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True Crime Documentary -Mafia Documentary - Roy DeMeo (The Gemini Lounge Butcher) · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

• 0:16
  Speaker 1: On a cold blustery morning, January 18th, 1983, a businessman
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: called the police once again to report a maroon Cadillac
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: that had been left in the parking lot of the
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Varness Boat Club in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, New York. It
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: had been there for over a week. Clearly, it was abandoned.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: The police had already been there once, and upon determining
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: that the car had not been reported stolen, had left
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: it where it was. They assumed that the owner would
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: eventually come to collect it, Yet, no one came, so
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: the club manager asked police to have another look. They
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: decided to investigate more fully. By now, they were aware
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: of a missing person report on a man from the area,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: filed by his wife, and this car fit the description
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: of the one they were seeking. The car appeared to
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: be empty, although there were dark stains on the seats.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: One officer jumped up and down on the rear bumper,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: and from the way the car rocked, he decided that
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: the trunk was empty, so they towed it to a
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: police garage. Forensic analysts allowed the car to warm up
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: inside for two hours before starting their examination. Then they
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: popped the trunk and found something they didn't expect, a chandelier.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: But there was something else. Beneath the chandelier was the
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: dead body of a heavyset, dark-haired man, 40-ish, who appeared
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: to have been shot several times. His body had frozen
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: into rigor mortis, and the cold January temperatures had kept
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: it rigidly in place, with one hand defensively over the face.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: His black leather jacket was wrapped around his head like
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: a turban, and his torso was frozen to the spare tire.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: A bullet hole went right through his now solid hand,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: and an examination later indicated an execution-style killing, with a
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: bullet hole behind each ear. In all, the man had
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: been shot seven times, and he lay in a pool
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: of frozen blood. According to his son, who later claimed
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: the car, papers from the gloves used by crime scene
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: technicians were dumped into the blood. as if the criminalists
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: had used the once fine car as a trash can.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: In the back seat was a wire that apparently had
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: been attached to a recorder, but the recorder was gone.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: There was also New York Magazine, according to reporters Gene
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Mustaine and Jerry Capici in Murder Machine, which featured a
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: cover story on dealing drugs. There was little doubt in
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: anyone's mind that this killing had been a professional hit
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: and that the body was meant to be discovered. It
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: was unlikely the killer or killers would ever be found. Yet,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: in many ways, the victim had done himself in, a
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: common fate for those who run with the wrong crowd.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: This man had left home on January 10th, around 9.30
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: in the morning, saying he had an appointment that afternoon
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: to go over some legal papers. His daughter's birthday party
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: was scheduled for that evening, and he assured his wife
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: he would be there. He was always around for birthdays,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: but he never returned this time. The family filed the
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: missing person report that led to the opening of the car.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: but it was eight days before they learned that he
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: had been executed and left locked in the trunk of
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: his car. His 17-year-old son cried in disbelief, but the
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: man's wife did not. She had him buried in St.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: John's Cemetery on Long Island. It was years before the
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: real story came out. Offered from two perspectives, the son
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: who knew that his father was in trouble, and someone
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: who knew the gang that had killed him. Currently, there
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: are two primary sources for information about Roy DeMeo. Murder Machine,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: and Albert DeMeo's For the Sins of My Father. Each
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: offers a significantly different perspective on the man reputed to
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: be the mafia's most cold-blooded killer, responsible for orchestrating possibly
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: as many as 200 executions. How does someone go from
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: such a powerful and feared position in one of New
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: York's prominent crime families to sharing the bloody trunk of
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: his car with a broken chandelier? Roy Albert DeMeo was
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: born in 1942, into a working-class Italian family in Brooklyn,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: New York. Like most teenagers in the 1950s, especially those
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: in economically deprived circumstances, he looked for ways to make money.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: From hanging out with the sons of a neighbor, mafia
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: boss Joseph Profaci, Roy learned about the illegal practice of
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: loan sharking. Someone with means loaned money to people who
