The Reluctant Godfather
This murder was the product of a turf war that
began one year earlier when John Scalish, Godfather of the
Cleveland Mob, died after open-heart surgery. His heir apparent
was assumed by most to be "Big Ange" Lonardo, who
assisted Scalish during his remarkable 32 year reign, but
Underboss Milton "Deer Hunter" Rockman astounded
everyone with his claim that it was Scalish’ dying wish that
"Jack White" Licavoli succeed as Godfather. The
position of Godfather was coveted by the ambitious "Big
Ange" whereas the elder Licavoli, an unassuming 72 year old
bachelor living a comfortable old age as head of the Youngstown
rackets, did not want the job. No one, however, wanted to betray
the final wish of their respected deceased leader and "Jack
White" reluctantly agreed to assume the position as head of
the Family. The new Godfather named his cousin "Lips"
Moceri, head of the Akron rackets, as Underboss.
Some, including Big Ange, suspected Deer Hunter
was lying about the Godfather’s "dying wish" and
wanted a head of the family such as the bumbling Jack White whom
he could more easily influence and control. While quietly going
along with this new appointment, many within the Family did not
believe that Licavoli was ruthless enough nor possessing of
enough cunning to effectively perform as Godfather. The job of
running a major Mafia family is an extremely challenging
position, requiring a wide range of inter-personal skills and
abilities; among other responsibilities, the Godfather has the
final decision when subordinates request permission to murder a
fellow Mobster. Such life and death decisions can cause anger and
resentment among the family and friends of those selected to be
murdered, sometimes leading to plots to rub out the head and
establish a new Godfather, as would be the fate of Gambino Family
Godfather Paul Castellano. Godfathers also have to exercise
leadership in resolving disputes over territorial rights to
member’s drug trafficking, extortion, gambling and stolen
property rackets; not an easy task when one considers that
members of organized crime are known for their eagerness to
resort to violence.
Then there is the FBI. Those at the top of an
organized crime syndicate are the targets of plots by the FBI and
Justice Department to bring them down, even if it means making
"sweetheart" deals with serial murderers such as
"Sammy the Bull" Gravano. Despite the Hollywood hype
that portrays them as ambitious men determined to rise to the
top, most members of the Mob do not aspire to become anything
more than a ‘Made’ member of the Family who can derive
their livelihood from the various traditional rackets the Mob
thrives on.
As in the unexpected and unwanted elevation of
the bumbling Claudius as Emperor of Rome, Jack White Licavoli
proved to be an unorthodox and uncertain choice as Godfather.
Unfamiliar with Mafia rules and protocol, it was Big Ange who had
to prompt Licavoli on the traditional behavior expected by
members of both their own Family and the heads of the five ruling
Families of New York City that make up the
"Commission," which serves as the "Board of
Directors" of the Mafia.
Such apparent incompetence on the part of Jack
White served to spawn plots against his authority by another
faction determined to take over the Ohio rackets. This crew was
led by John Nardi, a high-ranking member of the Teamster’s
union and his partner Danny Greene of the Irish Mob. Greene
accepted a contract from Nardi on the life of Lips Moceri, who
then disappeared, his bloodstained car found abandoned in Akron.
His body has never been found.
The murder of Lips was a stunning personal blow
to Licavoli and a serious challenge not only to his authority as
Godfather but to the very existence of the long-established
Cleveland Family. Nardi’s mistaking Licavoli’s bumbling
manner for weakness proved to be a fatal mistake; he was soon
blown to pieces by a car bomb in the parking lot at his
Teamster’s office. Only the murder of Danny Greene remained
for the Cleveland Family’s revenge for the murder of Lips
Moceri.
Wearing his signature green apparel and signing
for his tabs with a pen that oozed green ink, Danny Greene was a
flamboyant, "in-your-face" Mobster who included
Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy among his role models. Ohio police
officer Rick Porrello, author of the definitive Greene biography TO KILL THE IRISHMAN: THE WAR THAT
CRIPPLED THE MAFIA, tells CRIME & PUNISHMENT that Greene was a ruthless self-promoter who worked his
way up in the Labor movement while living a life of reckless
behavior. Greene believed himself an indestructible, modern-day
"Celtic hero" protected by the "luck of the
Irish" and even members of the Cleveland Mob began to buy
into the myth Greene had created for himself after he emerged
unscathed from several assassination attempts, including the
complete destruction of his house by a bomb. Frustrated, the
Cleveland Mob hired an outside professional hit man, Raymond
Ferritto, who met with Godfather Licavoli and Underboss Big Ange
on a boat on Ohio’s Mosquito Lake on October 4, 1977. At
that meeting, the wiseguys listened to a tape recording made by a
private investigator who had tapped the telephone line of one of
Greene’s girlfriends. On the tape Greene casually complained
that he had a dentist’s appointment in 2 days time, and how
he dreaded going to the dentist.
