Documentary, Mobsters Carmine the snake Persico
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00:01If you crossed a snake, you were gonna get bitten.
00:04Carmine Persico is the Mafia Don that all the others feared.
00:08Carmine killed one of his opponents, beat him to death with his hands.
00:12They didn't call Carmine the snake for nothing.
00:15Carmine was a scumbag to a lot of guys.
00:17The best words to describe Carmine Persico would be a leech,
00:21something that attaches itself to an organism and just sucks the life out of it.
00:25Instead of creating a dynasty, he unleashed a debacle.
00:30He virtually destroyed the family.
00:32He found.
00:49Sunday, August 20th, 1961.
00:53A warm summer evening in South Brooklyn.
00:56Inside the Sahara Club, a mob hangout.
00:59Carmine Persico Jr. and a fellow mobster sipped drinks and made small talk.
01:05They were waiting for a meeting with longtime associate, Larry Gallo.
01:11Gallo was aligned with Persico in a power struggle against mob boss Joe Profaci.
01:16They were sick of Profaci reaching in their pockets for excessive tributes.
01:20Mob warfare was in the wind.
01:23Gallo arrived at the club, ready to discuss war strategy with his friend and ally.
01:30But Persico had other plans.
01:33Persico jumps out of the shadows and throws a rope around his neck and tries to strangle him.
01:38Stunned, Gallo fell to his knees, struggling to pull the rope from his neck.
01:44Larry Gallo was almost dead.
01:46A very lucky break for him.
01:48A police sergeant walked in.
01:50Persico and his cohort ran out the back door, leaving Gallo gasping for air.
01:57The assassination is interrupted.
01:59Larry lives.
02:00But from then on, the Gallo's do not trust Carmine Persico.
02:04He is their bitter enemy.
02:06The act of betrayal against his former ally earned Persico his nickname, The Snake.
02:12He was a devious double-crosser.
02:19August 8, 1933.
02:22In a small Brooklyn hospital not far from their Red Hook home, Carmine Persico and his wife Susan welcomed their second child, Carmine Jr.
02:32When Carmine Jr. was born, the Roaring Twenties had given way to the Great Depression, leaving millions of families out of work.
02:43But while much of the neighborhood labored for pennies, young Carmine had plenty to get by.
02:49Persico was lucky.
02:51His father, Carmine Sr., had a terrific job.
02:54He worked as a legal stenographer for a Wall Street firm, which meant that he got a paycheck every week.
03:02Carmine Sr. kept food on the table and a roof over the family's head.
03:07But he couldn't keep Carmine Jr. from exploring the hardscrabble streets of Red Hook.
03:12In the Red Hook area, it was like Brooklyn's Little Italy.
03:16Carmine could see, although there was a lot of working people and blue-collar people, the people who got the most respect were the Mafiosi.
03:25He's very attracted to a young guy.
03:27These other guys, they have a big role in their pocket all the time and they're going out to clubs and they have flashy women.
03:32Why wouldn't you want to be a wise guy?
03:34The mobsters weren't just top dogs on the streets.
03:37If you're a kid, you know, watching some of the great old gangster films, there's a real allure of wanting to go in and live out these sort of D-movie fantasies on the streets.
03:48For Carmine Jr., the fantasy was too tempting to resist.
03:53At the age of 16, he ignored his parents' pleas and dropped out of high school.
04:00Junior hooked up with a street gang called the Garfield Boys.
04:07At first glance, Presico didn't have the look of a would-be street thug.
04:12He was not a big dude. He was wiry, he was, you know, rather short, but he was extraordinarily tough.
04:19Carmine was a fast talker. He was a born leader and the other boys in that neighborhood listened to him.
04:26The street gangs of Brooklyn battled for neighborhood turf.
04:30Prospect Park was this rumbling ground for the gangs.
04:35One of these rumbles was the Garfield Boys against the Red Hook Tigers.
04:40The playground brawl raged out of control.
04:43During that battle, Carmine killed one of his opponents, beat him to death with his hands.
04:49Shows you what kind of ferocious fighter he was.
04:52Persico was arrested for murder, but skated on a self-defense plea.
04:58At the young age of 17, Persico had his first taste of blood.
05:03And the wise guys took notice.
