you. He then pulled
a silver revolver from his belt and shot all four
of them.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Another Teamster official was gunned down last week. As John
Miller tells us, it's just one in a series of
gangland style murderers. This was a very violent, turbulent period
of time.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
There were preximently five murders a day in New York
City through most of the eighties, just general lawlessness. So
it was a very very crazy place.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
That's Gil Childers, who was a young prosecutor in Brooklyn
in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Just to give you a sense of things. When I started,
the head of the Criminal Courts Bureau told us a
couple things. He said, a few rules in self preservation.
Don't use the stairways in the courthouse. If you do,
don't use them alone young women. When you leave the courtroom,
if you have brought a purse or a handbag with
you and you go up to the sidebar to the court,
(07:26):
take your handbag with you. He said, I thought all possible.
Don't use the bathrooms in the courthouse. Wait till you're
back in the office.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Gil remembers what it was like leaving his apartment late
at night. He had to be careful about even what
he wore.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
My first assignment was the midnight shift at the complaint
room at the eight four Precinct in Brooklyn. I had
an apartment in Brooklyn Heights at the time, so I
was going to walk to the eight flour and they said,
you know, you haven't seen it yet, but do not
wear a tie and jacket to it because where you're
going to be is probably hostile to that type of dress.
(08:02):
And so I dressed sort of in jeans, put a dress,
shirt and sneakers, some stuff. And I remember as I'm
walking out the door, I looked in the mirror and
I said, I went to law school for three years.
I thought it was going to be working, you know,
in a three piece suit. Here I go my first
official act as a lawyer. I'm in jeans and I'm
walking out of a house at eleven thirty at night.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
New York was on the verge of bankruptcy, muggings and
murder were on the rise.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
Well, how bad is crime on the subways today?
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Police said the robbers were getting robbed. Police said that
Garnell Thompson stole almost thirteen.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Hun Just to give you a little context. In nineteen
seventy nine, there were over two hundred and fifty felonies
and nine murders per week on the trains. The Lexington
Avenue subway line earned the nickname Muggers Express. The New
York City at the time of Carma Galanti's murder was
(08:58):
a city under siege by crime, but the mafia or
Kosa Nostra as they often termed themselves was in a
leak of their own, and to understand them at all,
you have to start with their basic structure. The city's
organized crime was divided into five different families.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Five families by names that we knew them were the
Gambido family, the Genovese family, the Lackesi family, the Colombo family,
and the Banano family.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
The infamous five families of the New York City mafia
had been around for one hundred years. With roots in Sicily,
these families established businesses throughout the early twentieth century. Most
eventually became criminal in nature. By the time Carmine Galante
was murdered, the mafia had a stranglehold on the city.
Families like the Bananos used violence to coerce payment from
(09:50):
legitimate businesses, a practice called extortion. Bars neighborhood grocers, manufacturers,
and warehousers. They all fell victim to the mob, exchanging
percentages of their hard earned profits for protection from violence.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Where the street time came in was in the enforcement
of loan sharking and gambling debts. The mob ran the numbers.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
According to Gil It's also what kept the mafia ever
present in the lives of everyday New Yorkers.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
It was the day in, day out money that they
could always count on, and some people would say somewhat harmless,
until of course you got in over your head, and
then when they had to collect things became a less
harmless and more harmful.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
But as the mafia families got stronger and more profitable,
their largest profits came from their infiltration of major industries
throughout the city, from trucking to garbage removal to garment manufacturing.
It seemed like nothing got built, shipped, or sold without
an invisible tax being taken by the mob.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
They controlled the carting industry, so every store owner was
paying extra money because they had a monopoly on it.
They controlled the garment industry, so the clothes that you bought,
there was a mob tax on that. From a citizen's perspective,
it was what has been called the mob tax on many,
(11:19):
many aspects of everyone's everyday life.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
And of course they enforced their grip on the city
with the constant threat of extreme violence.
Speaker 8 (11:32):
The indictment alleges that the Genevies organization infiltrated Teamster locals
in the New York area and extorted money from legitimate
businesses by threatening them with labor problems, bribery, labor racketeering, gambling, extortion, murder,
control of the election of the president of one of
the largest unions in America, and control over its affairs.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
So you might be asking where was law enforcement? Why
were these criminal organizations able to operate so successfully without
fear of arrest or a reprisal. According to defense attorney
James Leonard, it came down to intimidation and money.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
One of the other things that they were good at
was evading justice because they were corrupting the system, local
police departments, local courts. Corruption is one of the reasons
that they were able to stay in power as long
as they did.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Not only that, but the dirty work was always carried
out by low level soldiers who not only were willing
to take the fall if they got caught, but swore
an oath to never talk or rat out, as some
might say, anyone else in the family. In that way,
the bosses kept their hands clean, safe from both cooperators
(12:44):
and law enforcement.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
They were untouchable, and with the reputation for violence, people
were deathly afraid of them. You didn't want to cross them.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
But with the murder of Carmine Galante that was all
about to change.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Men.
Speaker 6 (13:00):
Welcome to Joe and Mary's luncheonette in Brooklyn today and
gunned down Carman Galine, a man believed to be the
most powerful market chieftain in the country.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Carmine Gallanti, the infamous boss of the Banano crime family.
He'd been cut down in a hell of bullets.
Speaker 6 (13:17):
The motives for his murder are varied. His involvement in
drugs and possible double crosses with Dominican cocaine sources put
him in some disfavor.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
By the end of the nineteen seventies, New York City
had seen its fair share of violent crime, but clearly
this was no robbery or the result of a random dispute.
The triple murder had all the markings of a deliberate,
well planned execution. So as Brooklyn homicide detectives descended on
the crime scene, they became certain of one thing. Before
(13:50):
they could identify any suspects in his killing, they would
have to know more about the man who was killed.
Here's a person who knows some of those answers better
than anyone.
Speaker 7 (14:01):
My name is Angela to Sari, and my father is
Karmide Galante.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
As a little girl, Angela had no idea that her
father was a major player in the Banano crime family.
Speaker 7 (14:23):
Never in a million years did I even know about
the mafia when I was young. You know, nobody talked
about it in English, so I could understand it.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
When she thinks back to her dad, this is the
image that she sees.
Speaker 7 (14:37):
He was always slocky, but hot as a rock, and
he would dress very unassumingly. He wear jeans, sneaker's, floppy hat, whatever.
He always had a cigar in his mouth.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
The cigar was his signature, so much so that Galante's
nickname was simply the Cigar. There was a gravity about
him that two people in. He could be generous. To
those he called friends.
Speaker 7 (15:04):
He would basically do anything for anybody. He would give
you the shirt off his back.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
But around his family his personality could be very different.
Speaker 7 (15:15):
My father wasn't always good when he came home. Then
he would you know, fight with my mother and it
would get into a brawl, and then I would be crying.
Being the youngest, so I'm thinking, well, everybody must do this,
So I really I didn't get it. I was pretty naive.
