5 years after Gotti's death, Mob limps on
John Marzulli, Daily News Staff Writer
June 10, 2007"If they don't put us away for one year or two, that's all we need. ... Get a year, gonna put this thing together where they could never break it. Never destroy it. Even if we die, be a good thing." -Mafia boss John Gotti in 1986, discussing his legacy with capo George Remini in the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club in Ozone Park, QueensThe Dapper Don never pulled it off.
When he died of cancer - five years ago today - in the hospital ward of a federal prison, his Gambino family was in ruins.
Gotti's brash, violent reign was both christened and cursed by his unauthorized assassination of then-boss Paul Castellano in 1985. It unleashed an all-out assault by law enforcement that lasted two decades.
Five years after the Dapper Don's demise, New York City's five Mafia families are bloodied and battered, but far from bowed.
"They're still a formidable presence," insists Kevin Hallinan, the FBI's acting special agent in charge of the bureau's organized crime section.
"It's fair to say they're hurting," he adds. "But there's no shortage of wanna-bes or associates being groomed to step in. We have to keep the heat on and do whatever we can to disrupt their influence."
The murder last week of Genovese soldier Rudolph Izzi and the shooting of reputed Gambino associate Robert DeCicco, both in Brooklyn, underscored that it still can be lethal for those "in the life."
But law enforcement priorities have changed since 9/11, with federal agents and NYPD detectives who once tailed wiseguys redeployed to counterterrorism duties.
Now, there are days that manpower shortages make Mafia surveillance impossible, sources told the Daily News.
Sources said the NYPD is so focused on terror threats that its traditional presence on the FBI-NYPD Joint Organized Crime Task Force has shrunk.
Cops in the unit who retire are not being replaced.
"I think [FBI Director Robert] Mueller and [Police Commissioner Raymond] Kelly think the mob is dead, and the reality is, it's not," said one knowledgable law enforcement source.
After DeCicco's shooting, Kelly could not deny that traditional organized crime organizations are still active.
Even Gotti's legacy lingers.
His jailed brother Peter is still the official Gambino boss and former aide-de-camp John (Jackie Nose) D'Amico is the reputed acting boss.
And today, Gambino capo Nicholas (Little Nicky) Corozzo, a favorite of Gottis', completes his supervised release and may be poised to take the reins of the crime family, according to law enforcement officials.
Experts say the Mafia families - even a Bonanno clan decimated by mass defections, including ex-boss Joseph Massino - are still reaping illicit profits.
The mob's traditional bread-and-butter industries - gambling, loansharking, construction and union racketeering - are supplemented by Internet rackets and Wall Street ventures.
Hallinan said the feds are closely monitoring mammoth construction projects like the rebuilding at Ground Zero, and new playpens for the Mets, Yankees and Nets - potential cash cows that could be worth millions to the mob.
But these days, investigators see less and less coordination among crime clans.
Retired NYPD Detective John Carillo testified in federal court recently that New York's once-vaunted Mafia "Commission" - a panel of the five crime bosses or their representatives - hasn't met to settle disputes since the year John Gotti died.
In the Teflon Don's heyday, failure to pay homage to the boss at his Ravenite Social Club in Manhattan's Little Italy or his Bergin club in Queens was an insult punishable by death.
Thanks to Gotti, the feds have a library of videos and photos depicting mob gatherings at social clubs, as well as at weddings, wakes and funerals.
"[Gotti] put a bull's-eye on all the captains," said Mark Feldman, the former chief of the Brooklyn U.S. attorney's organized-crime bureau and now a director at the accounting and consulting firm BDO Seidman.
Gangsters are still being convicted of racketeering as a result of the grainy surveillance tapes made outside those clubs back in the 1980s.
In recent years, most of the families have been run by committees of elderly capos who are respected for their wisdom - and not likely to become rats.
Gotti's playbook has become a primer for aspiring mob bosses on how not to operate.
"The social clubs have gone the way of the horse and buggy," Feldman says.
He adds that Gotti's move against Castellano was the defining event of the past 22 years because Gotti broke the rules when he killed his boss.
"It began the destabilization of what had been the most successfully run criminal enterprise," Feldman said.
Many of the storefront clubs in South Brooklyn, Ridgewood, Maspeth, Ozone Park, lower Manhattan and the Bronx are shuttered or frequented mostly by old-timers playing cards and sipping espresso.
Years before HBO's "The Sopranos" aired its first episode in 1999, New York mobsters began moving to the suburbs of New Jersey, Long Island and Westchester County, where they meet in legitimate restaurants or bars.
n 2003, real-life Luchese gangster Joseph Caridi, who lived in idyllic East Northport, L.I., showed why he's known as "the Tony Soprano of Long Island."
He was busted for running crime rackets out of his home and a local strip club, just like his fictional counterpart.
The bosses can run, but they can't hide, Hallinan said.
"We're going to take out the head of the beast, not just the tentacles," he said. "No one can stay in that position [boss] for very long."
Since early '90s, city is seeing far fewer casualties of Mafia wars
Mafia violence has declined significantly since the last major mob war of the early 1990s. In 1987, the FBI counted 21 organized crime-connected murders. The 1991-92 Colombo family civil war left 12 dead. Here's a look at more recent mob violence:
1999 - Colombo underboss William (Wild Bill) Cutolo disappears May 26 amid a struggle for control of the crime family. His body is never found.
2004 - Mob associate Randolph Pizzolo is gunned down in Brooklyn, allegedly on orders of Bonanno boss Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano.
2005 - Genovese capo Lawrence Ricci vanishes on Oct. 7 while on trial in Brooklyn Federal Court. His body is found the next month in the trunk of a car parked outside the Huck Finn diner in New Jersey.
Last Tuesday - Gambino associate Robert DeCicco is wounded in Bensonhurst by masked gunman.
Last Wednesday - Genovese soldier Rudolph (Rudy Cue Ball) Izzi found fatally shot in bedroom of his Bensonhurst home.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/5-years-gotti-death-mob-limps-article-1.220379Breakdown of the 5 families...