EXCERPTS FROM TOM'S TESTIMONY 1996 THROUGH 2000, IT MAY BE LONGER, LIKE 1994 THROUGH 2003

And almost a year went by. And in the mail, I got a subpeona from New York, saying it was the first time in the history of the Mafia they were able to arrest all five bosses of the five families in New York. It was called the "Pizza Connection". It had to do with heroin being shipped from Sicily into the United States. And they subpeonaed me to testify against my boss, Paul Castellano. And I already knew they had a contract out to kill me. And I went to my pastor. And I said, "Pastor, I got this subpeona to testify against Paul." And I said, "If I don't go, if I just hide out," I said "they may come here and they may kill you. Then they'll kill innocent people in the church. And I don't want any blood, innocent blood spilled on account of me." And I said, "But, if I do go, they'll definitely kill me before I get there. " And I said, "I just don't know what to do." And he said, "I don't either, other than to pray." He said "Let's just pray." He said, "Maybe there's somebody that they can get, instead of you, that knows more about Paul." And I said, "No, I'm his right hand. I know everything about it. [HE, TOM, IS SAYING HE IS SECOND TO BIG PAULY] I'm the only one they want to testify." So, he just prayed that, somehow, some way I wouldn't have to go there. This was in August of 1985. In December of 1985, I came home from work. Turned on the television, and there on the six o'clock news was Paul Castellano, laying in the middle of the street in midtown Manhattan. Him and his bodyguard - shot to death, killed.

**************************

THE TRUTH

COURTESY OF
 http://glasgowcrew.tripod.com/comm.html

The Mafia Commssion Case

The famed case in which some of La Cosa Nostra's "commission" were jailed after one of the longest and most expensive trials in U.S. history. The so-called Commission Case resulted in convictions of eight New York area Mafia figures --

seven of whom received 100-year sentences.

Never has there been a case that has had such a big impact on the American Mafia than the commission case. The entire New York Mafia hierarchy was prosecuted in one courtroom in a case that finally brought about the end to the bosses unbelievable untouchable image, they have enjoyed for so long. The trial was put together by the US attorney of the southern district of Manhattan, Rudy Giuliani. After reading the biography of Joe Bonanno, Rudy realized that he could use the RICO statute to prosecute each of the heads of the five families’ in New York.

The five bosses under indictment were Tony Salerno (Genovese Boss), Paul Castellano, (Gambino Boss) Tony Corallo, (Lucchese Boss) Philip Rastelli (Bonanno Boss) and Jerry Langella (Columbo de'facto Boss). Also under indictment Aneillo Dellacroce, (Gambino Underboss) Salvatore Santaro, (Lucchese Underboss) Christopher Furnari, (Lucchese Consiglieri) and Ralph Scopo Columbo capo and president of the concrete workers union. The two men who didn't make it to the trial were Paul Castellano and Aneillo Dellacroce. Paul Castellano became a victim of a John Gotti power grab, and Aneillo Dellacroce eventually died of the tumour that had been eating away his brain, Carmine Persico Would take his place.

Most of the evidence for the trial was due to the bugging of Gambino boss Paul Castellano's home on Todt Hill. The Feds listened in to crucial conversations involving Paul and many of his underlings. The Feds also taped highly incriminating conversations involving his relationship with other bosses and their joint interests in building contracts, where they shared the profits of the union kickbacks. These were vital in the prosecution of Paul and his fellow commissioners, as the tapes would easily prove their existence in the slice up business of bid rigging.

The government also set out to prove to the jury that the commission had also sanctioned a number of murders, including that of Carmine Galante the former Bonanno boss and underboss Guiseppe Turano, along with many others. During the thirty four days of testimony the government brought forward more than eighty witnesses and one hundred fifty tapes that proved without a shadow of a doubt that the commission members engaged in each and every act of which they were standing trial. Other evidence showed the many payoffs and bribes made by firms who had paid between seven hundred and twenty nine thousand (depending on the size of the job) to insure the contracts of making concrete and the delivery of goods.

All the defendants had paid astronomical fees to their Lawyers, all but Carmine Persico that is who decided to represent himself and actually did a commendable job. Never the less though it was all in vain as all of the defendants were found guilty and sentenced to a hundred years behind bars.

The trial was a magnificent victory for the government. The FBI took a lot of the credit for the success of the trial, their around the clock surveillance of the mob bosses provided the prosecutors with irrefutable evidence, and ironically enough, most of the evidence came from the home of the only boss not to be convicted, although Paul Castellano was killed before the trial got going, he was actually the principle target of the case and if he was alive to stand trial he would have most definitely faced the same fate of his fellow commissioners.

Rudy Giuliani was delighted with his efforts in prosecuting the entire commission of the New York mob; he had finally shattered the immunity many of the bosses had enjoyed for so long. "Now it feels like a more level playing field,” a jubilant Rudy Giuliani boasted after what for me at least was arguably Giuliani's finest hour.

************************************

The Pizza Connection Case

Starting in the 1960s, the mafia got into the pizza business.   In 1968, the Eagle Cheese company opened, which was the first heroin distribution center, uncovered in the Pizza Connection case in the 1980s.  The pizza business provided an ingenious cover for heroin trafficking, and in fact, the mafia came to dominate the pizza business vertically.  Many illegal Sicilian aliens worked in these pizza parlors.  During this period, huge amounts of narcodollars were being laundered through pizza parlor and pizza supply companies.  This system was broken up with the arrest of 153 mafiosi.  But even this came no where near to dismantling the entire mafia system operating in America and Sicily.  It was so different a decade ago. Massino rose to the top of the Bonanno family at a moment of crisis. The clan had been wrecked by an FBI investigation of its heroin deals, dubbed the Pizza Connection because the drug was distributed through restaurants. Then the Bonannos were stunned by the revelation that one of their members, Donnie Brasco, was in fact FBI agent Joe Pistone. The Bonannos were thrown off the five family-strong Mafia commission. The so-called Pizza Connection case, established a critical link between Sicilian and American Mafia bosses conspiring to traffic heroin and cocaine using pizza parlors as a front. Tommaso Buscetta Age: 71 Italian Mafia turncoat whose testimony in the New York “pizza connection” heroin-smuggling trial in the mid-1980s resulted in the conviction of hundreds of mobsters in Italy and the United States.