That's how I grew up knowing him.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Carmine Galanti was born in nineteen ten in what was
then the Italian Harlem section of Upper Manhattan. His parents
had immigrated from a small town in Sicily called Coste
la Mauri del Golfo, a centuries old fishing village overlooking
the deep blue of the Mediterranean Sea. It also happened
to be the birthplace of several of the most notorious
(15:59):
gangsters in American history, including a man named Joe Banano.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
Old school Sicilian guy brought a lot of values from
what was happening in organized crime in Sicily to the
United States.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Throughout Galante's youth, he was surrounded by Joe Banano's crime family.
They were his role models. The boss took a special
interest in the younger Galante, and the affection was mutual.
Speaker 7 (16:26):
My father. He was brought up in Paul Eastall and
his father tried to sell him once. It was like,
you're going to have to go and find someone who
will show you some loving and head. That's when he
started getting into.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Crime, bootlegging, robbery, gambling, prostitution. Italian and Sicilian gangs ran
rough shot over the rapidly expanding New York city throughout
the first half of the twentieth century, and during that time,
Gallanti rose through the ranks from collections thug to enforcerr
(17:02):
to a bona fide lieutenant within the Banana organization, where
he earned a reputation for both his loyalty and his ruthlessness.
Speaker 7 (17:12):
I mean, if you were his friend, he would do
anything for you until you crust him. Don't forget about it.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
And I think he had a reputation in New York
as being somebody that was very capable of murder and
wouldn't hesitate to kill people.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
But despite being a suspect or an accomplice in more
than eighty murders, he had eluded indictment on all of them.
None of the charges against him would ever stick.
Speaker 7 (17:42):
My father was a very bad man, but he was
very smart. They really couldn't catch him.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Galante had made a fortune dealing heroin, historically a taboo
tray in the mafia. It was really that abject fear
that Galanti inspired that made everyone look the other way.
And in a sense, it was that reputation, which is
exactly what Galanti was after.
Speaker 7 (18:06):
He liked people to fear him. People would play cards
with him, they would never win. They were afraid to win.
But the power I think was more important to him
than the money. The power, I think was his thing.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
And that is always so interesting to me as a
common threat among people who have both extreme wealth and power,
that it's the power that is often more intoxicating than
the money itself. And according to Angela, his presence as
a father could be equally terrifying.
Speaker 7 (18:38):
My father was never around. When he was around, what
we had to do as soon as he came into
a room is get up and kiss him. And it's
not always that easy, you know. There was one time
he came home and I got up. I was going
to go kiss him, and he went down the basement
with my aunt and I followed him and followed him
(18:58):
and followed. I couldn't get to him, and we were
sitting down to dinner and smack me across the face,
and he said, you know what that's for, right, And
I said, yeah, I know. It was because I didn't
kiss him.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
On the street. Galant's violence spoke to his ruthless ambition,
but the physical and emotional abuse he inflicted on his
own family seems to speak to a deeper cruelty.
Speaker 7 (19:22):
He would just show up. He would just show up.
Sometimes he would come with friends, and you know, then
my mother had a cook. I don't remember him treating
my mother badly when there was company, but when he
came home alone, forget about it. There was always an argument,
and it always trying physical.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Galant's kids didn't fare much better.
Speaker 7 (19:43):
My brother got up to try to stop my father once,
and my father just looked at him and said, go
sit down, or you're next.
Speaker 9 (19:52):
He was a kid.
Speaker 7 (19:53):
He sat down me. I was the youngest. I just
cried and cried and cried and cried.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
In nineteen fifty nine, Galante's luck with the law would
finally run out when he was arrested as part of
two major heroin conspiracies in New York. His first legal
proceeding ended in a mistrial after a jury foreman mysteriously
fell down a flight of stairs in an abandoned building
in the middle of the night, but after three years
(20:21):
in court, Galante was convicted and sentenced to twenty years.
His then six year old daughter, Angela, still had no
idea about her dad's business, so she created her own scenario.
Speaker 7 (20:35):
I don't think I ever was told. I think I
just assumed that he was on like a major case,
because I thought he was in the FBI an the
jails that you have to pick up the phone through
the glass. I went to see him in that jail,
and I thought that that was the office of the FBI.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Her father, after all, was far too important in her
eyes to sin be locked up. But years later, Angela
would be faced with the truth that she couldn't ignore.
About a year after Galante got out of prison, he
went on a business trip to Florida, and he took
Angela with him, who was excited for what she believed
was a family vacation.
Speaker 7 (21:16):
Until we're in the hotel the middle of the night,
all of these cops, FBI agents, everybody like, surrounded us
in his room. I never saw my father hold the gun.
I know he has, but I never saw him because
at that point I wasn't thinking of him as the
(21:36):
mafia at I was thinking of an old man with sneakers. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Galante was arrested after he had failed to check in
for parole as was required upon leaving New York State.
It was a wake up call For's daughter. It was
time for her to confront her father about who he
really was, and so Angela began to dig. She turned
back to the trial that had led to his prison sentence.
Speaker 7 (22:03):
The way that I found out what he did was
by reading the transcripts of his trial. I remember them
saying about him that he walked up to this guy
and he shot him in the back of his head,
just like that. And I could picture him doing that.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
The wedge between Angela and her father deepened, fueled by
all the secrets and by Galante's mistreatment of his family.
She was angry and she didn't understand why her mother wasn't.
Speaker 7 (22:34):
I mean, I could understand when she met him, how
she was enamored by him. No, I could see that
my father was very charismatic, and he had money, and
she came from a poor family. I could see that.
I could see why she was enthralled. But later on
it's like, MO, give it up. You know, I just
(22:54):
couldn't understand it. Why do you love him? You know,
asked the old things that he's done to you, and
she just did.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
For Angela, Galante's indiscretions at home felt much worse than
his lawlessness.
Speaker 7 (23:11):
It didn't tear me apart what he did, what taught
me a part. Really and this is like, may sound silly.
Was the way he treated my mother. I hated him
the way he treated my mother. What he did, I
look at it this way, and it may sound weird.
That's his business. That's what he did for a living.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
For Angela. To this day, he remains a paradox.
Speaker 7 (23:36):
You know, he was very cold, but yet in other
ways he was so warm. I mean, if you were
his friend, he would do anything for you. I got
beat up once soon in the North End. You were
like three four of them. I went home and he
called me in mildite and he knew, he knew I
(23:59):
was being yeah, and I don't know how, but he
knew so much. Told him I worked in a bar
at the time, Brando's. It was sort of like a
mafia hangout, and my cousin Jimmy came up broke to
some people. Then he left, and then later on I
find that these kids never be seen again.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
By the mid nineteen seventies, the Banano crime family was
in disarray, and Galante took advantage of that.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
The recognized boss of the Banano crime family was a
gentlemanber the name of Philip Rusty Rostelli and mister Rostelli
was in jail, Carmine Galante was on the street, and
Carmine Galante wanted to make money. I don't think he
respected the rules.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
As Galanti returned to the streets from his own prison sentence,
the rank and file soon began to look to him
as their new leader.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
Galanti seized power within the Banano family, thumbing his nose
at the jailed boss Russy Rostelli.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Galante swallowed up the heroin trade in an attempt to
snuff out rivals. He allegedly ordered hits on at least
eight members of the Gampino family. He also openly vied
for the ultimate mob position, boss of all bosses. Rostelli
had had enough. He decided to take his case directly
to the other families, whose business and power were as
(25:33):
much at stake as his own.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
Rusty Rostelli reached out from prison through an emissary. I
believe that emissary was Joe Messina.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
And with the approval of the bosses of the five families,
Messino gave the order to kill Carma Galanti. Remember the
name Joe Messino because we'll be hearing much more about
him later in the podcast, but for now, it's enough
to say that he helped organized this monumental hit, which
brings us back to July twelfth, nineteen seventy nine, Carma
(26:07):
Galante's last day on earth.
