The Milwaukee Mob Hit on August S. Palmisano

www.reviewjournal.com

Story thanks to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and it’s historic archives. Links provided:

Palmisano is Still an Enigma 

by Bill Hurley

July 1, 1978  He was a hard working business man, a friend to the poor and a companion to the working man.

But August S. Palmisano, who was killed Friday by the explosion of a bomb under the hood of his car, also was a criminal.

To many, like a bartender at Palmy’s tavern, 348 N. Broadway, owned by Palmisano, he was “a nice man who paid his bills and didn’t cause any trouble.”

To some of the produce workers on Commission Row, where the tavern is located, however, he was a person to be feared, a man whose name meant trouble. When approached by a reporter Friday, several of these workers said they did not want to get involved and quickly walked away.

To police, Palmisano was a person to watch carefully, a man who they suspected had connections with organized crime.

Four years ago, Palmisano’s tavern, then called Richie’s on Broadway, was one of several area locations raided on Super Bowl Sunday. Police confiscated 93 sticks of dynamite, extensive gambling records, firearms and large quantities of cash.

Palmisano pleaded guilty in Federal court to conducting a gambling business. He was placed on two years’ probation.

Police have continued to watch Palmisano closely. Last month it was revealed his telephone was being tapped apparently as part of an FBI investigation. Also tapped was the phone of Frank P. Balistrieri, who, officials have said, had links with organized crime.

Palmisano also was a friend of Vincent J. Maniaci, who narrowly escaped an almost identical attempt on his life last summer.

A bomb placed under the hood of Maniaci’s car was not properly connected and did not explode, according to police.

Maniaci’s brother, August, was not as lucky. He was killed three years ago in what police said was a gangland slaying. He was gunned down while in his car behind his home on N. Newhall St.

‘A Friendly Person’

Irving Goldman, vice president of Morris Goldman, Inc., 223 E. St. Paul Ave., said Vincent Maniaci used to spend a lot of time with Palmisano at Palmisano’s bar.

Godman’s produce firm is owner of the building that houses Palmy’s tavern and is located across the street from it.

“(Vincent) Maniaci was around here a lot before he went to jail,” Goldman said. “They used to go out together to other spots, too. They used to be chums.” Maniaci was jailed in 1975 for loan extortion.

Goldman and other acquaintances of Palmisano, said however, that Palmisano was a friendly person and a good businessman. “To me he was a nice fellow, that’s all I know”, Goldman said. “He always paid (his rent).”

Worked Out of Tavern

Palmisano operated his own produce service from his tavern. Goldman said he often arrived at 5 a.m. to buy from local dealers and then organize deliveries. Some days, he would stay until the  tavern closed early the next day.

“He’d sleep there in the days sometimes,” Goldman said. “He never used to sleep too much. He had too many things. In fact, sometimes he didn’t have any (sleep).”

Palmisano had several helpers to load the truck and a driver to make the deliveries, which were to small restaurants, grocery stores and nightclubs. Goldman said that Palmisano did most of his business in Madison, Eagle, Genesee, North Prairie and Mequon.

Palmisano had no warehouse or office for the produce service. The food was bought in the morning, stacked in crates on the sidewalk outside the  tavern and loaded on the street. He kept the trucks parked on E. St. Paul Ave. Goldman said Palmisano did much of his book work on a table in the bar.

A man who drives trucks for Palmisano said of his boss, “He was good to bums, paupers, rich men and poor men. He would take a bum off the street and feed him. There ain't no one that could say anything bad about him.”

One unemployed man who was outside the tavern Friday said Palmisano once lent him money when he needed it.

The tavern is patronized primarily by produce workers along Commission Row during the day. At night, it attracts a variety of customers that keep it a relatively successful business, acquaintances said.

A small tavern with two pinball machines and a pool table, it draws considerable business from persons leaving Summerfest late at night, they said.

Behind the bar are two pictures of Palmisano, one superimposed over a drawing of Commission Row.

Palmisano, 49, had an apartment at Juneau Village Garden Apartments, 1319 N. Jackson St., and a home at 5358 N. Kent Blvd., Whitefish Bay. The explosion occurred in an underground garage at Juneau Village apartments.

Palmisano was the father of four children, the youngest of whom is 14.

Friday morning, the bar door was open and nearly all the bar stools were occupied. Few customers were talking about the murder despite the presence of reporters and the fact that detectives were questioning the bartenders.

By early afternoon, the door was closed and a sign had been placed on it. It read: “Sorry, the tavern is closed today. My father died this morning.” It was signed John Palmisano.

