#decavalcante

Giovanni ‘John the Eagle’ Riggi, boss of the DeCavalcante family from 1980 to present was known as a man who almost never said anything that could be construed by the FBI as probably cause (to continue wire tapping). On one occasion the Organized Crime Task Force got a call from a local contractor who wanted to use non-union workers and had been contacted by Riggi. The businessman told the investigators that Riggi had summoned him to a meeting for lunch at the Sheraton Hotel in Linden, New Jersey. The task-force, who had been surveilling Riggi for months with no success - decided to bug the table in the hotel restaurant where the two would meet.

John Riggi, circa 1969.

The restaurant, which was usually half-full at lunch, was jammed. They couldn’t figure out why. When Riggi showed up they weren’t sure if the hotel would do the job they were instructed to do and place him at eh right table. But the receptionist came through and Riggi sat down to lunch with the contractor as the task force listened in.

Throughout the lunch they waited for incriminating statements. They listened for Riggi to demand cash payments in envelopes. They waited for threats of labour disruption or, even better, violence. 

Instead, Riggi sat down and said ‘I’m John Riggi and I just want to tell you that New Jersey if a very pro-union state.’ Then, one at a time, one union leader after another got up from a nearby table an came to Riggi’s table. They shook his hand and said what a great guy he was, then returned to their lunch. The leaders of nearly every local in northern New Jersey did this. 

In 1973 Joe Pitts was a made man in the Gambino crime family and was partnered with Jimmy Gallo, a DeCavalcante soldier and a distant cousin of Crazy Joe Gallo. Back in ‘73 Joe Pitts and Jimmy Gallo were looking for a Brooklyn gambler named Vincent Ensulo who, they had recently learned, had been secretly cooperating with law enforcement. One day they happened to find him leaving a gas station in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

They jumped into action, pulling open both doors of Ensulo’s moving car. Joe Pitts an Jimmy Gallo both jumped inside the car, one on each side and both drew guns and pointed the at Ensulo. Joe Pitts, who was at the wheel began to drive away. Within three blocks, Ensulo, in a mad attempt to escape jerked the wheel away from Joe Pitts. Immediately the two men began shooting, temporarily forgetting that there were three large men inside the front of a moving car. Joe Pitts, or ‘Mr. Congliaro’ as the New York Times would later call him, shot Jimmy Gallo once on the left side. Jimmy Gallo shot Joe Pitts twice in the right shoulder. Vincent Ensulo suffered only minor wounds and escaped, as did Jimmy Gallo. Joe Pitts however was left partially paralysed and spent the rest of his life in a wheel chair. He was later stripped of his membership of the Gambino family and later worked as an associate with the DeCavalcante family in Brooklyn.

Francesco Polizzi was an old-timer in the DeCavalcante family, who served as a soldier under Nick Delmore, the boss of the family before Sam DeCavalcante. He was a defendant in the infamous Pizza Connection case in which American and Sicilian mafiosi conspired to smuggle heroine worth $1.600,000,000 into America. In 1987 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison, but after managing to get diagnosed with lung cancer and given only six months to live he was released from prison in 1995. 

Charles 'Big Ears' Majuri, Vincent Palermo (dark blue shirt) and an unknown associate(white shirt), photographed during the FBI investigation of the DeCavalcante in the late 1990s. In 1997, 'Big Ears' Majuri (son of former DeCavalcante Underboss Frank Majuri) was part of the ruling panel that was appointed to run the DeCavalcante family after the murder of John D'amato, along with Vincent 'Vinny Ocean' Palermo and Giralomo 'Jimmy' Palermo (not related to Vinny Ocean). However, Majuri grew discontented with this arrangement ordered the deaths of both Jimmy and Vincent Palermo. Majuri approached Jimmy Gallo to arrange the hits but Gallo betrayed Majuri and told Vinny Ocean and Jimmy Palermo about his plan. The two ruling panel members immediately ordered Jimmy Gallo and Anthony Capo to murder Majuri. However, the hit fell through when Gallo, Capo and Joey Masella, sitting outside Majuri's house waiting for him to return home, realised a police car was sitting outside one of the neighbouring houses. This, coupled with Majuri's failure to return home at a convenient time, led them to abandon their plan and leave. When the hit-men travelled to Florida to inform Vincent Palermo of their failure he decided to call off the hit.

The following are surveillance photographs of the New Jersey based DeCavalcante family taken in the 1980s and 90s, with descriptions of key members and events.

Philip Abramo, known as 'The King of Wall Street', was a capo of the DeCavalcante's crew in Florida, and is known for his participation in widespread security fraud. In 1994 he was indicted for conning 300 people out of a total of $1,000,000 by selling fraudulent lines of credit. During another trial in 2000 he was quoted as saying "I have done many, many things in my life that I am ashamed of, but I have never, ever murdered another human being nor have I ever asked or ordered anyone to murder another human being.' He was subsequently found guilty of, among other things, committing five murders (including that of homosexual boss, John D'amato.

Stefano Vitabile, Guiseppe 'Pino' Schifilliti and Philip Abramo

Stefano Vitabile, known as 'Steve the Truck Driver' is a former consigliere and acting boss of the DeCavalcante family who was responsible for re-organising the family leadership into the ruling panel after the death of acting boss Philip Amari of stomach cancer. He subsequently became acting boss as part of a new ruling panel  which consisted of himself, Vincent 'Vinny Ocean' Palermo and Joseph Miranda. When indictments were passed down for the arrest of several members of the DeCavalcante family, Vitabile absconded to Italy which led to his FBI not searching for him in New Jersey (for obvious reasons). This led to his fellow mafiosi putting out a hit on him which was eventually cancelled when he was eventually arrested by the FBI. Following the testimony of Vinny Ocean in 2003, he was convicted of the conspiracy to kill John D'amato, as well as other crimes, and was sentenced to life in prison in 2006. His conviction, however, was repealed and he will be released on the 24th of November, 2013.

Guiseppe Schifilliti was also a prominent member and caporegime of the DeCavalcante family and was sentenced to life imprisonment for taking part in the aforementioned conspiracy to kill John D'amato, among other things.