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Speaker 2: You are now listening to True Murder, The most Shocking
Speaker 2: Killers in True Crime History and the authors that have
Speaker 2: written about them Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every
Speaker 2: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 2: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 2: journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Speaker 5: Good evening, This is your host Dan Zupanski for the
Speaker 5: program True Murder, The most Shocking Killers in True Crime
Speaker 5: History and the authors that have written about them. It
Speaker 5: is all the bodies of some of his victims in
Speaker 5: ascid and poured them down the sewer. He hung grizzly
Speaker 5: souvenirs on nails in his junkyard. Charles Canegila was a
Speaker 5: stone cold killer who fell in with the bloodthirsty John
Speaker 5: Gaudy crew as the infamous crime family rose to power
Speaker 5: with the murderous trail of sex, jealousy, greed and revenge.
Speaker 5: Carnegilia rose with them. This is the horrifying story of
Speaker 5: a misfit who fit perfectly into the New York mafia.
Speaker 5: In a harrowing journey inside a ruthless criminal Underworld. Underworld,
Speaker 5: Bulletzer Prize winning reporter Anthony M. Di Stefano chronicles one
Speaker 5: man's life in a world of depraved acts of violence
Speaker 5: and the horrors that went with being a member of
Speaker 5: the Gambino family. The book featured this evening is Mob
Speaker 5: Killer with my special guests, journalist and author Anthony M.
Speaker 5: Di Stefano. Thank you very much for agreeing to this
Speaker 5: interview and welcome back to the program. Anthony di Stefano.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much for having me again.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much. It's going to be a very
Speaker 5: interesting program again the inside scoop on the most infamous
Speaker 5: mafioso characters and very very interesting book. I got to
Speaker 5: congratulate you again ford it once.
Speaker 3: You get very much.
Speaker 5: Okay, first off, just for people that might not know you,
Speaker 5: maybe you can tell us how you really came to
Speaker 5: do this story and why you decided to write about
Speaker 5: this particular case. What brought you to this story.
Speaker 3: Well, I had been covering, you know, the federal courts
Speaker 3: for one of the newspaper in New York and Charlie
Speaker 3: Carnegilier's trial was one that came up into my area
Speaker 3: and I covered the trial, and let me tell you,
Speaker 3: it was an eye opener in many ways. And of
Speaker 3: course my publisher was interested in the character after having
Speaker 3: seen the book on Joe Massina that I had written,
Speaker 3: and asked me to do it. And I was little,
Speaker 3: I'm clear or uncertain in the beginning, because his life
Speaker 3: spanned thirty years in the crime family, and it was
Speaker 3: you know, here and there and everywhere. But finally, you know,
Speaker 3: a story emerged, particularly through the trial transcript that I
Speaker 3: spent a Christmas vacation reading, and it came together slowly
Speaker 3: but surely over time.
Speaker 5: Right now, tell us first, obviously, Charles Knagia is the
Speaker 5: main character in this story, but there is so much
Speaker 5: of a supporting cast here that really are very very
Speaker 5: important to the story. So no money really is the
Speaker 5: real focus, because it's such a tangled web and interconnected
Speaker 5: between all these characters. So maybe first tell us about
Speaker 5: Charles and John Carnegia and tell us what kind of
Speaker 5: characters both of these people are, because it's very important
Speaker 5: to the story. And you can maybe even include another
Speaker 5: important figure in this, and that's Charles and John's mother
Speaker 5: Genie right.
Speaker 3: Well, John Carneglias. Some aficionados of mob history may recall,
Speaker 3: was one of the chief confederates of the late John
Speaker 3: Gottie and Charles. John was not that much older than
Speaker 3: his brother Charles, but he was certainly the better place
Speaker 3: kind of guy, the more charismatic character, and the person
Speaker 3: who you know, he had the trampings of a regular life,
Speaker 3: so to speak. He married, had some number of kids,
Speaker 3: and you know, had a house in Howard Beach where
Speaker 3: a lot of the guys who were in the crime families,
Speaker 3: you know, seemed to go, would gravitate towards and Charlie
Speaker 3: was kind of the misfit. He was the guy who
Speaker 3: had drinking problems, drug problems, relationship problems. He would you know,
Speaker 3: he was volatile, He was moody. He you know, if
Speaker 3: he was in a bad mood, you know, watch out
Speaker 3: kind of character. He know, everybody sort of I guess
Speaker 3: you know, a neer do well brother or uncle. You know,
Speaker 3: you might be able to compare him to that. And well,
Speaker 3: of course, with John Carneglia being tight with the Goudy
Speaker 3: crew out of his own park, Charlie was kind of
Speaker 3: a tagalong guy. You know. He would help his brother,
Speaker 3: He would associate with a lot of the crime family guys,
Speaker 3: and gradually, you know, got to be reliable because he
Speaker 3: would do certain pieces of work and you know, he
Speaker 3: was a guy they could like a fall back upon
Speaker 3: if they needed somebody to be killed. And that's what
Speaker 3: the evidence in the K showed. And the family was,
Speaker 3: you know, his family, his regular family was not much
Speaker 3: of a you know, nothing outstanding. I mean, the mother, Jenny,
Speaker 3: was a seamstress. The father I think was a used
Speaker 3: cross salesman. Bill. He sort of died I think sometime
Speaker 3: maybe in the nineteen seventies or early eighties, and Jenny
Speaker 3: became the the person Charlie and to some extent his
Speaker 3: brother John focused on because maybe it was guilt. Maybe
Speaker 3: they felt like they were giving us so much grief
Speaker 3: with all their problems that you know, they had to
Speaker 3: take care of her, and they did. And Charlie when
Speaker 3: his brother got sentenced to fifty years on a drug case,
Speaker 3: he was Charlie who was the one who was at
Speaker 3: home taking care of mom. And as she progressed through
Speaker 3: the years and became more in you know, enfeebled, he
Speaker 3: was the one, you know, she had she had to
Speaker 3: rely upon. So that was kind of a redeeming facet
Speaker 3: of Charles, at least some people's mind, that he really
Speaker 3: did take care of his mother. And another thing which
Speaker 3: people point out is that he did like little kids.
Speaker 3: You know, he was very sort of paternal and you know,
Speaker 3: like toddlers, particularly like you know, like a like a
Speaker 3: gregarious uncle towards him. He never had any kids of
Speaker 3: his own. He never married, although he had a number
Speaker 3: of girlfriends. But you know, in his life and him
Speaker 3: being the character, he was volatile, you know, moody drinker
Speaker 3: and drug user. You know, these relationships were not grant.
Speaker 3: We're not destined for anything great. So whatever relationship he
Speaker 3: did have, you know, they sort of didn't go very far.
Speaker 3: And I think he did want to marry one of
Speaker 3: the one of the women, but you know, she didn't
Speaker 3: want to have anything to do with it. In the end,
Speaker 3: it just wasn't gonna work. He was kind of a broken,
Speaker 3: valast kind of guy, you know, towards the end of
Speaker 3: his life.
Speaker 5: Right now, just for the audience, I thought it was
Speaker 5: very interesting and I've heard this before, but it was
Speaker 5: reinforced because it's very important to the story. Is that
Speaker 5: when you talked about Charles being characterized by being a
Speaker 5: drunk and volatile and unreliable, and ends up he's not
Speaker 5: a big earner, really relative and not much of a
Speaker 5: mobster in comparison to his brother. Will say, at least
Speaker 5: there in three different leaks now explained for us for
Speaker 5: the audience, how much being a drug user and even
Speaker 5: the big rule that seems to be overlooked, but how
Speaker 5: important it is to this story about drugs itself. Tell
Speaker 5: us about the role of drugs. If he through a
Speaker 5: drug user, and if you deal drugs, what what's the
Speaker 5: mafia's viewpoint on this?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, the the traditional rule was that the
Speaker 3: mob wasn't supposed to deal in drugs, you know, certainly
Speaker 3: back in the old days, but everybody knows, you know
Speaker 3: that that rule was readily ignored and it's readily ignored today.
