WHY SO MANY RATS TODAY? By Sonny Girard

WHY SO MANY RATS TODAY?
By
Sonny Girard

Over the last few days I’ve had a very personal experience with a dear friend rolling over for the Federal Government after having stood up for sixteen straight years in prison. I was shocked and saddened. I don’t know all the circumstances, other than what I’ve heard through the grapevine. I’m sure we’ll all be reading about it soon. All I can think of is that he’s traded the family of another guy or guys who trusted him to replace the suffering of his own…and that I lost another good friend. It is now the dominant event on my mind.

A while ago, when Joe Massino, boss of the Bonnano Crime Family, rolled over and began cooperating with the Feds, someone I know who was close to Joey asked me how he could do something like that. My response was to say that the phrase “wiseguys” wasn’t put together carelessly. I’m sure, I said, that “dumbguys” had never even been considered. That term, “wiseguys,” didn’t mean that people with that moniker were geniuses, but that they were slick, sharper to see opportunities than most people; had a ruthless sense of how to survive best. I told my friend that if he thought back over the last two decades, he’d see that working with the authorities had more upsides than downsides. I asked how many men who had testified against the mob since Joe Valachi had been caught up with and killed? He said, “None.” I seem to recall one, but can’t remember who, and can’t even be sure I’m right. In either case, it’s little or none. Not much of a deterrent.

There have always been rats in the mob. They were harder to identify because they were virtually all “dry snitches,” which means they provided information without ever being exposed or having to take the witness stand and testify. Many times they were the highest ranking members, like Lucky Luciano, who used the authorities to reduce a case or solve a personal problem. Lucky Luciano had his rodent cherry cracked when he was just a young drug peddler in the Five Points area of Little Italy. Arrested without the heroin on him, he led the cops to where he had stashed it; working a deal for a softer charge. He reached back into his rat bag when Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel were at odds with Waxey Gordon, in what was then called “The War of the Jews.” Fearing that the war would break into a hot shooting one, with Siegel leading the charge, Luciano and Lansky sent Meyer’s brother, Jake, to the Feds with enough of Gordon’s financial records to send Waxey away on tax charges. Quiet. No one in the streets knew. War over. Poor Gypsy Rose Lee had to attend all those parties with her fornicating monkeys (yes, she used to have them entertain her guests), but without Waxey by her side. Boo hoo.

Those kind of dry snitch events are hard to document, since no one came forward to leak those crimes. However, from experience, I am absolutely positive there was much more going on than met the eye, and usually at higher mob levels than we would ever have believed. For mob leaders, it was, and remains, “Do as I say, not as I do.” And, as time went on, at least three of my own experiences had higher ups look the other way about proven stoolpigeons who were making money for them. Two of them went to prison when the informants they protected for money testified against them.
That doesn’t mean that there weren’t men who were real men in those days. I would say that the great majority were. They came out of the same ghetto environment that the great prizefighters of the day did. Each was fighting his way out of poverty by putting up his body as collateral. Boxers subconsciously said, “Beat my face and body, but I’m not going back there.” Mobsters said the same thing, but put their lives and freedom on the line. Becoming a rat was unthinkable and truly despised, not just with empty words to make them look good. A prime example is a well known story about the “Lord High Executioner,” Albert Anastasia. Willie Sutton was a bankrobber who was known more for his escapes from prison than his actual robberies. One day, while Sutton was enjoying a hiatus from his latest sentence, a haberdasher named Arnold Schuster spotted him and informed police where to catch him. The clothing salesman got a lot of good citizenship publicity. Unfortunately for him, some of it reached Anastasia. Despite the fact that Albert knew neither Sutton nor Schuster, he exclaimed, “I hate rats!” and ordered the latter eliminated. RIP Arnold.

On a more basic day to day level in the old days, before mass communication and the Witness Protection Program, and with leaders like Anastasia around, if someone testified against a mob figure then ran away, a local boss could pass off a story about how the turncoat was tortured and dismembered then fed to animals at the nearest zoo. Other potential turncoats sitting on the fence shook in their shoes and took a jail term instead. Today, the stoolpigeon gets a book and/or film deal, does interviews with Barbara Walters, and has photos released of him lounging by a pool with palm trees in the background. The fact that a lot of what they say in those interviews is self-serving, gratuitous bullshit means nothing. They’ve “wiseguyed” both the criminal and legal systems.

Henry Hill, for example, never told Nick Pileggi about how he was despised by most mob guys but given some modicum of respect because Paul Vario loved him and cast his wing of protection over him. The expression commonly used about Henry at the time was, “You respect a dog for its master.” Instead of that side of the story, he wove a tale of how well he was respected by all. The “facts” he told Pileggi and other interviewers was what they wanted to hear, about how the mob turned on poor him. They also mean nothing. The truth is that he turned on everyone because he was a junkie and a punk, and decided to trade the suffering of his family for those of his former friends. Paul Vario, for example, got Hill a no-show job for him to get out of prison and into a halfway house. Hill testified to that fact, which sent his former father figure to prison, where he moaned about the betrayal until he died. The fact that he tells interviewers what they want to hear makes him a media darling. In the early 1990’s I appeared on Geraldo Rivera’s show, with Hill brought in via satellite. I challenged his lies. His only defense was to nervously stammer that I was wrong. I ripped Hill a new ass, but was never invited back, while he’s always been Geraldo’s mob expert pet and has appeared numerous times over the years.
The truth is that government tactics and pressure get too much credit for destroying the mob. It has destroyed itself both by natural causes, as the ghetto areas that spawned traditional mobsters are gone. Little Italy is now restaurant row. East Harlem, which produced many mob legends, is reduced to one famous restaurant, Rao’s, and a couple of social clubs for some of its geriatric neighbors. South Brooklyn is trendy Carroll Gardens. All the other ghetto areas have been turned over to those other ethnic groups at the bottom of the social and financial ladder. Young wannabes grow up in suburbs. They can shoot, but they won’t stand up to being shot at. A former partner of mine used to say, “Everybody can be a toughguy if the shoe fits. It’s when the laces get tight that you see who screams.” When these young mob hopefuls grow up, the shoe fits comfortably. They have nice homes, girlfriends, cars, and MTV. There is no one that they “needed” to help them stay alive as they grew up. They have no loyalty experiences in their background. What they need is their MTV. When the prison gates clang behind them, those laces tighten quickly and they scream. Older wiseguys feel like jerks when they realize that their co-defendants are likely to have palm trees instead of jail cells, and they too rush forward. Joe Massino might be the first official boss to roll over, but the recent past is filled with high ranking members who have chosen rolling over to standing up: Jimmy The Weasel, Acting Boss of L.A.; Ralph Natale, Acting Boss, of Philadelphia; Underboss, Sammy the Bull, of New York; Gaspipe Casso, Little Al D’Arco, and on and on and on.

