Sammy Gravano

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Sammy Gravano

Born March 12, 1945(1945-03-12)
Brooklyn, New York, U.S.

Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano (born March 12, 1945) was a high ranking member of the Gambino crime family. A capo and then later underboss to John Gotti he is notorious as the man who brought Gotti down by becoming an FBI informant. Originally a soldier for the Brooklyn faction of the Gambinos, he was part of a conspiracy within the family to murder Gambino boss Paul Castellano. Gravano played a key role in planning and executing Castellano's murder; other conspirators included John Gotti, Angelo Ruggiero, Frank DeCicco, and Joe Armone. This dramatic murder would elevate Gravano's position in the family to underboss under Gotti. Gravano is also known as "King Rat" because of his testimony against Gotti. His testimony drew a wave of Cosa Nostra members to become informants.

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[edit] Childhood and early life

Salvatore Gravano was born in 1945 to Giorlando (Gerry) and Caterina (Kay) Gravano. He was the youngest of three children, and the only boy. They lived in Bensonhurst, a largely Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn. Early on, one of his relatives remarked that he looked like an uncle Sammy. From that point on, he was always called "Sammy," and never "Salvatore" or "Sal."

He never did very well in school; it turned out he had a severe case of dyslexia. However, when he was growing up, that condition was not well known, and his problems in school were dismissed due to him being a "slow learner." He was held back on two occasions. At first, this made him a target of jokes at school, but they ended after he beat up several of his tormentors. He continued to assert his physical presence through violence as he grew up, and his parents were forced to sign him out of school when he was 16 years old.

He began stealing when he was only 7 or 8 and would take two cupcakes from a corner store, in Bensonhurst every day on his way to school. Sammy sobbed when he was caught stealing from his corner shop at the age of 8 and was let off with a firm warning by the shopkeeper. However, by the time he was 13, he had joined the Rampers, a prominent gang in the area.

His father had a well-paying occupation. He ran a small dress factory and could sustain a good standard of living for the family. His father tried all possible methods of discipline, even forcing him to attend Mass with him, but nothing worked.

He was drafted into the United States Army in 1964. While an enlisted soldier, Gravano mainly worked as a mess hall cook. He rose to the rank of corporal, and was granted an honorable discharge. Gravano was not deployed to the Vietnam War. It was a personal disappointment, as he believed his time as a street punk was excellent training for going to a combat zone. As he stated in an interview, "Back home on the streets I could go to jail for hurting and killing guys; but in Vietnam they would have awarded me medals for doing what comes naturally to me." He married Debra Scibetta in 1971; they had two children. Debra is a neice of Joseph (Bayonne Joe) Zicarelli. Joseph controlled among other things, a vast illegal gambling empire out of Hudson County, New Jersey. Around the time Sam met Debra, her notorious uncle was serving twelve to fifteen years for bribing members of U.S. Congress and local New Jersey politicians including a D.A. prosecutor. This caused tensions between Debra's family and Gravano. Her family mob relations were not discovered by Sam until many years later. Later in his mob career, he was ordered to help arrange the murder of his brother-in-law Nick Scibetta for insulting the daughter of Gambino family capo Frank DeCicco, a close friend of Sammy's. He is also the brother-in-law of Gambino crime family capo Edward Garafola.

[edit] Spero and his first murder

The Mafia had always been omnipresent in Bensonhurst; several "wiseguys" hung around a saloon that Sammy and his father frequently walked by. On one occasion, they helped Sammy recover a stolen bike, and one of them was so enamored by his fighting ability that he nicknamed him "the Bull." The nickname stuck.

Despite his father's attempts to dissuade him, Sammy, like many of his Ramper colleagues, drifted into the Mafia. He first became associated with the "Honored Society" in 1968 through Tommy Spero, whose uncle, Shorty, was an associate of the Colombo crime family under its notorious future boss, Carmine "Junior" Persico. Gravano was involved in petty crimes, as he almost always had been, such as larceny, hijacking, and armed robbery. He was a particular favorite of the family boss, Joe Colombo. In 1973, he committed his first murder--that of Joseph Colucci, a fellow Spero associate who was reportedly planning to kill both Spero and Gravano. Ironically, one of the first companies Gravano became involved with in the construction industry was run by Joseph Colucci's son.