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: could not get loans from regular venues, such as banks,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: and for this favor, they would then charge exorbitant interest rates.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: At first, Roy's assignments were just to pick up the
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: interest owed each week from various businesses, but eventually, he
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: learned how to make the loans on his own. Through
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: that enterprise, he was drawn more deeply into organized crime
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: and was exposed to the ways of the Southern Italians
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: who had transplanted to New York. Southern Italian men, as
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: detailed in Howard Abedinsky's Organized Crime, had long developed certain
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: ideals that fueled ambition in an arena where they were
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: otherwise powerless. According to their code, a real man, did
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: not cooperate with authorities, maintained self-control in the face of adversity,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: carried out vendettas to avenge any slight suffered by his family,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: and did not forget. According to this ideal, the family
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: connection was the only basis for trust, and that included
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: even the most remote blood relatives. Outsiders could become family
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: through rituals that involved the tradition of god-parenting. The patriarch
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: decided all of the important matters in the family, including
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: who would live and who would die, as well as
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: the enterprises in which the clan made money. Carlo Gambino
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: and Paul Castellano, for example, forbade drug dealing among family members,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: especially heroin, because the stiff penalties could easily turn dealers
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: into government informants. Those who participated in this illegal and
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: forbidden venue risked being made a memory. Everyone, writes author
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Richard Gambino in Blood of My Blood, was responsible to
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: the capo di famiglia. The duty of family members was
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: to make the family, especially the patriarch, wealthy, respectable, and powerful.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: That meant good marriages and honorable alliances with other families
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: of statuses, mostly Sicilians with Sicilians. Those who were strong
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: and aggressive on the family's behalf were rewarded with more
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: responsible roles. To prevent anarchy and the avenging of imagined slights,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: rules were devised to keep order. Hence, even as criminals
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: exploiting society at large, if they respected the rules, they
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: could consider themselves men of honor, a concept associated with domination, manhood,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: and strength. When several families were allied, or at least
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: in agreement, one man stood out as the boss of
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: all bosses, the capo di tutti capi. The others owed
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: him their support and respect. He offered protection in the
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: form of employment, lawyers when arrested, expenses for the family
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: when serving time, and threats against business rivals. For these services,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: he took a cut from everyone's pie. All business was
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: transacted through him, and he settled grievances among family members.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Nicholas Pelegi says that the attitude developed among wise guys,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: or members of traditional families dealing in organized crime, that
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: crime was preferred over legitimate business because much more money
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: could be made. In Wise Guy, Life in a Mafia Family,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: he states, They lived in an environment awashed in crime,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: and those who did not partake were simply viewed as prey.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: To live otherwise was foolish. Easy money, especially made by
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: getting one over on someone else, was the best money.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Apprenticeships often occurred within the neighborhood gang. You came into
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: contact with it, you got assignments, and you proved yourself.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: As an adolescent, Roy DeMeo might just as easily have
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: learned some other trade. His mother hoped he would become
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: a doctor. But loan sharking proved to be easy money,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: made quickly, and he was good at it, partly because
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: he had no qualms about using violence against someone who
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: failed to pay on time. He saw nothing wrong with
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: the practice. Strongly impressed with the shiny Cadillacs that the
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: neighborhood gangsters drove while he was growing up, he made
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: his choice. It wasn't long before he met members of
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: the Gambino crime family. Carlo Gambino commanded some 250 made
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: men and hundreds of other associates. who collectively controlled a
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: virtual crime empire in the New York area. Roy wanted in,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: so he proved himself as a soldier under the command
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: of Anthony Gagge, known as Nino. The more money he
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: turned over to Nino from his own take, the more
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Nino could pass on to his overbosses. Nino had influence,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: and Roy had the ability to earn, so they used
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: each other. Nino Gagge had grown up in the dog-eat-dog
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: world of Manhattan's Lower East Side, learning fast about the
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: survival of the fittest among the racketeers who made up
