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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 Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Night Stalker 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 Zupanski.
Good evening from real life mafia survivor Frank D. Matteo. The gripping account of the life and crimes of the most feared mafia boss of all time. Carmine Leelo Galante, the prime mover behind the legendary French connect. The son of Sicilian immigrants, Camillo, Carmine Galante was raised in Manhattan's Little Italy and, by all accounts, born bad. At each ten,
his home away from home was juvenile detention. By fifteen, he was terrorizing the streets of New York's Lower East Side, scoring high marks for the errands he was running for his La Costa and Nostra elders. When he turned twenty, Galante was already one of the mob's top enforcers, a sadistic thrill killer and clinically diagnosed psychopath with big dreams whack his way into controlling organized crime the world over, vowing to kill mafia chieftains Tommy Luchesi and Carlo Gambino
and take control of their mob families. Carmine Lelo Galantes rise to mafia star, was infamous hit man for the Luciano and Genovese crime families. Named Consigliere by Joseph Bonano,
he wiped out eight members of the Gambinos. On behalf of Mussolini, he assassinated the publisher of an anti fascist newspaper, The biggest dope peddler in the country according to law enforcement, Galante helped orchestrate one of the largest heroin trafficking operations on record, a power move too dangerous for his rivals in the narcotics trade. The heads of the five New York families decided that the psychotic Dalante had to be stopped.
On July twelfth, nineteen seventy nine, finishing his lunch in a Brooklyn restaurant, Galante got what he dished out his whole life, a shotgun blast of the face, his trademark cigar still clenched in his teeth. The book that we're featuring this evening is a Cigar Carmine Galante Mafia Terror, with my special guest authors Frank d Matteo and Michael Benson. Welcome to the program. Frank Di Matteo and Michael Benson. Thank you, thank you very much. Let's start off immediately
with just a little bit of your background. Frank, how you came to be the author of this book.
Henniston Publication asked me and Mike to do a book, and apparently they wanted something on Carmine Colente and they approached us, and I spoke to Mike and I had two meetings with Colente in the seventies, so they said, would you like to do it?
And we did it.
You take us in the book the Cigar and tell us the reference with the cigar and Lilo, and tell us about Camilo Galante's beginnings. You say he was born in nineteen ten in New York City. Tell us about his parents, and tell us about the boys from Castellamare and the connection with the Bonano family. Tell us a little bit about this history. In Sicily and Camilo Galente.
You explained the possible relationship between his father Carmine's father and the Banano family that traced right back to Italy and its roots. And also this the Castello Mare people that stood up for themselves. What that represented in America. You say that they had few opportunities when they came to America, and this organization and had traced back to
Italy provided for them once they were in America. So tell us about him rising in the ranks of the Banano family and really what he aspired to in terms of his rule with the Banano family.
Frank and I have been a team for a while now. This is not our first book together. We teamed up originally because Frank, all by his lonesome, sat down at his computer and wrote a book called Lion in the Basement, which completely rock and rolled. It was fantastic. But Frank's not an educated guy in a formal sense, but he
could share tell a story. So Kensington Publishing brought me in because I can talk college and Fix it Up had some material and it came out as Growing Up Mafia the President Street Boys, which is still one of the greatest books ever written. All I did was Fixed it Up, I swear, But we became friends and the team worked well, so we went on to write a book about Carmine the Snake. Persepto wrote about Albert the Mad Hatter Atastasia, we wrote about carmin Dibiazzi aka Sunny Pinto,
the man who actually killed Joey Galo. Don't pay any attention to that irishman bs. And because those books were successful and still continue to do very well, we were doing Galante now, who was the all time world's greatest heroin dealer nows for the Costakala Mai. I think when Lucky Luciano set up the five family system, he gave Costa Calamari their own family, and that was the Bananos. The Bananos had been running that town in Sicily for generations,
and Joseph was just the youngest one. He was sent to America to take care of the people from town who had immigrated to America. So when the Galantes arrived in America, they don't know diddley about US government. You know, their government is going to be the Banano crime family. So it's perfectly possible that Carmine had no choice whatsoever as to what he was going to do with his life. He was going to be a Banano.