Speaker 7 (26:10):
He was always greedy. You can't be that greedy in
the mafia. You've got to share, you've got to play
well with others. And he just wanted everything. He honestly
believed nobody would have the bulls to kill him.
Speaker 9 (26:24):
Nobody.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
If I remember, you told me that your mom had
called you and given you the news.
Speaker 7 (26:42):
Oh, it was horrible. I was home in Boston. I
had no idea. She called me up, she goes, they
killed him. They killed him, and I'm like oooh, not
thinking that it would be my father, because he was
always under the impression no one could ever killed him.
And then she told me, she said, they killed daddy.
(27:03):
They killed Daddy.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
July twelfth, nineteen seventy nine, temperatures were creeping towards one
hundred degrees. Locals spent the day hiding in the shade,
and kids played in the water of open fire hydrants.
At two forty five pm, the stillness of that hot
afternoon was shattered by the deafening sound of gunfire. Minutes later,
(27:30):
police car swarmed the area. Joe and Mary's was a
classic Italian restaurant in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, the
type of place I fell in love with when I
first moved to New York City, checkered tablecloths, photos of
Frank Sinatra on the wall. But on that day, when
NYPD police officers stepped through the front door, they were
(27:51):
met with a scene not from New York dreams, but
from its nightmares. On the floor laya young boy no
older than seventeen with an apparent gunshot wound to the back. Incredibly,
he was still clinging to life and a surviving witness
to the carnage that had just occurred. On the back patio,
they discovered the three dead men, sixty nine year old
(28:15):
Carmen Galanti toppled over in his chair, along with his
two lunch companions. Restaurant owner and Galanti's cousin, Giuseppe Trano
and an associate, Leonardo Coppola, each had been shot multiple times,
and the seventeen year old shot in the back. Giuseppe
Trano was his father. Toronto had been murdered in front
(28:36):
of his entire family. According to witnesses it was not
unusual to see Galante holding court at Joe and Mary's restaurant.
Police soon learned that two other men were present at
the time of the shooting, but now were conspicuously absent
from the crime scene, Caesar Bonaventry and Baldo Amato. They
(28:59):
were known to be Golant his bodyguards, hands selected to
service protection and to do his bidding at a moment's notice,
or so Glante thought, here's James Leonard.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
I think it's fairly certain that they were involved with it.
If they were not involved with it, it would have
been a shootout.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
Witnesses said it was a gangland style killing. Heavily armed
men wearing ski masks opened fire with automatic weapons.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
It probably happened in a split second where he didn't
even have the opportunity to formulate a thought.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Meanwhile, they soon learned from witnesses that the bodyguards made
no moves to stop the attackers. People on the street
said that the masked shooters casually walked out of the
restaurant and slipped back into their car. Galante's bodyguards, Bono
Ventri and to Moatto, were also believed to be shooters.
The pair left and briskly walked in the other direction.
(29:52):
A de facto mob boss had been hit in broad daylight.
The story dominated the news.
Speaker 6 (30:00):
So why was he hit? Federal sources and underworld sources agreed,
no one trusted him to say down. If the big
chance came around again. For the neighborhood, the passing of
Carmine Galent, he meant a lot of excitement. Hundreds of
people took to the streets of this Brooklyn block trying
to catch a glimpse for organized crime. It means the
beginning of something new, a new struggle for control at
(30:23):
the top of New York's Five Families.
Speaker 7 (30:29):
It was horrible. It was horrible in the newspapers, front
page wherever they wrote about my father. That picture was
there on TV. That picture. I remember his body all twisted,
which got to me. They shot him so many times,
it was like stupid. They could have shot him once.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
A complicated and difficult relationship, to be sure, but mobster
or not, Galante was still Angela's.
Speaker 7 (30:59):
Dad, and I loved him, you know, I was brought
up to love him. He's my father.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Soon after, Carmen Gallanti was laid to rest, but his
funeral became a side show for many.
Speaker 7 (31:12):
He wasn't allowed to have a funeral mass, which was
ridiculous because he didn't even have a gun on him.
He was murdered. You know, it's funny because there were
other mob bosses who died and they got funeral masses,
but they said it was because of his past, which
is you know. I mean, I laughed because some people say, oh,
(31:34):
do you think your father is in heaven? And I
laugh and I said, you know, I mean, I'm a Christian.
I believe in God, and I don't think my father
had time to confess to God his sins and be forgiven.
So no, I don't think he's in heaven. You know,
I would say, oh, when I die, I'm go to heaven.
(31:56):
I'll see my mother, and I don't think I'll run
into my father. I think he's in love neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
The murder of Gallante quickly caught the attention of the
FBI immediately.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Obviously, people were interested in trying to ascertain who the
three masked gunmen were. The police department and the FBI
in the Brooklyn DIA's office knew that Caesar Bonventry and
Baldohomado were certainly suspects.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
As former Prosecutor Gilt Childer's recalls, Galante's bodyguards were soon
tracked down and taken him for questioning.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Statements weren't much. Basically, they just said, we had some lunches,
guys came in, We jumped back from the table, and
it all happened so fast, and thank god we didn't
get hit. And that's it.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Both men had lengthy criminal records and rumor ties to
organized crime, but they denied having anything to do with
Galant's murder. Besides a catastrope failure at doing their jobs.
Their polygraph exams told a different story.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
When I spoke to the Bligrifer, who was a detective
in the Brooklyn DIA's office, he said a motto was
like a little kid who stole cookies from the cookie jar,
and clearly he was lying every word out of his mouth.
He said, Von Ventry. It was like a flat line
when your heart stopped in a hospital scene. You could
(33:28):
ask the guy anything and there was absolutely no reaction
from any question that they asked him. Again. It was
just completely stone cold.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
But without evidence to tie either of them to the crime.
Both men were eventually released, which left investigators with just
one other lead. A woman who lived across from Joe
and Mary's had heard the gunshots.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
She came to her window to look out to see
what the commotion was and she saw men jump into
a blue Ford or sedan and drive off. And she
noticed the license plate and she wrote it down, So
that was significant evidence.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Obviously, the witness provided police with a partial license plate
number as well as a description of the getaway car.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
I think it was about the next day that the
car was found that matched the description of a blue
four door sedan and the partial plate match. The car
obviously was combed by the crime scene unit people very carefully.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
This was nineteen seventy nine, and while forensic science was
still miles from where it is today, investigators were able
to recover a significant piece of evidence.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
On the driver's side rear door handle. There was a
print that was a clean print.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
They were able to get off a fingerprint. Would it
be that easy and lead to one of the killers?