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: the crime families. Those who were powerful got the spoils,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: and they displayed their power in material wealth, fine clothing,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: and a polished appearance. Beneath tailored suits, silk ties, and
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: manicured nails, they were willing to do whatever it took
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: to develop, hold, and improve their position in the family.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: At 5'8 and 160 pounds, Nino had been a fighter,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: and he'd quickly sniffed out the opportunity for himself in
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: the form of his father's cousin, Frank Scalise. A loan
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: shark with connections in high places, Scalise was an underboss
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: for Albert Anastasia, and Nino ran a stolen car ring
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: for him. In 1957, Frank Scalise was hit while out
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: buying fruit, allegedly because he was selling memberships into the
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: family to enrich himself. Then, two more soldiers from the
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: same family were assassinated, including his brother, which provoked a
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: war in the underworld. By the end of that year,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Anastasia was murdered, which meant someone could take over the reins.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Carlo Gambino and his cousin and trusted underboss, Paul Castellano,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: rose to the top of the heap, and Nino, having
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: proven himself in the lesser rungs of the latter, now
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: became a made man. To become a made man in
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: a crime family, one had to demonstrate two abilities on
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: a continuous basis. One was to make money. As one
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: character on the Mafia television series The Sopranos told another,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: you're only as good as your last envelope. To prove
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: one's manhood meant lining the pockets of the bosses, as
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: well as one's own. The other qualification was to kill
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: when necessary. Family members had to be trustworthy, which meant
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: they kept quiet about the family's clandestine operations. If they didn't,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: they were dead. However, people could be whacked or eliminated
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: based on mere suspicion and innuendo. So, if someone wanted
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: to usurp another's business operations, he had only to spread
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: the rumor that the target man was either an informant
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: or talking subversive, as in threatening to undermine the boss.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: People got whacked for lesser crimes. But Roy's were not insignificant.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Roy was 32. living in a nice home in an
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: exclusive community with his wife and children when he committed
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: his first murder for the family. He was running an
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: extortion scheme with Nino against a lucrative X-rated film business,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: and when the owner and his partner were raided and arrested,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: it appeared that one of them, Paul Rothenberg, might offer
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: up his association with Roy and Nino in a deal.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Roy scheduled a meeting with him in a diner, ostensibly
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: to assist with legal expenses. When they got out of
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: their cars, Roy pulled a silencer-equipped gun, took the businessman
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: into an alley, and executed him with several bullets to
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: the head. Used to being a bully as a teenager,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: he had no problem threatening people. Now that he had killed,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: it was just business as usual to him. In fact,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: it empowered him. Once you've killed someone, he was later
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: to impress upon his apprentices, you can do anything. Thereafter,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: he began to train a crew of young men to
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: become killers on demand. and to get rid of a
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: body quickly and efficiently. Roy had once been a butcher's apprentice,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: so he understood how to cut limbs from bodies. Among
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: DiMeo's initial recruits was a 16-year-old Jewish kid named Chris Rosenberg,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: who despised his ethnicity and desperately hoped he could one
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: day prove himself to the extent that the Italians would
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: welcome him as one of their own. Roy met Chris
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: in the Brooklyn-based neighborhood of Canarsi, where Chris was dealing pot,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: and helped him move into a larger money-making arena. He
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: got Chris and his friends into the business of stealing
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: cars that could be turned into saleable items for wealthy
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: clients overseas. A car mechanic named Freddy DeNome joined them.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Then two more came aboard, high school dropouts Joey Testa
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: and Anthony Center. Roy bought an owner's interest in Phil's Lounge,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: a bar in the front of a two-story building from
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: which he had run his illegal operations, and one of
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: his cohorts renamed it the Gemini Lounge. Joey and Anthony
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: were soon dubbed the Gemini Twins. A fifth young man
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: with a killer's cold heart, Henry Borelli, came onto the
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: team and they would all meet at this bar to socialize,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: organize their illegal business operations, and perform more clandestine tasks.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Roy began collecting weapons as he kept his impressive arsenal
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: of machine guns, automatic rifles, and silencers in a room
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: at the lounge. He also installed his cousin, whose nickname
