Listening in on the Mafia

LAW enforcement officials have long maintained that the Mafia has extensive influence over officials at every level of government in New Jersey. The Mafiosi apparently feel that way too. In lengthy transcripts of bugged Mafia conversations made public last week, New Jersey hoodlums boasted of their power to control and corrupt public officials throughout the state, from the statehouse at Trenton to the smallest municipal police station.

The transcript was disclosed at the federal extortion trial of Mafia Leader Angelo ("Gyp") De Carlo, 67, and three associates in Newark. It contained conversations recorded electronically by the FBI from 1961 to 1965, primarily at De Carlo's Mountainside, N.J., headquarters. It was the second major revelation of bugged New Jersey Mafia conversations in the past year. Parts of the dialogue had been published in LIFE in 1967. but the full transcript had never before been released to the general public. A sampler from the 1,200 pages of recorded conversations:

Campaign Contributions

De Carlo and his associates talked as if they had been instrumental in electing many public officials, among them Governor Richard Hughes and Newark Mayor Hugh Addonizio. At one point, De Carlo (known as Ray in the transcript) discussed lining up a contribution for Addonizio's campaign:

Ray: I'd like to have the money as soon as possible. $5,000. Tell him I think he never had a better gamble in his life. Now is when he [Addonizio] needs the money.

Jack: You can't wait until two weeks before the election?

Ray: No, sir.

Si: You gotta get him signed up before he makes other commitments.

Ray: Before he makes commitments to everybody else.

Referring to Addonizio's election, Little Joe DeBenedictis told Si Rega: "You know, Si, it's going to take three weeks, but we'll own this Hughie. This guy here, I'll guarantee we'll own him." De Carlo added: "Well, when you see him today, tell him that if he ever does business with more than one guy, he won't last." Another time, De Carlo was quoted as telling an associate: "Hughie helped us along. He gave us the city."

Keeping Up the Payments

De Carlo also discussed political contributions with Daniel ("Red") Cecere after Cecere had given an unnamed Congressman $1,000.

Ray: Don't you give to no politician unless you ask me first.

Red: O.K.

Ray: It's all right--the mayor of the town is worth 500. But I wouldn't have let you give over 300 to the Congressman. Even that was too much.

Red: Well, I figured you was all out for Hughie [Addonizio].

Ray: Well, I was out for Hughie --we give the louse 4,000. And I can't even see the louse when I want to.

The Price of a Town

The key to a successful operation of rackets is control over the police, and often the conversations involved this subject. One, in 1963, deals with Dominick Capello, then recently confirmed as superintendent of the New Jersey state police. De Carlo wanted Capello to keep his troopers from harassing numbers operations in the Jersey shore area. Among the speakers are Ray De Carlo, Lucky (probably Louis Percello) and others:

Ray: Do you know what this Cappy [Capello] wants?

Lucky: No. How much?

Ray: He wants $1,000 for Long Branch and $1,000 for Asbury.

Si: For each town?

Ray: Yeah. Each town. And for the whole county he wants to make a different price.

Lucky: Tell him -- Si: Do you want to hear the rest of the story? June, July, August and September he wants double.

Ray: Here's what I figure. Let's move all the offices into Long Branch and we'll just pay him for Long Branch.

Lucky: That's a good idea.

In another conversation, De Carlo boasted of Newark's suitability for gambling without police interference: "We got Bailey [Police Captain Walter Bailey] and we got the other guy. What else do you need? The cops ain't gonna bother no card game. Bailey told them to stay out of there ... At least in Newark we got Spina [Police Director Dominick Spina] and we got Bailey.

Defense Against Prosecution

Another time, De Carlo gave instructions for doing business in Middlesex County: "Now you got to get ahold of all them prosecutor's men. I think there's about five. You give them about $100 a month ... It will cost you for the prosecutor's office and all the staff there about $2,000 tops . . . Every one of them's gotta be paid. We had that county before. We paid every one of them. Any one of them can dump the apple cart. We had [Democratic Leader David] Wilentz; we paid Wilentz. We paid all the rest. . ."

The FBI tapes revealed that De Carlo had as many ulcerous problems in running his mob as any businessman would have. At one point, he complained about a planned Mafia wedding reception. De Carlo ordered the racketeers to stay at their own tables and not go around shaking hands. FBI agents, he feared, would recognize the "main guys" among the hoods because everyone else would approach them. De Carlo grumbled that soon the word would be out: "Don't go to weddings. Send an envelope."

Fringe Benefits

Crime also paid off in little extras for the mob. After a shipment of shoes was hijacked, De Carlo was recorded asking a man named Bitterbee for some boy's shoes:

Bitterbee: Ray, I gave you the 9- 1/2s.

Ray: Yeah, but they were supposed to be 9s. Black ones--he don't want brown ones, the kid.

Bitterbee: Well, give me the brown ones back.

Ray: No, he's going to wear them when he gets bigger. Right now kids don't like brown ones. Get me about four pairs of black.

Greener Grass

Nevertheless, De Carlo and his cronies continually complained about greener pastures elsewhere in the Mafia. One discussion of the Chicago mob is an example:

Louis: And look at the territory they got...

Swat: Everybody in Chicago gets a thousand a week. Everything goes in the pot. Everybody has got their own Cadillac. Everybody has got their own home. Everybody has got their own assignment . . .

Louis: They got the oldtimers on pension. They give them something every month.

De Carlo: And they got the law laid down to be perfect gentlemen at all times.

The transcript was released on the orders of U.S. District Court Judge Robert Shaw, whose action raised a host of knotty legal questions, including the rights of those scores of public officials named in the conversations. Many denied any connection with the hoodlums. Democratic Leader Wilentz, who was named, fumed: "It is utterly outrageous that hearsay conversations between organized criminals--people who will lie and drop names to make themselves important--should be released without the slightest regard to those who are publicly smeared." Governor Hughes lamented that the disclosures provide no protection for the innocent.

The transcript cannot be used as evidence, consisting as it does of unsworn hearsay obtained illegally. The Justice Department believes that publicizing the information serves a vital function to alert the public to the Mafia menace. U.S. Attorney Frederick Lacey, prosecuting De Carlo, said in a recent speech: "The searchlight of publicity must be brought to bear on the slime eating away at our society." Obviously, there must be some truth in the transcript; it contains too precise a knowledge of many high officials to be entirely false. But even the FBI admits that many public officials' names may have been included because of Mafioso braggadocio rather than collusion. Unfortunately, the transcripts do not draw that distinction.

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