Victim No. 21

Penetrating a grand jury, the Mafia makes a hit

Like the Mounties, the Mafia always seems to get its man. Unlike Canada's national police, however, organized crime always has murder on its mind. FBI and other Justice Department officials are now contemplating the disturbing fact that no protection--not even the supposed secrecy of grand jury proceedings--is a barrier to Mob hit men when they set out to protect omert`a, the curtain of silence around Mafia affairs.

Gino Gallina, 42, a handsome former Manhattan assistant district attorney who became a lawyer for the Mob, was gunned down in gangland style on a Greenwich Village street. Seven bullets riddled Gallina, and he died 90 minutes later.

At the time, Gallina was a key witness before a Newark grand jury, testifying, among other things, on Mafia executions by a special hit squad armed with silencer-equipped .22-cal. automatic pistols. The ".22-cal. hitters" have claimed at least 20 victims in the past two years, including six FBI informants and potential witnesses. Though Attorney Gallina, who had defended major crime figures--notably, members of the East Coast Genovese Mafia family--was killed by .38-cal. bullets, he was undoubtedly the 21st victim. Federal officials blame his slaying on a leak from the grand jury; leaks from secret Government files and sealed court records have led to the deaths of the other informants.

Gallina's closed-door testimony concerned four top Genovese family gangsters: New Jersey's Vincent Gigante, John DiGilio, Salvatore Briguglio and Tommy Principe. The FBI considers all four to be prime suspects in ordering .22-cal. murders. Gallina told the grand jury how the Genovese leaders moved racket money into real estate in upstate New York.

More than that, while singing to the jurors, Gallina also told federal officials that he could identify the killers of Teamster Boss Jimmy Hoffa. Missing for two years, Hoffa presumably was rubbed out by members of the Genovese family for disrupting lucrative deals it had developed with the Teamsters since 1967. Gallina informed the Feds that he had hidden a tape-recorded account of the killing that included the voices of mobsters who had a hand in it. He said Hoffa's body could be found from information on the tape.

The problem now--besides plugging the leaks and protecting informers--is fiding the tape. After Gallina's murder, investigators drew a blank in looking for the probable hiding place: a safe-deposit box he had rented under a fake name.

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