Speaker 3: And Charles was involved in a marijuana operation, so the
Speaker 3: evidence showed he would use drugs himself. He would drink.
Speaker 3: And you know, even though the big bosses and certainly
Speaker 3: the old legendary bosses like Carlo Gambino or you know,
Speaker 3: Tommy Lucase and so much that Messino did liked drugs,
Speaker 3: so people to deal with them, you know, it was
Speaker 3: the fact of life in the mob, and it's the
Speaker 3: fact of life today. A lot of the big earners
Speaker 3: in the mob were into drugs. In fact, if Youdo
Speaker 3: Genevieve himself got convicted in a drug case and sent
Speaker 3: away ultimately, so that's a myth. These guys did use.
Speaker 3: You'd be surprised at how many of the old mob
Speaker 3: guys were using drugs, particularly in the Bonano crime family.
Speaker 3: There are a number of guys who got hooked on cocaine.
Speaker 3: One of John god the late John Gotti's guys, Anthony Rampino,
Speaker 3: had a problem with heroin which affected him all of
Speaker 3: his life. Charles had a problem with drug use. He
Speaker 3: also had a bigger problem sees with alcohol. Normally, this
Speaker 3: could get you killed because you know, you would be
Speaker 3: seen as an unreliable guy or somebody who would get
Speaker 3: into trouble and possibly flip and become a government withnes
Speaker 3: or just talk too much or not do very do
Speaker 3: very well in any kind of assignment you had. And
Speaker 3: Charles had all these problems. But I think because his
Speaker 3: brother was John, and I think because he had through
Speaker 3: that channel anyway, and in with John the Lake John Gotti,
Speaker 3: Charlie got to pass you know, he could have been
Speaker 3: killed if he was anybody else. I think for the
Speaker 3: way he abused drugs and the way he was sort
Speaker 3: of a flake. Uh. Now, I'm not saying he didn't
Speaker 3: kill people. He evid has showed that he did, but
Speaker 3: you know, he did in a sort of a haphazard
Speaker 3: kind of way, and his volatility confrontation with people brought
Speaker 3: heat onto the crime family and you know, became he
Speaker 3: became risky, but he had a he had a good
Speaker 3: ind and he was able to survive and not many
Speaker 3: people do that.
Speaker 5: Now, let's talk, but we won't get too far ahead.
Speaker 5: I think we can save this for a little bit later,
Speaker 5: as you do in the book. But tell us who
Speaker 5: Kevin McMahon is. At first, he's a homeless Howard Beach
Speaker 5: person that Charles and John and Charles meet and befriend,
Speaker 5: and he's been very important to the story obviously. Tell
Speaker 5: us how it came to be that Kevin McMahon was
Speaker 5: taken in by John and Charles Carnagilan.
Speaker 3: Kevin McMahon was basically a street urchin. He you know,
Speaker 3: in Dickens' time, he would have fallen in with Fagan's
Speaker 3: crew probably, But here and Howard Beach. Kevin's parents mother
Speaker 3: and father I think had drug issues. He was living
Speaker 3: with his grandmother, but when he started messing around stealing cars,
Speaker 3: the grandmother threw him out. So where did he go.
Speaker 3: He lived in the cabana sort of pool house that
Speaker 3: John Cardneglie had in his bankyard. You know, it usually
Speaker 3: was warm months he could live there. And they discovered
Speaker 3: him there and you know, they kind of, I guess,
Speaker 3: took pity on him and took him into their fold,
Speaker 3: as it were. He became part of the family. He
Speaker 3: wasn't adopted in a real sense, but he became like
Speaker 3: an unofficial family member. But so tight he was with
Speaker 3: the Carneglia is that. You know, he would go on
Speaker 3: vacations with him. They came to his wedding, you know,
Speaker 3: they see about jobs for him. He became an adjunct
Speaker 3: to the to their their blood family. And of course
Speaker 3: with John and Charles being into the crime family, it
Speaker 3: wasn't didn't take much for Kevin to become like a
Speaker 3: loyal sort of servant, first, you know, to John, and
Speaker 3: then when John got jailed with Charlie, and Charlie was
Speaker 3: the guy he piled around with and Actually, Kevin was
Speaker 3: kind of a stabilizing influence on Charles because the mobsters
Speaker 3: wanted Kevin to keep an eye at on Charlie because
Speaker 3: you know, once he started drinking or did drugs or whatever,
Speaker 3: he needed somebody to sort of tamper him down and
Speaker 3: you know, keep a handle on him, to the watch
Speaker 3: over him. And that was Kevin's role. But by being
Speaker 3: so close to Charlie, Kevin saw a lot, he heard
Speaker 3: a lot, and in some cases he did things that
Speaker 3: put him into contact with the criminal ventures. One of
Speaker 3: them was the assassination of Louis de Bono, who angered
Speaker 3: the John Gotti Sr. By not coming to a meeting
Speaker 3: when he was called. So Kevin was kind of a
Speaker 3: He wasn't a shooter or anything, but he was involved
Speaker 3: in procuring the car, I think even driving to the
Speaker 3: ultimate assassination scene. So Ken, you know, by not doing
Speaker 3: anything too heavily criminal, he implicated himself with some bad
Speaker 3: things by being close to Charles. So when Kevin got
Speaker 3: into problems, the fans were able to target him. And
Speaker 3: once Kevin got targeted, uh, you know, it was a
Speaker 3: short time before you know, they were able to make
Speaker 3: a cooperating witness out of him.
Speaker 5: Okay, before we get into that, let's let's try to
Speaker 5: draw the for our audience the lines between this Gambino
Speaker 5: family and John Gotti, so that everyone's clear.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 5: We've spoken already about John Gotti receiving a sense of sentence.
Speaker 5: And then there's of course Gotti Jr. John Jr. Who
Speaker 5: effectively takes over, uh takes over the crew or takes
Speaker 5: over the work of his father. But some people are
Speaker 5: not so happy about that and are not true.
Speaker 3: John Gotti, as you I think you're well aware, was
Speaker 3: the head of the family, and he got there by
Speaker 3: this coup with the assassination of Forecastellano I think it
Speaker 3: was late nineteen eighty five. Gotti, of course, was the
Speaker 3: ascendant power. John Carneglia was under John Gotti, and by association,
Speaker 3: Charlie was part of that orbit as it were. When
Speaker 3: when John Gotti Sr. Was convicted and sent away, the
Speaker 3: family went into a state of flux, and there were
Speaker 3: a number of people running it, this sort of an
Speaker 3: acting committee, if you will, and one of them was
Speaker 3: Gotty's son, John what I called John Junior. Some people
Speaker 3: weren't happy with that. They thought it was just pure nepotism,
Speaker 3: and even Charlie was not happy with that. But after
Speaker 3: a while, Charlie had to be aligned with somebody and
Speaker 3: he became, the evidence showed in the case, under the
Speaker 3: wing of John Gotti Junior. So he was part of
Speaker 3: John Junior's world at least for a time. And that's
Speaker 3: how this all wines up. You had Senior the top
Speaker 3: dog until he goes away, and then his son, Junior,
Speaker 3: at least for a short period anyway, was running some things,
Speaker 3: and then ultimately the captain of Charlie and Charlie for
Speaker 3: a while anyway was under it was under Junior. That's
Speaker 3: how that breaks out.
Speaker 5: Now, why tell us about Vincent and Peter Gotty and
Speaker 5: why and what were their roles and why why were
Speaker 5: they not able to take control of this family?
Speaker 3: Well, you know Peter John Gotti Senior's brother.