Mob Killing Tied to Mob Rivalry 

by (reporter(s) not credited by the Journal Sentinel)

July 1, 1978  August S. Palmisano, who was killed in his car Friday by a powerful bomb blast, apparently was the victim of a rivalry between organized crime factions in Milwaukee, police sources said Friday.

“There was some speculation that maybe somebody thought he was going to talk.” one highly placed police official said. Another source said the killing was part of a long standing feud between criminal factions in the city.

Police described Palmisano, 49, a convicted gambler, as a ‘Substantial figure in organized crime in Milwaukee.”

He was killed shortly before 9 a.m. Friday when a bomb exploded in his car in the underground garage in the Juneau Village apartments, 1319 N. Jackson St. Palmisano’s brother, Ted, said he knew of no motive for the bombing. “It’s a bad situation, that’s all,” he said.

Palmisano was found burned almost beyond recognition behind the the driver’s seat of his 1977 white Mercury.

Police said the bomb apparently was placed under the hood on the driver’s side of the car. The force of the explosion pushed the front seat of the auto into the back seat, according to police.

“It was one heck of a bang,” said Michael Thiel, 22, who lives on the first floor of the complex. “The blast actually knocked pictures off the walls,” he said.

Robert Martin, a second floor resident of the apartment building, said the explosion felt like an earthquake. A third floor resident said the explosion rocked the building.

Police said Palmisano’s car registration listed a Whitefish Bay address 5358 N. Kent Blvd. However, Al Sunn, manager of the Juneau Village garden Apartments said Palmisano had lived in a third floor apartment there for several years. Palmisano’s son, John, lives in a first floor apartment in the same building.

Neighbors of the Whitefish Bay address, where Palmisano’s wife, Jean, and two of the couple's four children live, said Palmisano kept late hours but occasionally was seen at the Whitefish Bay home.

One neighbor said in the last two years she had only seen Palmisano four or five times, usually coming home from work, or letting out the family dog.

Palmisano was one of nine persons whose phones were wiretapped in May by the US government as part o a federal investigation of illegal gambling. The probe is part of a nationwide investigation involving organized crime, gambling, loan sharking and interstate transportation of stolen property, according to government sources.

Palmisano was convicted along with two other men in 1963 on federal charges of gambling the required $50 occupational gambling tax stamp. He was fined $1000.

In 1975 Palmisano pleaded guilty to federal charges of conducting an illegal gambling business and was fined $500 and placed on two years probation. At that time, he also was charged with unlawfully storing 93 sticks of dynamite in the basement of his tavern at 346 N. Broadway, which was then named Ritchie’s on Broadway. It is now called Palmy’s tavern. The dynamite charge was dismissed when Palmisano pleaded guilty on the gambling charge.

Police sources said that Palmisano had been the subject of various investigations in connection with prostitution, receiving stolen property, extortion and commercial gambling.

According to records in City Hall, Palmisano owned one-third interest in Palmy Corp., which owned Richie’s on Broadway, until June, 1976, when he transferred his ownership to his son, John A., 24.

While Palmisano owned the tavern, from 1973 until 1976, he was cited several times for license violations, including keeping the tavern open beyond closing hours.

Detective Lt. Thomas Perlewitz said Palmisano was reportedly last seen by his son, John, at Palmy’s tavern approximately 2:30 a.m. Friday.

First Battalion Fire Chief Thomas Konicke said when firemen arrived at the apartment building Friday morning, the garage was filled with smoke. Firemen pried open the garage door and found the car in the center of the block long garage.

Police said they were still investigating to determine what type of explosive was used. They also did not know if the bomb was rigged to explode when the car was started.

Police said the garage is a locked building which can be opened only by a key. Officials had no information on how the bomb got placed in the car. Konicke said about 20 other cars in the garage were damaged by the blast, but no one else was injured.

A second minor fire occurred at the garage Friday night as a result of the earlier bombing, Fire Department officials said. Firemen were called about 7 p.m. to extinguish a fire in a car that had been parked next to the Palmisano auto.

Lt. Gale LeFebvre said the gasoline tank of the car next to Palmisano’s apparently was ruptured by the explosion and some gasoline leaked onto the floor. he said the fire may have been ignited by a discarded cigarette. The fire burned part of the tire on the car.

Smoke in the garage after the morning explosion prevented firemen from finding Palmisaro’s body until about 15 minute after they arrived. The interior of the car was on fire and the sprinkler system in the garage was on when firemen arrived, Konicke said.

The sprinkler system was damaged in the blast, as were electrical conduits in the ceiling. A concrete block partition near the car buckled from the force of the blast and parts of the car motor were strewn about the garage, officials said.