05:06Frankie Schatz Abadamarko was a capo running his own crew within the Profaci crime family.
05:14Junior started running numbers for Frankie Schatz, who was sort of the boss of the number gang.
05:21in South Brooklyn.
05:24And this was big business.
05:26This is the Italian lottery.
05:28For young Persico, it was a racket ripe with opportunity.
05:33You've got to build a reputation as being a stand-up kid.
05:36And running numbers is sort of the training ground.
05:40In Abadamarko's numbers crew, Persico found a trio of kindred spirits, the Gallo brothers.
05:46Unlike Persico, the three Gallo brothers, Albert, Larry, and Crazy Joey, had the mafia in their blood.
05:56Their father had been a bootlegger during Prohibition.
05:59Crazy Joe Gallo had literally modeled himself after a B-movie psychopath called Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death.
06:09So, Crazy Joe Gallo develops this persona as this wise-cracking madman.
06:15And it works.
06:17Carmine and the Gallos worked their way up in Frankie Schatz's crew, and were entrusted with more lucrative opportunities.
06:24Persico proved his worth in truck hijacking, a bread and butter racket for the Profaci family.
06:31It's really, you know, not that difficult.
06:34You put a gun to a truck driver's head.
06:36You tell them if you want to go see your kids and wife and kids again, just give us the load and just go away.
06:43You want to hijack a load that has something that's valuable and something you can get rid of.
06:48Clothing, liquor, television sets.
06:53Carmine brought in cash by the truckload.
06:56But Frankie Schatz didn't forget the skills that led him to Persico in the first place.
07:02He was a leg breaker for people who were in debt to Frankie Schatz.
07:07He would have a billy club or blackjack with him that would make him even taller than the five foot six or seven that he really was.
07:15By the mid-1950s, Persico was a top earner in Frankie Schatz's crew.
07:21The mobster was flushed with cash and ready to spend it on his personal life.
07:26Carmine met a gorgeous young brunette named Joyce Moldano, and the mobster was hooked.
07:33They were married the following year.
07:35He and Joyce have their first child, Alphonse, in 1954.
07:40Four more children, two boys and two girls would follow.
07:47As Persico's family grew, so did his ambition.
07:53Before he could officially join the mob ranks, he had to take one big step.
07:59Carmine had to make his bones commit a murder.
08:03The target, one of the country's most notorious mobsters.
08:09Fall, 1957.
08:11As Carmine Persico was working his way through the ranks, crime boss Albert Anastasia was causing an uproar in the mob's inner circles.
08:19Anastasia wanted to become sort of the boss of bosses.
08:24He saw himself as a supreme leader, not just in New York, but the whole country.
08:29Anastasia's power grab rankled mob leaders, especially his own underboss, Carlo Gambino.
08:37Carlo Gambino saw him as an impediment, so he came to the decision that Anastasia should be murdered.
08:44He went to his fellow crime boss, Joe Profaci, and he said, Joe, will you do this for me?
08:50Profaci said, yes, it'll further my enterprises as well to get rid of Anastasia.
08:56Wacking the mob boss would be no easy task.
08:59Anastasia kept a constant watch for trouble.
09:02The hit would have to take place at a moment when Anastasia was most vulnerable from a crew that no one suspected.
09:10October 25, 1957.
09:13Albert Anastasia entered the barbershop at the Park Sheraton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan.
09:19It was routine for the old school mobster to come in several times a week for a trim and a shave.
09:26Anastasia is in the barbershop.
09:29He leans back in the chair.
09:30He's ready to get a trim, and these two hitmen barge in.
09:34They had fedoras, and they had sort of a bandana, cowboy style, wrapped around their face.
09:39They blast Anastasia while he's in the barber chair.
09:44The assassination of the legendary boss sent the New York papers into a feeding frenzy.
09:51It's the kind of thing that there's blood all over the barbershop floor.
09:55You know, it's a spectacular killing.
09:58It's really the mob's greatest hit.
10:01Allegedly, those two hitmen were Crazy Joe Gallo and Carmine the Snake Persico.
10:09The hit on Anastasia sent a shockwave through the underworld.
10:14And boss Joe Profaci didn't forget who took care of the job for him.