Finally, the Italians saw their chance. Greene
showed up for his dentist appointment as planned, after which
Ronnie Carabbia, head of the Warren rackets, pulled up in his own
car, parking next to Greene’s. Inside a hollowed-out portion
of the passenger side door was a bomb. Carabbia then slipped into
a car driven by Ferritto and later, when they covertly observed
Greene open the door to his car, Carabbia pushed the button of
the remote control bomb that blew the car – and
Greene’s body – into pieces.
As Fate would have it, an alert artist was
passing by and drew a sketch of Ferritto and his license plate.
She gave this to her father, who happened to be a cop, and the
two murderers, along with Jack White, Big Ange, and 15 other
members of the Cleveland Family were indicted. Ferritto
"flipped" and turned State’s witness, but only
Carabbia and his associate Pasquale "Butchie"
Cisternino were convicted.
The fight for control of the Ohio rackets,
however, was not over; with these convictions, responsibility for
providing for Carabbia’s family fell to his younger brother
Charlie "The Crab" who ran Youngstown’s portion of
the Cleveland Mob’s gambling operations, the remainder being
run by Jimmy Prato, Joey Naples, and Lenny Strollo of the rival
Pittsburgh Family. At that time in the 1970s, most of the
Mob’s money came not from drug trafficking, which is the
huge money maker today, but from gambling. While Mobsters such as
Carabbia raked in income from illegal slot machines, the bulk of
the mob’s gambling income came from the wagering by average
citizens on sporting events, especially professional and
collegiate football games.
The links between the Cleveland Mob and those
in the world of football were extensive. One of the Cleveland
Godfather’s golfing buddies was Cleveland Browns legendary
fullback Jim Brown. Although the FBI investigated Brown for his
wagers with Licavoli on their golf matches, no action was ever
taken against Brown by the National Football league. However,
Brown’s rap sheet includes arrests in 1968 and 1986 for
assault, an arrest in 1985 for rape, and a 1978 conviction for
assaulting professional golfer Frank Snow. Representing Brown was
attorney Johnnie Cochran, who would go on to defend other
professional football players accused of crimes of violence.
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According to Dan Moldea in his book INTERFERENCE,
an exhaustive expose on the links between Professional Football
and the Mafia, Youngstown native Edward DeBartolo Sr., who in
1977 bought the San Francisco 49ers football team for his son
Edward Jr., was a gambling partner of Ronnie Carabbia and the two
made frequent trips together to the Tropicana casino in Las
Vegas. DeBartolo had built his fortune in the Mob-influenced
construction industry and his company facilities were bombed 6
times between 1952-1954. In 1970, the senior DeBartolo was linked
in a Justice Department memo as an associate of organized crime
figures Meyer Lansky, Carlos Marcello, and Santos Trafficante.
These mobsters had for many years been involved in a scam in
which quarterbacks on college football teams were bribed to
"shave" points in favor of the Mob’s point spread.
Because college athletes do not earn the huge salaries of
professionals, because many are from low-income backgrounds, and
also because by shaving points the bribed athletes do not cause
their teams to lose, such athletes are easy targets for
recruitment by the Mob. Such were the traditional gambling
operations of the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Families and Charlie
Carabbia saw the chaos in the aftermath of the Nardi/Greene war
as the perfect opportunity to expand his operations at the
expense of the rival Pittsburgh Family.
Enter James Traficant
The product of a traditional Italian Catholic
family from the tough, low-income Youngstown neighborhood known
as ‘Hunkytown,’ Traficant grew up learning to fight
with his fists, as well as his mouth. Just as Youngstown native
Edward DeBartolo would change his name from that of his father,
Italian immigrant Anthony Poanessa, so would Traficant’s
family become more "Americanized" by dropping the
‘e’ from their original name, "Traficante."
In the late 1950s Traficant tasted the roar of the crowd as the
popular star quarterback of his high school football team. He
parlayed this success into a football scholarship at the
University of Pittsburgh, which for decades has operated one of
the nation’s most successful and lucrative programs, winning
several national championships. Once his heady football career in
Pittsburgh was finished, Traficant returned to Youngstown to run
Mahoning County’s substance abuse treatment program.
Two developments of the 1970s would shape
Traficant’s life forever. One was the then-popular and
outrageous polyester leisure suits and casual clothes that have
become the trademark of Traficant’s own colorful and
personal style. The second was much more serious; the souring of
the Youngstown economy. During the 70s, Japan began dumping into
the United States low-priced steel that was subsidized by the
Japanese government. Unable to compete with these unfair
practices, the steel industry throughout American was devastated,
sending thousands of once-proud steelworkers into the ranks of
the unemployed. The resultant discontent turned the blue-collar
residents of Mahoning County against the government
"Establishment," a constituency Traficant perfectly
symbolized as someone who grew up on the wrong side of town.