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: was Dracula, into the adjoining apartment. Because he could stomach it,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Roy devised a specific form of getting rid of someone,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: which eventually came to be known as the Gemini method.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: He trained his crew how to participate in a disassembly line.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: If someone needed to be made a memory, disposal was
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: always a problem, so his method appeared to be an answer.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Mustaine and Capicci, recording what they had learned from the
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: confessions of Nino Gaghi's nephew, Dominic Montiglio, present the method
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: in detail in Murder Machine. The target person, whom someone
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: higher up had ordered eliminated, would be invited into DeMeo's
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Gemini Lounge, or, in one case, the meat department at
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: a supermarket. He'd be shot at once by one crew member,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: often Roy himself, wrapped in a towel by another to
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: prevent blood from messing the place up, beheaded, and hacked
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: into pieces. The various parts were then packaged in plastic
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: garbage bags like meat and tossed into a dump. Just
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: like taking apart a deer, DeMeo told his gang, there
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: was no real difference. While they did execute a few females,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: there's no record of female dismemberment. However, this manner of
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: disposal had to be refined. The first time they tried it,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: on a criminal car dealer who turned informant in 1975,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: they were careless. First, Chris, Joey, and Anthony used a
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: pretty girl to lure Andre Katz, so she was a witness. Next,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: they hauled him off the streets publicly, leaving his car
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: open and empty, clearly a missing person. Then they took
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: him to a supermarket, where they met Roy. Then he
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: told them the plan, and they had to go along
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: with it, or walk. It was the moment of truth
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: for all of them. Could they deal with hacking a
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: human being apart? On this Night of the Knives, as
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Mustaine and Capicci call it, Chris used a butcher knife
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: to still the man's heart by piercing it clean through
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: several times. The crew donned butcher's aprons to proceed, and
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: the others wrapped the body parts in green bags. Then
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: they dumped these packages into a garbage bin to be
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: hauled away. However, the team had miscalculated when the garbage
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: collection would occur, giving a foraging homeless man ample time
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: to pull open the packages and expose the human body parts.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: He ran, but another man coming along saw what it
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: was and called the police. In all, they found eight
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: neatly wrapped packages, but never did find the genitals. The
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: coroner who examined the mess and eventually identified the remains
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: was Roy's second cousin. The girl who had innocently lured
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: the doomed victim read about his death in the papers
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: and turned on the crew. The police arrested two of them,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: but no evidence connected them to Roy. He got them
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: a lawyer, but they had to serve some time. When
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: their trial came, their lawyer undermined the girl's credibility and
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: the two crew members were acquitted. To Roy's relief, nothing
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: came of the incident that compromised him, and thereafter, with
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: the exception of a victim they hastily left half-decapitated in
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: a motel room, the crew took on the added chore
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: of taking the parts themselves to the dump. A few
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: were buried beneath ongoing construction, and one was sealed into
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: a barrel into which concrete was poured, but it appeared
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: that the standard disposal was the local garbage dump. Such
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: disappearances happened frequently and systematically. By some estimates, in less
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: than a decade, there were between 75 and 200. The
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: five men involved in the disassembly line said to associates
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: that they got a kick out of it. According to
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Mustaine and Capici, they used to say killing made them
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: feel like God. In 1976, when DiMeo was 34 and
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: had been training his killing crew for over a year,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Carlo Gambino died. Inevitably, power shifted and the new godfather
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: was now Big Paul Castellano. This was one more good
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: thing for Roy because the person closest to Castellano was
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Nino Gaggi. Although Castellano despised Roy, since he was a
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Neapolitan and therefore considered by the Sicilian gangsters as unreliable,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Nino kept putting in a good word for him. Being
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: a man with a strong sense of duty, Roy had
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: no trouble showing that he had what it took. Becoming
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: a made man was his goal, and that meant getting
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: attention for his feats. Making money was one of them,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: but the other, killing people. He developed into such a
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: grisly art form that stronger men with greater status actually
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: feared him. Castellano listened to the rumors about him with concern.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: He wanted no cowboys in the family, going off and
