Joseph Massino

By the late 1960s, Massino was a Bonanno associate.[14] He led a successful truck hijacking crew, with the assistance of his brother-in-law Salvatore Vitale and carjacker Duane Leisenheimer, while fencing the stolen goods and running numbers using the lunch wagon as a front.[12][15] He also befriended another mob hijacker, future Gambino crime family boss John Gotti.[16] Increasingly prosperous, Massino opened his own catering company, J&J Catering, which became another front for his activities.[5] In 1973, boss Natale Evola died.[17] On February 23, 1974, at a meeting at the Americana Hotel in Manhattan, the Commission named Massino's mentor, Rastelli as boss.[18][19] On April 23, 1976, Rastelli was convicted of extortion, and on August 27, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.[20][21] In his absence Carmine Galante, a former consigliere and convicted drug trafficker, seized control of the Bonannos as unofficial acting boss.[22]

In 1975, Massino and Vitale participated in the murder of Vito Borelli, who Massino claimed was primarily executed by Gotti at the behest of Paul Castellano of the Gambino crime family.[23] The Borelli hit was significant for Massino in that he "made his bones"—proved his loyalty to the Mafia by killing on its behalf—and put him close to becoming a made man, a full member, in the Bonanno family.[24] Massino also arranged the murder of one of his hijackers, Joseph Pastore, in 1976, after having Vitale borrow $9,000 from him on his behalf. While later acquitted of the crime,[25] both Vitale and Massino would admit to participation after turning state's evidence.[11][26]

In March 1975, Massino was arrested along with of one of his hijackers, Raymond Wean, and charged with conspiracy to receive stolen goods.[27] He was scheduled to go on trial in 1977, but the charges were dropped after he successfully argued that he had not been properly mirandized, disqualifying statements Massino gave to police from being used in trial.[28]

On June 14, 1977, Massino was inducted into the Bonanno family along with Anthony Spero, Joseph Chilli Jr. and a group of other men in a ceremony conducted by Carmine Galante.[11] He worked as a soldier in James Galante's crew, and later worked in Philip "Phil Lucky" Giaccone's crew.[29] Massino nevertheless remained loyal to Rastelli, then vying to oust Galante despite his imprisonment. Fearing Galante wanted him dead for insubordination, Massino delivered a request to the Commission, the governing body of the American Mafia, on Rastelli's behalf to have Galante killed. The hit was approved and executed on July 12, 1979; Rastelli subsequently took full control of the family and rewarded Massino's loyalty by promoting him to capo.[30]

By the beginning of the 1980s, Massino ran his crew from the J&S Cake social club, a property just behind J&J Catering.[5][31] The building was seized in 1988 during a crackdown on the Bonannos' gambling activities.[32]

From left to right: Gerlando Sciascia, Vito Rizzuto, Giovanni Ligammari and Joey Massino in 1981

FBI surveillance photo of Massino and James Episcopia

Following the Galante hit, Massino began jockeying for power with Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano, another Rastelli loyalist capo. Both men were themselves threatened by another faction seeking to depose the absentee boss led by capos Alphonse "Sonny Red" Indelicato, Dominick "Big Trin" Trincera and Philip Giaccone.[33] The Commission initially tried to maintain neutrality, but in 1981, Massino got word from his informants that the three capos were stocking up on automatic weapons and planning to kill the Rastelli loyalists within the Bonanno family to take complete control. Massino turned to Colombo crime family boss Carmine Persico and Gambino boss Paul Castellano for advice; they told him to act immediately.[33]

Massino, Napolitano and Gerlando Sciascia, a Sicilian-born capo linked to the Montreal Rizzuto crime family, arranged a meeting at a Brooklyn social club with the three capos for May 5, 1981. They had four gunmen, including Vitale and Bonanno-affiliated Montreal boss Vito Rizzuto, hiding in a closet to ambush them.[34] When Trinchera, Giaccone and Indelicato arrived with Frank Lino to meet Massino, they were shot to death, with Massino himself stopping Indelicato from escaping.[23][34] Lino escaped unscathed by running out the door.[34] The hit further improved Massino's prestige, but was marred by both Lino's escape and the discovery of Indelicato's body on May 28.[35][36][37]