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Speaker 3: A lot of problems of his own, and he really
Speaker 3: wasn't viewed by many of the other people in the
Speaker 3: crime family as really the guy with the to lead
Speaker 3: the family. You know, he could, sure, he could take
Speaker 3: the payoffs of money or whatever, but he didn't impress
Speaker 3: a lot of people as being that organizationally smart. But Peter, ultimately,
Speaker 3: i think, because of just that there were so few
Speaker 3: people left through indictments and murders or whatever, ultimately did
Speaker 3: take over as head of the family, and in fact,
Speaker 3: law enforcement now carries him officially. We've seen this in
Speaker 3: a number of trials as the head of the Gamebino
Speaker 3: crime family at least a name. But he's in jail
Speaker 3: for life. So it's really a sort of a sort
Speaker 3: of a hollow position. There's really nothing to do. There
Speaker 3: was a brother, Vincent, a little lesser known brother who
Speaker 3: had it seeing his own drug problems, really wasn't thought
Speaker 3: about very well on the street, and he got convicted
Speaker 3: in the same case essentially with Charles. Ultimately, the Charles
Speaker 3: was undoing. So you had Vincent Gotti sent away, you
Speaker 3: had Peter Gotty sent away. John Gotti Senior dead and
Speaker 3: of course jailed and died in prison. John Gotti Junior,
Speaker 3: at least for a time up until maybe nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 3: was involved in the crime family. I mean he's more
Speaker 3: or less admitted that in his own federal trials, but
Speaker 3: as you're probably well aware, and he had four miss
Speaker 3: trials on a federal case, and he claims he's out
Speaker 3: of the crime business and has been for quite some period. Sure.
Speaker 5: Now, that's another fascinating thing. I think you mentioned in
Speaker 5: the book too, that a lot of people are very
Speaker 5: aware of this story, maybe not knowing the sort of
Speaker 5: victim's name, but they know of the story where John
Speaker 5: Gotti's youngest son, Frankie, is accidentally killed by a man
Speaker 5: named John Favera. And tell us about that whole story,
Speaker 5: because of course it's very important to what.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's one of the great legends of mob Loore,
Speaker 3: you know, in a nutshell, a little Frankie Gotti, I
Speaker 3: think it was twelve or thirteen at the time, was
Speaker 3: on a motorbike in the Howard Beach area and he
Speaker 3: got hit run over by a car driven by John Favarro,
Speaker 3: happened to be a neighbor of the Gotti family. It
Speaker 3: was a great you and cry, and it was of course,
Speaker 3: it was a great tragedy for the family. And it
Speaker 3: didn't of course, not only did it not sit well
Speaker 3: with John Gotti and his own family. But John Favara,
Speaker 3: it seemed sort of, at least from some of the histories,
Speaker 3: aggravated the family by really not showing much contrition. And
Speaker 3: you know, this is of course open to some debate,
Speaker 3: but ultimately the bad blood persisted and it really sent
Speaker 3: a lot of the John Gotti himself into depression and
Speaker 3: it seemed perhaps some anger. So ultimately John Favara disappeared,
Speaker 3: and it seems as though if John Gottie Senior didn't
Speaker 3: order his death, people close to him did take care
Speaker 3: of John Favara. He disappeared. A lot of speculation as
Speaker 3: to what happened to that hapless sort of driver of
Speaker 3: the vehicle. But you know, there was speculation that he
Speaker 3: his body was dumped at sea in some concrete. There
Speaker 3: was talk to that was chopped up and put in
Speaker 3: a car and then pressed into some you know, metal
Speaker 3: yard or something like that. And in Charlie's case, the
Speaker 3: witnesses came forward to say that based on what Charles
Speaker 3: told him, Charles was given the task of dissolving the body,
Speaker 3: and it was actually Angela Rogiro, the late Angela Roggeiro,
Speaker 3: who gave him the task of dissolving John Favara's body.
Speaker 3: Charlie at first sort of screwed it up. He didn't
Speaker 3: use the right acid, according to the witnesses said in
Speaker 3: the case. Ultimately he did get it right, the witnesses said,
Speaker 3: and then took some of the bones of John Favara
Speaker 3: to show that he could do the job. He took
Speaker 3: some of the bones to the diner where Angela Roggiario
Speaker 3: was having soup and dropped some of the bones into
Speaker 3: the soupo and I said, listen, I was able to
Speaker 3: take care of it. That's what the witnesses told us.
Speaker 3: That's what they told the government. That came out at trial,
Speaker 3: came out in the context of the case in filings
Speaker 3: a boy the government, and it was really rather amazing
Speaker 3: story when the first surface, because that was always the
Speaker 3: mystery what happened to John Favara. And although we don't
Speaker 3: know for sure who killed him, it's likely that John
Speaker 3: Gottie Senior had a role in this and got the
Speaker 3: ball rolling Angela Rogeiro. It seemed the late Angela Rogiro
Speaker 3: was involved. Everybody involved was dead more or less, and
Speaker 3: the disappearance of John Favara. But it seems that Charlie
Speaker 3: was tasked with getting rid of the body. And that
Speaker 3: is the story that came back through various government court
Speaker 3: documents that we saw filed in the case and some witnesses.
Speaker 5: Now there's a few, quite a few more characters, and
Speaker 5: we'll go through them because they become very important at
Speaker 5: the trial, and of course into Charles Carnegila and all
Speaker 5: the other mafioso members' lives. Can you tell us about
Speaker 5: Peter Zakario and his relationship with Charles and he'd known
Speaker 5: him for almost forty years, he had said, that's the
Speaker 5: time he went to trial. So tell us about the
Speaker 5: relationship between Peter Zicario and Charles, of what kind of business.
Speaker 3: Peter Zakara was another mob wanna bee who was sort
Speaker 3: of born to I guess the family that had some
Speaker 3: mobsters attached to it. He became en honor very early
Speaker 3: in life with a mob life. He lived in Brooklyn,
Speaker 3: grew up in Brooklyn, and you know, he was a
Speaker 3: guy who was a knockabout kind of guy. He was
Speaker 3: aspiring to be a mobster and he of course he
Speaker 3: traveled around East New York and Ozone Park and Howard Beach.
Speaker 3: In a certain time period in New York. You know
Speaker 3: you're going to run into John Carneglia and Charlie Carneglia,
Speaker 3: And it was Charles and Peter so Caro became pretty
Speaker 3: good friends. They padled around a lot, They did marijuana
Speaker 3: business a lot. Peterza Caro. He said that he brought
Speaker 3: stolen cars to Charlie in his junk yard. So there
Speaker 3: was a connection that started, and it seemed pretty substantial
Speaker 3: for a number of years. And of course they got
Speaker 3: doing crimes together, you know, committing crimes together, hanging out.
Speaker 3: And it was through that association that Peter got to
Speaker 3: know a lot about Charles. So when things started to happen,
Speaker 3: when things started to go bad for Peter, Peter of
Speaker 3: course turned on Charles. And I'm a government witness. So
Speaker 3: you have Kevin McMahon as the government witness, you have
Speaker 3: Peter's a Caro so Carow. The funny thing about the
Speaker 3: Caro is when he had the opportunity to join the mob,
Speaker 3: he was offered to be a maid member, so he
Speaker 3: says he turns it down. He turned it down because
Speaker 3: it just seemed like too much of a hassle. He
Speaker 3: didn't want to get involved in the politics he was
Speaker 3: not that happy with John Gotti, you know, senior, because
Speaker 3: you know, John Gotty Senior was the celebrity and this
Speaker 3: is a secret society and what are you doing and
Speaker 3: being a celebrity, you know, there seemed to be different
Speaker 3: rules for the underlings, you know, the sort of peasants
Speaker 3: of the family and guys like you know Gotti, who
Speaker 3: is the boss. So he was off that he didn't
Speaker 3: like that kind of existence. He'd rather be his own man,
Speaker 3: you know, associate with the mob and not be a
Speaker 3: member and not have to deal with the politics. Strange guy.
Speaker 3: So I'm testifying a number of times right out of
Speaker 3: you know, the central casting look very sort of terrase
Speaker 3: wise guy answers like yes and no, and you know,
Speaker 3: he he he had a voice that would somebody you
Speaker 3: wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley, you know,
Speaker 3: with with a gun in his hand, you know, because
Speaker 3: you knew that was going to be the last thing
Speaker 3: you'd hear him say. Were his words. It was really
Speaker 3: it was quite it was quite amazing to watch him.