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: killing for the hell of it. He told Nino he
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: did not want Roy to become a made member of
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: the family. Roy thought it was just a matter of
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: turning more money over to him, so he redoubled his
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: efforts in his illegal businesses. He made deals with the
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Irish gangs on the west side, bringing in 10% of
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: their business. Nino told this to Big Paul, who could
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: not help but be impressed. Once Paul decided to make
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: some changes in the family roster, Nino once again advanced
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Roy's name for the status of made man, and Paul
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: once again refused. Yet he eventually acquiesced on the strength
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: of Roy's ability to negotiate with the troublesome Westside gang.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: And finally, Roy DeMeo got his button. He was a
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: member of the Gambino family. He pledged his allegiance to Omerta,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: the Sicilian code, and knew there was no getting out
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: of this alive. However, he continued to deal in drugs,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: despite the rule against it, and he was drawing the
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: FBI's attention. His reputation as a killer was of interest
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: to them. That's what concerned Paul Castellano. When the crew
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: killed a man who had offered information to a grand jury,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: along with shooting his young mistress and leaving their bodies
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: to be found, it was clear to Castellano that Roy
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: was acting on his own initiative. He had performed two
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: murders that had not been discussed or approved by his superiors,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: and there would be more. But Castellano had his own problems.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: With breaches in security, made men wearing wires, and murmuring
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: among family members that his leadership style was weak, Big
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Paul had to watch his back. The FBI was always there,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: just waiting for a chance at him. We had what
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: I believe was one of the first court-authorized video installations
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: on an organized crime case. said an FBI agent who
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: had done surveillance on Castellanos' enterprise. This was around 1975
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: or 76, as best I recall. We targeted Castellanos' loan
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: shark operation and managed to install a hidden video camera
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: along with microphones in what was their loan sharking headquarters.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: No microwave transmission then. We had to hardwire everything and
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: monitor it from a nearby Catholic school. Every day the
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: money would come pouring in from various collection points to
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: their location. We had them on camera counting the money,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: stacking it in piles, and checking their lists as to
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: who paid and who didn't, etc. They had compromised a
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: loan officer from a branch bank and would send their
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: clients to the bank, where the loan officer would make
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: sure the paperwork was right for their loan. In effect,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: they were using the bank's money for their loan sharking operation,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: skimming the vig off the top, and, most of the time,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: the bank got repaid as well. It was a sweet deal, until,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: as one of the thugs explained to me in flawless
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Brooklynese as we raided the place, youse guys are f
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: * * * ing this all up. Castellano withdrew out
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: of the social clubs, meeting with members less often. And
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: since Roy was not called on the carpet for his crimes,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: he expanded and empowered his killing crew. The years from
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: 1977 to 79 were their most prolific, and anyone who
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: got in the way or tried to cheat the crew
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: on deals seemed to disappear. Even members of the crew
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: were vulnerable, and it wasn't long before one of them,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: acting on his own initiative, got himself into big trouble.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Sometimes Chris Rosenberg, who felt like a son to Roy,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: would introduce himself as Chris DiMaio. Also like Roy, he
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: would go out on his own in business deals. When
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: a drug deal went bad in 1979 with some Cubans
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: in Florida, Roy learned that Chris had scammed them using
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: his last name, DeMayo. Chris had also told them that
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: he had a powerful father living in Brooklyn, and he
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: was involved with three Cubans and two Jewish men who
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: had gone to New York and had disappeared. That means
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: that when the Cubans came looking for the man who
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: had stiffed them and possibly snuffed their associates, Roy's family
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: would be right in the line of fire. That was unforgivable.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Yet Chris was like a son to Roy, and when
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: the Cubans told him what would satisfy them, he blanched.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: They wanted Chris dead, with a notice in the newspaper
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: that it had been accomplished. Otherwise, they would come looking
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: for him themselves. Nino had his nephew instruct Roy to
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: take care of it, but Roy stalled for several weeks,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: and the order was given again. Still, Roy stalled, and