In 1980 Traficant saw his chance and declared
his candidacy for County Sheriff. Charlie the Crab, who had known
Traficant for years, saw this as his opportunity and approached
Traficant with the offer of $163,000 in bribe money to finance
his campaign. Part of this money came from Carabbia’s
Cleveland Family and the rest was contributed by the rival
Prato/Naples/Strollo faction of the Pittsburgh Family. As both
had lucrative gambling interests in Mahoning County it was
necessary for both to bribe the man who might be next elected
Sheriff so that those rackets could be protected. Traficant
accepted the Mob’s, money, agreed to protect their gambling
rackets, and was elected Sheriff. Then, on the afternoon of
December 13, 1980, just weeks after Traficant’s election,
Charlie the Crab got a phone call from someone who asked to meet
him at a local donut shop. Who that person was, or what business
they had to transact is not known, but it is unlikely that a Mob
figure would agree to meet at a donut shop, an establishment
frequented by members of law enforcement, if he intended on
engaging in something illegal. Indeed, at least one member of law
enforcement WAS there that day, a Mahoning County Sheriff’s
Deputy, who reported seeing Carabbia’s car parked outside
the donut shop with the lights on and the doors locked. 24 Hours
later the car was found abandoned in Cleveland, the keys in the
ignition. Charlie the Crab has not been seen since.
Convinced her husband had been murdered and
that Traficant was responsible, Mrs. Carabbia stunned the FBI
agents assigned to the investigation by making an astonishing
disclosure; Charlie the Crab had secretly tape recorded
conversations between himself and Traficant which detailed their
illegal activities together. Mrs. Carabbia turned over the tapes,
which reveal The Crab’s concern that Traficant had long been
aligned with the Prato/Naples/Strollo faction of the Pittsburgh
Family. "I am a loyal !!!!!" Traficant tells Carabbia
reassuringly on one tape, "and my loyalty is here!"
"And now we’ve gotta set up the business that
they’ve (Pittsburgh) run for all these !!!!!!! years and
swing that business over to you . . .That’s why you financed
me!"
Traficant and The Crab also talk about how
Traficant laundered $10,000 of the Mob’s money through Ed
Flask, a partner in the Youngstown law firm of Flask &
Policy. When Traficant expresses his concern that Flask knows
that he has been bribed by the Mob, Charlie the Crab tells
Traficant not to worry, as he has in his possession
"prejudicial, compromising photographs of Flask which would
ensure his silence."
"Do you know what kind of pictures
I’m talking about?" The Crab asks Traficant.
Carabbia does not elaborate as to the contents
of the photographs, but it is clear to Traficant at that point in
the conversation that Charlie, in addition to being a briber,
gambler and racketeer, is also a blackmailer.
Trial & Error
On August 9, 1982, Sheriff Traficant was
indicted by the U. S. Attorney’s office for accepting bribes
from organized crime figures and for knowingly filing a false
1980 personal income tax return. When arrested, the FBI played
for Traficant Charlie the Crab’s tapes and the Sheriff
offered a full confession. The indicted Sheriff then turned to
attorney Carmen Policy, Ed Flask’s law partner, to represent
him in his bid to escape jail time. However, Traficant then
called a press conference to spill the beans about the widespread
corruption and Mob activity in Mahoning County; an outraged
Carmen Policy then dropped Traficant as his client.
Sensing Traficant’s vulnerability once his
attorney had abandoned him, the government offered Traficant the
opportunity to become a co-operating witness in their prosecution
of the Mafia. Such an agreement would spare Traficant serious
prison time but the down side of such an arrangement meant
Traficant would have to spend years hiding in the Witness
Protection Program. Traficant knew that members of both the
Cleveland and Pittsburgh Families would be looking for him,
hoping to park a certain type of automobile in his vicinity. With
not only his own safety to think of but also that of his wife and
two daughters, Traficant made a bold, gutsy decision; he would
reject the government’s offer and stand trial, acting as his
own attorney.
At his trial in the Federal Courthouse in
Cleveland, the government presented a strong case against
Traficant, including the damaging statements on Charlie the
Crab’s tapes. Perhaps the most bizarre testimony came from
Traficant’s friend and colleague Joseph Hudak, head of the
Sheriff’s office narcotics unit. Sergeant Hudak testified
that for 5 times in the previous 10 months, Traficant had begged
him to shoot him – but just slightly, so that he could blame
such an ‘assassination attempt’ on the Mob and thus
postpone his trial and gain public sympathy. "At first, he
suggested I shoot him in the shoulder," Hudak testified.
"Then he said he would put his hand up and I should shoot
him through the hand!"
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