Omerta. The code of silence for a sacred brotherhood. Well, fuhgedaboudit. Every time you turn around lately, a member of the Mafia is turning around: testifying at a trial, wearing a bug, writing a book. Whatever life omerta had left in its blood-drained body ebbed away last week with the stunning disclosure that Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano, the most trusted adviser to reputed Gambino boss John Gotti, has become the Federal Government's latest protected flipster. If juries find him believable, Gravano could obliterate the entire hierarchy of the Gambinos, New York City's largest crime family with more than 400 members and thousands of associates. "I think that in all likelihood it's over for Gotti," exclaims Robert Morgenthau, Manhattan's district attorney.
For La Cosa Nostra as a whole, Gravano's decision is the latest blow in a decade's worth of prosecutions and internal backstabbings. While some experts foresee the Mob's impending collapse, the situation may be more akin to the wave of turbulence and consolidation facing the legitimate side of U.S. industry. Four of the five New York families that dominate the national network are in such disarray that "there is talk of mergers and acquisitions," says William Doran, who runs the FBI's criminal division in New York. The fireworks may produce unusual new alliances, but Doran declares that the Mafia in America is "not even close to dying."
Even so, Mob leaders will have to contend with an increasingly disloyal work force. Gravano, 46, had been scheduled to go on trial in January, along with Gotti, on 11 counts of murder and racketeering. Instead the brash and big- necked underboss is expected to provide a wealth of secrets about the Gambino family's businesses. Gravano was the Dapper Don's "ambassador" to New York City's $10 billion-a-year construction industry and was in a position to know about the group's ties to food distribution, the garment trade and waste hauling. "Never in a million years did I dream that Sammy would turn," says ex-hit man Nicholas (the Crow) Caramandi, who is now a protected federal witness. "He and Gotti rose up together. They were very close. This is a shock to me."
Caramandi can take some of the credit for Gravano's turning canary. Caramandi's defection in 1987 helped lead in turn to the flipping of Philadelphia underboss Philip (Crazy Phil) Leonetti, who was scheduled to testify in the January trial against Gotti and Gravano. According to a five- page debriefing obtained by TIME, Leonetti told federal agents in late 1989 about the 1981 Valentine's Day murder of gangster Frank Stillitano, whose body had been found in the trunk of a rental car. Leonetti said members of the Philadelphia crime family had met with Gravano and other Gambino mobsters at Bally's Park Place Casino in Atlantic City, where they reached an agreement that the Philadelphia group would kill Stillitano as a favor to the New York faction. After the rubout, Leonetti and his pals visited Gravano at his home on Staten Island, where Gravano thanked them for a job well done, according to the debriefing. While Gravano hasn't been charged in that case, Leonetti's promised testimony, along with wiretap evidence of other crimes, may have been what sent Sammy Bull running for protection.