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: withdrew into his home, paranoid that the Cubans would come
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: looking for him. At one point, he spotted a dark-haired
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: young man sitting in a Cadillac outside his home, apparently
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: looking through some papers. Roy's wife, Gladys, said that the
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: man had come to the door that day trying to
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: sell a vacuum cleaner. It seemed an unlikely story to Roy.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: He felt sure it was just a way to see
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: if Roy lived there. In light of the fact that
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: the man was still hanging around in the neighborhood and
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: that he certainly looked Hispanic, Roy decided to take action
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: and save his family. He and a cousin who was
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: there with him got guns and went outside to confront
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: the man. Roy went marching out to the car. The
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: man looked up, started his car and drove off, with
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Roy in his own car tailing him and shooting at him.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: After seven miles, Roy caught up and shot the man
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: seven times, killing him. Then he went back home, herded
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: his wife and three children into the car and took
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: them to a hideout. When they eventually came home, Roy
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: learned what he had done. The Cuban outside his house
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: had been an 18-year-old college student, Dominic Ragucci, who was
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: legitimately selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door as a way to put
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: himself through college. Roy had made a mistake. He sold
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: his Cadillac, and according to his son, Albert, in For
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: the Sins of My Father, Roy wept over the murder
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: of an innocent civilian. It was one thing to kill
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: other soldiers, or to kill informants, or people who double-crossed
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: him on a deal, but this boy should not have died.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Albert viewed his father as a genuinely caring man who
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: was devastated by this error. And yet, the Chris Rosenberg
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: situation was still up in the air. Roy knew he
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: had to act. Calling the crew together one night without Chris,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Roy told the others that he would do the shooting.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: He had brought Chris into the life. He would take
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: him out. As hard as it was for him, he
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: had a duty. This was part of being a made man.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: The incident took place on May 19th, 1979. Roy asked
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Chris to come, and after Chris had greeted Roy with
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: a kiss on the cheek, Roy shot him in the head.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: The others finished the job and put the body into
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Chris's car so it would be found and reported. That
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: settled the Cuban crisis, but another one was on its heels.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: This time, a family member was telling Castellano that Nino
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: and Roy were dealing drugs, so Nino decided that the
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: man and his son had to disappear. Yet, the job
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: was badly botched and got Nino arrested while Roy ran off.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: The murders continued unabated, even as Nino got out on bail.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Detectives began to link some of them and the crew
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: began to fall apart. Nino's attempts to foil his convictions
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: failed and he went to Attica. He picked Roy as
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: his stand-in man, which did not please Big Paul, who
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: was growing tired of all the killings. Nino had no
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: idea yet how this arrangement would contribute to his downfall.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: For the crew, Henry and Freddy were arrested for two murders.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: They were also tied to the stolen car ring. Soon
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: the other crew members were under investigation, but Nino's conviction
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: was overturned and he was out. Yet the FBI agents
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: watching them were putting more pressure on everyone, from Paul
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Castellano on down the line. The government had a powerful
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: weapon in the RICO law, or Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Organizations Act, enacted to go after mafia crime families. It
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: allowed witness protection, wiretaps, and the power to impanel grand juries.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: The penalties for such criminal enterprises were stiff, even just
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: for membership. Assistant U.S. Attorney Walter Mack took over the case,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: looking for anyone who would implicate Roy DeMeo in murder,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: and he was a bulldog. The task force kept pressuring Roy,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: who grew more agitated, just as they hoped. Finally, they
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: got a break with the arrest of a crew member,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Vito Arena. who began to roll at once. He described
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: the murders in which he had been involved and even
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: showed investigators some of the body dump sites. Roy soon
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: found out that Vito was a government witness, so he
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: made himself scarce. The police delivered a grand jury subpoena
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: to his home. Roy told Nino and Paul about Vito's defection,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: and Paul realized that Vito knew about him as well.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Roy would have to go before a grand jury, and
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: he could not be trusted. The FBI surveillance equipment picked
