For more than a year U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani and his partners in law enforcement had been waiting for this day. From March 1984 through last February, Giuliani's New York office produced eight indictments against the city's most powerful Mafia bosses and their lieutenants. Last week the first two of those cases opened with the selection of anonymous juries in Manhattan's federal district court. It is a major test for an ambitious prosecutor: if Giuliani can win enough convictions in these and other trials scheduled to begin during the next six months, he not only would deal a stunning blow to organized crime in America but also would deal himself a pretty fair hand for a high-stakes political career.
The twin trials have brought a mob of 32 defendants to the federal courthouse on Foley Square. In the celebrated "pizza connection" trial, the Government contends that the Bonanno crime family conspired with Sicilian Mafia counterparts to bring $1.6 billion worth of heroin into the U.S. from 1977 to 1984. The case owes its spicy nickname to the pizza parlors allegedly used as fronts for heroin smuggling.
Among the defendants, the big cheese for prosecutors is Gaetano Badalamenti, 50, a Mafia capo who fled Sicily after a bloody gang war erupted in the late 1970s over control of the heroin trade. Badalamenti and his son Vito were ^ arrested in Spain and extradited to the U.S. for trial. The star witness against them will be Tommaso Buscetta, the first Sicilian don to break the Mafia's code of silence and turn informant. The same bloodletting that chased Badalamenti from Sicily drove Buscetta to the protection of the authorities. Since he began talking last year, Buscetta has been shuttled back and forth between the U.S. and Italy, fingering mobsters in both countries. Giuliani's assistants are also prosecuting Paul Castellano, 70, reputed boss of the Gambino family. He is accused with nine other men of running a racket that stole autos and shipped them off for resale with forged registrations. His case will be followed next week by the racketeering trial of New York's Colombo family and its reputed boss, Carmine ("the Snake") Persico. Next month comes the first of two trials for "Matty the Horse" Ianniello and other purported members of the Genovese crime family on charges that include racketeering and extortion.
But the most significant trial of the lot will begin in Manhattan next spring, when the alleged leaders of the city's five Mafia families and four of their lieutenants will face racketeering charges for running a "commission" that acted as a board of directors for the entire American Mafia. Giuliani is planning to prosecute the case himself, and the trial may prove pivotal for his future.