“It almost severed the front of the car,” Konicke said of the explosion. “It was a very, very forceful explosion.”

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1368&dat=19780701&id=JdQVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7xEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5566,42016

Sally Papia - A life lived on the edge

Bill Janz was a long lime writer for the Milwaukee Sentinel and Journal Sentinel who retired in 2000. Having spent many years as an investigative journalist, he wrote the following shortly after Papia's death from an auto accident in 2005. Article from the Milwaukee Journal Seninel archives with links provided:
By BILL JANZ (Milw Journal-Sentinel)

Posted: Jan. 13, 2005
Sally Papia loved being the show.
Despite her openness, Papia took secrets with her.
Papia's life revolved around restaurants, mobsters. She also loved being the mystery, the long-ago woman in black, engaged to a mobster, or dating a cop or a banker or a lawyer. Now the show is over, and her death left a mystery that probably won't be solved.

Her daughter, Candy, 51, drove their speeding car into a tree and was
killed on an icy road in Waukesha County. Sally, a widely known
restaurant operator, died later of injuries suffered in the crash. Her
funeral was Thursday night.

Sally and Candy had a love-hate relationship, "as much hate as there
was love," said Franklyn M. Gimbel, a community leader, noted defense
attorney and friend of Sally's.

He called Candy "erratic" and said that "we'll never know if a big
fight was going on in the car" just before the crash. He wondered if
Candy might have driven the car off the road while arguing with her
mother.

***
Sally could be charming or volatile. She could be warm or boisterous.
She could be loving or vengeful. She could be smart or naive. She not
only could be, but was, a mess of contrasts.

She was a lovable scamp, who could be more outrageous than a
firecracker in a convent.

One time she lighted a match and held it up, an implied threat that she
was going to burn down the restaurant of a man who owed her money. Yet
she was extremely generous and gave money to every organization ever
invented. And when a homeless man wandered into her classy restaurant,
she seated him at a table and fed him.

She was friends with many public figures, including judges, one of whom
brought her his homemade chili, in a jar. Yet more than 30 years ago,
before Sally left on a trip to Las Vegas, local mobsters gave her
$25,000 in a box that looked like a birthday present. She took the box
as carry-on luggage on the plane, and a courier picked it up at a
casino; it was money laundering, probably, but she said she didn't
know.

When local mob boss Frank Balistrieri's sons - Joseph and John - were
petitioning to get out of prison during the 1980s, she hoped they'd be
sent straight to hell. She sounded as if she hated them. Yet, at the
time of her death, she was managing the Savoy Room, in a building owned
by Joseph Balistrieri.

Contrasts.
For many years, every Christmas she sent plants to some state and
federal judges who ate in her restaurant, including the judge who sent
her to prison in the 1970s. But she also knew - very well - mobsters in
Chicago and pleaded with them to save an employee from being murdered,
she said.

"Chicago was the boss, and Chicago loved me," she told me in December
1986. "They respected me.

"Fifi (Buccieri) and (Tony) Accardo, they loved me. I fixed them
special dishes," she said, referring to top Chicago mobsters. "I fixed
Frank (Buccieri) special dishes, too."

She was engaged, in the 1970s, to Frank Buccieri, a Chicago hoodlum and
brother of the notorious Fifi, who was recorded laughing about a fat
man squirming on a hook on a wall. The terrifying transcript was the
preface to "The Exorcist."

Sally and Frank never married. He abused her, she said, including
bruising her face after I interviewed Sally and wrote my first story
about her. I expressed sympathy, but she said Buccieri was her problem,
not mine.

Maybe because she took the bruises and didn't blame me, we became
friends; she always knew I was a journalist - one who appreciated her
energy, her food, and her sporadic outlandishness, but not some of the
things she did, and I'd write about them. It was a fine line, but we
walked it.

Occasionally, when we talked in her old office at Sally's Steak House,
in the Knickerbocker Hotel, or on the telephone, she'd say something
similar to what she told me in October 1988:

"If you don't want to come to a young person's funeral, don't say
anything," she said, always referring to herself as young. For her, the
second worst thing about death was that her secret age, 70-something,
would be published. But not by me.

As a courts reporter, I met Sally in the early 1970s, when I was a
friend of several friends of hers, and still am. She told me about her
wild ride on an expressway, when a member of another local restaurant
family shot at her from another car. "The goofy Italian," as she called
him, was beaten and chased out of town, lucky to keep his life.

Truth, and a little extra
The following came from notes I took during many conversations with
Sally, whose truth occasionally had its attachments. She didn't lie,
friends said, but sometimes she exaggerated her own role in a good
story that didn't need any help.

