Surviving the Mob by Dennis Griffin Read Free Book Online

then.”

VENGEANCE
    On a Friday night in late February, Andrew got the news that after six months of pursuit, Todd Alvino was dead. The murderer of Albert Lattanzi was shot to death outside a dance club on Rockaway Parkway and Avenue N in Canarsie. In a bit of irony, this was the same location that had once been home to the Bamboo Lounge, a known hangout for Lucchese family members and associates. It was torched by Lucchese soldier Henry Hill and that scene was reenacted in the 1990 movie Goodfellas.
    Andrew was on a date that night, at the Seaview Diner a few blocks from the shooting scene. Someone came in, said a guy was gunned down outside the dance club, and Andrew ran over. The area was roped off and in the middle of it was Alvino’s brown Caddy coupe.
    Later that night, Andrew learned that Alvino had a passenger with him when he pulled up in front of the club. Thepassenger went inside to get some cigarettes, while Alvino waited in the car. That’s when he was killed.
    The next day was the regular Saturday meeting at the social club. Anthony and Mike showed up later than everyone else. As soon as Nicky saw Mike, he moved everybody out of the way and said, “There’s my fuckin’ man.” They shook hands and kissed each other on the cheek. Then Nicky, Mike, and Anthony walked away for a private conversation.
    “Nicky treated Mike with a whole different level of respect that day,” Andrew remembers. “Like an equal. When I heard about the shooting the previous night, I thought Mike might have been involved in it. But after seeing the way Nicky acted toward him, there was no longer any doubt.
    “A couple of days after that, I was talking with Anthony. I told him how happy I was the Alvino thing was over. I just wished I could have been there, because I wanted so bad to avenge Albert. Anthony said, ‘It doesn’t matter. If you’d have been there, it would have got done. It happened we were there and it got done. The important thing is that it got done.’ This was the first actual admission I’d heard that Anthony and Mike had killed Alvino.
    “The second came a few weeks later while Mike and I were driving around talking. With Alvino out of the way, we were looking for Evan, the guy who had been fighting with Albert the night Albert was murdered. Mike turned to me, made the sign of a gun with his fingers, and said, ‘We put one down. One down and one to go.’ We searched for Evan for a while. We found out he’d moved to Florida and eventually lost interest.
    “Here’s what happened later, though. The cops arrested Albert’s stepfather Sal for Todd Alvino’s murder. Sal wasn’t part of any organized-crime family, but he was a very dangerous man. He was looking for Alvino the same time we were. Sometimes we exchanged information with him about where we thought Todd might be. And sometimes we rode togetherwhen we were checking out various locations. So if he was also involved in Todd’s killing, it wouldn’t surprise me. Anyway, Sal was the only one charged. He was convicted and sent to prison. He died behind bars while serving his sentence.
    “The other families and crews had been watching to see how we handled the killing of one of our men. When Albert’s murder was finally avenged, it sent the word to them that Nicky Corozzo’s crew was a serious operation, one that deserved respect. In that sense, all our crew members were made the day Alvino died.”

INDICTMENTS
    In March, the imprisoned Lenny DiMaria, along with Nicky Corozzo and John Gotti, were among 10 defendants named in a two-count federal indictment. The first count charged them as leaders of a part of the Gambino crime family, in which they conspired together in the enterprise through “a pattern of racketeering activity” consisting of theft, illegal gambling, extortion, robbery, trafficking in contraband cigarettes, and acts and threats involving murder and robbery. The second count also charged the defendants with racketeering. It