Mob mole testifies
They thought he was one of 'em, a Gambino in the making who had the name and nerve to become a perfect made man. But "Jack Falcone" wasn't everything he pretended to be. The veteran undercover FBI agent wasn't really a fence who could move stolen goods. He wasn't really the leader of a robbery ring in Miami. He wasn't even of Italian descent.
For the first time, Jack Falcone unmasked his true identity yesterday: Joaquin Manuel Garcia, a Cuban-born emigre who retired from the FBI in March after a 26-year career - all but two years spent undercover. "The ruse was that I was a knock-around guy, a guy who had access to everything," said Garcia, testifying in a Manhattan federal courtroom closed to the public to protect his identity.
Garcia told jurors at reputed mobster Greg DePalma's racketeering trial that he convinced wiseguys he was just like them - a fourth- or fifth-generation Italian-American of Sicilian stock. His was the most successful infiltration of the mob since FBI agent Joseph Pistone, posing as Donnie Brasco, helped take down ranking members of the Bonanno crime family 25 years ago.
In the fall of 2002, Garcia was tapped to wade into a simmering turf battle between Albanian gangsters and Italian mobsters over protection money generated by a Bronx strip club called Mirage International. Over dozens of steak dinners and furtive meetings at nursing homes, the hefty Garcia secretly recorded the chatty 74-year-old DePalma telling mob war stories and dropping boldface names along the way.
DePalma bragged about a late 1990s dinner at the five-star Greenwich, Conn., restaurant Valbella's with singer Mariah Carey and then-husband Tommy Mottola, one of DePalma's last meals before heading to prison on an unrelated racketeering conviction. "How was Mariah Carey?" wondered Pete Forchetti, the strip club owner who introduced Falcone to DePalma. "Yeah, very nice, very quiet, reserved," DePalma replied.
A spokesman for Mottola denied last night that the mogul had dinner with DePalma, insisting that he's never even met the mobster. Representatives for Carey, who broke up with Mottola in 1998, did not return phone calls requesting comment.
In October 2003, DePalma claimed he turned to Gary Labriola, Liza Minnelli's manager, to pay for a Las Vegas trip for the wives of his Mafia bosses. It turned into an out-of-control, $12,000 spending spree, with beauty salon visits and poolside cabanas. "They were having the time of their lives," Garcia told jurors.
Throughout, DePalma lamented the new wave of wiseguys who failed to respect the tradition of Mafia thievery. "This life in Italy, they were supposed to rob from the rich and give it to the poor like Robin Hood," DePalma told Garcia. "Today... they're robbing from the poor guy with the pushcart."
Garcia plied DePalma with stolen cigarettes, Rolex watches and high-definition television sets (recovered through FBI forfeitures), which he said DePalma later resold. During a June 2003 walk-talk outside a Pelham jewelry store, DePalma told Garcia he would reward his generous pal by making him an associate of the Gambino crime family.
"You never been with wiseguys before?" DePalma asked. "No, only Cubans," Garcia said. "Well, I put you on record with my family," DePalma said. "It's an honor," Garcia said. "You know what that means, right? ... Nobody could bother you. Nobody could come near you. No wiseguys, nothing. I don't care if they're the boss, the underboss of another crew." "I appreciate that, Greg," Garcia said. (New York Daily News)
|