Speaker 3 (35:03):
That one print was compared to every known organized crime
member and associate that the police or the FBI had
fingerprints on.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
No match. No easy solve was.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Certainly preserved because you never know. Sometimes evidence doesn't fall
into place until something else drops, but it was at
the time a dead end.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
The complicated motives for killing Golante were still unknown, but
one thing investigators did know was that the hit of
someone as powerful as Carmen Galante could only have happened
with the blessing of the leaders of the Five Families,
which means Golante's murder was not only a hit, but
maybe proof of a larger criminal conspiracy sanctioned by a
(35:55):
part of the mafia known as the Commission. The Commission
was the governing body of organized crime, made up of
the bosses of the mafia families, and their authority was absolute,
including when it came to the elimination of mob leadership,
and this idea of a conspiracy just might be the key.
(36:16):
For decades, law enforcement had gone after the mafia, one
soldier at a time, hardly putting a dent in an
organization that was willing to sacrifice its underlings to protect
the bosses. But proof of a criminal conspiracy among the
families among members of the Commission could make them all
(36:36):
complicit for Gallant's murder, and more, the killing needed to
be solved for his family and for society. But beyond
the crime itself, could it be one of the pieces
needed to help prove that the families work together, that
there was a commission, and, if so, that they were
(36:56):
all responsible for the murder and the many other crime
being committed against New Yorkers on a daily basis.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
And in essence, with that hit, the Commission restored order
within the Banano crime family, and the Commission eliminated a
problem born in their side. These bosses on the Commission
had no idea what was coming their way from the
federal government.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
With Galant's murder. The Commission may have thought that they
had re established order and a tenuous peace among families,
but the mob was in for a big surprise. They
had no idea that this one hit of a boss
would culminate in their demise. As a young, up and
(37:45):
coming prosecutor, Gill was assigned to General Crimes in Brooklyn,
but shortly after Galant's murder, he was tapped to take
part in this new case he didn't see coming, a
case that would alter the course of his professional life forever.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
There was a guy named Mark Feldman who was a
deputy chief of the Homicide Bureau. Mark approached me first
and said they're putting together a case over in Manhattan.
Didn't tell me the exact parameters of the case. He
said it's going to be a big organized crime case.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Childrens agreed to sign on. By his own admission, he
had no idea what he was getting into.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Other than maybe two guys doing a fair beat in
the subway. I mean, that's the extent of the organization
of crime that I had been associated with. Really, but
I had not done any anything in the way of
formal prosecution of organized crime at that time.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
They would call it the commission case. Nothing like this
had ever been done before.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Well, it was a huge shot in the arm. We
certainly weren't the first organized crime prosecution, but we were
the first time that something this big had been attempted,
and to succeed. It sent the message to them, the mafia,
but to society generally that we can prosecute these people.
Speaker 10 (39:13):
Mob boss Carmine Galente was gunned down back in nineteen
seventy nine. Since then, the men who ordered his gangland
execution have gone unnamed. Tonight, for the first time, there's
been a major breakthrough in that case, one that could
blow the lid off one of the underworld's best kept secrets.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Next time on Law and Order Criminal Justice System.
Speaker 4 (39:39):
All of a sudden, the Mob is in every living
room in the country.
Speaker 5 (39:43):
Every week you would see something in the paper, a
shooting of between mob guys.
Speaker 6 (39:48):
The position of boss of all bosses was problematic.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
You just created enemies.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
She stops dead right in front of us and says,
I know you. You're the f You come top of
the phones and they all fled like cockroaches when you
turn the light on in a New York City apartment.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Law and Order Criminal Justice System is a production of
Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts. Our host is Anna Sega Nicolazzi.
This episode was written by Trevor Young, Mike Catanella, and
Anna Sega Nicolazzi. Executive produced by Dick Wolf, Elliott Wolf,
and Stephen Michael at Wolf Entertainment on behalf of iHeartRadio.
(40:35):
Executive produced by Alex Williams and Matt Frederick, with supervising
producers Trevor Young and Chandler Mays and producers Jesse Funk,
Noames Griffin, and Rima El Kali. This season is executive
produced by Anna Seagan Nicolazi, Story producer Walker Lamond. Our
(40:56):
researchers are Carolyn Talmadge and Luke Stents. Editing and sound
design by Rima O Kali, original music by John O'Hara,
original theme by Mike Post, additional music by Steve Moore,
and additional voice over by me Steve Zernkelton. Special thanks
(41:17):
to Fox five in New York, A B C and
C B S for providing archival material for the show.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio and Wolf Entertainment, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Thanks for listening.
You're listening to Law and Order Criminal Justice System, a
production of Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
In the criminal justice system, landmark trials transcend the courtroom
to reshape the law. The brave many women who investigate
and prosecute these cases are part of a select group
that is to find American history. These are their stories.
July twelfth, nineteen seventy nine, Bushwick, Brooklyn.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
It was early afternoon on a hot summer day. The
residential neighborhood was usually quiet, but today was different. Something
was about to happen that would shatter the peace, a
scene never expected at the restaurant that sat in the
middle of the block.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
It was called Joe and Mary's in Brooklyn, which is
predominantly a neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
The lunch crowd had left and the restaurant was empty
except for a group that sat outside. A stocky man
with glasses was at a table in the center of
the back patio, chomping on an unlit cigar. He was
joined by two men.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
The individuals that he's meeting with are recognizing him as
a very powerful, formidable figure.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Sitting apart from the conversation were two other men. They
both wore leather jackets despite the brutal heat. They were
the bodyguards, and then chaos erupted.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Three men wearing ski masks carrying shotguns and handguns walk
through the restaurant, then walk out the back door to
the patio and immediately started firing.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
The shooters pumped round after round into the three men
at the table. The bodyguards did nothing to protect their boss.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
He's blasted with shotgun as well as hand gunfire.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
And then he falls back in his chair. Probably was
dead before.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
He hit the ground, a shotgun hol to his left eye,
his cigar still clutched between his teeth.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
There is a very famous fixture of him laid out
in the courtyard, clearly dead, with the cigar hanging from
his mouth.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
His name was Carmin Galante and he was the de
facto boss of the Banano crime family. It was a
murder that would capture the attention of the nation.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
Police today stepped up their search for two men who
were having lunch with my boss, Carmen Galante Thursday when gunman.
Speaker 6 (02:38):
Burst into the court order.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
The murder would send shockwaves through the city and its
vast criminal underworld.
Speaker 6 (02:44):
All of that set the scene new York Five families
were in chaos, and their leader was weak.