Speaker 3: You know, he was one of these died in the
Speaker 3: world gangsters right now.
Speaker 5: Nothing really good with.
Speaker 3: Women too, because apparently he you know, got into trouble
Speaker 3: for beating up women, girlfriends and whatnot. Right. Uh.
Speaker 5: Now, another character is the Albanian John Alite. Alite made
Speaker 5: on Miss.
Speaker 3: John Johnny a light he was because he's Albanian. Uh,
Speaker 3: there's no way he was going to become in the mafias.
Speaker 3: But he was a guy from Queens who you know,
Speaker 3: hung around sort of Woodhaven Boulevard area in forth Park
Speaker 3: and he says got tight with Junior Gotti through some
Speaker 3: you know, drug dealing activity. Now Junior Gotti has denied that,
Speaker 3: you know, that he's had any sort of drug dealing activity,
Speaker 3: but you know, Ali testified to that, and that's what
Speaker 3: he's told the FBI, and you sort of that's the
Speaker 3: record you sort of with at that point. But Alight,
Speaker 3: you know, became a very important guy because he was
Speaker 3: heavy into drug dealing and by his own admission, carried
Speaker 3: out murders and he was aligned with the Gambino crime
Speaker 3: family and he was so good at what he did.
Speaker 3: And he was one of these associates like the guy
Speaker 3: Joe Watts, whom you may have heard about. He's one
Speaker 3: of these associates who, while not a member of organized crime,
Speaker 3: was big enough to have his own sort of crew
Speaker 3: of people, and he reported of course up the chain
Speaker 3: of command. But he was that well respected in the
Speaker 3: crime fan at least for a period of time. But
Speaker 3: you know, he had a love hate relationship with jor
Speaker 3: Junior Gotti. And although they may have been tight for
Speaker 3: a while, in fact, I think it was Junior was
Speaker 3: the best man at his wedding, they ultimately sort of
Speaker 3: spun apart. And it's not clear exactly why, but I
Speaker 3: think Ali began to resent Junior in a number of
Speaker 3: ways for a number of reasons. And interesting character because
Speaker 3: he knew a lot of the history of the mob,
Speaker 3: of the Gambino crime family. And yet another guy who
Speaker 3: when the going got tough and he was saddled with
Speaker 3: some threat of prosecution, some heavy time for murders, he
Speaker 3: also became a government witness. You know, the old the
Speaker 3: old idea that you know, people are going to be
Speaker 3: stand up guys and not cooperates. Of course, you know
Speaker 3: that's another myth, that's like drug dealing.
Speaker 5: Sure. Now another character is Michael Scars de Leonardos.
Speaker 3: It's de Leonardo. Uh, Michael Scars got the name because
Speaker 3: he does have a score on his face. Got in
Speaker 3: an accident. He was a very close friend of Junior
Speaker 3: Gotti uh and became a captain in the crime family.
Speaker 3: He was Italian and he was another guy who bought
Speaker 3: lockstock and barrel the mob life. He wanted to be
Speaker 3: a gangster. H he wanted to be, you know, a captain.
Speaker 3: And somebody asked him once, uh, well, you say you
Speaker 3: want to be a captain, did you mean in the army?
Speaker 3: And he said, no, in the mob and that was
Speaker 3: that was his dream.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: He loved the life. He loved the respect these wise
Speaker 3: guys got, and he emulated that and that's what he
Speaker 3: aspired to and that's what he became. In fact, he
Speaker 3: became a Maid member. So he testified in the same
Speaker 3: ceremony in which John Gotti Jr. Became a Maid member.
Speaker 3: So they're sort of their die was cast together in
Speaker 3: a sense when they became Maid members, and that was
Speaker 3: really a love It turned out to be a love
Speaker 3: hate relationship because ultimately Dalley and Arnot became a government witness,
Speaker 3: you know, causing problems not only for Charles, but in
Speaker 3: a bigger way for John Gotti Jr. Because he testified
Speaker 3: that you know, a number of his trials as well.
Speaker 3: So it's really an interesting cast of characters.
Speaker 5: And he ended up not just being a person that's
Speaker 5: trying to save his own skin. Well, I mean that's
Speaker 5: the main priority, but he was also well, not paid well,
Speaker 5: but he was paid as well as you probably could
Speaker 5: as a as ab.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean he did very well. Of course. His
Speaker 3: main problem what soured him was that when he got
Speaker 3: arrested on a case, the crime family took away his
Speaker 3: his his income flow and his rackets, and that he
Speaker 3: felt that was unpardonable and that really sort of soured
Speaker 3: him on the hierarchy of the Gambino crime family. Didn't
Speaker 3: involve Junior Gody because I think at that point he
Speaker 3: was in jail himself on a previous case, but he
Speaker 3: really soured on Peter Gotty and that whole crew. Right,
Speaker 3: it's all about money, you know, It's what it comes
Speaker 3: down to.
Speaker 5: Sure that their existence is all about Now one more
Speaker 5: as one interesting story before we get into what circumstances
Speaker 5: led to all of these people becoming and cooperating with
Speaker 5: the state and with the federal government in these indictments,
Speaker 5: because it doesn't happen right away, but one of the
Speaker 5: most important characters in this story is sort of a
Speaker 5: government official. Albert Gelber a court official. So tell us
Speaker 5: who Albert Gelb is.
Speaker 3: Albert Gael It's a very interesting story. I'm later you
Speaker 3: raised that Albert Gelb was a court officer. He was.
Speaker 3: He had the the bad luck, as it turned out
Speaker 3: to be, to be in a diner one night in
Speaker 3: the nineteen seventies when Charlie happened to be in there.
Speaker 3: Charlie happened to be packing some guns and by accident, Gelb,
Speaker 3: who was in there having a hamburger, saw that and
Speaker 3: he said, that guy's got a gun. You know, I'm
Speaker 3: a peace officer, you know, court officers and peace officers,
Speaker 3: and they can have the power to make a rest.
Speaker 3: So I got to find out if you know he's
Speaker 3: this is legit. So he confronted Charles downstairs in the
Speaker 3: diner and asked him if you know he had if
Speaker 3: he was a cop, or why did he have those guns?
Speaker 3: And then of course ultimately they got into a fight,
Speaker 3: and they got into a fight. They were rolling around
Speaker 3: on the floor downstairs, and there was enough commotion that
Speaker 3: the the staff of the restaurant called the cops. The
Speaker 3: cops came arrested Charles, they found the guns and they
Speaker 3: had a gun case against Charles. Well, that didn't do
Speaker 3: well for Charles and he, you know, people witnesses said,
Speaker 3: threatened Gel. You know that this is not a good thing.
Speaker 3: You know, you don't know who you're messing with. And
Speaker 3: to make Gail was under the perception, through anonymous threats
Speaker 3: and whatever, that he was going to be in for
Speaker 3: a rough time because he was going to testify against Charles,
Speaker 3: he was going to testify about the guns. Well, ultimately,
Speaker 3: to make a long sort of tortured story short, Albert
Speaker 3: Gael was shot dead one night after he got off
Speaker 3: his shift in the courts. He was a quoter officer
Speaker 3: on the late night shift and he got gunned down
Speaker 3: not far from his home in Queen's. Suspicion immediately went
Speaker 3: to John Carneglia and Charles because Charles, you know, had
Speaker 3: the pending case and John was his brother. That's where
Speaker 3: the suspicion lay. And for the longest period of time,
Speaker 3: you know, people suspected that Charley had had a you know,
Speaker 3: it was behind it. That's the interesting thing about this
Speaker 3: case though, is that when it Charlie Carneglie went to
Speaker 3: trial for the Guild murder. This was in two thousand
Speaker 3: and nine. That was the one aspect of the case
Speaker 3: that seemed the weakest to the jury because there was
Speaker 3: one witness who testified about a shooter who didn't look
Speaker 3: anything like Charles, and Charles himself at various times and
Speaker 3: said it told people, oh, I stabbed him and that
Speaker 3: he died because he was going against us, which is
Speaker 3: kind of ambiguous. You know, the standard of proof is
Speaker 3: it wasn't really very strong, right, and this kind of thing.
