tom states above that this was his first arrest
and that he was arrested BEFORE entering the service. What age was this?
3) he testifies for 10 years, including on every tape and video,
including the Dobson Tapes that
a) he was sent to Wichita Kansas to shoot two
people.
b) Shot them and then was turned in by Gambino Crime Boss.
c) That the judge said "your are a mafia member" and "this was a
hit" then
sentenced him to ten years which he served 5 1/2 years and returned to a joyfull
reunion where he was given honors and business'
when he got out.
And Tom's written and spoken story BEFORE he
was exposed went like this:
"When I was about fifteen years old, I was coming home
from school one day. And by the railroad tracks, I saw a gun on the ground. It
was an old gun. It was rusty. It had no bullets in it. And I picked it up
and when I got together with my friends later on, I came up with this idea.
There were these old Italian men that used to stay in this storefront. And they
always had a lot of money. They were dressed very well. And I came up with the
idea that if we covered up our faces, we could go in there with this gun and
hold them up and get all their money. And then we could take the money. And we
can go to Coney Island and go on all the rides and get the cotton candy and the
hotdogs.
And, at first, they didn't want to do it. But, I convinced them
to do it - that they wouldn't know who we were. And we went in there. And we
went in the storefront. And there was about thirty or more men in there.
One night, I was at home having dinner with my mother and
father, and there a knock on the door. And my father opened the door. And there
was three men standing there, all dressed in black. And these weren't the three
wisemen at the door. And they began speaking in Sicilian. And I heard them
say to my father "We need to come in and speak to you and your son. It's
very important." And I heard my father answered back in Sicilian, "I
told you men never to come near my family or never to come near my house, and I
want you to leave right now." And one of the men said, "If we leave
right now, you won't have a son in the morning. We said this is important.' And
my father told my mother to go into the bedroom, and the men came in. They sat
down and one of them point his finger right in my face and he said, "We
know it's you that has the gun and has come in there and has taken our money and
our pants. But, the only thing that's keeping you alive is the respect that we
have for your grandfather."
And I didn't understand that, because my grandfather had died
before I was even born. My mother and father never even spoke of him. I didn't
even know his name. And here these men are telling me that I'm alive, because of
the respect they have for a dead person. And this man went on to say that if you
do it again, even the respect we have for your grandfather won't save you. And
they just got up, and they just left. My father took into the room and probably
gave me the worst beating I ever got.
I still didn't cry. And I asked them, "Who is my
grandfather? He's dead, and these men still have respect for him? Who is
he?" And my father told me never to ask about my grandfather. And if I was
ever to go by these men again, he said "I won't hit you", he said,
"I'll kill you. Stay away from these men." But, I was very
thick-headed. The next day when I came back from school, I went right into that
storefront. Those men were there. And I just sat down and I said, "I
demand to know who my grandfather is, if you're keeping me alive because of
him." And one man said to me, "You know your father is a very
foolish man." And I said, "I didn't come here to hear about my father.
I hate my father." I said, "One of these days, I'll kill my father. I
said, "I want to know about my grandfather."
And this man told me that my grandfather was Joe Mazaria [Tom's
spelling, not ours, it is MASSERIA] , known as Joe the Boss. And the FBI claims
that he's the one responsible in the 1900's for bringing the Mafia over from
Sicily. They told me that he was the boss of all the bosses in New York, and
Lucky Luciano had killed him in order to become boss. And that my father could
have been a very, very powerful and wealthy man in New York. But, my father
wanted no part of them.
They said that my father doesn't have to work two and three
jobs. "You don't have to live like you're living. And that's why we're
saying your father's very foolish." And I started thinking. And I said
to this man, and this man was Carlo Gambino. I
said, "Well, I'm my father's only son, and if he doesn't want this
position, then I can have it, right?"
And he said, "Yes". And I said, "Okay, I'll
take it". And he said, "No, not at fifteen years old you won't.