So ay you introduced a couple of characters that will remain through this entire story. Angelo Moe Prisonzano and best friend Giuseppe Joseph Joey Beck di Palermo. These guys are around when he's fifteen years old and he begins his criminal career. Tell us about his ascension in the Banano family. What is he hired to do or what is his role within that family? And tell us about that rise in the family.
I think the thing I understand about Glante is that he's a crook from childhood. By the time he's ten years old, he's already in reform school. He's got his own juvenile delinquent gang by the time he's fourteen. He gets his first major bust at fifteen, and by the time he comes out of thing sing he's a grown man who's considered one of the mob's top enforcers. And Joey Beck and cousin Moe, they're there from the start. Joey Beck is a particularly interesting character because of the
way he looked. He stood out in the crowd. Most of the tough guys were kind of shortened squat, but Joey Beck looked like he'd been tortured too long on the rack. His neck was long, his head was bulbous. He had a big forehead, the coke bottle and his glasses and a protruding Adam's apple. It was its own cold killer. So it's just it's horrified to think that there were people who the last thing they saw was that face in there's with his hands around their throat.
As for Cousin Mowee, Cousin moy was brain trust for Galante. He was the guy who would expect Galanti's not that smart of the guy. I don't think he was the mentally handicapped fellow he pretended to be when he was in police custody. But it wasn't an intellectual. It wasn't much of a thinker, and he always had somebody at his side that did the thinking part for him. He
did the tough guy part. And Cousin Mohi was that character in his life for a long time, right up until maybe a half hour before his death, at which point you know Cousin Mohi took an unexpected powder.
You take us to Christmas Eve nineteen thirty and this gun battle at the Lieberman Brewery. Tell us about that. Then, what is the result for Carmine silver Bells.
It's Christmas time in the city and it's hustling and bustling in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Galante and some friends decide they're going to bump off the Lieberman Brewery, which they do, and they would have gotten away with it too, except for they ran into a beer truck outside and decided
they were going to take some beer as well. And while they're breaking into the truck to take out the cases of beer, they get caught by Detective Joseph Minahan, and Mina Han says, hey, what are you guys doing there? And Galante says, you know, eat lead copper and starts shooting at him, and he hits Minahan wounds him, but he also hits a six year old girl named Shirley Herushowitz lived on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, one of the few streets that goes from one side of Brooklyn all
the way to the other. You could walk from one edge to the other all the way on Bedford Avenue, change his character along the way. But surely Herschowitz was shot in the leg, so Blante has now shot a kid. There's four bullets strike Minahan's coat, but not him, which to remember Tracy's hat. Yeah, bad guys would always shoot at Dick Tracy and he take off his hat and there'd be a bullet hole in his hat. And he had a closet it was just full of hats with
bullet holes in it. And I spent eighty years. How come these guys don't aim a little lower? But four bullets and Minahan's coat and one in Minahan as well.
But he still manages to chase Colanti down and arrests him, and he goes away for his first long stretch in prison, which is probably the luckiest thing that ever happened to him, because the custall of Mauri's war takes place while he's in prison, and he most certainly would have been killed in that war had he been on the streets at that time.
At that time when he's in Dana Mora, he is seen by psychiatrists. What is their diagnosis? What do they have to say after speaking with him?
Well, first of all, Frank should tire remind me, Frank should tell you the story about he went to Dana morrilans. I got to see it from the outside, but still chilling story. Yeah, they said that he has a personality disorder, he is a psychopath, which is probably true. Psychopath is basically a man who has no conscience, and it's true. I don't think that Golan they ever felt bad about anything he did, no matter how horrible it was. Talking about Dani Mora. That don'll warp you right there.
You also talk about that while he's in prison, three years are added to his sentence. What is the incident that adds three years to his twelve and a half year sentence.
Well, it's a knife fight. He and cousin Moe get jumped in the prison yard and knife comes out and one guy's dead. And that's so Galante got three years tagged onto his sentence.
Now let's fast forward as you do. Once he gets out, he goes right back, as you say, whacking guys at the orders of Vito Genovezi, then the acting boss of the Luciano crime family. So what happens in terms of he has to look like he's working, looking like he's a legitimate person. What does he do in terms of trying to pretend that he's a working stiff, and what happens in his rise in the Banano family or the Genovie's as a hit map.