Speaker 3: So Charlie was not found culpable of Albert Gelb's homicide.
Speaker 3: You know, some thirty years later he went to trial
Speaker 3: on that. So that's an interesting aspect of the case.
Speaker 3: But you know, it was it's the homicide that really
Speaker 3: gave Charlie's story legs in the media because thirty years later,
Speaker 3: you know, the death of Albert gel which is a
Speaker 3: story member to this day in New York, was a
Speaker 3: charge against Charlie, and everybody was hoping, at least, you know,
Speaker 3: on law enforcement, was hoping that that would stick. The
Speaker 3: charge didn't stick.
Speaker 5: Now, what Mobster was was with Charles and tried to
Speaker 5: persuade Charles to get you know, get lost before the
Speaker 5: cops came.
Speaker 3: Who was that, Oh, there was there was a I
Speaker 3: think it was the cara, Peter's the cara. It was Peter's.
Speaker 3: The ca Peters the kara was with him that night
Speaker 3: in the diner. Yeah, by chance, by the way, Peter
Speaker 3: the kara was there for some other reason, and Charlie
Speaker 3: happened to come in. He was, you know, he'd just
Speaker 3: been to a wedding, and he sat down or walked
Speaker 3: up to their table and said, how you doing. So
Speaker 3: I was by chance, and Zakara tried to get him
Speaker 3: out of there after the fractice with Albert Kelp. But it,
Speaker 3: you know, it didn't matter because you know, the cuffs
Speaker 3: tried to make a gun case. By the way, the
Speaker 3: gun case went away. It was dismissed for a number
Speaker 3: of reasons, and they did not make a gun case
Speaker 3: against Charlie. That's the sort of irony of this.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: Albert Guel tried to do his job, as he saw
Speaker 3: it as a peace officer, made a case, but ultimately
Speaker 3: the case gets thrown out and for you know, reasons
Speaker 3: that maybe related to it. He's dead.
Speaker 5: What I found especially especially interesting was the imagery you
Speaker 5: created by when Charles was On was On was in
Speaker 5: court or the Gelb murder, that comrades of Gelb court
Speaker 5: officials dressed in not in their in their uniforms, but
Speaker 5: in suits and just just show of support, which I
Speaker 5: thought was was you know, quite well captured in your book,
Speaker 5: that that sort of force that the Yeah, there.
Speaker 3: Was a constant show of force by the Court officers
Speaker 3: and the Court Officers Association. The very interesting element of
Speaker 3: this is that whoever killed Albert Gelb, and to this
Speaker 3: day we don't really know, uh it really the death
Speaker 3: really unsettled them all because there are two anecdotes in
Speaker 3: the book I recount. One is how at a dinner
Speaker 3: state and one of the Court Officer Presidents of the
Speaker 3: Association was met the driver of Paul Castellano. This is
Speaker 3: the guy Tommy Blatti and Lonnie sought out Dennis Quirk,
Speaker 3: the Court Officer president, and he said, listen, my boss
Speaker 3: had nothing to do with this. He wants you to know,
Speaker 3: you know, it wasn't a sanctioned thing, which is a
Speaker 3: pretty brazen thing to say. So he did say it.
Speaker 3: And then at the funeral of Albert Gilb. Right after
Speaker 3: the funeral, since you you know, his family was Jewish,
Speaker 3: they sat shiver. Two men came to the house and
Speaker 3: they were sort of looked at a place. They were
Speaker 3: not Jewish apparently, and they had a very sort of
Speaker 3: Italian look to them, and they asked to speak to
Speaker 3: Gelb's father, and they spoke to Gelb's father to say
Speaker 3: basically the same thing. You know, a mistake had been done.
Speaker 3: This was not supposed to happen, and we just want
Speaker 3: you to know, and then they walked away. And that
Speaker 3: was these two episodes that shows clearly this was not
Speaker 3: something the mob wanted, because when Albert Gilb died, a
Speaker 3: lot of came on the moll, the Gambino family, and
Speaker 3: you know, the court officers to this day will always
Speaker 3: remember what happened, and you know, it's an unsolved mystery.
Speaker 3: But to them, I think they really believed, truly to
Speaker 3: this day, that Charlie had something to do with it.
Speaker 5: Right now, I know we're probably sort of jumping ahead
Speaker 5: a little bit, but what kind of maybe what kind
Speaker 5: of six failures did the prosecutors have before they finally
Speaker 5: get Charles on the stand with all these cooperating witnesses
Speaker 5: tell us about some of the failures that they had
Speaker 5: and why they had particular failure trying to prosecute Charles
Speaker 5: for all kinds of crimes.
Speaker 3: Well Charles, I mean they had I don't know if
Speaker 3: they had failures so much as he was like a
Speaker 3: lower priority. They had problems in some of the homicides
Speaker 3: they tried to pin on them. They had problems getting
Speaker 3: people in the community to talk about what happened, to
Speaker 3: cooperate or give evidence. They just for years, that's you know,
Speaker 3: that's the fact of life. You know, people and Howard
Speaker 3: Beach were afraid to talk about mob characters or cooperate
Speaker 3: in any way. It's kind of like, you know, it's
Speaker 3: the old you know, we didn't see anything that kind
Speaker 3: of routine. So for years they had that problem. But
Speaker 3: what what started to happen, of course, is that they
Speaker 3: got this domino effect of these various cooperators. You know,
Speaker 3: there was Zukaro, Peter Zukaro, Kevin McMahon, Johnny A Light,
Speaker 3: and you know a few and a few other characters
Speaker 3: of vincent Rosetti who also testified. They gave important pieces
Speaker 3: of the puzzle later in the game that allowed them
Speaker 3: because there was really no statut limitation problem that allowed
Speaker 3: the Feds to make the case against Charles. But for
Speaker 3: the longest period they didn't get any cooperation from people
Speaker 3: in the community until they finally, you know, got some
Speaker 3: people who are in deep trouble and saw cooperation as
Speaker 3: their only way out.
Speaker 5: Now, the thing is, I thought it was important. I
Speaker 5: had never read this before, and I'm probably going to
Speaker 5: mispronounce this, but I think it's the little mine and
Speaker 5: again it's probably a statute, But tell us what that
Speaker 5: really is, and it's the what kind of specific evidence
Speaker 5: could be introduced at trial? What was that again, I'm
Speaker 5: jumping ahead.
Speaker 3: Alt in limiting motion. Yeah, I know, Yeah, it's a
Speaker 3: it's a you know, a Latin term which has something
Speaker 3: to do for a limited purpose what it is. And
Speaker 3: this often happens in the mob cases. The federal government
Speaker 3: will say, we're going to introduce evidence of uncharged crimes,
Speaker 3: which may we haven't indicted the guy for. But what
Speaker 3: we're going to try to bring up a trial for
Speaker 3: a variety of reasons. We're going to try to show
Speaker 3: membership in the in the crime family, We're going to
Speaker 3: try to show past you know, uh, opportunity and motive
Speaker 3: for carrying out similar crimes. We're going to try to
Speaker 3: show association. And they try to say, look, for instance,
Speaker 3: Joe and Joe Jones, you know, was involved in a
Speaker 3: in a homicide which we didn't charge in this case,
Speaker 3: but the method and what he carried out is similar
Speaker 3: to what we've charged charged here. It's that kind of thing,
Speaker 3: and that that allows them to bring in a lot
Speaker 3: of uncharged criminal allegations which they didn't bring in the
Speaker 3: main case, but they're going to try to prove in
Speaker 3: this case the bolster their main case. Uh. It's kind
Speaker 3: of a you know, second bite to the apple. Some
Speaker 3: people think it's unfair, and defendants always think it's unfair,
Speaker 3: and they try to get the government to limit what
Speaker 3: they can bring in. Sometimes they win, sometimes they don't.
Speaker 3: Most often they don't.