10:19In a secret ceremony later that year, Carmine Persico took part in a tradition that stretched back to the earliest days in mob history.
10:28His finger was pricked, and a picture of a saint was burned in his hands.
10:34He has to pledge that he will abide by the rules, particularly omerta, meaning the vow of silence.
10:41Once you're in, you're always in. The only way out is in a box.
10:4524-year-old Persico had earned his place among the mobsters he admired growing up.
10:51He'd become a made man.
10:53He's literally the youngest person to have been made in the family.
10:58So Junior Zone was the boy genius of the Profaci family.
11:03But the boy genius wasn't satisfied with just a membership in the mob.
11:08Now he considered himself that he deserved more respect, more money.
11:13He wanted a bigger share of the loot.
11:16Persico had powerful ambition, a trait that would spark a wave of unrest in the family.
11:22Before long, tensions between the old guard and the new would erupt.
11:31In a full-on mob war.
11:37By the late 1950s, Carmine Persico Junior and the Gallo brothers were the young stars of New York's Profaci mob family.
11:45The sensational hit on boss Albert the Mad Hatter Anastasia gave them a wealth of street cred.
11:52Credit that they felt entitled them to a bigger slice of the mafia pie.
11:57But boss Joe Profaci kept most of the pie to himself.
12:01Carmine and the Gallos weren't the only ones with a bone to pick.
12:05There was widespread dissatisfaction in the Profaci family with the boss Joe Profaci.
12:10They felt he was too greedy.
12:13He was asking for too much money.
12:15Tensions in the family heated to a boiling point.
12:18And Persico had to choose where to place his loyalties.
12:22There was only one person the mobster really trusted.
12:26Himself.
12:33The first move against boss Profaci was made by Frankie Schatz about a Marco.
12:38The disgruntled capo had had enough of making payments to his overbearing boss.
12:45And cut off the cash flow.
12:47Profaci was enraged by the disloyalty.
12:50He was an old fashioned guy and he was a greedy guy.
12:54And it was all about money with him.
12:56If you crossed the Profaci family and the boss found out about it, you were probably marked for death.
13:01November 4th, 1959.
13:05Inside a South Brooklyn tavern, Frankie Schatz finished his drink.
13:11Threw money on the bar and made his way to the door.
13:15But the exit was blocked.
13:17Two masked hitmen unloaded.
13:19Into a Batamarco's chest.
13:22Joe Profaci killed him as a message to everybody else.
13:29I'm the boss. You pay me.
13:31Or else you're going to pay the piper.
13:35The hit on their mentor, Frankie Schatz, hit the gallows and Persico hard.
13:40This caused a lot of bitterness because they felt that, you know, he was one of theirs.
13:47But they couldn't claim to be shocked.
13:50It was part of the game when a mobster defied the boss.
13:54What happened next, though, wasn't in the playbook.
13:58The gallows and Carmine Persico thought that would have Marco gone.
14:04Maybe one of them should be the capo of his old crew.
14:06Instead, Profaci passed over them.
14:11The people in their 20s, early 30s, these aren't the people who are going to be capos in his family.
14:15There's a resentment building, and from this hotbed of resentment,
14:20starts to stir a little bit of revolution here.
14:24Maybe there's a quicker way to get to the top.
14:27February 1961.
14:29A fleet of limousines were dispatched across New York City.
14:32They were sent by Carmine and the gallows to pick up the leaders of the Profaci family,
14:37a pickup that wasn't on the boss's schedule.
14:40The idea was that we're going to drive up to these guys' cars,
14:43we're going to stuff the guys inside, we're all going to hold them hostage.
14:46One by one, the rebels snatched five top Profaci lieutenants,
14:51including underboss Joe Magliocco and Capo Joseph Colombo.
14:56They said to Profaci, they sent them an ultimatum.
15:01We want more, we want the larger share, or we're not going to release these guys.
15:06They even threatened to kill them.
15:08After weeks of negotiating, Profaci finally agreed to the demands.
15:13A bigger cut of the profits.
15:15The captives were released.
15:16But Profaci was not one to be pushed around.
15:21Six months after the gallows kidnapping, the boss reneged on his promises.
15:27Profaci sent out the word to the gallows and to Carmine.
15:31You guys better watch it.
