Mob Star by Gene Mustain Read Free Book Online Page B

laid down for both the Family and the other mob: no drug dealing.
    The policy had nothing to do with the destruction of lives or neighborhoods and everything to do with self-interest. New York punished a drug dealer as severely as a murderer, and the Pope believed anyone arrested on a serious drug charge would be tempted to tattle on the Family if prosecutors dangled a deal with a dainty sentence. Serious was only four or more ounces of a controlled substance such as cocaine or heroin.
    For men who make their living illegally, the profit in drugs was frequently too strong a lure. Many interpreted the rule this way: Don’t get caught dealing drugs. They dealt on the side, secretly; they called it going “off the record.” It was a gamble, and many who got caught were killed by Family antidrug police.
    Dominick Lofaro had “rolled over” two years earlier after a 25-to-life heroin arrest in upstate New York. He was there to manage a gambling operation, but off the record he was making between $30,000 and $50,000 a kilo (2.2 pounds) for simply buying and reselling heroin to local dealers. He informed the arresting officers he was a “made” Gambino soldier in Ralph Mosca’s crew.
    A made soldier is a formally inducted member of the Family. In a secret ceremony, the soldier promises loyalty to the Family above all else. It’s sometimes called “getting your button” or “getting straightened out.” Made men are also known as “good fellows” or “nice fellows” or “friends of ours.” Many men spend years as “associates,” waiting for the day when they’ll be deemed able money earners with the right character traits. They must be of Italian blood.
    Made men are required to take a vow of noncooperation with the authorities. This is why Lofaro was so prized by the state’s Organized Crime Task Force—only a few have ever broken the vow. There could have been only one explanation for his admission when he was arrested: He wanted to deal.
    “We had him turned that night,” recalled the director of the Task Force, Deputy New York Attorney General Ronald Goldstock. “He was facing big time, but we think he was more afraid he would be killed by Mosca or Castellano. Mosca was an old-timer; he would have enforced the no-drug rule.”
    A body transmitter was added to Lofaro’s wardrobe. No court had to approve this action because legally, a person can secretly tape his own conversations in New York. Lofaro wore the device many months before he met John Gotti and taped him discussing an illegal gambling operation.
    Lofaro’s taping of Gotti gave the Task Force what it needed—evidence of a crime—to undertake an electronic mugging that would have been illegal without a court order. It asked a judge for permission to plant a listening device—a bug—in an annex to Gotti’s Bergin Hunt and Fish Club; and in March of 1985 the bug crawled in and alighted somewhere, according to a court paper, “within two rooms located behind the red door immediately adjacent to the Nice N EZ Auto School,” which was one door down from the Bergin club.
    Over the next several months, the bug—and, later, a phone tap—raised a secret window on the life of John Gotti, although none of his “overheards” could be used in the federal racketeering case pending against him and others because they were recorded after Gotti was indicted.
    The Task Force’s eavesdropping order expired in October 1985. After the December murders, Ralph Mosca’s conversations with informer Dominick Lofaro were cited in an affidavit requesting approval to reinstitute surveillance. Beginning on December 27, the two rooms behind the red door next to the Nice N EZ Auto School were rebugged and the phone was retapped.
    “Gotti is [now] the central figure in the Gambino Family, and seems to have decided that the Family members need not carry weapons; therefore, Gotti must necessarily have knowledge of the facts behind the killings of Castellano and