Well, they had cover stories. I think the cover story was he worked for an artificial flower company, or he was a truck driver for a truck company that only had one truck. These are things they put together, but basically for the irs, so they could file that they worked and made a certain amount of money, especially after you come out of prison, because you have to be gainfully employed and not hang around with other felons. But
he was in reality a hitman of growing importance. And when Vito Geneviz bullt the country and went to Italy to avoid going to prison for life, he made friends with Mussolini. You know Mussolini, who was the fascist leader of Italy at the time. And as a rule, the fascists and mafioso did not get along because there were competing governments. But in this case, Geneviz needed to make peace because he needed someplace to live in safety. So Mussolini said, Okay, you know, we'll protect you, but you
gotta do me some favors. You have anybody who in New York could kill a guy from me, And Jennevie says, yeah, as a matter of fact, that do it. So could you bump off Carlo trescaw Krlo Tresca is a publisher of an anarchist newspaper, anti fascist, you know, far left wing against the far right wing and Mussolini. Once this guy bumped off, I mean modern example would be if Joseph Biden wanted to bump off the editor of the New York Post or something like that. That that'd be
how big this is. And Tresca and a friend are going out to eat their on fifteenth Street and Fifth Avenue in a nice section of Manhattan, and Galante walked up and blew them away on nine forty at night, and they knew it was him too, because earlier in the day he had gone to his parole officer. His parole officers thought he was acting a little hanky and followed him, and he got into a car and they wrote down the license plate number. Couldn't follow any further
because there were gas rations because of the war. So once they got in the car, he got away. And then after the shooting, the little guy who does the shooting is seen getting in to a car that looks
just like that. And then hours later the car has founded abandoned and it has the same license plate number as the number the ro officer wrote earlier in the day, but while the bullets were flying, nobody wrote down the license plate number, so they all they knew was that the killer got into a car like the one that Valante was seen getting into and was abandoned or the
shooting site. Later and he was released for lack of evidence, but not until his pictures in the newspaper The Assassin, and they think they had his name wrong, that rock o' Galante is the option for the portrait. The picture and he's looking small and the cops are just towering over him. He's disheveled, and within a few weeks he was free.
That's how you know, how they make big mistakes by using a car they used all day. I mean, that's where it not too blight comes in.
Yeah, although I'm not sure he knew that he was being followed on foot by his parole officer when he got into that car that morning.
No, I didn't know. But you don't use your same car. I mean, but it's the forties, I mean it's not today.
I mean they stole it first thing, good morning, they used it all day and didn't get rid of it until after the assassination.
Yeah, that's a no no, man, that's a really a no no. But you know, like I said, the forties, it things a little different then, but a big mistake.
Well he didn't sit with us back to the entrance either, but it didn't do any good.
Well yeah, well, so.
Legal problems are arising are a constant for Carmine. But at the same time, nineteen fifty three, he is sent to Montreal to oversee the heroin operation. There tell us a little bit about this move by organized crime to have him in Montreal and dealing with the heroin distribution.
At the same time that they're setting up the pipeline to bring the heroin into the US, they're recruiting an army out of Koslomara to function as soldiers in America, so to make sure that nobody else tries to get in on the action and that everything runs smoothly. And these are called zips, right. Only thing I could find was they're called zips because they speak really fast. But Frank says, you know, he met a zip once and didn't didn't speak that that quickly.
You take us On October twenty fifth, nineteen fifty seven and Albert the matd hatter Anastasias killed at a barber shop, and you write that there's a power vacuum in the five family system as a result. Banano Consigula Air now is Galante. He was invited to this meeting at Barbara's place in Appalachian, New York. This is a historic sit down. You cite that it's an all star cast. Tell us about this sit down and what happens.
Yeah, it's a major, major deal with There's Bananos there, Profacci's there, Gambino's there, Geneviev's there, poly Castellano was there, and apparently so is Galante. But when the when the meeting was busted by local law enforcement, and I really wish we had videotape of this because this would have been just unbelievable to watch. All these top hoods just ran.