[edit] Career with the Gambinos

Sometime in the early 70's, after a dispute with a relative of Spero's, Gravano changed his affiliation to the Gambino family, and became an associate of longtime capo Salvatore "Toddo" Aurello. Aurello quickly took a liking to Sammy, who already had an education in mob life from legendary Cosa Nostra crime figure Carmine Persico. In 1976, Gravano was officially inducted into the family as one of the first to be sworn in by Castellano after he became boss.

Gravano quickly acquired tremendous clout in the construction and trucking industries. The Aurello crew supervised the Gambino family's control over Teamsters Local 282, which had jurisdiction over building materials to all construction sites in the city. The Mafia's control over the city's construction industry was so absolute that concrete could not be poured for any project of more than $2 million without Mafia approval. He soon became a multi-millionaire soldier in the family, which allowed him to build a mansion in rural Ocean County, New Jersey.

Gravano soon became discontented with Castellano's distance from the more violent elements of the family; despite his rise in stature, he always considered himself a hoodlum at heart. He would eventually become close to John Gotti, a Queens based Gambino captain who was a protegé of underboss Aniello Dellacroce, and who had despised Castellano. Gotti had reached out to Gravano, Frank DeCicco, Joseph Armone, and Frank LoCascio. They formed the "Fist of Five," which plotted the murder of their boss. Gravano and DeCicco, after some vacillation, agreed to back the move--but secretly agreed that if Gotti stepped out of line, they would kill him. Had this happened, DeCicco would have become boss with Gravano as his underboss.

On December 16, 1985, Castellano and Thomas Bilotti were gunned down in midtown Manhattan outside of Sparks Steakhouse, while Gotti and Gravano watched from across the street. Gotti was installed as the new boss of the family, and Gravano's importance quickly rose. Aurello had used him as acting captain of his crew for some time, and shortly after Gotti's installation, Gravano formally took over the crew.

Gotti named DeCicco his Underboss, but just months after Castellano's murder, DeCicco was killed in a car bomb attack orchestrated by Vincent "Chin" Gigante, the boss of the Genovese crime family, in an assassination-plot that also included Lucchese crime family leaders Vittorio "Vic" Amuso and Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso who agreed to have Gotti killed. Gigante ordered the bombing because the Castellano hit had been carried out without the consent of the Commission, the Five Families of New York. It was a standing Mafia law that a boss could only be killed with the express consent of the Commission, which Gotti had not sought. The car bomb was actually intended to kill Gotti, but killed DeCicco by mistake. The hit took place outside of Castellano's former social club, which was then operated by captain James "Jimmy Brown" Failla, who along with captain Daniel "Danny" Marino, were two of Castellano's closest associates before his death. Allegedly, both Marino and Failla had been involved in the assassination plot. Ironically, Gigante had been the trigger man on the last unsanctioned hit on a New York don--Vito Genovese's unsuccessful attempt to kill Frank Costello, in 1957.

Not long after this, Gravano became the family's Gambino crime family Consigliere and his old crew was taken over by Louis "Big Lou" Vallario. With Gotti's permission, Gravano set up the murders of longtime friend and made man Liborio Milito, capo Robert DiBernardo, Tommy Spero, and several other Gambino associates. Eventually, Gotti would name Gravano his Underboss, and move LoCascio to Consigliere. Before their indictments, Gotti decided that if he was sent to prison, he wanted Gravano to take over as acting boss of the Gambinos.

When Gotti was tried for racketeering and assault charges in the winter of 1986-87, Gravano paid a juror to vote not guilty regardless of what happened. It was this trial that allowed Gotti to make his reputation as "the Teflon Don."