Speaker 7 (02:51):
He honestly believed nobody would have the post.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Killing nobody and unwittingly became part of one of the
most common sequential criminal cases in the history of New
York City.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Well, it's a huge shot in the arm. It sent
the message to them that we can prosecute these people.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
These bosses on the Commission had no idea what was
coming their way from the federal government. You're not with
the mob because you want to be.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
It's the gangster that decides whether you're his associated with.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
If you like your life, you will vote to acquit.
From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts, my father should have
been a dead man. This is Law and Order criminal
justice system. I'm Aniseeka Nicolazzi, a former New York City
(03:59):
homicide pross secutor who spent decades in the justice system.
My career was built in the courtroom, where the stakes
are high and the stories are real. Law and Order
was always my favorite TV series as a young prosecutor.
It became a reflection of the work I did every day.
Now I'm teaming up with the minds behind the iconic
(04:20):
TV show to bring you something brand new. This isn't
a scripted drama. These are the true stories that have
shaped the modern criminal justice system, told by those who
have lived it. For much of New York's history, crime
was synonymous with the mafia. The organization dominated the city
and their power baffled the federal government. So how did
(04:42):
one seemingly random murder of a mafia boss create a
defining moment in our legal system that led to the
downfall of the mob. For anyone growing up in New
York in the nineteen seventies, the infamy of organized crime
was hard to ignore.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
Crime was everywhere, and crime was very big business. It
involved violence, it involved murders, and it involved destroying a
lot of people's lives. My name is James Leonard Junior.
I've been practicing primarily as a criminal defense attorney for
the last twenty three years. I've worked extensively with organized
(05:24):
crime figures.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
James understands organized crime better than most. He's been studying
at the majority of his career and it's always been
a part of his life.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
So growing up in New Jersey as a teenager, I
would routinely buy the New York Daily News and the
New York Post. If you were following the tabloid newspapers,
tracking what was happening in organized crime was no different
than following a football team or a baseball team. You
(05:54):
would read about who was being charged, who had been murdered,
who the rumor next boss was going to be. Quite frankly,
I consumed all of it. I was fascinated in it,
just like I was interested in what was going on
with the Yankees of the Philadelphia Eagles.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
It's easy to understand how a young kid like James
could develop an interesting crime because crime was everywhere.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
It's been ten days since at least one of four
youths asked for five dollars from the passenger on the
Irt subway, and eyewitness quoted the man as saying, I
have five dollars for each of you. He then pulled
a silver revolver from his belt and shot all four
of them.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Another Teamster official was gunned down last week. As John
Miller tells us, it's just one in a series of
gangland style murderers. This was a very violent, turbulent period
of time.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
There were preximently five murders a day in New York
City through most of the eighties, just general lawlessness. So
it was a very very crazy place.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
That's Gil Childers, who was a young prosecutor in Brooklyn
in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Just to give you a sense of things. When I started,
the head of the Criminal Courts Bureau told us a
couple things. He said, a few rules in self preservation.
Don't use the stairways in the courthouse. If you do,
don't use them alone young women. When you leave the courtroom,
if you have brought a purse or a handbag with
you and you go up to the sidebar to the court,
(07:26):
take your handbag with you. He said, I thought all possible.
Don't use the bathrooms in the courthouse. Wait till you're
back in the office.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Gil remembers what it was like leaving his apartment late
at night. He had to be careful about even what
he wore.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
My first assignment was the midnight shift at the complaint
room at the eight four Precinct in Brooklyn. I had
an apartment in Brooklyn Heights at the time, so I
was going to walk to the eight flour and they said,
you know, you haven't seen it yet, but do not
wear a tie and jacket to it because where you're
going to be is probably hostile to that type of dress.
(08:02):
And so I dressed sort of in jeans, put a dress,
shirt and sneakers, some stuff. And I remember as I'm
walking out the door, I looked in the mirror and
I said, I went to law school for three years.
I thought it was going to be working, you know,
in a three piece suit. Here I go my first
official act as a lawyer. I'm in jeans and I'm
walking out of a house at eleven thirty at night.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
New York was on the verge of bankruptcy, muggings and
murder were on the rise.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
Well, how bad is crime on the subways today?
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Police said the robbers were getting robbed. Police said that
Garnell Thompson stole almost thirteen.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Hun Just to give you a little context. In nineteen
seventy nine, there were over two hundred and fifty felonies
and nine murders per week on the trains. The Lexington
Avenue subway line earned the nickname Muggers Express. The New
York City at the time of Carma Galanti's murder was
(08:58):
a city under siege by crime, but the mafia or
Kosa Nostra as they often termed themselves was in a
leak of their own, and to understand them at all,
you have to start with their basic structure. The city's
organized crime was divided into five different families.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Five families by names that we knew them were the
Gambido family, the Genovese family, the Lackesi family, the Colombo family,
and the Banano family.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
The infamous five families of the New York City mafia
had been around for one hundred years. With roots in Sicily,
these families established businesses throughout the early twentieth century. Most
eventually became criminal in nature. By the time Carmine Galante
was murdered, the mafia had a stranglehold on the city.
Families like the Bananos used violence to coerce payment from
(09:50):
legitimate businesses, a practice called extortion. Bars neighborhood grocers, manufacturers,
and warehousers. They all fell victim to the mob, exchanging
percentages of their hard earned profits for protection from violence.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Where the street time came in was in the enforcement
of loan sharking and gambling debts. The mob ran the numbers.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
According to Gil It's also what kept the mafia ever
present in the lives of everyday New Yorkers.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
It was the day in, day out money that they
could always count on, and some people would say somewhat harmless,
until of course you got in over your head, and
then when they had to collect things became a less
harmless and more harmful.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
But as the mafia families got stronger and more profitable,
their largest profits came from their infiltration of major industries
throughout the city, from trucking to garbage removal to garment manufacturing.
It seemed like nothing got built, shipped, or sold without
an invisible tax being taken by the mob.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
They controlled the carting industry, so every store owner was
paying extra money because they had a monopoly on it.
They controlled the garment industry, so the clothes that you bought,
there was a mob tax on that. From a citizen's perspective,
it was what has been called the mob tax on many,
(11:19):
many aspects of everyone's everyday life.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
And of course they enforced their grip on the city
with the constant threat of extreme violence.
Speaker 8 (11:32):
The indictment alleges that the Genevies organization infiltrated Teamster locals
in the New York area and extorted money from legitimate
businesses by threatening them with labor problems, bribery, labor racketeering, gambling, extortion, murder,
control of the election of the president of one of
the largest unions in America, and control over its affairs.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
So you might be asking where was law enforcement? Why
were these criminal organizations able to operate so successfully without
fear of arrest or a reprisal. According to defense attorney
James Leonard, it came down to intimidation and money.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
One of the other things that they were good at
was evading justice because they were corrupting the system, local
police departments, local courts. Corruption is one of the reasons
that they were able to stay in power as long
as they did.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Not only that, but the dirty work was always carried
out by low level soldiers who not only were willing
to take the fall if they got caught, but swore
an oath to never talk or rat out, as some
might say, anyone else in the family. In that way,
the bosses kept their hands clean, safe from both cooperators
(12:44):
and law enforcement.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
They were untouchable, and with the reputation for violence, people
were deathly afraid of them. You didn't want to cross them.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
But with the murder of Carmine Galante that was all
about to change.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Men.