There was a big field and wood with the woods at the other side of it, and they ran until they got to the woods, and someone managed to disappear, and some got picked up by cops who are out there scouring for them, and goal on they got away, which is was not the first time he'd almost gotten in trouble in that area. He'd been picked up a couple of years earlier for a speeding ticket near the Barbara Place, and what a fuss. I mean, it's hard
to figure out what was going on. He was going seventy and a fifty mile an hour zone, and yet politicians and judges all form in try to make sure that he doesn't have to go to jail. But he goes to jail anyway for thirty days, which seems like a long time for a speeding ticket. But much fuss and much fuss about the fuss about Galante's speeding ticket.
The only real conclusion you can come to is that the corruption was so deep into what we would think of as legitimate government that it was just frightening to people.
Well, they had guys in their pocket up bit, they had a consulmate, they had judges, they had lawyers though days, so they tried to buy the way out of everything.
His lawyer was the mayor.
Yeah, so they you know, it was just.
Still I think it was still publicized. That's why it was a bigger headache for him than anybody else. If it wasn't, you know, so publicized, it would have been squashed even faster than it.
Was pay a fighting get out of here.
That's a yeah comline, you know, I mean it was, it was on the radar already, so that you.
Talk about that, that he's on the radar in January nineteen fifty eight. As of that time, it's to get Galante program. The Joint Legislative Committee on Organized Crime looking for Frank Garofolo, but also that Galante is missing and they don't know where he is, and the newspaper articles are portraying him as very very big person and important person in the world of organized crime.
Yeah, well he's developed a second identity, comes with a second wife and a child with the second wife. Although he wasn't wasn't technically a big a miss. There's no evia he married the second wife. Well, yeah, he was with Paul. It was his first thing was Aquavella. I was going to say that Galante is a horrible, horrible man, but he was in his way a great gangster. I mean, he was never ever going to rat. Never, it wasn't
going to happen. And while you know, rats were turning left and right, he was going to do his time and keep his mouth shut. And that was that was typical of that generation. Of guy. I mean, it's part of I think is that the Costello Mari's tradition.
Let's continue in nineteen fifty eight, because Joey Beck goes on trial and he's considered a very big person in the heroin business. And also Luciano's apartment was searched and they found a little black book. Many people arrested as a result, and Luciano is sent to Dona Mora as well, serving ten years. You tell us that there was also a move instead of arresting and convicting, trying to convict these people, that four hundred Italillians were deported rather than prosecuted at that time.
Right, But in order to do that, they had to be Italian citizens and not be naturalized Americans. Right. There was a story and that I'll ask Frank in a second if he believes this, But there was a story that Gallante had been actually born in Italy and came to America when he was four, which case he could
have been deported. But there was paperwork saying that he had been born in the Lower East Side of New York as Camillo allowed a different name, and as far as we know, he had always lived in what was that at that time of Lily, which is today the East Harlem long Ways from the Lower East Side. So's if he was not born in the United States. There was an excellent paper trail to convince the government that he was right. And that's the reason he wasn't deported.
The only time was ever deported, he was deported from Canada to the United States.
All right, let's talk about June first and the nineteen fifty nine. The traffics stopped capture in Homedell, New Jersey, of Galante.
He got caught during a traffic stop. I guess that's the way these things go. You get away with the four hundred felonies and then you get caught because your right rear tail lights out or something like that. And eventually they started talking to missus Aquavella. Well, first time they spoke to her said a lot of interesting things because she couldn't keep her mouth shut. And she said that, oh yeah, well sometimes he does call himself Karmaine Yah,
it's true. Oh yeah, he does consider himself a professional gambler. Yeah yeah, yeah. And they thought they really had a nice source in her, but then they immediately got a message from her lawyer saying they were not to speak to her again without them there, and of course the next time they spoke to her, she says she'd never heard of Karma and Galante and had no idea that I really don't know much about my husband, I think.
Is what she said exactly. They told him to shut up.
Yeah, this trial is characterized though too by his Galant's bail is revoked because is one of the female witnesses that has been threatened. So the judge takes this opportunity to revoke his parole. And you say the whole trial was shrouded in danger. Anyone involved in the prosecution was in danger, and with numerous defecting jurors, like, for example, someone that was the jury foreman on the closing arguments that night fell down the stairs, broke us back and
had a severe concussion. Anyway, as a result, five and a half months later in this trial, the mistrial is declared. And so now there's a new bail hearing for Galante. And you write that the FBI is under immediate surveillance of Galante, and he still has a couple other sprawling cases that he has to deal with as well.