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: up a conversation in which John Gaudi was asked, on
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: behalf of Big Paul, to accept a contract on Roy.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Gaudi declined because Roy's gang was known to be dangerous.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Big Paul finally ordered an end to those things that
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: were getting them all into trouble, notably the drugs and
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: the members who were acting out too much. He gave
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Nino the task of taking care of Roy DeMeo, as
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: depicted in Boss of Bosses, saying that DeMeo loved killing
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: too much. Nino had brought him into this life, in
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: a way, so he would take him out. Roy's son, Albert,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: writes about how frightened his father was during those days,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: and how he would take his son aside to ask
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: him to do things in preparation for Roy's sudden departure.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Roy was thinking about going into the wind, as mobsters
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: referred to being on the run, but he also realized
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: that he might be killed. He'd brought trouble down on
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: the family, and someone was going to end his connection
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: with them, one way or another. He was right. Before
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: the government could have their way, the family got him first.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Albert de Mayo grew up with a fairly good idea
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: of what his father was doing, although he was later
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: shocked by photos he saw during a grand jury hearing
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: and by what he read in Munstain's and Capicci's book,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Murder Machine. He once told a girlfriend that if she
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: wanted to understand him, she should read about Michael Corleone
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: in The Godfather. While his mother gave him a Bible
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: to read, His father gave him Niccolo Machiavelli's political treatise,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: The Prince, seemingly the blueprint for the Italian underworld. Albert
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: found the book fascinating. After serving 14 years as a
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: secretary to the Second Chancery of the Signoria in the
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Florentine Republic, Machiavelli had fallen out of power in 1512.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: He wrote that religion and morals have no place in
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: the rise to power. A prince cannot indulge in the
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: virtues of goodness because, to hold power, He must be
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: a lion and a fox. In other words, he must
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: rely on such traits as cruelty, craftiness, mercilessness, and dishonesty.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: If necessary, he should not hesitate to break promises. He
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: must ally himself with his own kind, choose wise counselors,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: and do whatever must be done in the name of power.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: The survival of the fittest was the ultimate game, and
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: even the closest of alliances could be betrayed. Pulled into
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: this world before he could understand it, Albert found himself
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: torn between utter devotion to his father and disgust over
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: what he was sometimes asked to do. At the age
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: of 13, he was putting a gun in his backpack
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: to go to school. He saw things but never imagined
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: the extent to which his father was fully involved in crime,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: including multiple murders. In a literate memoir, Albert describes what
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: it was like to grow up in a family where
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: his father made a fortune through criminal ventures and his mother,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: like many other wives in these families, allowed herself to
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: be protected from no how she and her children were
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: being supported in such a grand lifestyle. This was the
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: way of the mafia. The men engaged in their war,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: but the women were to be protected from knowing anything
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: about it. In the end, this system inevitably broke down
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: since mobsters often shot those who made them paranoid. or
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: whom they felt had betrayed them, and it was difficult
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: for the women to ignore the violence by which their
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: husbands and sons had lived and died. The men seemed
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: to want their families to exist in this pure arena,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: wherein they could view themselves as somewhat genteel. At home
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: among family, they could forget their own self-loathing over what
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: they felt they had to do. Their home was the
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: pristine castle, the place where they could exercise the part
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: of themselves they most wanted others to believe they were.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: For example, they swore freely in the bars and ogled
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: half-naked women, but did not swear at home. They had
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: sex all over the place away from home, but the
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: members of their home life were to be faithful. They killed, lied,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: and stole without compunction, but this is not an acceptable
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: part of their family man identity. While these men had
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: a supreme ability to compartmentalize, to be psychopathic in one
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: venue but caring and good in another. their families were
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: also viewed as idealized extensions of a part of themselves.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: It was another area of control. Family members, especially wives,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: were not allowed to be people in their own right.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: They were to play a role that suited the mobster's purpose.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Albert felt some of this and was largely protected, but