Many of my notes are from the 1980s and early 1990s, when she was being
pressured by the government to stay out of prison by telling what she
knew about criminal figures.

She was having fun, but she was having fury, too: "I went with a
gangster, I don't care. I've been known as a Mafia sweetheart, I don't
care." But the government shouldn't expect her to get herself out of
trouble by getting someone else into trouble.

"I'll never be a stool pigeon," she said.

'I'm so afraid'
In early 1989, a car owned by Maximillion J. Adonnis, a felon and
former maitre d' for Sally, was shot up when he wasn't in it. She
tipped me off: "Max's car looks like Swiss cheese."

Adonnis had served nearly two years in prison for imprisoning a man
suspected of burglarizing Sally's home during the 1970s. Adonnis and
another employee of Sally's beat up the suspect, who suffered a broken
jaw. The employee put a bullet into the floor next to the man.

A large man with a larger personality, Adonnis was a glad-hander, and
customers liked him, although "Max could never walk a straight line,"
Sally said, and she wasn't referring to his balance.

After Adonnis' car was riddled, Adonnis was murdered. Sally told me
that Adonis had called her the night before he was shot to death and
wanted to meet with her. She was too busy to see him, she said.

Shaken, she couldn't decide if the murder involved drugs or - because
of Adonnis' call to her - "someone wants to put me away forever," she
said. "They could have had two of us at the same time and blamed me for
being mixed up with cocaine."

During early April 1989, I called her at home and asked again about
Adonnis' call: "Maybe he just wanted to tell me what he was going
through," she said. Later, she said: "I'm so afraid. I know so much,
they're afraid I'm going to talk."

Keeping secrets
She never told me what she knew, except for what I've quoted here. But
she occasionally would worry about her life span.

In October 1986, I was with her when she received a note, and she
laughed and said, "I'm lucky it wasn't a dead fish."

Talking about appearing before a grand jury, she asked me, probably
with those dark eyebrows of hers at attention, "What was that I took,
the 6th Amendment?"

Sally could mix things up, whether it was words or lettuce.

"Hone-y-y-y-y-y-y," she'd begin sentences, as if the word had 6 y's.
She could charm a smile out of a terminal pessimist.

Twenty-five years ago, we got locked up together while she showed me
her new liquor room. A man she disliked appeared in the doorway and
Sally shouted, "I'm busy," and slammed the door in his face; the door
locked automatically and could only be opened outside. An employee,
referred to as "The Enforcer" in a court case, heard Sally's shouts -
you could probably have heard them on Lake Michigan - and unlocked the
door.

Dressed stunningly, she'd work the crowd in her restaurant, leaving red
imprints of her lips on the faces of pet customers - she kissed them
when they arrived and she kissed them when she left. My wife always
knew when I'd visited Sally.

Her personality was as bold as her handwriting. She used a large
alphabet. Her signature always looked like a headline.

After being arrested in the 1970s for threatening a former employee who
owed her money, she wrote a statement for me and her signature was an
inch high: "As a successful business operator there would be no reason
for me to resort to street fighting tactics to solve small problems
like the debt of a former employee."

Whether Sally was 40-something or 70-something, she had one admonition
for me when I wrote about her: "Would you please say that I look
younger and more beautiful?"

'I changed their diapers'
During the 1980s, Frank Balistrieri and his sons, Joseph and John,
served time in federal prisons for extortion. On Dec. 14, 1986, Sally
called me at home and said that the federal prosecutor "is trying to
use me as a pawn (to get more on the Balistrieris)."

"When I went to jail" in the 1970s, "they (the Balistrieris) didn't do
anything for me."

Referring to the sons, Sally said, "I baby-sat for them when they were
growing up." More than once, she said loudly, "I changed their
diapers." Laughing, I told her once that I was interested in
investigating the Balistrieris, but not their diapers.

"They had silver spoons in their mouths when my family never had a
spoon," she said. "You touch their hands, they're like silk. Even the
girls, their nails are a mile long."

She'd been working since she was a child, and she hated wealth without
sweat.

Sally expressed disgust when I wrote about Joseph and, while detailing
his problems, described him as intelligent and a brilliant writer who
loved opera. She said I didn't know him the way she did.

She was furious when the brothers asked for a sentence reduction from
Federal Judge Terrence T. Evans, now on the 7th Circuit Court of
Appeals.

"I hope to God, Judge Evans - bless him for the wisdom he's had so far
- I hope he doesn't do anything," Sally said. "They'll come out like
King Kongs."

Ironically, at the time of her death, Sally was managing a restaurant
in a building owned by one of the brothers.

