Surviving the Mob - Dennis Griffin [97]
After quitting the bread route, Andrew turned to something he was more familiar with. He opened an Italian deli and restaurant. He was back in his element.
“The concept was great. And a large Italian population from back east was eager for the Italian delicacies I offered. But my place was in a new mall with a lot of spaces that hadn’t been rented yet. That meant almost no foot traffic or other businesses to draw customers from. After about a year and a half, I had to give it up.”
From time to time, Andrew read or heard news about some of his former acquaintances. The first of them to come to his attention was a newspaper report that his friend and fellow Gambino man Sal Mangiavillano had become a government witness.
“Fat Sal and me had been friends since I was about seventeen years old,” Andrew said. “And later on in my criminal career when I was on the run, Sal and his crew took me in and helped me earn. He was a true friend and a mentor to me. Sal was a prolific bank robber and opened my eyes to a lot of things. I ended up having closer friendships with Sal and his guys than I did with my own Corozzo crew.
“The article told how Sal had been mistreated by the Gambinos just like I had. He’d been sent to Arizona by Peter Gotti to kill Sammy Gravano. The hit never came off and when Sal got back to New York, he was arrested and locked up on other charges. For two years, nobody from the Gambinos paid any attention to him. And then when word got out that the feds were looking to indict some people for the plot against Gravano, the boys suddenly remembered Sal.
“The bastards wanted to keep Sal on the reservation, so they sent him a letter saying they were thinking of him. And with the letter was a check for fifty dollars. Fifty fuckin’ dollars! These goddamn millionaires had the balls to send Sal fifty bucks to keep his mouth shut. It didn’t work. Sal flipped and gave up the whole Gravano deal. I was glad to see he’d done the right thing. And again, the guys who went down only had to look in the mirror to see who was to blame.
“The way they handled me, Sal, and a lot of others is the reason the Mob is in the shape it is today. You can’t treat your people like shit and expect them to take it on the chin for you. Loyalty has to work both ways. The current bosses in the American Mafia don’t understand that. They take the guys on the street for granted. To them, guys like Sal and me are expendable. But they’re finding out that we can fight back. And as far as I’m concerned, they’re getting what they deserve.”
While Andrew was adapting to his new life and hearing news about some of his former friends and associates, the wheels of justice were moving slowly forward.
In March 2004, Nicky Corozzo made the news. Just months away from his scheduled release from prison on his 1996 racketeering indictment and subsequent conviction, the word circulated that the feds had come up with information tying him to the 1992 shooting of Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa and two unsolved gangland murders.
According to published reports, in April 1996 FBI agents had heard Corozzo admit to a wired informant that in 1985, he’d feared for his life after John Gotti took control of the Gambinos from the slain Paul Castellano. But in late 1996, as the Dapper Don languished in prison and his appeals were exhausted, Nick was tapped by family capos to replace Gotti as the boss. His reign lasted only a matter of days and came to an end with his arrest in Florida and incarceration on the racketeering indictment. To the government, Nick was the kind of guy they would just as soon keep behind bars if they could.
Corozzo