They grant they got to get to the juries like they did years ago, and they threatened them and they and they backed down, and he got away, and he got away with that trial. You know, he was under radar, so the mini came out, he was under investigation from multi things, so he just went right back into you know, the surveillance went right back on him in next case.
You know, convicting Glante, it was a chore even when he was a kid. I think he was still a teenager and they were having witnesses disappear, so it was very early on. Word was out that he didn't want to necessarily be the guy that put Galante behind bars.
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that's ZipRecruiter dot com slash mur der. ZipRecruiter the smartest way to hire. Now we last laptop, Michael. We were talking about all the things that are happening around Galante, the prison sentences that are looming for narcotics and other crimes that he's involved in. There are trials that he is named in as well. What happens next with Carmine Galante.
Well, eventually they do manage to get a conviction and he's sent away for what twelve thirteen years? And this time while he's away, the big move to run the Banano family comes from a fellow named Restelli, Rusty rest Delli. That's not his real first name. I think it his real first name with the seconds. But the interesting thing about rest Eelli is that he had the marriage from Hell, who was married to a woman named Connie, who was,
you know, good looking if she'd shaved that day. He was a former abortionist, and they took turns shooting each other. And it was on December eighteenth, nineteen sixty one, Connie shot Rusty and Rusky was arrested as well because she shot him with his gun. She was charged with felonius assault. On February ninth, nineteen sixty two, judge dismissed rest Ellie's gun possession chargers kind of kind of he took a bullet for it already. And then Connie went to the cops.
They went to the FBI rather and said they should look into her husband's activities as a drug trafficker. And they knew he was in the murder, extortion, and loan shot gambling, but they didn't anything about drugs. So this was interesting, open up a new vein of research for them. And then on March fourth, nineteen sixty two, Connie was killed in the hallway of her home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, shot five times. And that crime has never been solved.
But I have a sneaking suspicion, I know who did it. One of the advantages that Restelli had over Galante wasn't just that during the nineteen sixties when Glante was in and Restelli was out, but also Restelli had friends within the family who wanted to see him succeed, which wasn't necessarily true of Galante. And when Galante finally gets out of prison in nineteen seventy four, he's determined to make
Restelli's life as miserable as possible. And one of the things he does is he has his step son bumped off. But that's Connie's kid, So we're not sure that that Restelli was that upset about it.
Frank you right about the first time that you met and the circumstances in which you met Galante, And this is with the Larry Gallo crew hangout and you talk about your father, Ricky de Matteo, tell us a little bit about your father and just the circumstances in which you met Bellante.
Well, my father came up to Tony Bender.
He was a bounce from a bender in the wheel in the city when Larry Joey was recruiting some captains to help break away from the Pafaci family.
That's how my father met to Joey Larry.
My father went up getting to a fight knocking out Amiel Grifforth, and Larry liked, you know how he use his hands. So they went to Tony Bender, next Bender. If they can, you know, let them come to New York, come to Brooklyn, and they brought my father. Larry pressed my father and said you want to come brook with a crew and my father said yes, and he wound up being bodyguard to Larry from the sixty one or something like that till Larry died.
So he wound up being a crew member with the Gallo family.
What happened then when I get old enough to start hanging around and driving, I wanted to becoming a driver for my father and my godfather and Joshah Panny and broke my Chevy and that now I'm not in the block with the Preasustree boys. And one day this guy Louis the searing was like in the block which has had a big connection with with the Hashish. We got a big load off the docks. It was a really large load and Louis Sai we had a hard time
moving all. So they reached out to Uh. We had a friend that knew, Carmen Delante, so my father went and approached them to see if they get some help move and the stuff.
Common came down to the block. We had a meeting on President Street.
We had to sit down on President Street and Common said that he can't do nothing, but he has other connections that would help us, and then started around floud. There was other conversation going on. And in the next meeting, we had to go up to Waisburg, you know, to go speak about the what he what he was going to do for us, and what the payment was going to.
Be and stuff and stuff like that.