She was "enlisted" by the Balistrieris to manage the Savoy Room, friend
Gimbel said. She was bored, and running a restaurant "energized her,"
he said. But in the last six months, she had talked often about
leaving, he said.

Gimbel never met anyone with so much charisma, "a stand-alone person,"
he said, "who was the candle in the middle of a dark room."

After sentences were reduced for Joseph and John, Sally said loudly,
"All BS, of course. It's BS. It shocks me, it shocks me, it shocks me,
that a judge would be so naive."

I was in her office one day in 1989, facing her across a bunch of
bananas on her desk, as she threw a fit about "the boys." Over and
over, she slapped the table with packets of sugar, angrily, nearly
histrionic, over the coming release of the Balistrieri brothers.

"Four or five years ago," she said, a member of Frank Balistrieri's
group was slapped in the face by a local businessman. The man who was
slapped informed Frank Balistrieri, she said.

"They took his whole company away from him (the man who did the
slapping)," she said. "And 96 stitches were taken across his face.
Today, the last I heard, (he) is a big, fat, sloppy bartender in
Nevada."

Sally knew, firsthand, what happened to people who bothered Frank
Balistrieri.

She named a widely known man in the Italian-American community. She
called him "a bookie and a gofer. Frank (Balistrieri) doesn't want to
do things, he has him do it."

But, she said, doing things for Frank made the man feel he was more
important than he was. He even mimicked Frank, holding his hand in his
pocket, the way Frank did, she said. Sally was along, she said, when
several of Frank's friends took the gofer to Chicago, knocked him
around, and decided to impress upon him his status in Frank's outfit.

"They peed all over him," she said.

When the government involved her family, she would have liked to have
hit the federal prosecutor with a cast-iron pot: During a telephone
call to me on Sept. 17, 1987, Sally, very upset, said, "The goddamn
government subpoenaed my 82-year-old mother. My mother never went to
school, never left the house. She doesn't even read."

On April 5, 1988, she said that a former employee was granted immunity
by the grand jury investigating payoffs to a union: "He has to do the
right thing," she said.

But Sally's former employee didn't say what she hoped he'd say, and
eventually Sally was convicted and imprisoned for less than a year for
paying a union not to organize.

Referring to the former employee, Sally said, on Jan. 10, 1990: "I
saved his life twice. I went to Chicago twice and asked special
permission (that he not be killed). Frank (Balistrieri) wanted him
dead. He could have been in the gutter, like Maxie (Adonnis)" if she
hadn't interceded, she said.

She called him "The Judas." And promptly renamed her dog, who was named
after the employee.

"Pimping all the time, he's still pimping," she said. "For businessmen
every day."

Sally said that the late Federal Judge John Reynolds, who sentenced her
to her first prison term, "wished me luck" before she went to prison.
Reynolds ate at Sally's Steak House, as did many judges and baseball
players. However, E. Michael McCann, Milwaukee County district
attorney, did not permit his assistants to eat Italian - at least not
there.

When an appeals court turned down her appeal, she said, on Aug. 13,
1990, "At least John and Joey know I'm not a stool pigeon."

Mother and daughter
Sally and Candy were estranged numerous times, and there were court
battles. Occasionally, over the years, Sally complained to friends
about "physical encounters" with Candy. Way back in 1988, Sally told me
that Candy was "sick, really sick."

Candy called me several times in the late '80s and early '90s and
criticized her mother unmercifully.

"She's got such a big mouth," said Candy, one of her more restrained
comments.

In late November 2004, Candy got herself into trouble again. An officer
of the Waukesha County Sheriff's Department went to Candy's home to
retrieve a credit card of Sally's. Candy, sliced up the card and was
cited for disorderly conduct, according to records. The citation was
filed a couple of days before the car crash.

The last time I spoke with Sally was on Thanksgiving, when she called
me at home and wished me, and my family, a happy holiday.

Many years ago, when I complimented Sally on her black outfit, she
said, "I love black, but don't bury me in it."
She should have been buried under Bartolotta fireworks.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1683&dat=20050114&id=NDIqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=EkUEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5930,3180851

The mob hit on Anthony J. Biernat

calumet412.com

Milwaukee mob screws up a hit: still manages to get away with it

For many years I have read bits and pieces about the 1963 murder of Anthony Biernat, a Kenosha businessman who owned a jukebox vending company. The FBI and Police always believed that the hit men included Frank Balistrieri mob captain Steve DiSalvo and associate Frank Stelloh (Stelloh was a lifelong criminal, but not Italian and could never be a “made” man in the Italian mafia), but never had enough evidence to charge or convict them. After doing further research thanks to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Archives, I’ve learned more of the real(?) story. I always assumed that the hit was ordered by Milwaukee mob boss Balistrieri because of Biernat’s refusal to share the business. According to one or more unidentified informants, it was actually the Chicago “Outfit” mobsters who were shunned by Biernat and ordered Frank Balistrieri to handle the hit. A lot of the businesses that Biernat provided jukeboxes for were in northern Illinois and the Chicago mob could well have asserted control if they wanted. Although Frank Balistrieri was the Milwaukee godfather, he dared not pick a fight with the Chicago Outfit.