15:33You stay loyal to me and follow orders,
15:36because you're not going to get anything more than you had before.
15:39It was the last straw for Carmine and the gallows.
15:41They declared war on Profaci.
15:45The family was thrown into chaos.
15:48The rebels built an army,
15:51enlisting soldiers from within the disgruntled Profaci masses.
15:55They had no idea, though, that behind the scenes,
15:58Profaci had already fired the first shot.
16:01Profaci was a sly fox.
16:03He saw what was happening,
16:05and he separately went to certain Capos in his family,
16:08and he got them back on his side.
16:12His main target was Carmine Persico.
16:15Profaci spoke a language the mobster understood.
16:19He offered Persico a hefty cut of the family's rackets if he switched sides.
16:25Ultimately, Persico decided that he would be able to move up in the crime family
16:31by being, you know, an ally of the boss.
16:33On August 21, 1961, Carmine Persico proved his loyalty to the Profaci faction.
16:43He invited Larry Gallo in for a meeting.
16:47Persico began the proceedings by throwing a noose around Gallo's neck.
16:53The murder attempt was interrupted,
16:56but Gallo was left with an ugly bruise around his neck
16:58and the bitter taste of betrayal on his tongue.
17:02When the cops questioned Gallo, however, he stayed true to the oath of Omerta,
17:08refusing to reveal his attacker.
17:11The battle with Carmine Persico wouldn't be settled in any police station or courtroom.
17:17It would be settled on the streets.
17:19The Gallo Wars was a throwback to the prohibition days of big gangsters,
17:25of Al Capone doing drive-by shootings.
17:28This is this sort of spectacular old-school gangland war,
17:33which is being played out by these young guys who grew up on gangster movies.
17:38For the next two years, the streets of Brooklyn ran red with the blood of Profaci and Gallo mobsters.
17:43And Carmine Persico sat right in the middle.
17:49Junior set up a cadre of shotgun riders,
17:52and these guys were like sharks swimming through South Brooklyn,
17:56and they were scouting for Gallos.
17:59The body count rose quickly.
18:01By March 1963,
18:04nine Gallo soldiers had been killed.
18:08But even as their ranks were under fire,
18:10the Gallos set their sights on the man who'd betrayed them.
18:16In early 1963,
18:18the Gallos took their first legitimate shot at the snake.
18:22Someone planted a bomb in his car,
18:25and by some miracle,
18:29he escaped with no injuries.
18:32On May 19th,
18:35they tracked down the mobster on his way to a court appearance.
18:38A truck pulled up.
18:43Two gunmen start pumping bullets from the truck into the car through the doors.
18:49Carmine takes three hits.
18:54One goes into his mouth.
18:56He was such a tough guy that Carmine spit the bullet out and said,
18:59let's get the hell out of here.
19:01Carmine was taken to the hospital, questioned.
19:03Blood caked his face.
19:05He would never break his oath of omerta.
19:08But it was payback, and he accepted his payback.
19:13By late 1963,
19:15the ranks of both the Perpacci and Gallo factions were battered and bloody.
19:20Nearly 30 mobsters from either side had been killed or wounded in the war.
19:25There were other casualties as well.
19:28Crazy Joey Gallo was behind bars on an extortion charge.
19:33And boss Joseph Perpacci was dead after losing a battle with cancer,
19:38leaving a void at the head of the family.
19:39The Mafia Commission wanted an end to the intra-wars.
19:44It was bad for business and brought too much headline to the Mafia.
19:49And they decided something, the war had to be ended.
19:52The Commission sought a fresh start.
19:55They installed Capo Joseph Colombo and renamed the tainted Perpacci family the Colombo family.
20:02Carmine Persico had survived the slaughter and was rewarded for his loyalty.
20:07He'd been on the winning side.
20:10He was now a Capo, which meant much more loot would flow to him.
20:15Carmine Persico was riding high.
20:19But the 30-year-old mobster had set his sights even higher.
20:23He wanted to be the boss of the family.
20:27And he was willing to do whatever it took to get there.
20:37By the late 1960s, Carmine Persico had climbed to new heights in his mob career.
20:43He was a Capo in the family of newly appointed boss, Joseph Colombo,
20:48entrusted with a crew that raked in truckloads of cash.