Massino quickly won Lino over to his side,[38] but Indelicato's son, Anthony "Bruno" Indelicato, vowed revenge.[39] Napolitano assigned associate Donnie Brasco, who he hoped to make a made man, to kill Indelicato.[39][40] "Brasco", however, was in fact an undercover FBI agent named Joseph Pistone; shortly after the hit was ordered, Pistone's assignment was ended and Napolitano was informed of their infiltration.[41]

Already skeptical of Napolitano's support of "Brasco",[41] Massino was deeply disturbed by the breach of security when he learned of the agent's true identity.[42] Vitale would later testify that this was the reason Massino subsequently decided to murder Napolitano as well; as he would later quote Massino, "I have to give him a receipt for the Donnie Brasco situation."[43] In his own testimony, Massino instead claimed Napolitano was targeted for trying to take over the Bonannos himself.[44] On August 17, the former renegade Frank Lino and Steven Cannone drove Napolitano to the house of Ronald Filocomo, a Bonanno family associate, for a meeting. Napolitano was greeted by captain Frank Coppa, then thrown down the stairs to the house's basement by Lino and shot to death.[45] Napolitano's body was discovered the following year.[46]

Benjamin "Lefty" Ruggiero, who helped Pistone formally become a Bonanno associate, was also targeted, but was arrested en route to the meeting where he was expected to be murdered. On February 18, 1982, Anthony Mirra, the soldier who first "discovered" Pistone, was assassinated on Massino's orders. Mirra had gone into hiding upon Pistone's exposure but was ultimately betrayed and murdered by his protégé and cousin, Joseph D'Amico.[45]

On November 23, 1981, based on information gained by Pistone's infiltration, six Bonanno mobsters, including the then-missing Napolitano, were indicted on racketeering charges and conspiracy in "the three capos" hit.[47]

In March 1982, Massino was tipped off by a Colombo-associated FBI insider that he was about to be indicted and went into hiding in Pennsylvania with Leisenheimer.[3][48][49] On March 25, 1982, Massino was also charged with conspiracy to murder Indelicato, Giaccone and Trinchera and truck hijacking.[49] In hiding, Massino was able to see the prosecution's strategy and better plan his defense as well as eventually face trial without association with other mobsters.[50][51] Pistone later speculated Massino also feared retaliation upon the revelation that his associate, Raymond Wean, had turned state's evidence.[52] Massino was visited by many fellow mobsters, including Gotti,[53] and Vitale would secretly deliver cash to support him.[49]

On April 21, 1983, Rastelli was paroled,[21] and he and Massino ordered the murder of Bonanno capo Cesare Bonventre, the leader of the family’s Sicilian faction.[54] Still a fugitive, Massino summoned Vitale, Louis Attanasio and James Tartaglione to his hideout and gave them the order.[55] By this time, even though Rastelli was still officially head of the family, Massino was considered by most mobsters to be the family's street boss and field commander in all but name,[54] as well as Rastelli's heir apparent.[56] According to Vitale, Massino had Bonventre killed for giving him no support when he was in hiding.[57]

In April 1984, Bonventre was called to a meeting with Rastelli in Queens. He was picked up by Vitale and Attanasio and driven to a garage. En route, Attanasio shot Bonventre twice in the head but only wounded him; he would kill Bonventre with two more shots when they reached their destination.[55] The task of disposing of Bonventre's corpse was handed to Gabriel Infanti, who promised Vitale that Bonventre's remains would disappear forever. However, after a tipoff, the remains were discovered on April 16, 1984, in a warehouse in Garfield, New Jersey, stuffed into two 55-gallon glue drums.[55]

For his part in the hit, Massino had Vitale initiated into the Bonanno family.[54]

FBI surveillance photograph of Joseph Massino, Salvatore Vitale and Frank Lino. The three men are headed to the wake of former Gambino crime family underboss Frank DeCicco, in April 1986.