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: his father ended up bringing him partly into the Cosa Nostra,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: our thing, by introducing him to members of the notorious
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: crime crew, and by asking him to learn to use
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: a gun, potentially for criminal purposes. He did not witness
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: a dismemberment, and he often underestimated the potential for brutality
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: in someone he met at the Gemini Lounge. So it
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: came as a shock to him to learn more about
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: his father's activities via other reports. According to his reaction,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: he did not quite believe the full story. After Roy
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: was found dead in the trunk of his Cadillac, the
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: very thing that he most wanted to prevent happened. his
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: family suffered for his crimes. His wife, finally brought into
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: public awareness through media stories, ultimately sold the dream house
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: into which Roy had moved his family, while Albert spiraled
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: into a deep suicidal depression, which he documents in detail
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: in his revealing memoir. Mafia life had been far from glamorous,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: he writes, and despite the fine clothing, nice cars, and
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: high standard of living, Roy had inflicted a lot of
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: psychological damage on the people around him. Albert had realized
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: by the age of 10 that his father's occupation was different,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: and unlike other kids, he had nothing much to share
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: at school. He knew that his father carried a gun
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: and kept odd hours. As the years passed, tension mounted
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: and his father became increasingly more paranoid. He was away
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: from the family more, and he gave the adolescent Albert
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: charge of protecting his mother and sisters, and even took
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: him on a few jobs. It was a poor legacy
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: to hand down. When Albert was only 15, Roy enlisted
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: him in a plan to fake his death, should the
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: need arise. When Roy was killed two years later, Albert
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: had to identify his body and avoid the FBI's intense scrutiny.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Seeking revenge, he was nearly killed. Eventually, his life fell apart,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: his wife left, and he was faced with the realization
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: that his father's life of crime had taken a terrible toll.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: He would not forget the bloody fate to which his
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: father's crimes had consigned him, the body in the morgue.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: the crime scene photos, the photographs of victims. It was
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: only after he read Murder Machine that he understood how
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: truly brutal the man he adored could be. He also
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: learned from an insider about the intimate betrayal within the
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: family that had brought his father down, just as Roy
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: DeMeo had done to Chris Rosenberg. Fearing that Roy might
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: become a cooperating witness for the government, Castellano had ordered
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Nino to take care of him. Nino was a man
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: whom Roy trusted, So when Nino invited him one day
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: for a meeting, he went. Nino met him, along with
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: the Gemini twins. Roy took off his leather jacket, and
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Nino fired at his head. He was hit seven times,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: including the symbolic bullets that the twins put into his skull,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: behind the ears. Then they put him into the trunk
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: of his car, placed the chandelier over him that he
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: was taking to get repaired, and parked him at the
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: club in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. The government had lost Roy
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: DeMeo as a witness. but they had not lost Nino
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: or Paul. They continued to look for evidence against these men.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Nino was arrested in 1984 and released on bail. He
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: was eventually convicted of a conspiracy to steal cars and
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: sentenced to five years. On these same charges, Joey Testa
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: and Anthony Senter, the Gemini twins, were acquitted. Then they
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: were all brought up, along with the other crew members,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: on multiple counts of murder. Before the trial was over, Nino, 62,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: died in prison. The others were convicted. Eventually, thanks to
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: a bug in Castellano's home and surveillance photos of a
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: meeting of the heads of the crime families, the grand
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: jury returned an indictment against everyone at the meeting, including Castellano.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Before he went to trial, however, John Gaudi made a
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: power play to become head of the Gambino family by
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: having Castellano assassinated in front of Sparks Steakhouse on December 16, 1985.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: When John Gaudi's underboss, Sammy the Bull Gravano, testified against
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Gaudi in the trial in which Gaudi was convicted of
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: his part in the murder of Castellano, Gravano also recalled
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Castellano's lack of reaction to DiMeo's demise. Apparently, when one
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: accepts the life, one accepts whatever form of death comes
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: with it. Thank you. Thank you.