[edit] Later life

In 1991, after he was arrested as a result of a major FBI operation against the Gambino Family, Gravano famously turned state's evidence and testified against Gotti in exchange for a reduced sentence. John Gotti received a sentence of life imprisonment. Gravano, who confessed to taking part in nineteen murders, was convicted of a token racketeering charge and sentenced to five years. As part of Gravano's cooperation agreement, he would never be forced to testify against his former crew, which included Louis Vallario, Michael DiLeonardo, Frank Fappiano, Edward Garafola, Thomas Carbonaro, Joseph DeAngelo and many other career criminals and wiseguys.

Gravano was released early and then entered the U.S. federal Witness Protection Program, but he left it in 1995 and relocated to Arizona. By 1998 however he had resumed his life of crime and partnered with a local white supremacist youth gang known as the Devil Dogs after his son became friends with the gang's 23 year old leader Micheal Papa. Gravano and the Devil Dogs started a major ecstasy trafficking organization, selling over 25,000 tablets a week. Despite flooding Arizona with ecstasy, Gravano still spoke at a September 1999 FBI conference about the use of informants. [1]

But by February 2000 the law caught up with him and he was convicted in October 2002. He is currently serving a 19-year sentence in an Arizona State prison. [1] His son was also imprisoned for his role in the drug ring. His wife and daughter were also charged but were not imprisoned. Ironically, Gravano's downfall was due to informers amongst his own associates.

On February 24, 2003, New Jersey state prosecutors announced they would pursue murder charges against Gravano for allegedly ordering the hit on decorated NYPD detective Peter Calabro on the night of March 14, 1980.[2]. The charges were later dropped, however, when the star witness, imprisoned hit man Richard Kuklinski, died of unknown causes before he could testify. Federal inmates who served time with Gravano say the mob turncoat privately admitted to his role in the 1980 killing of a New York cop. Inmates claimed Gravano bragged about killing many more than 19 people. If proved that Gravano lied about how many people he killed, appeals by people he helped put in prison could follow.

Gravano has a biography called Underboss under the HarperCollins Publishing company, by Peter Maas. In the book, he said he decided to turn into an informer after hearing Gotti tried to make him look like a "mad dog" killer in conversations secretly taped by the government. He also said that he bristled under Gotti's constant search for publicity.

[edit] In popular culture

[edit] Print

  • In the 2000 Tom Clancy novel The Bear And The Dragon, an FBI agent tells a detective of the Moscow Militia a story about Gravano being caught dealing drugs; he uses this to drive home his belief that all criminals are basically stupid.
  • In a issue of MAD Magazine, a section about the humorous downsides of being a mafia don's son includes "Uncle Sammy The Bull".

[edit] Television

[edit] Music

  • Gravano is mentioned in the song Welcome to New York City by rapper Cam'ron in regards to the murder of Paul Castellano: In front of Sparks, body of Castellano, block away watched by Gotti and Gravano, it's La Cosa Nostra....
  • In the McGruff song Dangerzone, Big L raps, "I'm not a soprano like that Italiano Sammy Gravano"
  • The Proof song Sammy da Bull, featuring Nate Dogg & Swifty McVay, rails against Gravano and other such "snitchers".
  • Rapper Obie Trice mentions Gravano in his song Snitch; "Nowadays, Sammy the Bull's, got the game full. So he moved to a rural area to keep cool."
  • The Mighty Mighty Bosstones song Mr. Moran describes Gravano's life, particularly his time in the Witness Protection Program. "Mr. Moran" was an alias used by Gravano.
  • On Jay-Z's debut album "Reasonable Doubt" Gravano is referenced on the song "Bring It On" by Sauce Money in the first verse when he says "Teflon, make sure your jammy is full, cause I heard Sammy the Bull lives in Miami with pull"
  • Rapper GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan references Gravano in his 1995 song Killa Hills 10304 with the lyric "look who’s on the witness stand singing, a well known soprano, a smash hit from Sammy Gravano." This linking of Gravano to the term "soprano" occurred several years before the HBO TV series The Sopranos first aired.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Sammy "The Bull" Gravano's Offender Page (Arizona Dept. Of Corrections)

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ BBC News - FBI and the mafia : A tale of betrayal http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1290579.stm
  2. ^ Carlo, Philip The Ice Man, p. 257, St. Martin's Griffin, 2006