And both times I was a gentleman. I mean, he didn't speak like noble guy, you know what I mean. He was not very friendly as far as though smiling and uh and happy, you know, jumping around. But I mean he spoke well, you know, very forceful, spoke well. He speaked like somebody that was big, very powerful, and he did the favor, got paid, well, got a piece of it. But that's what he wanted. He didn't want a big partners with nothing. He wanted an envelope.
But that's what he got.
And I know, I thought I was impressed with him. I thought he was you know, you know, he he was quiet and carried a big stick. And that's the we wound up meeting, and I wanted to meet him twice. There was other meetings in between, but I wasn't the driver on and I wasn't there.
A couple of things Frank's did did not knock out Amiel Griffith in the ring. If he had, the things would have been very, very different. Amil Griffith was the middleweight champion of the world. They knocked him out in a bar fight because he was trying to bounce him. And one of the meetings with Calante with that Frank was at took place at Joe and Mary's restaurant on Nick Krbaker Avenue in the Bushwax section of Brooklyn. Yes,
which of course is the scene it's Carmine Galante's final scene. Yes, it also takes place at that very spot, which was great for me when I'm trying to write the scene in the book, because I have a first person eye witnessed to what it looked like in there. He didn't get past the front door.
You write throughout this book. The lack of cooperation that Galante has when he's in court to any question at any time. You write that he is a person that remains silent to almost any question asked to him in court whatsoever. You also talk about the pro violation that he winds up receiving and why, and also his legal problems and his competitor is is Foe Russtelli also have legal problems that they have to deal with and end
up in prison. So tell us about this ongoing fight between the two and their raise into prison as a result.
Well, my favorite story about Galante getting out of prison is that he had while he was in he made a list of gangsters who he wanted to die before him, and number one in that list was arch enemy Frank Costello. But Costello, damn him, had died of natural causes while Colante was in prison. So Galante orders his Zips to go to Saint Michael's cemetery and to blow up the tomb and to mess with the remains. And I don't think those are the exact words he is, but that's
the idea. So sure enough, the Zips they buy dynamite, they go out there, they blow the door off of the place, and according to the police report, the remains had been disturbed. I not too many guys have the stomach for that kind of work because growing tough in Costello Mari. An interesting note, I went to Saint Michael's Cemetery last year to take a picture of the tomb. I went into the office as I always do, and he could be directions how to find the place, and
they said, no, we can't. It's on our private list. We're not allowed to tell people how to get there. And just like fifty years later and they're still worried that somebody's going to be showing up with a hand grenade. Luckily I didn't have any trouble finding it because it is the biggest tomb in the entire cemetery, larger than some Manhattan apartments.
You write that the lifelong relationship with Joey Beck would be Galante's downfall, and this was when he visited Joey Beck in the hospital, and this was the parole violation. Now, once he's in prison, he is notified of something very very interesting that he doesn't agree with. Tell us what he's notified in prison once he's there.
So it seems to be one of the standard crazinesses that really powerful gangsters have is that they come to believe that they are bulletproof. I mean, it was the same way with Joey Galo and he definitely should have more security than he did, but you know, they can't shoot me, and that's his way of not thinking about it.
And Galante refused all efforts to keep him secure. He just didn't believe it was real, probably not until the very moment that he had a shotgun pointed at the center of his chest.
Before that, you chronicled the work of Joseph D. Pistone and people know him as Donnie Brasco, and so you call it the Donnie Brasco fiasco. How does he play into this and how is Galante affected? If at all?
It makes the Banana family look foolish. And Galante's main ally who's Joey Bananas has been exiled to the American Southwest. He's counting cactuses. And he had a lot of support below him. He didn't have support above him. The Commission wasn't on his side. You know, the godfather, who had been his godfather since the day was born, was no longer in power. He was he was what he wanted to fill the void he saw, not realizing that he didn't get to make that choice.
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What's every details?
Now?
We talked about the circumstances in which he is marked for death and who makes those decisions, but you also talk about actually the exiled Banano is called and also gives his approval as well. Meanwhile, in the press he has been called the boss of bosses, and it seems like he believes it. So take us to the circumstances again. At Joe and Mary's Italian American restaurant, which is a cousin of Galante as a matter of fact, and tell
us what happens. You mentioned the tall guy which was his one of his bodyguards, which was six foot seven and part of what they were called zips, and his bodyguards, and also his beloved cousin Moe is there, and you did talk about for a bit about what happens during dinner. So tell us about this elaborate dinner outside beautiful temperatures, and what happens at that dinner.