20:52But the good times didn't last long.
20:55A single dust-up with the law hung over his head.
20:58A 1959 truck hijacking that had Persico in and out of court for more than a decade.
21:05Carmine was offered a plea.
21:08If he pleaded guilty, he would get three years.
21:12Which in effect, in the 60s, meant one year and he'd be out on parole.
21:18Persico chose instead to fight the charge.
21:21The case would turn into one of the longest in New York history.
21:25Basically what Junior would do is he would throw lots of money at lawyers
21:29and these lawyers would keep getting the trial delayed and technicalities.
21:33This at the other, well, this lasts for a decade.
21:37On January 27, 1971, Carmine's long legal drama came to an end.
21:43He was sentenced to 14 years for the truck hijacking charge.
21:47It was the first time the mobster had ever been locked up for more than a few days.
21:53But the stint in prison turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
21:58Once again, the Colombo family was set on a war path.
22:03And Carmine Persico would be the last man standing.
22:06In February 1971, one month after Persico walked into prison, his arch enemy, crazy Joey Gallo walked out.
22:22In prison, Gallo had made a crew of unlikely allies.
22:26Joey Gallo has been rumored to have been cultivating relationships with blacks while he was in prison.
22:33Joey's idea was that we're going to get this aligned and we're going to rule the streets together.
22:39Gallo wanted to take back control of the family and set his sights on the new boss, Joseph Colombo.
22:46Luckily for Gallo, the family boss made himself easy to find.
22:50On April 30, 1970, Colombo's son, Joseph Jr., was arrested on extortion charges.
23:00The angry father cried harassment at the hands of the FBI.
23:04To protest, Colombo made a curious move for a mob boss.
23:09He became an activist.
23:10He's saying that it's disgusting how Italian Americans are being portrayed as a bunch of gangsters.
23:19But ironically, he's a mafia boss. And so there's sort of a schizophrenia there of his message.
23:25Colombo took his crusade one step further, creating a human rights group called the Italian American Civil Rights League.
23:32His fellow mob bosses, as well as people in his own family, they think he's crazy.
23:37I said, you know, why are you shining a light on us? This isn't good. This isn't good.
23:42June 28, 1971.
23:47Several thousand people gathered in attendance at New York's Columbus Circle for Italian American Unity Day, an event Colombo organized.
23:55Joe Colombo was walking to the podium to deliver a speech when an African American person who was masquerading as a cameraman shot him.
24:11Colombo was hit three times in the neck and head.
24:14Immediately, Colombo's bodyguards gunned down the assailant.
24:17They find out that the guy's name was Jerome Johnson, had a criminal record of his own.
24:25They say immediately, Joey Gallo.
24:28Joey Gallo put this guy up.
24:30How perfect that he would hire a hitman who wouldn't look like, you know, your typical Italian thug.
24:38The attempt on Colombo threw the leadership of the family into total chaos.
24:43Joe Colombo's in a coma. He's a vegetable.
24:46You have a lot of powerful capos who want to take control, and the loyalists are trying to, you know, keep things straight.
24:53With Colombo as good as gone, the family looked for a new boss.
24:58One name kept rising to the top.
25:01Carmine Persico is the power in the crime family.
25:05So while he's in prison in the 1970s, everybody is looking to him.
25:10Somehow, he managed to have that whole family singing his tune.
25:13He would send messages out of jail.
25:15He'd have people telling street-level capos what he wanted done, and they would do it.
25:21The street bosses put it to a vote and overwhelmingly decided, when Persico was released from prison, he would be Don Carmine.
25:30Meanwhile, Persico worked to tie up a troublesome loose end.
25:36Crazy Joey Gallo.
25:38Word was sent out to eliminate him on sight.
25:44April 7, 1972.
25:46After a night on the town, Crazy Joey Gallo and his family stopped at Humberto's Clam House in Manhattan's Little Italy.
25:54Gallo was celebrating his 43rd birthday.
25:59But the gangster picked the wrong time to let his guard down.
26:03He made one of the cardinal mistakes in the mob, is he took a seat with his back to the door.
26:10The gunman came in, started shooting.
26:12Joey jumped up, ran outside.
26:16He was out on the street where they finally gunned him down.