Through Gotti associate Angelo Ruggiero, Massino was able to meet with defense attorney John Pollok in 1984 to negotiate his surrender. He finally turned himself in on July 7 and was released on $350,000 bail.[58] That year, Massino and Salvatore Vitale secured no-show jobs with the Long Island based King Caterers in exchange for protecting them from Lucchese extortion.[59]

In 1985, Massino was indicted twice more, first as a co-conspirator with Rastelli in a labor racketeering case for controlling the Teamsters Local 814, then with a conspiracy charge for the Pastore murder that was added to the original three capos indictment. The second indictment also charged Vitale as a co-conspirator in the hijacking cases.[60][61]

The labor racketeering trial began in April 1986,[60] with Massino as one of 12 defendants including Rastelli and former underboss Nicholas Marangello.[62] While Massino protested in confidence to other mobsters he never had the opportunity to profit from the racket, he was implicated by both Pistone and union official Anthony Gilberti, and on October 15, 1986, was found guilty of racketeering charges for accepting kickbacks on the Bonannos' behalf.[62][63] On January 16, 1987, Massino was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, his first prison term.[63] Rastelli, also convicted and in poor health during the trial, was sentenced to 12 years in prison.[63] Around this time, Massino was believed to be the Bonanno family's official underboss.[64] With Rastelli in declining health, Massino was also reckoned as the operating head of the family, though consigliere Anthony "Old Man" Spero was nominally acting boss.[65]

In April 1987, Massino and Vitale went on trial for truck hijacking and conspiracy to commit the triple murder, defended by Samuel H. Dawson and Bruce Cutler respectively. Prosecutor Michael Chertoff, describing Massino's rise in his opening statements, would characterize him as the "Horatio Alger of the mob."[66] Raymond Wean and Joseph Pistone testified against Massino, but both proved unable to conclusively link Massino with any of the murder charges.[25] On June 3, while both men were convicted on hijacking charges, they were cleared of the murder conspiracy charges. Further, the only proven criminal acts took place outside the RICO act's five-year statute of limitations; without evidence that the "criminal enterprise" was still active in this timeframe the jury returned a special verdict clearing Massino and Vitale of these charges as well.[25][67]

During Massino's imprisonment at Talladega Federal Prison for his 1986 conviction, Vitale functioned as his messenger, effectively becoming co-acting boss alongside Spero.[65] On Massino's orders, Vitale organized the murder of Gabriel Infanti, who had also botched a 1982 hit on Anthony Gilberti and was suspected of being an informant.[65]

During his meetings with Massino in prison, Vitale, on behalf of the Bonannos' capos, urged his brother-in-law to become boss in name as well as in fact.[65] Rastelli had spent all but two years of his reign behind bars,[68] and many felt Massino would bring the family stability. Massino was reluctant to take over as long as Rastelli was alive. Not only was he respectful of Rastelli's sponsorship of his Mafia career, but Mafia tradition dictates that a boss keeps his title for life unless he abdicates. However, in the spring of 1991, Massino ordered Vitale to "make me boss" as soon as Rastelli died; Rastelli died on June 24, 1991.[69] A few days after his funeral, Massino instructed Vitale to call a meeting of the family's capos, and Massino was acclaimed as boss.[65]

Massino was granted two years' supervised release on November 13, 1992. During that time, he could not associate with convicted mafiosi. To get around this restriction, Massino named Vitale underboss and retained him as his messenger for the duration of his supervised release. While the FBI suspected Vitale was a mafioso, he had never been convicted of a Mafia-related crime. The FBI would thus have no reason to be suspicious of him associating with Massino since they were brothers-in-law.[70][71] He returned to his job at King Caterers,[59] and in 1996 became co-owner of Casablanca, a well-reviewed Maspeth Italian restaurant.[72][73]

Massino was 48 years old at the time of his accession, and knew that he potentially had a long reign ahead of him. With this in mind, he was determined to avoid the pitfalls that landed other Mafia bosses in prison. Inspired by Genovese boss Vincent Gigante, Massino forbade his men from saying his name out loud due to FBI surveillance. Instead, they were to touch their ears when referring to him. Massino gained the nickname "The Ear" because of this.[74] Massino took a great number of precautions in regards to security and the possibility of anything incriminating being picked up on a wiretap. He closed the family's longtime social clubs.[75] He also arranged family meetings to be conducted in remote locations within the United States. In some cases, he held meetings in foreign countries, and had his capos bring their wives along so they could be passed off as vacations.[76] Remembering how Pistone's infiltration had damaged the family, he also decreed that all prospective made men had to have a working relationship with an incumbent member for at least eight years before becoming made, in hopes of ensuring new mafiosi were as reliable as possible.[74] Unusually for bosses of his era, he actively encouraged his men to have their sons made as well. In Massino's view, this would make it less likely that a capo would turn informer, since if that happened the defector's son would face almost certain death.[74]