It's a little bit hot. It's eighty eight degrees out and they're sitting on pavement. It's July twelfth, typically the hottest day of the hottest month of the summer, and they're in the patio behind Joe and Mary's probably because there's no electronic surveillance devices. They're outside right now. Early in the meal, Angelo President Zano, Carmiden's trusted cousin Moe says, I don't feel so good. I got to go for a walk. They says, yea, yea before a walk, anything
about it. So the guy who'd been on Gallante's side all along his whole life, even you know, got in trouble with him in prison, has now left his side forever. About two forty five in the afternoon, hottest time of the day, and they're between courses. The main meal has been eaten and everyone's waiting for the dessert to be served. Four men get out of a Mercury sedan on Nikoboka Avenue out front. Three of them are armed with handguns and a shotgun. Their faces are obscured by ski masks,
which couldn't have been comfortable in that temperature either. They entered Joe and Mary's through the front door. Now, the fourth driver or the fourth guy was the driver Santo Jordano. He had the rifle and he stood guard on the sidewalk to make sure nobody came in during the shooting. Guy that Joe Toronto is the owner of the place. His son shouts out a warning when these guys come in, because the ski masks and the guns are dead giveaway.
So while two of the gunmen moved swiftly through the restaurant and burst into the outdoor patio, the third was a dominic big trin Trinchera, stopped in the storeroom and shot and wounded Toronto's sons for shouting out a warning. He then joined the other two on the patio. But what are you doing? Toronto managed to say, looking back over his shoulder. He's the one who sat with his back to the entrance. Now the gunfire erupts, stands a Toronto.
It's hysterical. In the kitchen, she's hiding behind a refrigerator. All three gunmen are turned to the men at the table, and Russell Morrow, I think, is the guy who actually kills Galante, and he does it with a shotgun blast to the center of Galante's chest, it says in the face on the back of the book, But I don't think that's way it happened. Gets the shotguns blast to the center of the chest and then handgun shots to
the face. There's lighting a cigar when the shot takes place, and when he falls to the ground, his cigar is still in his mouth and his blood blowing out of his body into a drain. His life literally going down the drain and astoundingly has so often happened back in those days. Photographer from the daily news shows up before the cops, so there's pictures, you know, the exactly the way the scene looked before anybody showed up and started
taking fingerprints. Now it was Bruno Whackwack and Delecato shot and killed Toronto and as there a the tall guy Bonventre he was he stood up during the shooting and joined the hit team. He shot and killed another guy at the table named Capola, and then fired two shots into his ex boss's dead body, just to let everybody know that he was on the side that winning.
What's interesting is you write that there's a backup car outside the restaurant observing everything with Sonny red Into Locado, Joey Messino, jb Intacado and Phil Giacconi and a Modo and Bonaventure.
Uh.
You right that both of those guys had come into the restaurant strangely in leather jackets despite this hot weather.
Yeah. I don't know what that would mean. Why you would wear a leather jacket for that occasion. They didn't arrive by motorcycle. I have no idea just fashion that could be. It might be a light weight light lets the jack guy.
Yeah, it makes no sense. The guy's got guns on the murder anyway. I can't see no reason why that.
They died in a polo shirt.
Yeah.
Now, you you right that there's retaliation for this eventually the people that murdered him get theirs.
Although, yeah, cause and effect, it's sometimes hard to figure in these cases. If you start saying that everybody who who whacked somebody and then later got whacked got what they deserved, and I guess that's that's the way it goes. It's I know that from just from reading contemporary newspaper reports and then talking to Frank about what actually happened. It's sometimes very difficult to tell why somebody was whacked.
You know, like murdering used to have Jewish guys and Italian guys, and the Jewish guys would whack the Italians who got out of line and vice versa, and it looked to the police if they caught somebody like the Jews and the Italians were at war with one another, when in reality you just had a set of professional killers who were taking care of guys who've done the wrong thing, and that's he had nothing to do with it. They're mixing up the ethnicities just to throw off the cops.