26:20The gruesome murder of the flamboyant Gallo made headlines nationwide.
26:26Closer to home, the hit meant one thing.
26:30Joey Gallo's death cleared the way for people within the family, principally Carmine Persico, to do what they wanted to do.
26:37They had no objection from another powerful capo.
26:39In 1979, after eight years behind bars, Carmine Persico was finally released from federal prison.
26:47The 46-year-old mobster was greeted with a hero's welcome.
26:52He's no longer just an ordinary capo or a big shot in the family.
26:56He's now officially enthroned as a godfather.
27:00He's known as Don Carmine.
27:02Persico had ascended to the peak of the organized crime world, but he didn't settle in to enjoy the view.
27:09Persico began to work a racket as lucrative as any the Mafia had ever known.
27:15In New York in the 1980s, the construction industry was a billion dollar enterprise.
27:21And Manhattan was ready to undergo probably the biggest building spree in modern history.
27:28The construction would create millions of dollars in union contracts.
27:32And the Colombo family had a man on the inside.
27:36A key soldier, Ralph Scopo, was the president of the district council of the cement and concrete workers.
27:43This meant they had control over the construction industry in Manhattan.
27:47Persico, along with the other bosses of New York's five families, devised a plan to skim money from the contracts.
27:53Two million dollars was the cut off. Anything under two million dollars, two percent of any concrete contract went to the Colombo family.
28:01If the contract total was over two million dollars, then two percent again, but it was split among the five New York families.
28:07By late 1983, as skyscrapers grew across the Manhattan skyline, so did the coffers of Carmine Persico.
28:17The 50-year-old was at the apex of the Mafia world, and he went about ensuring that control would stay in the family.
28:24His hopes for the future of the Colombo and Persico clan lay in the hands of his eldest son, Alphonse Little Alley Boy Persico.
28:35Alphonse went to college for a couple of years, St. John's University, but ultimately was lured into his father's business.
28:45There's no question that Carmine selected Ali to be the guy who was going to be in charge when he, you know, went on.
28:55But as Carmine was planning the future of the Colombos, another group was getting its first glimpse inside the family, the FBI.
29:04We were looking forward to kind of get an idea of the scope of the Colombos, and when we did, it was very eye-opening.
29:15In mid-1984, Carmine Persico was enjoying the spoils of a million-dollar Mafia racket, known as the Concrete Club.
29:29New York City was in the midst of a building boom, and the five families had a hand in it all.
29:35By the 1980s, they had become very, very powerful, to the point where law enforcement was both afraid of them and doubted their existence, because how could anyone be so powerful?
29:49In the face of such power, the government deployed a weapon of their own, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO.
29:58The RICO law is the most important tool against organized crime that prosecutors and agents were ever given.
30:07Created in 1970, RICO gave authorities a shortcut.
30:12If they could prove that an organization existed in order to commit crime, they could convict anyone involved in it, even if the person accused didn't commit the crime himself.
30:21For over a decade, the feds hadn't really put the law to work.
30:27But one organization was ripe for RICO's coming out party, the New York Mob.
30:32October 14th, 1984.
30:43Authorities drove up to Carmine Persico's home in upstate New York, ready to serve an indictment claiming that Persico was head of the Colombo family.
30:52But the dawn was nowhere to be found.
30:57Persico had been tipped off by a news article from New York Post journalist Jerry Capicci.
31:04I learned that the Colombo crime family was going to be indicted as one specific entity and ended up writing a story about the fact that the Colombo crime family, including Carmine Persico, was going to be charged as part of a racketeering enterprise.
31:20The feds were intent on bringing in the fugitive and took a novel step.
31:27On January 31st, 1985, Carmine Persico Jr. became the first mob boss ever to make the FBI's 10 most wanted list.
31:3616 days later, Persico was found, hiding out at the Long Island home of a cousin.
31:43Persico faced serious trouble for his role in the Colombo crime family.
31:47But the feds were just warming up.
31:51On July 1st, 1985, they announced they were putting the heads of all five families on trial.
31:57This is a new way of doing business and a much more effective way to really crush them.
32:00Persico, along with bosses Paul Castellano of the Gambino family, Tony Salerno of the Genovese family, Tony Dux Corallo of the Lucchese family, and Philip Rusty Rustelli of the Bonanno family, were charged with racketeering, extortion, and murder for hire.