To minimize the damage from informants or undercover investigations Massino decentralized the family's organization. He created a clandestine cell system for his crews, forbidding them from contacting one another and avoiding meeting their capos.[75][77] He would instead create a new committee that would relay his orders to the crews.[77] In contrast to his contemporaries, particularly the publicity-friendly Gotti and the conspicuous feigned insanity of Gigante, Massino himself was also able to operate with a relatively low public profile;[1][9] both Pistone and mob writer Jerry Capeci would consequently refer to Massino as the "last of the old-time gangsters."[1][9]

A side effect of these reforms was the reduction of Vitale, in his own words, to "a figurehead."[78] By the time of Massino's release the Bonanno family had grown tired of Vitale, regarding him as greedy and overstepping his authority.[79] In the new structure of the family, Vitale lost the underboss's usual role as a go-between for the boss, as well as the share of the family's profits those duties entailed, and Massino made it clear to Vitale his unpopularity was a factor in these changes.[79][80] Vitale remained loyal,[80] however, and helped Massino organize the March 18, 1999 murder of Gerlando Sciascia. Massino indicated to fellow mobsters that Sciascia was killed for feuding with fellow Massino-confidant capo Anthony Graziano, accusing him of using cocaine,[81] while in his own testimony Massino claimed Sciascia was killed for killing another mobster's son.[82] Sciascia's body was not covertly buried but instead left to be discovered in a street in the Bronx, an attempt to make the hit look like a botched drug deal rather than a Mafia-ordered hit, and Massino had his capos attend Sciascia's funeral.[82]

Shortly after becoming boss, Massino announced that his men should no longer consider themselves as part of the Bonanno family. Instead, he renamed it the Massino family, after himself. Like many mafiosi, he was angered at family namesake Joseph Bonanno's tell-all autobiography, A Man of Honor, and regarded it as a violation of the code of omertà.[83][84] He told Vitale that in his view, "Joe Bonanno disrespected the family by ratting."[74] The new name was first disclosed after Massino was indicted in 2003 and did not catch on outside the Mafia.[83][85]

Before Massino became boss, John Gotti was one of his closest allies. Massino had backed Gotti in his plot to take over the Gambino family,[86] and as Gambino boss, Gotti tried to get Massino a seat on the Commission as the Bonannos' acting boss.[87] Gotti was reportedly infuriated that Massino had been officially promoted without him being consulted,[73] and Massino would later testify he believed Gotti conspired with Vitale to kill him.[88] Gotti, however, was marginalized by his 1992 racketeering and murder conviction and consequent life imprisonment.[89] Massino, for his own part, was angered at Gotti's high public profile and later criticized Gotti for killing Gotti's predecessor, Paul Castellano.[90] Massino also had a poor relationship with Vincent Gigante, who had backed the opposition to Rastelli and blocked Gotti's attempts to bring Massino onto the Commission.[87][91]

The Bonanno family had been in decline for the better part of the last quarter century since Joe Bonanno's ouster in the 1960s, and it was kicked off the Commission altogether following Pistone's infiltration.[92][93] By the late 1990s, the situation was reversed and the Bonanno family was now reckoned as the most powerful crime family in New York and the nation, in no small part because Massino was the only full-fledged New York boss who was still on the streets.[9][94][95] As it turned out, being thrown off the Commission actually worked in the Bonannos' favor; they were the only family whose leadership wasn't decimated in the Mafia Commission Trial.[96] Wary of surveillance, Massino generally avoided meeting with members of other Mafia families[74] and encouraged his crews to operate independently as well.[75] In January 2000, however, Massino did preside over an informal Commission meeting with the acting bosses of the other four families.[97] As the most powerful Mafia leader in both New York and the nation, Massino was in a position to make general policies for the Five Families. Under his direction, the Commission tightened qualifications to become a made man, requiring candidates have full Italian descent (previously having an Italian-American father was the minimum requirement) and imposed restrictions on initiating associates convicted on drug charges.[98]

