faithful1 1 I think you have Genovese mixed up with carmine tramunti. [ mr. gribbs. ] his arrest happened as you described genoveses. Genovese was convicted after the jury heard testimony from nelson cantellops.
No, I didn't mix up anything. This is from "Crusade" by Tom Tripodi, a former CIA, FBN and DEA agent:
"The continuing conspiracy against Genovese largely rested on the testimony of Nelson Cantellops... Cantellops, 'working off his case ' by going undercover for the FBN, attempted to cut a dope deal with Joseph DiPalermo (aka Joe Beck), a Genovese lieutenant. Beck insisted on checking Cantellop's bona fides, and the two men engaged in a cat-and-mouse game of "whom do you know?" -- all under FBN surveillance. Finally, Beck asked Cantellops if he knew "Don Vitone." Cantellops assented, only to have Beck further insist that the relationship be corroborated by Don Vito Genovese himself."
[At a restaurant] as "Genovese was preoccupied with his meal, Beck tapped him on the shoulder and said, 'Do you know this guy?' As much to dismiss the intrusion as anything else, Genovese waved and replied, 'Yeah, he's all right.'"
"And with those few words Don Vito Genovese earned his death sentence, for seated at the bar were FBN agents Jim Hunt and Frankie Waters. Both would later testify that they had witnessed and overheard the conversation. By vouching for Cantellops, an admitted dope peddler, Genovese sealed his fate. It made him guilty of a continuing conspiracy."
"So thin was the evidence against Genovese that even J. Edgar Hoover" wrote a letter to the head of the Bureau of Narcotics and asserted that it was a frame-up and a travesty of justice.