32:18For the first time in history, the entire New York Mafia was dragged out of the shadows and into the harsh media spotlight.
32:28And I remember watching it on television.
32:32I started to see all these guys that I used to see on the street.
32:36It kind of blew me away because it hit home for all five families.
32:40The so-called commission trial began in September 1986, and Carmine Persico had a surprise for the court.
32:48He was going to represent himself.
32:51Persico is determined, and the other bosses, the other people on trial can't dissuade him. Nothing you can do.
32:58Persico had spent years in and out of court, and figured he could do the job.
33:04That's Carmine's MO.
33:06Carmine never relinquished control, whether he was in prison, whether he was on the lam, or in the courtroom representing himself.
33:15It was all Carmine's way.
33:17Carmine looked out for Carmine.
33:18As the sides laid out their cases, it didn't take long for Persico to make his first mistake.
33:25One of the big defenses that has been used over time is like, you know, oh, the Mafia, the Mafia doesn't exist.
33:32And he was quoted as saying, if there weren't no Mafia, there wouldn't be no case here.
33:36That must have been a big, ugh, when he said it.
33:40Persico's gaffes frustrated his fellow bosses, but the government wasn't relying on his mistakes to make their case.
33:46They had hours of recorded surveillance, including audio of Colombo soldier, Ralph Scopo, discussing the concrete club with the contractor.
33:56The audio tapes were a devastating blow to the bosses, and on November 19th, 1986, the verdict came in.
34:11Persico and the other New York Mafia Dons were convicted on all charges.
34:29The court handed down a sentence of 100 years to each of the bosses, a virtual death sentence.
34:36And I think that judge had decided he needed to send a message, and you send a message with that sort of sentence.
34:44The government wasn't afraid of these guys anymore.
34:46The verdicts ensured that Carmine Persico would never again be a free man.
34:53But being behind bars didn't mean giving up control of the family.
34:58Persico still had his son, Alphonse, to carry on his legacy.
35:04The 53-year-old mobster would stop at nothing to make sure the Persico family stayed at the top.
35:10In the late 1980s, Colombo family boss Carmine Persico faced a dismal future.
35:21In the Mafia Commission trial, he'd received a prison sentence of 100 years.
35:27But life behind bars did not stop Persico from pursuing his mob legacy.
35:32He was trying to create a dynasty. He wanted his son, Alphonse, to become the next godfather of the family.
35:41Alphonse had also been convicted in the commission trial, but only got a 12-year sentence.
35:47Carmine put one of his capos, Victor Little Vic Arena, in charge of the family.
35:53But it was only to keep the seat warm until a Persico was back in power.
35:57Nick Arena had been appointed with the view that when Alphonse got out of prison, he would take over the reins of the crime family.
36:08But Arena saw things differently.
36:11Arena kind of likes the job, and he decides that he's going to be the boss.
36:16The decision threw the crime family into chaos yet again.
36:20But Carmine Persico made a move to show that he was still the one in charge.
36:24In early 1991, Vic Arena grew tired of Persico's rule from afar.
36:36He went behind Persico's back to see where support in the Colombo family lay.
36:41Unfortunately for Little Vic, one of the people gets the word to Carmine.
36:46Look what Little Vic is up to.
36:48So Carmine very simply sends out the word, that's the end of Little Vic.
36:52Whack him!
36:53June 20th, 1991.
36:56Persico loyalist Carmine Sessa, and a three-man hit squad parked near Arena's home on Long Island, locked and loaded.
37:05But as Arena approached his house, he spotted the men and took off in the opposite direction.
37:13The attempted hit came as a shock to the Arena faction, including Top Capo, Wild Bill Cutolo, and his son, Bill Jr.
37:23My father tells me, says, they just tried to hit Vic.
37:29I'm like, no.
37:30He's like, yeah.
37:32So from that night on, it was on.
37:35The Arena faction declared war on the Persico loyalists, and yet another civil war erupted within the family.
37:44By the end of 1991, the two factions had spilled blood by the gallon.
37:49The highest profile hit was on Nicky Black Grancio, a Capo in Arena's faction.