Speaker 6 (13:00):
Welcome to Joe and Mary's luncheonette in Brooklyn today and
gunned down Carman Galine, a man believed to be the
most powerful market chieftain in the country.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Carmine Gallanti, the infamous boss of the Banano crime family.
He'd been cut down in a hell of bullets.
Speaker 6 (13:17):
The motives for his murder are varied. His involvement in
drugs and possible double crosses with Dominican cocaine sources put
him in some disfavor.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
By the end of the nineteen seventies, New York City
had seen its fair share of violent crime, but clearly
this was no robbery or the result of a random dispute.
The triple murder had all the markings of a deliberate,
well planned execution. So as Brooklyn homicide detectives descended on
the crime scene, they became certain of one thing. Before
(13:50):
they could identify any suspects in his killing, they would
have to know more about the man who was killed.
Here's a person who knows some of those answers better
than anyone.
Speaker 7 (14:01):
My name is Angela to Sari, and my father is
Karmide Galante.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
As a little girl, Angela had no idea that her
father was a major player in the Banano crime family.
Speaker 7 (14:23):
Never in a million years did I even know about
the mafia when I was young. You know, nobody talked
about it in English, so I could understand it.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
When she thinks back to her dad, this is the
image that she sees.
Speaker 7 (14:37):
He was always slocky, but hot as a rock, and
he would dress very unassumingly. He wear jeans, sneaker's, floppy hat, whatever.
He always had a cigar in his mouth.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
The cigar was his signature, so much so that Galante's
nickname was simply the Cigar. There was a gravity about
him that two people in. He could be generous. To
those he called friends.
Speaker 7 (15:04):
He would basically do anything for anybody. He would give
you the shirt off his back.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
But around his family his personality could be very different.
Speaker 7 (15:15):
My father wasn't always good when he came home. Then
he would you know, fight with my mother and it
would get into a brawl, and then I would be crying.
Being the youngest, so I'm thinking, well, everybody must do this,
So I really I didn't get it. I was pretty naive.
That's how I grew up knowing him.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Carmine Galanti was born in nineteen ten in what was
then the Italian Harlem section of Upper Manhattan. His parents
had immigrated from a small town in Sicily called Coste
la Mauri del Golfo, a centuries old fishing village overlooking
the deep blue of the Mediterranean Sea. It also happened
to be the birthplace of several of the most notorious
(15:59):
gangsters in American history, including a man named Joe Banano.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
Old school Sicilian guy brought a lot of values from
what was happening in organized crime in Sicily to the
United States.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Throughout Galante's youth, he was surrounded by Joe Banano's crime family.
They were his role models. The boss took a special
interest in the younger Galante, and the affection was mutual.
Speaker 7 (16:26):
My father. He was brought up in Paul Eastall and
his father tried to sell him once. It was like,
you're going to have to go and find someone who
will show you some loving and head. That's when he
started getting into.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Crime, bootlegging, robbery, gambling, prostitution. Italian and Sicilian gangs ran
rough shot over the rapidly expanding New York city throughout
the first half of the twentieth century, and during that time,
Gallanti rose through the ranks from collections thug to enforcerr
(17:02):
to a bona fide lieutenant within the Banana organization, where
he earned a reputation for both his loyalty and his ruthlessness.
Speaker 7 (17:12):
I mean, if you were his friend, he would do
anything for you until you crust him. Don't forget about it.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
And I think he had a reputation in New York
as being somebody that was very capable of murder and
wouldn't hesitate to kill people.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
But despite being a suspect or an accomplice in more
than eighty murders, he had eluded indictment on all of them.
None of the charges against him would ever stick.
Speaker 7 (17:42):
My father was a very bad man, but he was
very smart. They really couldn't catch him.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Galante had made a fortune dealing heroin, historically a taboo
tray in the mafia. It was really that abject fear
that Galanti inspired that made everyone look the other way.
And in a sense, it was that reputation, which is
exactly what Galanti was after.
Speaker 7 (18:06):
He liked people to fear him. People would play cards
with him, they would never win. They were afraid to win.
But the power I think was more important to him
than the money. The power, I think was his thing.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
And that is always so interesting to me as a
common threat among people who have both extreme wealth and power,
that it's the power that is often more intoxicating than
the money itself. And according to Angela, his presence as
a father could be equally terrifying.
Speaker 7 (18:38):
My father was never around. When he was around, what
we had to do as soon as he came into
a room is get up and kiss him. And it's
not always that easy, you know. There was one time
he came home and I got up. I was going
to go kiss him, and he went down the basement
with my aunt and I followed him and followed him
(18:58):
and followed. I couldn't get to him, and we were
sitting down to dinner and smack me across the face,
and he said, you know what that's for, right, And
I said, yeah, I know. It was because I didn't
kiss him.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
On the street. Galant's violence spoke to his ruthless ambition,
but the physical and emotional abuse he inflicted on his
own family seems to speak to a deeper cruelty.
Speaker 7 (19:22):
He would just show up. He would just show up.
Sometimes he would come with friends, and you know, then
my mother had a cook. I don't remember him treating
my mother badly when there was company, but when he
came home alone, forget about it. There was always an argument,
and it always trying physical.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Galant's kids didn't fare much better.
Speaker 7 (19:43):
My brother got up to try to stop my father once,
and my father just looked at him and said, go
sit down, or you're next.
Speaker 9 (19:52):
He was a kid.
Speaker 7 (19:53):
He sat down me. I was the youngest. I just
cried and cried and cried and cried.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
In nineteen fifty nine, Galante's luck with the law would
finally run out when he was arrested as part of
two major heroin conspiracies in New York. His first legal
proceeding ended in a mistrial after a jury foreman mysteriously
fell down a flight of stairs in an abandoned building
in the middle of the night, but after three years
(20:21):
in court, Galante was convicted and sentenced to twenty years.
His then six year old daughter, Angela, still had no
idea about her dad's business, so she created her own scenario.
Speaker 7 (20:35):
I don't think I ever was told. I think I
just assumed that he was on like a major case,
because I thought he was in the FBI an the
jails that you have to pick up the phone through
the glass. I went to see him in that jail,
and I thought that that was the office of the FBI.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Her father, after all, was far too important in her
eyes to sin be locked up. But years later, Angela
would be faced with the truth that she couldn't ignore.
About a year after Galante got out of prison, he
went on a business trip to Florida, and he took
Angela with him, who was excited for what she believed
was a family vacation.
Speaker 7 (21:16):
Until we're in the hotel the middle of the night,
all of these cops, FBI agents, everybody like, surrounded us
in his room. I never saw my father hold the gun.
I know he has, but I never saw him because
at that point I wasn't thinking of him as the
(21:36):
mafia at I was thinking of an old man with sneakers. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Galante was arrested after he had failed to check in
for parole as was required upon leaving New York State.
It was a wake up call For's daughter. It was
time for her to confront her father about who he
really was, and so Angela began to dig. She turned
back to the trial that had led to his prison sentence.