Whether or not the Chicago Outfit ordered the hit, it was carried out under the direction of Frank Balistrieri’s thugs who screwed up so badly, they should have gotten nailed for it.

Jan 31, 1963  According to information obtained by the James G. Wieghart of the Sentinel, the murder of Anthony J. Biernat was carried out for the Chicago crime syndicate by three hired killers who probably did not even know him.

The details of the brutal murder and gruesome burial of Biernat were learned from confidential sources who picked up the information from Milwaukee underworld figures.

the jukebox mafia

Biernat, 46, owner of Lakeside Music Co., was beaten and forced into a waiting car at Kenosha’s North Shore line depot parking lot about 10 p.m., Jan 7, 1963.

His trussed up body was found Monday, the 28th, in a lime sprinkled grave in the basement of an unoccupied farm house on the abandoned Bong Air Force base site. Biernat died from three or four vicious blows to the back of the head, authorities said.

Information from underworld leaks began flowing to authorities last week after the announcement that the FBI officially entered the case.

One underworld tip given to a law enforcement official and relayed to the FBI helped locate Biernat’s body. “If you want to find Biernat’s body, look in the basement of an empty house in an abandoned area in Kenosha county,” the underworld tipster said. “They put him in a lime pit”. When the official asked the tipster to be more specific about the location of the house, the tipster replied: “Well, you can be sure of one thing, it (the body) ain’t going to fly away.”

It wasn’t until later that the authorities caught the significance of the last remark, obviously referring the defunct Bong base.

Events Reconstructed

The underworld sources reconstructed this apparent sequence of events in the murder:

On orders from the Chicago crime syndicate, Milwaukee hoodlums last November visited Biernat and told him they wanted a partnership in his business. Biernat refused, although he was warned he had no choice in the matter.

The Chicago syndicate wanted particularly to gain control of Biernat’s contract with the Great Lakes naval training station, Great Lakes, Illinois. They also wanted to gain a toehold in the jukebox business in Kenosha and Racine counties, where most of Biernat’s 85 machines were located.

Biernat, although a respected citizen, was not totally unfamiliar with the Chicago mobsters. During the 1930’s, he repaired most of the syndicate’s slot machines in northern Illinois counties. He later worked for a Kenosha jukebox distributor, Stanley Miller, then took over Miller’s business while the latter went into service during World War II.

Because of Biernat’s outright refusal of a partnership, the Chicago syndicate decided to have him killed. The “contract” for his murder was arraigned though the Milwaukee (Frank Balistrieri) underworld. The Milwaukee mob decided that, if Biernat were kidnapped, murdered and his body carefully disposed of, authorities might eventually conclude that he had simply run off and was not a victim of foul play.

“City Killers Hired”

With that in mind, three Milwaukee killers were hired. A burial plot in a secluded area was selected and a grave prepared, possibly as early as December. To help speed decomposition of the body, the hoodlums obtained two bags of lime. They also got two bags of mortar. Their intention was to seal off the fruit cellar with cinder blocks, thus hiding the unfinished room from the rest of the basement.

Since the three killers did not know Biernat, it was necessary to obtain a “finger man” who could identify him. The mob impressed the services of a Racine gambler who had good mob credentials and knew Biernat by sight.

On Jan. 7, the well prepared plot went into operation. The three killers waited near the parking lot until they observed Biernat pull in on his almost nightly errand to buy a Chicago newspaper. The killers pulled the kidnap car the lot and awaited Biernat’s return. The finger man fled. When Biernat approached his car, two of the men got out and ordered him to get in their car.

“Plans Upset”

From this point on, the carefully laid plans were upset, as a series of coincidences came into play. The coincidences, it is believed, caused the three killers to botch the job badly. Instead of getting into the car, Biernat screamed and put up a terrific fight. The driver of the kidnap car had to leap out and help subdue him and drag him into the car. One of the killers received a sharp blow from Biernat, which caused the killer to bleed.

The driver of the car then noticed several startled witnesses eye the car with suspicion as it pulled from the lot. The killers were by this time badly frightened, thinking the witnesses must have called the police. They sped to the burial site. The two killers in the back seat continued their struggle with Biernat and finally subdued him by binding his hands and putting a wire choke noose around his neck.