Speaker 5: It's interesting and important to this case though, because because
Speaker 5: a lot of the witnesses could not cross reference, but
Speaker 5: could support sort of in this limited way, some of
Speaker 5: the other information. So it becomes circumstantial, becomes overwhelmingly circumstantial.
Speaker 5: It becomes almost inferenced. This happened, that happened, he did this,
Speaker 5: and the other thing. I want to establish before we
Speaker 5: get into the trial itself, is that the one thing
Speaker 5: that this judge, Jack Weinstein limited when we get into
Speaker 5: this is the actual word when we talked about Charles
Speaker 5: dissolving people in acid. And the one thing that the
Speaker 5: defense team did win on at some one point was
Speaker 5: that the judge thought it was overtly overly pudicial, prejudicial
Speaker 5: to be able to mention the actual word acid. But
Speaker 5: they got around it in other ways, and we'll talk
Speaker 5: about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Well what happened was, you know, you're right.
Speaker 3: Weinstein did say, look, this acid stuff is you know,
Speaker 3: we really can't get this in. Can't have this come
Speaker 3: in this way. I don't want to have any reference
Speaker 3: to acid about killing people. But he would allow a
Speaker 3: reference limited reference to torture because there was an allegation
Speaker 3: one of these uncharged crime that Charles used acid to
Speaker 3: torture people, particularly graphic episode that's described in the book.
Speaker 3: But as things have, you know, trials don't go perfectly.
Speaker 3: And what happened was that one of the witnesses, it
Speaker 3: may have been to Carol, it slipped out acid. The
Speaker 3: word acid came out, So they had to go through
Speaker 3: this whole rigmarole of instructing the juris not to listen
Speaker 3: to that kind of like unringing the bell. You know,
Speaker 3: it's out there and you've got to say. You got
Speaker 3: to sort of rep hero it somehow. And Weinstein was really,
Speaker 3: you know, perplexed by it. But he dealt with it,
Speaker 3: I guess, in his own way. But he did try.
Speaker 3: He did for the most part, kept Ascid out of
Speaker 3: this case. But it was in the court papers and
Speaker 3: there was some testimony about it, and that was the
Speaker 3: thing that you know, allowed it to get in into
Speaker 3: some limited extent, particularly about the torture.
Speaker 5: That was what he would allow it sound was very damaging.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't think it said very well.
Speaker 5: With the jury now of vincent Rosetti Junior, Peter Zaccaro,
Speaker 5: Johnny John Alight, and Michael di Leonardo, all of these
Speaker 5: people were testifying that Charles Conegila where they were trying
Speaker 5: to the state was the federal government was trying to
Speaker 5: get him for five murders. So please tell us who
Speaker 5: testified first and what that particular witness testified in terms
Speaker 5: of providing evidence of those some of those or more
Speaker 5: of those five murders.
Speaker 3: Well as I recall it was de Leonardo who sort
Speaker 3: of set the table first, and he didn't really know
Speaker 3: firsthand about any homicides. He had heard things indirectly, so
Speaker 3: he was used to, you know, talk a little bit
Speaker 3: about what he had heard. But again, the government had
Speaker 3: a problem with the problem and getting a lot of
Speaker 3: deal Leonardo's evidence in because of the very fact that
Speaker 3: it was all a lot of it was hearsay and
Speaker 3: he didn't have direct knowledge, you know. And it was
Speaker 3: that kind of problem with de Leonardo, you know, he
Speaker 3: really blocked the government about asking him. Asking Leonardo you
Speaker 3: know what other people had said about Charles and his brother, right,
Speaker 3: there was a problem. He could say he was a
Speaker 3: tough guy, you know, and that he was a lawyer
Speaker 3: worker who did murders. But that's about as far as
Speaker 3: it could go. Ultimately, ud Leonardo somewhat damaging, but not
Speaker 3: terribly damaging in my mind. The next one was Pete Zacaro,
Speaker 3: who was really I think more damaging because he had,
Speaker 3: again he knew about Charles's reputation. He said he killed
Speaker 3: good that's what he testified to and you know, unlike
Speaker 3: the Leonardo, he could who could only talk, you know
Speaker 3: about what others had said. Zacarra recounted what Charles had
Speaker 3: said to him, so there was no hearsay problem. And
Speaker 3: that was the de Bono murder which I alluded to earlier,
Speaker 3: which Charles explored, you know, was supposedly involved in. Zakara
Speaker 3: explored that, and that was a key murder, which was
Speaker 3: also you know in the case. And then you know
Speaker 3: there was other stuff, you know, chopping up cars, the
Speaker 3: drug business.
Speaker 2: All this is.
Speaker 3: Zukaro, uh, you know, was able to testify to the
Speaker 3: de Bono thing. I think was probably the most damaging
Speaker 3: thing that Zu Cairo threw into the mix, as well
Speaker 3: as the armored car some armored car heist and stuff I.
Speaker 5: Was about to tell us about the de Bono murder
Speaker 5: and especially the the JFK robbery, uh, the airport.
Speaker 3: Robono you know, Louis de Bono was a member of
Speaker 3: the Gambino family who had the misfortune of angering John
Speaker 3: Gotti Senior by not showing up for meeting when he
Speaker 3: wanted when John Gotty wanted him to come, and for
Speaker 3: that that was a cardinal sin and that was what
Speaker 3: he was going to die for. And ultimately, as the
Speaker 3: testimony in the case, showed Uh Gotti's son, although he
Speaker 3: denies this updown, left, right, and center. The testimony, the
Speaker 3: witnesses claim Uh that he put out the job to
Speaker 3: Charlie to put together some kind of hit team to
Speaker 3: take care of this, and it was Charlie, the witnesses
Speaker 3: testified that put together a hit team involving himself, another
Speaker 3: character whose name escapes me and Bobby Boiello. They were
Speaker 3: in on this, and they found Louis de Bono in
Speaker 3: the basement parking his car in the basement parking lot
Speaker 3: of the World Trade Center, which was existence at the
Speaker 3: time in ninety or nineteen ninety one. They got him.
Speaker 3: Kevin McMahon I think was a driver and the Charles
Speaker 3: got out confronted the Bono, and the evidence showed that
Speaker 3: Charles pulled him over and you know, apparently fired some
Speaker 3: shots into the bono. The bono went in. It was
Speaker 3: very corporate on fat guy. He went down and ultimately
Speaker 3: they had to push his legs into the car and
Speaker 3: then they got out of there. And it was because
Speaker 3: of that, the the Bono murder, that Charlie Uh got
Speaker 3: his his wings, so to speak, in the Gambino crime
Speaker 3: family became a maid member, and that was when John
Speaker 3: Gotti Sr. Looked upon him, you know, with some uh
Speaker 3: the sense of accomplishment, and Senior John Gotty Senior made him,
Speaker 3: you know, had him inducted, right, and that's how you know,
Speaker 3: that's how Charlie became in the mob. And then uh
Speaker 3: you know, it was through the killing of uh Louis
Speaker 3: de Bonham.
Speaker 5: And it was the the another thing that has been fictionalized.
Speaker 5: I think I've seen it on Sopranos or Good Fellows,
Speaker 5: but at least they've taken this right from the pages,
Speaker 5: which I wanted to say, and I mentioned it to
Speaker 5: you as well. It's amazing how much stuff has been
Speaker 5: taken lock stock and barrel from these stories and not
Speaker 5: even fictionalized and thrown into Sopranos and Goodfellas, and I'm
Speaker 5: sure some other stories as well.
Speaker 3: But yeah, which which incident, Well, it was one, there was.
Speaker 5: One where the guy was shot in the bar and
Speaker 5: they picked that in both Goodfellows and Sopranos. But the
Speaker 5: also the armored truck robbery where a guard dies too
Speaker 5: has been one of those movies as well. So it's
Speaker 5: just the even yeah, even the junior soprano, even the
Speaker 5: junior Gotti, the junior soprano had the ankle bracelet. So
Speaker 5: it's it's there's a lot of parallels there anyway, where
Speaker 5: they take the same stories and just throw them in.