37:58Grancio was blown away by Persico loyalists while sitting behind the wheel of his SUV.
38:04In the end, the war lasts about two years, but there's no question, the big loser is Vic Arena, because he's in prison.
38:15He gets convicted of being on a RICO charge and goes away for life.
38:20With Arena behind bars, the path was clear for Alphonse's little alley boy Persico to become boss of the Columbo's when he was released from federal prison.
38:28With the family's future secured, Carmine tried to make the best of his time, 3,000 miles away at the federal prison in Lompoc, California.
38:39Persico always managed to maintain an upbeat attitude.
38:44When Carmine was in federal prison in Lompoc, he was photographed on a mechanical bull along with two other guys holding the reins.
38:52And he also had a rose garden. He was nurturing roses, so he had, if you want to say he had softer sentence than most prisoners.
39:01But in 1999, Carmine had to turn his attention back to business.
39:07Alphonse picked up a weapons charge while on his boat in Florida, and was facing another stint in federal prison.
39:13The Persicos again looked to see who might threaten the family leadership while they were locked up.
39:21Only one name came up.
39:24Wild Bill Coutolo.
39:26They were afraid that my dad had enough shooters, sure as hell were tough enough.
39:32And they were afraid that he was definitely going to take over the family.
39:36May 26, 1999. Just weeks before Alphonse was set to go to prison, he invited Wild Bill Coutolo to a sit-down.
39:47This meeting was called by Ali to discuss what was going to be happening after Ali went to prison.
39:55That was in part true.
39:57Coutolo never returned from the meeting.
40:00Bill Jr. quickly put the pieces together.
40:03I remember I just kind of threw my keys and I just kind of slumped into the couch.
40:09I knew it was gone.
40:11The 29-year-old son also knew who was responsible.
40:15And his thoughts turned from mourning to revenge.
40:18A few days later, Bill Jr. received a visit from two FBI agents.
40:23They asked for his help in finding his father's killers.
40:27I remember my dad once telling me that, you know, he wished death before jail.
40:30This is...
40:31If my dad wished death before jail, then obviously jail's got to be worse than that.
40:36So you know what?
40:37F*** him.
40:38It's too easy to kill him.
40:40In March 2000, an opportunity for payback strolled right in the front door in the form of Jackie DeRoss, underboss to Alphonse Persico and brother-in-law to Carmine.
40:52Jackie had came to the house and I had had a recording device sitting on my mother's kitchen table.
41:01He says, Ali, I had a private investigator.
41:04We need you to tell the investigator that Ali had nothing to do with your dad's disappearance.
41:08My sister said something that ruffled Jackie's feathers.
41:14And the answer that he turned around and gave my sister was, don't you have those two little girls and your husband? Doesn't he have that union job?
41:22All this stuff is getting all picked up on tape.
41:27Armed with the recorded threats, the FBI had the pieces to start a case against Jackie DeRoss and Alphonse Persico for the murder of Wild Bill Coutolo.
41:40In October 2007, the case went to trial in federal court in Brooklyn, New York.
41:46A lot of the tapes that I had made were very crucial to taking down Jackie and Ali.
41:51The evidence was so damning that they didn't even need me to testify.
41:56On December 28, 2007, DeRoss and Alphonse Little Alley Boy Persico were convicted of the murder of William Wild Bill Coutolo.
42:07Each received life sentences.
42:09When they decided to kill my father, to me that was the downfall of the Persicos and the Colombo family because it's their own fault.
42:20Carmine Persico is still the official boss of the Colombo family, but it's a family in tatters.
42:27His selfishness and his need for control over the family, whether he was in prison or out of prison, contributed greatly to the demise of the Colombo family.
42:35In the mafia, you're supposed to earn your rank. And what Carmine tried to do was to create a dynasty. Instead of creating a dynasty, what he did was he unleashed a debacle. He virtually destroyed the family.
42:51Anybody that wants to be involved with the Colombo family or even the Persicos, you might as well just shoot yourself in the head. So they're decimated very badly. And I hope they stay that way.
43:21They're decimated very well, because they don't have the same spot as the Colombo family.
43:28They don't have to be able to do it.
43:33They're the same thing. They're the same thing. They're the same thing.
43:40They're the same thing. They're the same thing. They're the same thing.
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