Yeah, you write that in October eighth, nineteen eighty six. The case started in eighty three, But the people that were involved in the Galante hit into Galacado with his daughter testifying and nineteen eighty six finally brought to trial over the murder of Galante.
Right, that's why we know the details of who shot who, because there was some testimony years later from my witnesses. I think that justice was done. I mean Galante was not a nice guy. He certainly if he had been given a contract at eighteen years old saying that you're going to live to be close to seventy and then you're going to go out to a shotgun blast, he probably would have signed that contract. I think he basically
had the life that he wanted to have. He was never boss of bosses, but he imagined he was for a period of time, which probably was just as good. But yeah, I mean, you live that kind of life, that's how you're going to go.
You're right of the trial in February eighty five to November eighty six which convicted Salerno, Corralo, Sontora, Greaneri, Persico, Langella, and Scopa, all these organized crime individuals who sentenced to one hundred years, except into Locado, which was forty years. At the end of this book, you talk about the Galante blood and Carmine's nephew tell us a little bit about the Galante blood.
I don't know how much we want to talk about it. I mean, I think that guy's getting out of jail soon. Yes, one of Galante's descendants was also had some trouble with the law. You know, not everybody, you know. And then I don't think that it's it's I don't want to imply that there's a gangster gene. It's being passed from generation to generation. But there was was a member of Galante's family who sort of followed in the family tradition
and got himself into some pretty bad trouble. But you know, he's paid his debt to society and hopefully that's all.
In the epilogue, you talk about the fate of the Bonano family and then just a state of organized crime after these commission hearings and all of the people that were informants. So tell us a little bit about the fate of some of these people that were involved.
Well, it's Rico laws. Rico laws changed everything. It turned out that number one thing to break up gangs in the United States was a law which said that if you are the leader of an organization and the organization commits crimes, and you're guilty of those crimes, whether or not you had direct knowledge or gave direct orders to commit those crimes. And it's it's conspiracy law, is what it is. And it changed everything because you can no
longer get away with plausible deniability. It just didn't work anymore. And ten years since were turning into life terms, and that may the pledge of Omerta seemed just a little less important. And of course, in the more generations you get away from Sicily, you know, the less you're gonna
have that kind of thinking. So generally, the law enforcement took the wind out of this, took the wind down of the stells of the mob by changing the law, not necessarily through detective work or anything like that.
You also talk. The only way to understand this Galante and the story is to also understand how the mafia were in not in denial, but pretended that they had nothing to do with narcotics, especially heroin.
You know interesting that I read Joseph Bonano's autobiography It's called A Man of Honor, and five hundred pages long, little print, not a single mention of Carmine Galante as a guy who was his right hand man, who they went They went to Sicily together to set up a heroin system. But because Banano didn't want the world to know that he had partaken in dealing drugs, he couldn't he couldn't put Galante in his in his life story. They had to remove him entirely. So and and that's
the that was the hypocrisy. They really didn't from a public relations point of view, I want to be thought of as guys who just we just help with people's vices. You know, you want sex, we give you women. You want to gamble, we give you gambling and that kind of thing. You know, what harm is being done, well, really, what harmon is being done here is a lot. I think they got away with it among themselves for years, basically through racism. They were just going to we're just
going to sell the dope to black people. And I think there's a line like that even in The Godfather where they're trying to decide whether they should do this, and it's largely true they that's how they soothed their consciences, those of them who had consciences. I don't think a lot of you cared wed right.
That big fat envelope helped a lot, you know, to tie the cheek right.
Absolutely, a lot done with a fat envelope.
Yes, I want to thank you very much Frank di Matteo and Michael Benson for coming on and talking about your extraordinary The Cigar, Carmine Galante Mafia Terror. Thank you so much for this interview. And it is there if people want more information, is there any way that they might contact you, Frank or find out more about your work?
You get anything I have at the mobcadymag dot com. Everything I have for me and Mike Dunn is on there that's said. You get a hold of me mob candymed dot com for.
Me, Just go to author Michael Benson on Facebook. You'll get the get the whole deal.
Thank you so much, Frank Dematteo and Michael Benson. Thank you, Dan, thank you The Cigar Irman Galante, Mafia Terror. Bye bye, all right, good night