Another problem for the mob is its Americanization; the idea that the only goal is money. Years ago, believe it or not, there was a thread of honor that ran alongside the thread of crime. As time went on, the crime should have been discarded, with the code of honor dictating a tight, secret organization, much like the Masons, which circulated money among its members. The “Me Generation” has taken over. A number of years ago, a partner of mine died. The brass called me in to find out what he had going; what profit was out there to be had. One of the things we had our fingers in was to maintain order in a huge auditorium-type operation. The big guy asked how much was made from it. I answered, “Nothing.” He said that if there was no money coming out of the place, we should step back and let someone from another crew go in. I replied that there was no responsibility for him, since I handled all the beefs, and that we had maintained our position of authority there to guarantee that we had jobs for our guys coming out of jail. His answer: “Fuck the guys in jail.” That sort of thinking explains a lack of loyalty among underlings even further. For years, guys have gone to prison with zipped lips, many times to protect their superiors. Unless they are bosses, it is a rarity that any of their families get a cent; that they get any money themselves for commissary. In fact, more times than not, money is stolen from operations they had going when they went to jail. The Government didn’t do that. Add all the corrosion from the inside-out and you’ll see why there are so many rats and the mob is gasping its last breaths.

Twenty years ago a friend of mine from Jersey said that one day there would be a time when a bunch of mob guys would be standing on a corner when they saw another mobster coming, and one would say, “Shhh, don’t talk, he’s a stand up guy.”

That day is now.

P.S.:
A current example of the case I’ve made is that of Chris Paciello, a Staten Island “toughguy” until he faced prison time. Paciello has had a book written about him, a television movie about him done too, and is now relocated in Los Angeles, where he mingles with entertainment figures like the cast of “Entourage,” who are excited by his past. Some may have been patrons of his hot Miami nightclub. Some will probably wind up in his bed.
This week’s events, with my now former pal rolling over against others brought to mind an article that Richard Johnson had published about Paciello in the New York Post, one that also involves MySpace.com:

MYSPACE MISERY FOR MOBSTER

January 15, 2007 — WHILE Brooklyn mobster Chris Paciello tries to start a new life in Los Angeles, having served six years in prison for a 1993 murder, there are plenty of former friends from Bensonhurst who wouldn’t -mind if he got run over by a truck.
Paciello was a government witness – along with such pals as Fat Sal, Applehead and Skeeve – who helped send a dozen of his old associates behind bars, including Alphonse “Allie Boy” Persico, the acting boss of the Colombo crime family.

“Paciello is a no-good snitch, a rat, and a selfish [bleep-bleep]er,” says a Brooklynite surprised that Paciello didn’t undergo plastic surgery and enter the witness-protection program.
Always quick with his fists, the handsome Paciello was Miami’s nightclub king 10 years ago and dated the likes of Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Sofia Vergara and models too numerous to mention.
Now, one of his enemies has set up a phony MySpace page bearing Paciello’s likeness and his (made-up) words: “For some reason everyone in Miami and Hollywood thinks I only ratted on four people.” The entry then lists five “Springville Boys” from Staten Island he actually helped put away for sentences ranging from 3 to 10 years.
“I also took the stand against Eddie Boyle [a high-end bank burglar associated with the Gambinos] and Tommy Dono from Brooklyn. I provided information on Tommy Reynolds and Fabritzio “The Hurter” DiFrancesi, now serving 30- and 36-year sentences.

“I also snitched on my best friends from Brooklyn who I grew up with my whole life, Rico Locasio, 5 years, and Dom “Black Dom” Dionisio, 16 years.”
A law-enforcement source says this account is accurate: “Paciello would have testified in a lot of other cases, but the majority of defendants pleaded guilty and there were no trials.”
The MySpace hoaxer points out that even after all his cooperation, Paciello was sentenced to 10 years: “As I cried in the courtroom, the prosecutor said he would appeal the sentence. A few weeks later, I got a 7-year sentence. Basically what I’m saying is I could not do an extra three years . . . I’m a selfish rat [bleep-bleep]er.”
All I can say is, “Kudos to the MySpace mischief maker.
To check out who’s infesting your neighborhood, go to www.whosarat.com
© 2010 R.I.C.O. Entertainment, Inc.

Sonny Girard is a former mobster who has published three novels based on his experiences, and is an internationally recognized expert on organized crime. He has appeared on many TV shows as such, including The O’Reilly Factor, Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, WABC Nightline, and RAI-TV in Rome, Italy. Read more about Sonny, his work, and more mob stuff at www.SonnysMobCafe.com

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