Disappearing Witnesses

Your new co-worker may be a former Mob hit man

That couple moving in down the street are probably exactly what they seem to be--just folks setting up housekeeping in a strange town. But these days they could also be people with freshly minted false identities: Government-aided fugitives attempting to shed the past and escape someone's vengeance after a lifetime of violence and criminality. Almost twice a day, under a little-known federal program, the Justice Department creates a new personality, complete with counterfeit Social Security card, driver's license and educational and job histories, and foists the ex-criminal on a largely unsuspecting public, far away. The reason is that the offer of such protection is one of the few ways in which Government prosecutors have been able to get frightened members of the underworld to testify against the Mafia or other well-organized criminals.

Dozens of merchants and investors, deceived by flawless credentials, have trusted such newcomers and lost a great deal of money. Convicted murderers and con men have been placed in college and business communities, with some reverting to their old ways. For these and other reasons, the Justice Department is just now thoroughly reviewing its $13 million Witness Security Program to see, in the words of Deputy Attorney General Peter Flaherty, "if it's cost-effective." In a book published this week, The Alias Program (Little, Brown; $8.95), CBS Legal Correspondent Fred Graham raises additional problems that should also be reviewed.

The protection program was formally established after passage of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 to hasten the breakdown of omerta, the underworld code of silence. Relying on Title V, "Protected Facilities for Housing Government Witnesses," the Justice Department gave anti-Mob informers refuge in "safe houses" until their court testimony, then relocated them, perhaps after they had served prison time themselves.

Justice officials claim that more than 3,000 convictions have been obtained as a result of the program. And according to Graham, only seven of 2,000 witnesses have been killed--in each case because they refused to follow instructions from U.S. marshals. But Congress was not specifically informed until 1974 about the false-identity aspects of the scheme and thus never got to ask any questions about its legal or moral ramifications. One question suggested by Graham: "Should the Government officially adopt a program dedicated to telling lies?" Another, clearly, is how the courts should cope with the problem of $1,000 monthly payments and occasional $35,000 relocation bills for witnesses who are forbidden to accept "improper inducements" for their testimony.

The most celebrated former witness to date is Gerald Martin Zelmanowitz, a Brooklyn-born former stock swindler whose testimony resulted in the 1970 conviction of notorious Mafia Capo Angelo ("Gyp") DeCarlo. With his family, Zelmanowitz was relocated in San Francisco, where he became Paul Maris and eventually entered the ladies' garment business. The flamboyant Maris, ne Zelmanowitz, got control of a 350-employee company but soon became embroiled in messy civil litigation with the firm's New York financial backers.

Investigating Maris' background, a private detective easily penetrated the cover supplied by Justice Department officials. Among other curiosities, the members of the Maris family had all been issued Social Security cards with consecutive numbers. Officials at Maris' supposed alma maters, John Bartram High School (Justice officials spelled it Bertram) in Philadelphia and Baldwin Wallace College in Ohio, had never heard of him. His Army service number had never been officially issued. There was no record of his birth certificate, and his old Philadelphia home address turned out to be a vacant lot in an all-black neighborhood. When court proceedings and IRS collection procedures blew his cover in 1973, Tycoon Maris was forced to leave San Francisco in terror for his life.

Another stock swindler, named Edward Hugh Wuensche, was moved to England, where, as Hugh E. Winchester, he managed to loot a Maltese investment fund of $600,000 before being jailed. Joseph Barboza, a New England hit man with 27 murders to his credit, was relocated in San Francisco as Joseph Bently; shortly afterward, local authorities arrested him--for murder. Louis Bombacino, a Chicago hoodlum, was given a floor-sweeping job at the Arizona Public Service Co. in Tempe. He was eventually caught peddling irrigation equipment stolen from the company and profiting from a gambling-prostitution ring. Justice officials admit that at least 10% of relocated witnesses are arrested again later, and the Government rarely compensates their unsuspecting victims.

But the question of ultimate responsibility for the conduct of protected witnesses has yet to be resolved. In the meantime, former hoodlums keep re-entering polite society every day. Zelmanowitz-Maris, for instance, has been relocated with yet another set of identity papers. The Government will not, of course, say where he is, but he has assured friends that his new business venture promises to be bigger than ever.

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