Speaker 7 (22:03):
The way that I found out what he did was
by reading the transcripts of his trial. I remember them
saying about him that he walked up to this guy
and he shot him in the back of his head,
just like that. And I could picture him doing that.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
The wedge between Angela and her father deepened, fueled by
all the secrets and by Galante's mistreatment of his family.
She was angry and she didn't understand why her mother wasn't.
Speaker 7 (22:34):
I mean, I could understand when she met him, how
she was enamored by him. No, I could see that
my father was very charismatic, and he had money, and
she came from a poor family. I could see that.
I could see why she was enthralled. But later on
it's like, MO, give it up. You know, I just
(22:54):
couldn't understand it. Why do you love him? You know,
asked the old things that he's done to you, and
she just did.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
For Angela, Galante's indiscretions at home felt much worse than
his lawlessness.
Speaker 7 (23:11):
It didn't tear me apart what he did, what taught
me a part. Really and this is like, may sound silly.
Was the way he treated my mother. I hated him
the way he treated my mother. What he did, I
look at it this way, and it may sound weird.
That's his business. That's what he did for a living.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
For Angela. To this day, he remains a paradox.
Speaker 7 (23:36):
You know, he was very cold, but yet in other
ways he was so warm. I mean, if you were
his friend, he would do anything for you. I got
beat up once soon in the North End. You were
like three four of them. I went home and he
called me in mildite and he knew, he knew I
(23:59):
was being yeah, and I don't know how, but he
knew so much. Told him I worked in a bar
at the time, Brando's. It was sort of like a
mafia hangout, and my cousin Jimmy came up broke to
some people. Then he left, and then later on I
find that these kids never be seen again.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
By the mid nineteen seventies, the Banano crime family was
in disarray, and Galante took advantage of that.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
The recognized boss of the Banano crime family was a
gentlemanber the name of Philip Rusty Rostelli and mister Rostelli
was in jail, Carmine Galante was on the street, and
Carmine Galante wanted to make money. I don't think he
respected the rules.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
As Galanti returned to the streets from his own prison sentence,
the rank and file soon began to look to him
as their new leader.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
Galanti seized power within the Banano family, thumbing his nose
at the jailed boss Russy Rostelli.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Galante swallowed up the heroin trade in an attempt to
snuff out rivals. He allegedly ordered hits on at least
eight members of the Gampino family. He also openly vied
for the ultimate mob position, boss of all bosses. Rostelli
had had enough. He decided to take his case directly
to the other families, whose business and power were as
(25:33):
much at stake as his own.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
Rusty Rostelli reached out from prison through an emissary. I
believe that emissary was Joe Messina.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
And with the approval of the bosses of the five families,
Messino gave the order to kill Carma Galanti. Remember the
name Joe Messino because we'll be hearing much more about
him later in the podcast, but for now, it's enough
to say that he helped organized this monumental hit, which
brings us back to July twelfth, nineteen seventy nine, Carma
(26:07):
Galante's last day on earth.
Speaker 7 (26:10):
He was always greedy. You can't be that greedy in
the mafia. You've got to share, you've got to play
well with others. And he just wanted everything. He honestly
believed nobody would have the bulls to kill him.
Speaker 9 (26:24):
Nobody.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
If I remember, you told me that your mom had
called you and given you the news.
Speaker 7 (26:42):
Oh, it was horrible. I was home in Boston. I
had no idea. She called me up, she goes, they
killed him. They killed him, and I'm like oooh, not
thinking that it would be my father, because he was
always under the impression no one could ever killed him.
And then she told me, she said, they killed daddy.
(27:03):
They killed Daddy.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
July twelfth, nineteen seventy nine, temperatures were creeping towards one
hundred degrees. Locals spent the day hiding in the shade,
and kids played in the water of open fire hydrants.
At two forty five pm, the stillness of that hot
afternoon was shattered by the deafening sound of gunfire. Minutes later,
(27:30):
police car swarmed the area. Joe and Mary's was a
classic Italian restaurant in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, the
type of place I fell in love with when I
first moved to New York City, checkered tablecloths, photos of
Frank Sinatra on the wall. But on that day, when
NYPD police officers stepped through the front door, they were
(27:51):
met with a scene not from New York dreams, but
from its nightmares. On the floor laya young boy no
older than seventeen with an apparent gunshot wound to the back. Incredibly,
he was still clinging to life and a surviving witness
to the carnage that had just occurred. On the back patio,
they discovered the three dead men, sixty nine year old
(28:15):
Carmen Galanti toppled over in his chair, along with his
two lunch companions. Restaurant owner and Galanti's cousin, Giuseppe Trano
and an associate, Leonardo Coppola, each had been shot multiple times,
and the seventeen year old shot in the back. Giuseppe
Trano was his father. Toronto had been murdered in front
(28:36):
of his entire family. According to witnesses it was not
unusual to see Galante holding court at Joe and Mary's restaurant.
Police soon learned that two other men were present at
the time of the shooting, but now were conspicuously absent
from the crime scene, Caesar Bonaventry and Baldo Amato. They
(28:59):
were known to be Golant his bodyguards, hands selected to
service protection and to do his bidding at a moment's notice,
or so Glante thought, here's James Leonard.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
I think it's fairly certain that they were involved with it.
If they were not involved with it, it would have
been a shootout.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
Witnesses said it was a gangland style killing. Heavily armed
men wearing ski masks opened fire with automatic weapons.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
It probably happened in a split second where he didn't
even have the opportunity to formulate a thought.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Meanwhile, they soon learned from witnesses that the bodyguards made
no moves to stop the attackers. People on the street
said that the masked shooters casually walked out of the
restaurant and slipped back into their car. Galante's bodyguards, Bono
Ventri and to Moatto, were also believed to be shooters.
The pair left and briskly walked in the other direction.
(29:52):
A de facto mob boss had been hit in broad daylight.
The story dominated the news.
Speaker 6 (30:00):
So why was he hit? Federal sources and underworld sources agreed,
no one trusted him to say down. If the big
chance came around again. For the neighborhood, the passing of
Carmine Galent, he meant a lot of excitement. Hundreds of
people took to the streets of this Brooklyn block trying
to catch a glimpse for organized crime. It means the
beginning of something new, a new struggle for control at
(30:23):
the top of New York's Five Families.
Speaker 7 (30:29):
It was horrible. It was horrible in the newspapers, front
page wherever they wrote about my father. That picture was
there on TV. That picture. I remember his body all twisted,
which got to me. They shot him so many times,
it was like stupid. They could have shot him once.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
A complicated and difficult relationship, to be sure, but mobster
or not, Galante was still Angela's.
Speaker 7 (30:59):
Dad, and I loved him, you know, I was brought
up to love him. He's my father.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Soon after, Carmen Gallanti was laid to rest, but his
funeral became a side show for many.
Speaker 7 (31:12):
He wasn't allowed to have a funeral mass, which was
ridiculous because he didn't even have a gun on him.