Biernat’s frantic struggle angered the hired assassins, and they apparently, lost control of their temper, particularly the injured one. They pummeled Biernat repeatedly. Biernat finally lapsed into unconsciousness. When they arrived at the secluded farmhouse, they forced the again conscious victim into the basement where they intended to shoot him. Biernat, although bound, renewed his struggle, kicking violently.

Because of the violent struggle, blood from Biernat and one of the killers was spattered around throughout the cellar. The killers hurriedly covered the burial mound with boards and tried to hide the blood trail with ashes and dirt. Plans to seal up the room were abandoned for fear the police, alerted by witnesses at the parking lot, might be on their trail.

The killers jumped into their car and fled, sticking to country roads until they reached a secluded area near a river. Ducking down a trail, they pulled up alongside the river. Here they washed the blood off their hands and discarded their bloody outer garments.

“Kidnap Car Ditched”

They then traveled a short distance farther, ditched the kidnap car and jumped into a getaway car which was waiting for them and sped off. Left behind were a trail of clues, from the parking lot where Biernat’s bloody and torn coat, glasses, car keys and blood spattered newspaper were found, to the bizarre burial place, where the trio neglected to seal off the burial room.

Ironically, the alarm which they were sure had been spread by the parking lot witnesses, was not turned in because  none of the six witnesses called the police. One of the killers, injured and bleeding from Biernat’s earlier blows and frightened half out of his wits for fear the police had picked up their trail, lost control. Giving vent to his fury, he decided to beat Biernat to death instead of shooting him. After several savage blows to the back of the head from the killer’s gun butt, Biernat, dying, slumped to the ground. The killers dumped him into the grave, covered his body with lime, wrapped a canvas over it and filled the grave.

To this day, the 1963 murder of a Kenosha businessman has never been solved. It’s hard to believe with all the witnesses, evidence left afterwards and bungling that took place!

Credit and links:

James G. Wieghart

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

As Seen in ‘Goodfellas’: Arrest Is Made in ’78 Lufthansa Robbery

Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters

The mob is still alive and active back east! 

I just happened to catch the movie "Goodfellas" again on TV this afternoon. It was a very good movie and now we know how the real story turned out.

New York update: Article thanks to and By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN and the nytimes.com 

 Links provided:

JAN. 23, 2014

The crime gripped the public’s imagination, for both its magnitude and its moxie: In the predawn hours of Dec. 11, 1978, a group of masked gunmen seized about $6 million in cash and jewels from a cargo building at Kennedy International Airport.

The Lufthansa heist, as it was known, was billed as the biggest cash robbery in United States history, and it played a starring role in the 1990 Martin Scorsese movie “Goodfellas.” It remained unsolved for four decades, perhaps because many of those who might have known something turned up dead.

But more than 35 years later, federal authorities on Thursday charged a 78-year-old man, Vincent Asaro, with playing a role in the robbery, saying they had four cooperating witnesses from organized crime families who linked Mr. Asaro, a reputed capo in the Bonanno crime family, to the robbery.

It is an unexpected turn in a famously unsolved case that had long been attributed to the Lucchese crime family. The indictment makes clear that the authorities now are convinced that the Bonanno family was also involved. 

The man thought to be the mastermind, a Lucchese associate named James (Jimmy the Gent) Burke, died in 1996 in prison, where he was serving a life sentence in a different case.

The only person ever convicted in the robbery was a Lufthansa cargo agent, described as the “inside man” in the plot.

The indictment, alleging a racketeering conspiracy from 1968 to 2013, represents the first time an organized crime figure has been charged in the $6 million robbery — the equivalent, adjusted for inflation, of $21.4 million today. But Mr. Asaro, a resident of Howard Beach, Queens, does not appear to have grown rich from the crime; as late as 2011, he was recorded complaining about his take, according to prosecutors.

“We never got our right money, what we were supposed to get,” Mr. Asaro said to another mob figure, who is cooperating with the government.

“Jimmy kept everything,” he added, apparently a reference to Mr. Burke, according to legal filings by prosecutors.

The indictment charges Mr. Asaro; Jerome Asaro, 55, his son; Jack Bonventre; Thomas DiFiore; and John Ragano with a conspiracy that plays like a Mafia highlights reel: robbery, extortion, murder and more. 

Mr. Asaro, for example, was accused in the far-ranging indictment of muscling his way into the pornography business, and of robbing Federal Express of $1.25 million worth of gold salts, which are sometimes used in medicinal treatments. The indictment also accuses him of seeking to have his cousin murdered after the cousin testified in court about an insurance swindle.

