Surviving the Mob - Dennis Griffin [39]
Andrew spent the balance of the year struggling to earn enough money to pay his mounting legal fees and the added expenses related to having a wife and son to support. All the while, he was wondering whether Sammy Karkis had decided to turn against him.
That December the books were opened and several gangsters were straightened out. Among them were John Gotti’s son Junior Gotti and Michael “Mikey Scars” DiLeonardo. But being made together doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll stay together.
11
Trial ...
For Andrew, 1989 began with financial, legal, and domestic problems that got worse as the months went by. He, Dina, and Andrew Junior were living together in an apartment on East 80th Street in Canarsie. The stress caused by his inability to earn like he had in the past and preparing for his upcoming attempted-murder trial strained his already fragile relationship with Dina. All thoughts of moving up in the Gambino family were gone, at least temporarily. Just keeping his head above water financially was a struggle.
“Those were tough times,” Andrew remembers. “I couldn’t work my rackets like I used to. And when I did make a few bucks, about seventy-five cents out of every dollar went toward my lawyer. I blamed Dina and her lies for putting me in the situation with Burzo to begin with.
“About the only bright spot was the weakness of the case against me. I knew if I could get a walk on those charges, I’d be back on my feet in no time. So even though it seemed like I was always in court for some kind of motion hearing and Rappaport always wanted more money, I still thought things would work out for me. And then Rappaport pulled the rug out from under me.
“We were in court for a pre-trial hearing in May and he told the judge that I wasn’t living up to my financial commitment to him. He asked to be released from the case. I wanted to take the eyes right out of his head. I had paid him around forty thousand already and he hadn’t done anything except go to hearings. He wanted the balance—I think it was ten or twelve thousand—or he wanted the judge to cut him loose.
“I stood there next to him whispering things like, ‘I gave you all this money and now you can’t take payments, you low life motherfucker?’ He didn’t back down, though. He wanted more money and that was that.
“The judge backed him. She said she’d give me seven days to pay up or she’d see to it that I hired another lawyer. Then she asked me if I could afford to pay for a new attorney. I said, ‘How the fuck can I pay for another lawyer after I gave this motherfucker almost forty thousand?’ So we had this big argument in the courtroom and, of course, I lost.
“After that, Rappaport, my father and me were out in the hallway. My father was almost as pissed off as I was. I told Rappaport I felt like knocking his teeth right out of his fuckin’ mouth. We argued back and forth for a while. But when it was all over, the bottom line was that I had a week to come up with the rest of the money or else he was out. I left that courthouse boiling. I was mad at Rappaport and so frustrated about the money that I was ready to start pulling my own hair out.
“I contacted some of my drug-business associates and was able to come up with about eighty-five hundred. Now I was so close to having Rappaport’s money that it was pretty much a done deal. All I had to do was see Nicky for the balance.”
TOUGH LOVE
The reason Andrew thought the influx of money from his drug buddies had pretty much solved his immediate financial problem was that Nicky Corozzo, after all, was a millionaire. Andrew had shown his loyalty to Nicky many times and made a lot of money for him over the past several years. And didn’t Nicky call him Good News because of the tremendous profits he’d generated through the horse room? Certainly, Nicky wouldn’t hesitate to loan him four or five grand. It was a no-brainer.
“I met Nicky on the street outside our social club. I explained what was going on