He was murdered. You know, it's funny because there were
other mob bosses who died and they got funeral masses,
but they said it was because of his past, which
is you know. I mean, I laughed because some people say, oh,
(31:34):
do you think your father is in heaven? And I
laugh and I said, you know, I mean, I'm a Christian.
I believe in God, and I don't think my father
had time to confess to God his sins and be forgiven.
So no, I don't think he's in heaven. You know,
I would say, oh, when I die, I'm go to heaven.
(31:56):
I'll see my mother, and I don't think I'll run
into my father. I think he's in love neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
The murder of Gallante quickly caught the attention of the
FBI immediately.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Obviously, people were interested in trying to ascertain who the
three masked gunmen were. The police department and the FBI
in the Brooklyn DIA's office knew that Caesar Bonventry and
Baldohomado were certainly suspects.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
As former Prosecutor Gilt Childer's recalls, Galante's bodyguards were soon
tracked down and taken him for questioning.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Statements weren't much. Basically, they just said, we had some lunches,
guys came in, We jumped back from the table, and
it all happened so fast, and thank god we didn't
get hit. And that's it.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Both men had lengthy criminal records and rumor ties to
organized crime, but they denied having anything to do with
Galant's murder. Besides a catastrope failure at doing their jobs.
Their polygraph exams told a different story.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
When I spoke to the Bligrifer, who was a detective
in the Brooklyn DIA's office, he said a motto was
like a little kid who stole cookies from the cookie jar,
and clearly he was lying every word out of his mouth.
He said, Von Ventry. It was like a flat line
when your heart stopped in a hospital scene. You could
(33:28):
ask the guy anything and there was absolutely no reaction
from any question that they asked him. Again. It was
just completely stone cold.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
But without evidence to tie either of them to the crime.
Both men were eventually released, which left investigators with just
one other lead. A woman who lived across from Joe
and Mary's had heard the gunshots.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
She came to her window to look out to see
what the commotion was and she saw men jump into
a blue Ford or sedan and drive off. And she
noticed the license plate and she wrote it down, So
that was significant evidence.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Obviously, the witness provided police with a partial license plate
number as well as a description of the getaway car.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
I think it was about the next day that the
car was found that matched the description of a blue
four door sedan and the partial plate match. The car
obviously was combed by the crime scene unit people very carefully.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
This was nineteen seventy nine, and while forensic science was
still miles from where it is today, investigators were able
to recover a significant piece of evidence.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
On the driver's side rear door handle. There was a
print that was a clean print.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
They were able to get off a fingerprint. Would it
be that easy and lead to one of the killers?
Speaker 3 (35:03):
That one print was compared to every known organized crime
member and associate that the police or the FBI had
fingerprints on.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
No match. No easy solve was.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Certainly preserved because you never know. Sometimes evidence doesn't fall
into place until something else drops, but it was at
the time a dead end.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
The complicated motives for killing Golante were still unknown, but
one thing investigators did know was that the hit of
someone as powerful as Carmen Galante could only have happened
with the blessing of the leaders of the Five Families,
which means Golante's murder was not only a hit, but
maybe proof of a larger criminal conspiracy sanctioned by a
(35:55):
part of the mafia known as the Commission. The Commission
was the governing body of organized crime, made up of
the bosses of the mafia families, and their authority was absolute,
including when it came to the elimination of mob leadership,
and this idea of a conspiracy just might be the key.
(36:16):
For decades, law enforcement had gone after the mafia, one
soldier at a time, hardly putting a dent in an
organization that was willing to sacrifice its underlings to protect
the bosses. But proof of a criminal conspiracy among the
families among members of the Commission could make them all
(36:36):
complicit for Gallant's murder, and more, the killing needed to
be solved for his family and for society. But beyond
the crime itself, could it be one of the pieces
needed to help prove that the families work together, that
there was a commission, and, if so, that they were
(36:56):
all responsible for the murder and the many other crime
being committed against New Yorkers on a daily basis.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
And in essence, with that hit, the Commission restored order
within the Banano crime family, and the Commission eliminated a
problem born in their side. These bosses on the Commission
had no idea what was coming their way from the
federal government.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
With Galant's murder. The Commission may have thought that they
had re established order and a tenuous peace among families,
but the mob was in for a big surprise. They
had no idea that this one hit of a boss
would culminate in their demise. As a young, up and
(37:45):
coming prosecutor, Gill was assigned to General Crimes in Brooklyn,
but shortly after Galant's murder, he was tapped to take
part in this new case he didn't see coming, a
case that would alter the course of his professional life forever.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
There was a guy named Mark Feldman who was a
deputy chief of the Homicide Bureau. Mark approached me first
and said they're putting together a case over in Manhattan.
Didn't tell me the exact parameters of the case. He
said it's going to be a big organized crime case.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Childrens agreed to sign on. By his own admission, he
had no idea what he was getting into.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Other than maybe two guys doing a fair beat in
the subway. I mean, that's the extent of the organization
of crime that I had been associated with. Really, but
I had not done any anything in the way of
formal prosecution of organized crime at that time.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
They would call it the commission case. Nothing like this
had ever been done before.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Well, it was a huge shot in the arm. We
certainly weren't the first organized crime prosecution, but we were
the first time that something this big had been attempted,
and to succeed. It sent the message to them, the mafia,
but to society generally that we can prosecute these people.
Speaker 10 (39:13):
Mob boss Carmine Galente was gunned down back in nineteen
seventy nine. Since then, the men who ordered his gangland
execution have gone unnamed. Tonight, for the first time, there's
been a major breakthrough in that case, one that could
blow the lid off one of the underworld's best kept secrets.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Next time on Law and Order Criminal Justice System.
Speaker 4 (39:39):
All of a sudden, the Mob is in every living
room in the country.
Speaker 5 (39:43):
Every week you would see something in the paper, a
shooting of between mob guys.
Speaker 6 (39:48):
The position of boss of all bosses was problematic.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
You just created enemies.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
She stops dead right in front of us and says,
I know you. You're the f You come top of
the phones and they all fled like cockroaches when you
turn the light on in a New York City apartment.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Law and Order Criminal Justice System is a production of
Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts. Our host is Anna Sega Nicolazzi.
This episode was written by Trevor Young, Mike Catanella, and
Anna Sega Nicolazzi. Executive produced by Dick Wolf, Elliott Wolf,
and Stephen Michael at Wolf Entertainment on behalf of iHeartRadio.
(40:35):
Executive produced by Alex Williams and Matt Frederick, with supervising
producers Trevor Young and Chandler Mays and producers Jesse Funk,
Noames Griffin, and Rima El Kali. This season is executive
produced by Anna Seagan Nicolazi, Story producer Walker Lamond. Our
(40:56):
researchers are Carolyn Talmadge and Luke Stents. Editing and sound
design by Rima O Kali, original music by John O'Hara,
original theme by Mike Post, additional music by Steve Moore,
and additional voice over by me Steve Zernkelton. Special thanks
(41:17):
to Fox five in New York, A B C and
C B S for providing archival material for the show.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio and Wolf Entertainment, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Thanks for listening.
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