Speaker 3: So yeah, and I'm not sure how much they knew
Speaker 3: at that time when they were writing the script, but
Speaker 3: it was pretty close to reality in some ways.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, Yeah, yeah, you know now, uh no, Charles Cornagila,
Speaker 5: there was people. The government wanted these people to testify,
Speaker 5: like you said, inform. It really wasn't for charges specifically,
Speaker 5: but they wanted to have the like this information about
Speaker 5: the acid that they couldn't quite get in, but they
Speaker 5: wanted to show how ruthless, how much of a psychopathic
Speaker 5: killer that this Charles was, and then link him to
Speaker 5: these murders to make sure that they could put him away.
Speaker 5: So tell us some of the testimony about the body shop.
Speaker 5: We talked about the soup bones, you know, as he's
Speaker 5: learning how to dissolve these people in acid. But tell
Speaker 5: us about just some of the characteristics that set him
Speaker 5: apart from all these guys who are capable of killing,
Speaker 5: but that really set him apart and establish him as
Speaker 5: one of the most ruthless killers even among mafioso itself.
Speaker 1: Well, what it was, you know, he he.
Speaker 3: Didn't seem to have much of a control on his
Speaker 3: anger management was not one of his strong points, and
Speaker 3: that's what you know. He would be set off not
Speaker 3: a lot of things, and instead of talking to people
Speaker 3: and trying to you know, assert himself that way, he'd
Speaker 3: lash out and he would you know, and we've sing
Speaker 3: with this in the testimony in the case, he would
Speaker 3: stab people, or he would get involved in homicides and
Speaker 3: shoot them. The armored car the heist, you know, and
Speaker 3: the set up in the months before than the weeks
Speaker 3: before that. You know, he would do casings of places.
Speaker 3: And this is what angered is a carrow. He would
Speaker 3: be drunk. He'd go out, he'd go out on these
Speaker 3: early reconnaissance missions and he'd be drunk and he didn't
Speaker 3: know what to do. And then the kara said, look,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to have anything to do with this guy.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know what's going to show up
Speaker 3: when I go out with him, whether it's going to
Speaker 3: be a drunk guy or a guy that's going to
Speaker 3: have his act together. And you know that burns a
Speaker 3: carrow up. So Charlie the problem, the major problem, you know,
Speaker 3: was that he really didn't have the kind of self
Speaker 3: control that was going to make him go far politically
Speaker 3: in the mob, that kind of uh, the stabbings, the shootings,
Speaker 3: the incident in his junk yard where he got two guys,
Speaker 3: two young kids. McMahon testified about this and brought them
Speaker 3: in to find out who shot a gun at his
Speaker 3: brother's house and dropped acid through a turkey baster on
Speaker 3: their feet. Uh you know, I mean, whoa, that's really
Speaker 3: heavy stadistic stuff. And he was all set to you know,
Speaker 3: put the baister. McMahon said, this put the baster up
Speaker 3: up their rectums before they finally spilled the beans.
Speaker 5: I mean, I thought it was amazing that it took
Speaker 5: them that long to give up there who it was.
Speaker 5: They said, yeah, they actually.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they went through some pain, McMahon told us at
Speaker 3: the trial. But in the end, I think that that
Speaker 3: image of the turkey base, uh, you know, going up
Speaker 3: the backside was just too much and then they gave
Speaker 3: up whoever had a gun. It wasn't a small deal,
Speaker 3: It wasn't It wasn't a big deal in terms of
Speaker 3: the firing of the gun. But you know, in the
Speaker 3: world of the mob. That was a sign of disrespect
Speaker 3: to John Corneglio at whose house this happened.
Speaker 5: So now can I say, now, now, the characters that
Speaker 5: are in that end up being cooperating witnesses, the A Caro,
Speaker 5: John Eilid, vincent Rosetti Junior, and Michael de Leonardo. Now
Speaker 5: what was their justification? I know there really isn't any justification,
Speaker 5: Like you say, they have a code, but nobody cares
Speaker 5: about the code. But just for interest stake, what was
Speaker 5: some of the justification for some of these guys We
Speaker 5: did talk about uh some of the some of the
Speaker 5: people said, well, jeez, this this guy's supposed to be secret.
Speaker 5: It is supposed to be a secret of organization. But
Speaker 5: the guys of celebrity, some people were cut off financially
Speaker 5: so they really had no means of income, so they
Speaker 5: justified it that way. Tell us, really their their main
Speaker 5: justification for not going along with the tradition and cooperating,
Speaker 5: being cooperating witnesses. And in lots of cases especially I
Speaker 5: thought interested with Kevin McMahon, the guy that basically brought
Speaker 5: him in and took him under his wing as sort
Speaker 5: of adopted him and he ends up testifying against him,
Speaker 5: trying to put him in prison for life.
Speaker 3: So well, there are a number of things here, but
Speaker 3: two or three come to mind. One is Charlie was
Speaker 3: not a diplomat, didn't take care of his friends, and
Speaker 3: that was part of the reason that McMahon soured on him.
Speaker 3: He's turned Charlie turned on McMahon, and McMahon says, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't know what's going to go on with this
Speaker 3: guy I got to get away from. Looks like he
Speaker 3: may try to kill me, and in the end, you know,
Speaker 3: really had no allegiance to him anymore. The other thing
Speaker 3: to keep in mind is that these guys basically deal
Speaker 3: from a position of self interest. They all saw that
Speaker 3: there was going to be a period of time when
Speaker 3: they're going to look like they're going to spend you know,
Speaker 3: ten twenty or perhaps the rest of their lives behind bars.
Speaker 3: If they could get some daylight and get a break
Speaker 3: on sentence from the government for cooperating and somebody who
Speaker 3: didn't mean anything more to them, they were going to
Speaker 3: do it. The thing with the mob is that these
Speaker 3: guys are all out for money, and money is really
Speaker 3: not much of an allegiance builder. You know, it really
Speaker 3: isn't if that's what you're worried about. If you're not
Speaker 3: enamored with this old country Sicilian code of honor and
Speaker 3: respect and family and tradition, you know, all you got
Speaker 3: is money binding is to the next criminal, and that's
Speaker 3: not going to be a very deep alliance. Messino Joel Messina.
Speaker 3: When he testified recently the best Siano trial, he said
Speaker 3: it was asked, why are you doing this? And he says, well,
Speaker 3: I wanted to, you know, get something from my family
Speaker 3: so that they weren't impoverished, and I want to see
Speaker 3: some perhaps some light at the end of the tunnel,
Speaker 3: meaning I'm facing life in jail. Maybe by cooperating, I'm
Speaker 3: going to be able to get out before I die,
Speaker 3: you know. And he was He's an old man, you know,
Speaker 3: his late sixties, not great at the health. So he
Speaker 3: wanted to do something to help himself. That's what it's about.
Speaker 3: That's really what it comes down to.
Speaker 5: Now, Given that, why didn't Charles Carnegila cooperate with the government.
Speaker 3: Charlie brought into the theme he didn't. He was an
Speaker 3: old school guy, old guy not going anywhere in life.
Speaker 3: All he had was this this concept of allegiance, right,
Speaker 3: and that's what he bought into early in life, and
Speaker 3: that's what he stayed with. He was given the up Kennedy.
Speaker 3: When they arrested him, they treated him with kid gloves
Speaker 3: in a sense, because they wanted him to try and cooperate,
Speaker 3: but he wasn't going to do it, and they asked him,
Speaker 3: and he just wasn't going to do it. He brought
Speaker 3: into the life and that's the way he was going
Speaker 3: to die.
Speaker 5: Do you think he got respect from I mean, not
Speaker 5: that it matters, but do you think he got respect
Speaker 5: from some of the old school guys that were sitting
Speaker 5: in prison as a result.
Speaker 3: Probably, probably, and from some people on the street. I
Speaker 3: think so. In some ways, you know, he's like the
Speaker 3: old dinosaur, you know.
Speaker 5: There was.
Speaker 3: You know, and the story was that he you know,
Speaker 3: he'd cry, you know, when reminiscing about the old days.
