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