“Those suspected of cooperating with law enforcement paid with their lives,” said the United States attorney in Brooklyn, Loretta E. Lynch, whose office is prosecuting the case.

Some of the crimes alleged in the indictment predated even the airport heist, including a homicide committed in 1969.

The federal investigation became public in June, when agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation descended on a home owned by Mr. Burke’s daughter in the South Ozone Park neighborhood of Queens and began digging in the basement, soon finding human remains.

The remains, the indictment states, belonged to Paul Katz, who was identified in court papers as an associate of Mr. Burke’s who had a warehouse used by Mr. Asaro and Mr. Burke to store stolen goods. After the warehouse was raided, Mr. Asaro began to suspect that Mr. Katz was an informant. He later told a government informant that he and Mr. Burke had killed Mr. Katz in 1969 with a dog chain and buried him under cement in a vacant house, according to a legal filing submitted by prosecutors.

Years later, according to a filing, after a police detective reopened the Katz murder case, Mr. Asaro directed his son and another man to dig up the remains, which were then buried under the home of Mr. Burke’s daughter.

The five defendants, who investigators said were all linked to the Bonanno family, were arraigned in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, where they were ordered held. Each stood with his hands behind his back. Vincent Asaro, who wore a black sweatsuit, running shoes and tinted eyeglasses, pleaded not guilty.

His lawyer, Gerald J. McMahon, said in an interview outside the courtroom, “Literally and truly this is the sequel to ‘Goodfellas.’ ”

“Marty needs a screenplay; Loretta said she would help him out,” Mr. McMahon said of Mr. Scorsese and Ms. Lynch, the prosecutor.

“We’re confident,” he said, noting, “Vincent Asaro said categorically, ‘We’re going to trial.’ ”

Prosecutors say that Mr. Asaro is currently a captain in the Bonanno crime family, but that his standing has varied over the years, and that at one point he was demoted for taking too much money from his underlings.

The legal filings by prosecutors do not say precisely what Mr. Asaro’s role in the Lufthansa heist might have been, although he is charged with the robbery itself as well as with planning it.

“Asaro himself was in on one of the most notorious heists — the Lufthansa robbery in 1978,” the F.B.I. agent in charge of the New York field office, George Venizelos, said. “It may be decades later, but the F.B.I.’s determination to investigate and bring wiseguys to justice will never waver.”

Prosecutors believe that Mr. Asaro gave some of the stolen jewelry to a superior in the Bonanno crime family. That superior later became an informer and is helping prosecutors with the current case, according to a legal filing. The cooperator is not named in court papers but appears to match the description of a former boss of the Bonanno family, Joseph C. Massino.

The F.B.I. agent who supervised the investigation decades ago, Steve Carbone, said in an interview that he had always suspected that Mr. Asaro was “in the mix as a player” who had connections at the airport. But Mr. Carbone, who retired in 1998, said it would be a surprise to him “if Asaro was physically involved in the heist” as one of the gunmen.

Investigators believe that about a half-dozen gunmen were involved in the robbery. Among the suspects, Mr. Carbone said, were Frank Burke, James Burke’s son; Thomas DeSimone; Angelo Sepe; and Anthony Rodriguez. They all are dead or presumed dead.

Mr. Burke was eventually sent to prison on information provided by Henry Hill, the mobster-turned-informant of “Goodfellas” fame, who helped plan the Lufthansa heist. But the conviction was unrelated: It involved fixing college basketball games. While in prison, Mr. Burke was convicted in a murder.

The only person convicted of the Lufthansa robbery was the cargo agent, Louis Werner, who had gambling debts to pay off. Mr. Werner took the idea for the crime to his bookmaker, who introduced him to another bookmaker, a beautician from Long Island, who is believed to have passed along the tip to Mr. Burke’s crew. Mr. Werner was indicted in March 1979, within four months of the robbery.

Only a tiny fraction of the money stolen at Kennedy Airport was ever recovered.

By 1980, when Mr. Hill began cooperating, several corpses of people connected to the robbery or to its participants had already been discovered.

Mr. Hill died in 2012, having had heart disease and other health problems. It is thought that Mr. Rodriguez might have died from a bite by one of the dozens of pet snakes he kept in his home, according to his lawyer, Marvyn Kornberg. But Mr. Carbone said that over the years, “I got to believe 15 people were killed solely because of this case.”

Reporting was contributed by Kitty Bennett, Sheelagh McNeill, Nate Schweber and Mosi Secret.

 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/24/nyregion/arrests-in-cold-case-investigation-including-78-lufthansa-heist.html?_r=0