According to Capeci, the murder of Sciascia soured relations between the Bonanno and Rizzuto families.[99] Originally considered merely a Canadian Bonanno crew,[100] the Rizzutos responded by taking even less heed from New York.[99]

FBI surveillance photograph of Massino and Anthony Graziano

At the beginning of his reign as boss, Massino enjoyed the benefit of limited FBI attention. In 1987, with the Bonannos weakened, the FBI merged its Bonanno squad with its Colombo family squad,[101] and this squad was initially preoccupied with the Colombos' third internal war.[102] Another dedicated Bonanno squad would be established in 1996.[103]

The Bonanno squad's chief, Jack Stubing, was well aware of the measures Massino had taken to avoid scrutiny. He therefore decided to go after Massino with a rear-guard action. He convinced his bosses to lend him a pair of forensic accountants normally used in fraud investigations, believing that they could easily pinpoint conspirators in the family's money laundering schemes. Stubing believed that the threat of long prison sentences would be sufficient to get any conspirators to turn informer, and thus make it easier to trace how the money flowed to Massino.[104] In the meantime, the FBI also targeted other members of the Bonanno administration. In 1995, consigliere Anthony Spero was sentenced to two years' imprisonment after being convicted of loansharking,[105] then to life imprisonment in 2002 for murder.[106] Graziano would assume Spero's duties, but he too pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in December 2002 and was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment.[107] Vitale would also plead guilty to loansharking charges in June 2002.[108] Vitale was not immediately sentenced, and was placed under house arrest in the interim, but the relatively low maximum sentence he was eligible for led Massino to wrongly suspect he was cooperating with law enforcement.[80] He secretly ordered that, if he was arrested, Vitale was to be "taken down"—demoted or killed.[109]

Until 2002, the Bonannos had been the only family in the modern history of the New York Mafia (i. e., since the Castellammarese War) to have never had a made man turn informant or government witness. Massino used this as a point of pride to rally his crime family.[110] That year Frank Coppa, convicted on fraud and facing further charges from the FBI's forensic accounting investigation, became the first to flip.[111] He was followed shortly by acting underboss Richard Cantarella, a participant in the Mirra murder,[45] who was facing racketeering and murder charges.[112] A third, Joseph D'Amico, subsequently turned state's evidence with the knowledge that Cantarella could implicate him for murder as well.[113] All of these defections left Massino, at last, vulnerable to serious charges.[114]

Massino was conspicuously absent from the prosecution witnesses at the 2006 racketeering trial of Basciano, the prosecution deciding he was not yet needed;[162] he was also expected to testify against Vito Rizzuto regarding his role in the three capos murder, but the Montreal boss accepted a plea bargain in May 2007 before Rizzuto's case went to trial.[100] He finally made his debut as a witness at Basciano's trial for the murder of Randolph Pizzolo in April 2011;[163] Massino's testified both during the trial itself and, after Basciano was convicted, on behalf of the prosecution's unsuccessful attempt to impose the death penalty.[151][164] During his testimony Massino noted, as a result of his cooperation, "I’m hoping to see a light at the end of the tunnel."[3]

Massino testified again in the 2012 extortion trial of Genovese capo Anthony Romanello, primarily to provide background as an expert on the American Mafia.[165] While Massino had not worked closely with Romanello, prosecutors decided to use him after another mobster-turned-witness was dropped;[166] the case ended in an acquittal.[167] Massino had also been considered as a witness in the 2013 murder trial of Colombo acting boss Joel Cacace, but was dropped after he was unable to fully remember the meeting where he claimed Cacace indicated his involvement in the murder of NYPD officer Ralph Dols.[168]

In June 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a request to Judge Garaufis for a reduction of Massino's sentence;[169] prosecutors cited both the impact of Massino's unprecedented cooperation and his failing health as reasons for a reduction of his sentence.[170] Garaufis granted their request on July 10, resentencing Massino to time served and supervised release for the remainder of his life.[171]