Speaker 3: But I think he realized, of course that the old
Speaker 3: days of people who deserve loyalty were long gone. But
Speaker 3: there really wasn't much he could give up at that stage.
Speaker 3: He was going to cooperate. Who's going to cooperate? And
Speaker 3: some of the other guys in the family and maybe,
Speaker 3: but I don't think he wanted to do that, and
Speaker 3: he didn't.
Speaker 5: In the end, he didn't, right, And so how many
Speaker 5: of these cooperating witnesses ended up not doing any time
Speaker 5: at all and are free on the street now.
Speaker 3: Well, I know Kevin McMahon got out. I think, yeah,
Speaker 3: he ultimately got his sentence, you know, time served. Uh,
Speaker 3: so he's out. I think maybe in the witness protection program. Uh.
Speaker 3: Peters Carroll got sentenced recently, but he got a little
Speaker 3: bit of extra time and he's also in the witness
Speaker 3: security program. Uh. De Leonardo, I understand is is out.
Speaker 3: I don't think he's in the program. I think he
Speaker 3: testified that he's not in the program. Like Vincent Rosetti,
Speaker 3: he got time served. He had some relatively minor crime
Speaker 3: I think of securities fraud that he was charged with,
Speaker 3: and he cooperated fairly early in his case. I think
Speaker 3: he got probation or I think it was probation. So
Speaker 3: he's out, he's living, I think someplace else. So a
Speaker 3: lot of these guys did get a break a light.
Speaker 3: A light I'm not sure about. I don't want to
Speaker 3: steer the wrong way, but I don't think he's out.
Speaker 3: If anything. I think he may have gotten some time,
Speaker 3: additional time, so he's not out. In fact, he may
Speaker 3: testify again in some other upcoming case.
Speaker 5: And where is Junior Gotti right now?
Speaker 3: Oh, he's a free man. He denies, you know, to
Speaker 3: this day, having a role in any of the homicide
Speaker 3: these cooperators tried to pin on him. He also denies
Speaker 3: any you know, drug dealing activity. He's a free man.
Speaker 3: He went through four miss trials. He government dropped the
Speaker 3: last one, as you as you know. And he's trying
Speaker 3: to get his life together. He's supposedly making a movie
Speaker 3: about life with father in a sense, but I'm not
Speaker 3: sure when that is going to you know, get shot.
Speaker 3: But he's you know, trying to get his life together.
Speaker 3: And you know, he's he said he gave up the
Speaker 3: mob life a long time ago. Certainly you know enough
Speaker 3: that he had a you know, put together a defense
Speaker 3: that that was his life was with a mob was
Speaker 3: done and he was out of it. And it was
Speaker 3: you know, convincing enough of some of the jurors, because
Speaker 3: you get a mistrial. The other thing was that somebody
Speaker 3: like al the jurors. Although he was convincing in Charles trial,
Speaker 3: I was not convincing in junior Gottish trial. He just
Speaker 3: seemed to have too much baggage. He seemed to have
Speaker 3: too much to gain by trying to pin everything to me,
Speaker 3: testified to on junior Gotti. So in a sense, you know,
Speaker 3: alight was a failure as a witness in junior Gottish case.
Speaker 5: What did you We're just we're going to wrap up
Speaker 5: pretty soon here. We've got a couple of minutes. But
Speaker 5: I wanted to know. You've worked, You've investigated this stuff
Speaker 5: for years and years, the Mob, and you've written King
Speaker 5: of the Godfathers, and you've written extensively about Mafio. So life,
Speaker 5: what did you learn from writing Mob Killer and doing
Speaker 5: and looking at this Carnegia case? What if anything surprised
Speaker 5: you or you learned from this even though you have
Speaker 5: vast experience studying these people.
Speaker 3: Well, I realize, you know, reinforced you know what I had,
Speaker 3: you know long suspected that this really is kind of
Speaker 3: a an empty existence. You know, the bosses may make
Speaker 3: a lot of money, or for a lot of these guys,
Speaker 3: guys like Charles, there's not much to get out of
Speaker 3: it in the end, you know, Uh, they call it
Speaker 3: They have a term for them called brokester, you know,
Speaker 3: instead of gangster's brokester, meaning you're broke, you don't have money.
Speaker 3: The bosses do well, the underlings, the soldiers and the associates,
Speaker 3: they often don't do well. And what do you have
Speaker 3: in the end. You may have a prison sentence, you
Speaker 3: may be living hand to mouth after a prison sentence.
Speaker 3: You know, there's no retirement plan in the mob. And
Speaker 3: in a sense, the mafia eats it's young. You know,
Speaker 3: if you're in it a young guy, ultimately you're going
Speaker 3: to have a problem down the road and it's going
Speaker 3: to probably each kill wive. That seems to me it's
Speaker 3: kind of like a real empty existence that they have. Yes,
Speaker 3: you may have the money, you may have trappings of power,
Speaker 3: you may have respect on the street, and for some
Speaker 3: people that's important. But the way you got to do
Speaker 3: it and go about getting it is gonna really sort
Speaker 3: of hurt you in the end. That's what That's what
Speaker 3: I've come away with. The government has some pretty potent
Speaker 3: weapons now against the organized crime, and they are not
Speaker 3: afraid to use them.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it seems what part of your story was too,
Speaker 5: is that these prosecutors were trying as hard as they could,
Speaker 5: even if you're trying to prosecute the one or have
Speaker 5: the trial down in Florida, and then Weinstein said no, no,
Speaker 5: we can have it here in New York. But basically
Speaker 5: they were adamant on getting these people. So it seems like, yeah,
Speaker 5: it's a very dead end in existence because the government's
Speaker 5: got all the time in the world and the resources
Speaker 5: and that Trump card, where hey, do you want to
Speaker 5: spend the rest of your life in jail or cooperate?
Speaker 5: So it seems that they can break the backs of
Speaker 5: at least certain family members and maybe maybe they won't
Speaker 5: ever wipe out the mafia. Probably never, but they sure
Speaker 5: make it tough for these people to to continue in
Speaker 5: the old ways, that's for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well it's it's not the mob, you know, our
Speaker 3: father is now, that's for sure.
Speaker 5: No, absolutely, So, just in closing, what are you working
Speaker 5: on now? What's your next project? Tony?
Speaker 3: Well, I, you know, I'm trying with trying to follow
Speaker 3: through on Messino, you know, because as you know, Messino
Speaker 3: testified the first major mob boss you know, to ever
Speaker 3: testify and become a government witness. I'm trying to think
Speaker 3: about closing that loop with something. I mean, I'm also
Speaker 3: looking historically back into you know, old of town, which
Speaker 3: is rich with history in its own crime history, which
Speaker 3: is you know, quite fascinating at least I find it
Speaker 3: that way. We'll see what happens.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Wally, you've written a great book here, Mob Killer.
Speaker 5: I'm hoping the audience found this as interesting as I did.
Speaker 5: And I want to thank you very much for coming
Speaker 5: on a little program and talking about this great book.
Speaker 5: So thank you very much, Tony for this.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for the opportunity again, and it was
Speaker 3: a real pleasure. I find you a very conversant host
Speaker 3: who is prepped very well.
Speaker 5: Well, you know what I think the difference is, I
Speaker 5: just read the books. I mean, I think that's my
Speaker 5: you know, sometimes I think that's all you.
Speaker 3: Need sometimes, believe me. Yeah, and then it shows and
Speaker 3: shows and the kind of questions that were coming out.
Speaker 5: Well, thanks very much. I just want to tell our
Speaker 5: audience you've been listening to Anthony M. Di Stefano, A
Speaker 5: Mob Killer, The Bloody Rampage of Charles Carnegia, Mafia hit Man.
Speaker 5: It's on the shelves and it's probably an e book
Speaker 5: as well in Amazon and available everywhere where great books
Speaker 5: are sold, so you have a great evening. Tony, thank
Speaker 5: you very much for appearing on the program.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5: You've been listening to the program True Murder, the most
Speaker 5: shocking killers in true crime history, and the authors that
Speaker 5: have written about them. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Good Night,