Mob Obituaries: Boobie, Redbird, and the Brain

Gang Land

By JERRY CAPECI
December 14, 2006

The mob has cut back on its own version of capital punishment these days, but the grim reaper that stalks us all recently caught up with three once-noted Gang Land denizens just shy of the holiday season. Since their formal obituaries are likely to omit some biographical details, Gang Land is marking their passing.

Cancer was the cause of death last week for a longtime Bonanno soldier, John "Boobie" Cerasani, 68, the only defendant to win an acquittal at the 1982 racketeering trial that featured the dramatic debut on the witness stand of hero FBI agent Joe Pistone.

During the five years Mr. Pistone posed as a hoodlum, he had many dealings with Boobie, who also beat a 1977 bank robbery rap and whose mob résumé included bank robbery, drug dealing, stock fraud, loan-sharking, and — most notably — cleanup duty at the gory and storied social club murders of three Bonanno capos on May 5, 1981.

In "Donnie Brasco," the book about his undercover work, Mr. Pistone expressed a grudging respect for the gangster prowess of Cerasani, the "right-hand man" of capo Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano.

"Boobie was taller and leaner than Sonny, balding at the temples, with a hawklike face. He was quiet and smart, a chess lover. He was one mean f—er, very close mouthed, a hard guy to get to know," the agent wrote.

At the 1982 trial, prosecutors played a tape recording in which wiseguy Benjamin "Lefty Guns" Ruggiero reported that Cerasani had helped dispose of the body of capo Dominick "Big Trin" Trinchera, who checked in at more than 300 pounds.

"I couldn't move him," Ruggiero said. "Boobie could. Trin was all cut open and bleeding. There was little pieces lying around from the shotgun [blast]. Boobie got blood all over him trying to pick him up. I couldn't believe how strong Boobie is. He don't look it. I was amazed. Boobie could move him."

Sixteen years later, Cerasani pressed his luck and tried to parlay his courtroom successes into a windfall profit by filing a libel suit against a host of entities involved in adapting "Donnie Brasco" into a movie starring Johnny Depp and Al Pacino. Instead of a payday, Boobie won a stinging dressing-down from the judge.

Noting that Cerasani had been convicted of numerous other crimes, a Manhattan federal judge, Denny Chin, ruled that Boobie was "libel-proof" and threw the case out, declaring: "Cerasani's reputation is so badly tarnished that … he can suffer no further harm and hence no reasonable jury could award him anything more than nominal damages."

But Boobie still had the memories of past victories. His former lawyer, David Breitbart, said he "will always remember the bear hug" Boobie gave him when the jury acquitted him in 1982. "He was a legendary figure in Knickerbocker Village who used to dive off fire escapes into the East River!" Mr. Breitbart said. "He was one of a kind. He will be missed by his loving and lovely wife, Nancy, his children, and his six beautiful grandchildren."

***

Another mob associate who died last week was Richard "Redbird" Gomes, an admitted participant in the revenge slaying of John Favara, a Queens man who killed John Gotti's 12-year-old son in a tragic car accident. Gomes died of natural causes in his hometown of Providence, R.I. He was 73.

Gomes met and befriended Gotti in the 1960s, when both were small-time hoods doing time at the federal prison in Lewisburg, Pa. A photo of the late Dapper Don was on a wall in Gomes's apartment, where two of his nieces found him dead, police said.

The friendship blossomed, so much so, Gomes told cops in 1989, that he performed an act of supreme loyalty for the up-and-coming mobster in July 1980 by teaming with seven other Gotti crew members to kill Favara. It was Gomes who personally notified Gotti that the dirty deed had been done, according to documents obtained by Gang Land.

At the time Redbird told Providence police about the Favara killing, he was facing 40 years for murder and planning to cooperate. Gomes said he had clubbed Favara with a 2-by-4 and helped toss him into a blue van that the hit team used to abduct him outside his office in New Hyde Park, Long Island.

Gomes said the gang also used two cars in the murder plot, disposing of Favara's body and crushing his car in Brooklyn, so no evidence would ever be found. Gomes later regretted his confession and tried to recant, but authorities believe his account was accurate, though no one was ever charged in the slaying.

Released from prison a year ago, Redbird had been using cocaine and drinking heavily of late, according to Rhode Island State Police, who told Gang Land that the abuses likely contributed to his death.

Gomes, whose first arrest was at age 12 for breaking into a freight train in Providence, spent 50 years in reform school and prisons for crimes ranging from desertion to murder.

"Inside [prison], he was a somebody, but outside he was a nobody," Major Steven O'Donnell of the Rhode Island State Police said. He added that most members of New England's Patriarca family avoided Redbird following his release from prison.

His drug use and his propensity for violence were contributing factors, but there's little doubt he was shunned primarily for his brief fling as an informer about the Favara killing.

"They didn't trust him," Major O'-Donnell told Gang Land. "They were leery about him because of the allegations that were written about him and the publicly filed documents that outlined his contacts with law enforcement."

***

Stockbroker Frank Persico, a cousin of acting Colombo boss Alphonse "Allie" Persico, was only 43 when he was felled by a heart attack last month, just four months after his release from federal prison following a five-year stint for a $15 million stock swindle.

A sophisticated, computer-smart college graduate, Frank Persico was a high-tech gangster who came to control many New York and New Jersey brokerages that defrauded investors through a litany of scams and "pump and dump" schemes later detailed in a mammoth, 120-defendant "Mob on Wall Street" case that the feds filed in 2000.

In a memorable exchange recounted in court papers, Persico blew his stack at his brokers, invoking a "Know Your Client Rule" after authorities questioned 11 trades that had been attributed to an investor after he died. "I don't expect you to know everything about your client, but I do expect you to know when your client is f—ing alive or dead," he yelled into a speakerphone.

Persico's talents were also put to use in 1999, when the Colombos put him in charge of a mob-controlled union after family underboss William "Wild Bill" Cutolo disappeared in an alleged murder plot said to have been orchestrated by cousin Alphonse.

Frank Persico, who earned a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from St. John's University's Staten Island campus in 1985, had a bit of a temper. At a bail hearing, prosecutors said he had pulled out a gun and shot a computer monitor at a financial services company during a fit of anger that was triggered by a $30,000 debt.

Speaking of debts, when he left prison, Persico owed more than $15 million in penalties stemming from his 2001 guilty plea to racketeering and stock fraud. True to his word, at his death Persico had already made three payments totaling $381 toward the restitution. This left a hefty balance of $15,197,854, a somewhat difficult sum, even for a smart, savvy young man.

Persico is survived by his wife, two sons, a daughter, his mother, and a brother.

This column and other news of organized crime will appear later today at ganglandnews.com.