There's a lot of things that your father should have been teaching you that
we'll have to teach you." And I wanted to be in this thing called the Mafia
for one reason only. I wanted to hurt my father the way he had hurt me by not
showing me love, the rejection that he had shown me. Because the Mafia didn't
impress me. Because at fifteen years old, four times I took all their money and
their pants. They didn't really impress me as gangsters. But, I
finally found a way that I could get even my father. If he'd rather work all
these jobs and drink himself to almost death, rather than get involved with
them, I found a way to hurt him. And they started teaching the things that my
father never taught me. They taught me how to make money without working,
making money off of people that did work, stealing and different things, con
games. And I was making a few hundred dollars a week, and I doing was very good.
When I was seventeen years old, they
came to me, and they gave me a gun. This time it wasn't an old gun. It
wasn't rusty, and this time it had bullets in it. And I
took a vow that I would live and die by that gun. A piece of paper was put in my
hand. It was set on fire. They said that if I betray the Mafia, I would burn
like this paper was burning and go to hell.
I couldn't wait to go home after I got that gun.
I knew my mother was a typical Italian mother. When she wasn't
in the kitchen cooking, she was in the bedroom praying with the rosary beads.
And I knew my father would be working. And I rushed home and sure enough my
mother was in the bedroom. When I walked in and she was on her knees praying, I
answered up to her and asked her what she was praying about. She said "I'm
praying for this family and for you". And I said, "What are you
praying about for me?" And she looked up at me and tears had just started
to come down her eyes and she said, "It's no secret that you're involved
with these men." She said, "But, what you don't know is that these men
are the men that killed my father."
And she said, "You have no idea what it was like for my
mother and I every day when my father left the house, never knowing whether he
was coming back. And one day the police came to the house and told us he was
killed. He wasn't coming back." And she said, "These men killed my
father, and I don't want them killing my son." So she said, "I'm
praying that you will seek God for your protection". And that's just the
answer I wanted her to say. And I pulled out the gun and said, "Here's my
protection. I can't see this Jesus you're always praying to. And I don't know
that he'll be there when I'm in trouble. But, I know this gun will be with me,
twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And I know how to use it. I'm not
afraid to use it. So, don't pray that prayer for me any more." She just
continued crying. I said, "Is there anything else you're praying for
me?" And she looked up at me and said, "Yes, I pray that someday
you'll become a priest". And that's very funny
when you're waving a .45.
I just thought of the offerings I could have got in church if I
was a priest waving a .45. And I looked at her and I said, "That's the
stupidest thing I've ever heard you say." I said, "Mom, I never once
knew why I was brought into this world. And, now I know." I said, "My
father wouldn't take the rightful position that this family should have. So God
allowed me to come into the world to step into my grandfather's shoes." And
I said, "I'm going to be better than my grandfather was. I'm going to be
more violent, more wealthy, more powerful." I said, "So, you don't
ever have to pray for me ever again." Tears were still coming down her
eyes. She looked at me, and she said, "Not the Mafia, not you - can ever
make me stop praying. " And she said, "I won't stop praying until God
answers those prayers."
It wasn't long before that I was called
to use the gun. They called me in. And they said, "Tom, you've been doing
very good. You're making a lot of money for yourself. You're making a
lot of money for us." And I was always big and strong and knew how to take
care of myself. I was a fighter. And they used to send me out to collect
money. I was seventeen and eighteen years old, and they would send me out to
grown men to collect money they owed. And I always came back with every
penny. I was very proud of it. If I had to beat them up with a baseball bat or
stab them with an ice pick, whatever I had to do, short of killing them, I would
do to bring the money back. And I was very proud of this. I was growing in
the Mafia. I was getting a reputation.
And they said, "Now, is the next
step. Some men have hijacked a truck in the Garment District. It was an inside
job. We killed the man on the
inside. That's already taken care of. But, the two men that hijacked the truck,
they're hiding out in Kansas.
We want you to go there. We want you to shoot both of these men. We don't
want you to kill them. We just want you to set an example for everybody
to see what happens if they should steal from us." And they said, "We
don't want you using your right name. So, we have some identification for you.
Here's the plane ticket. Just go there. Soon as you get off the plane, somebody
knows who you are. They'll come to you. They'll give you keys to the car, and
they'll give you a gun. And they'll give you pictures of the two men that we
want to shoot. And they'll tell you exactly where they are. Just go there. Shoot
the two men and come right back."
Everything that they told me was exactly the way they told
me. When I got there, a man met me. He gave me the keys. He gave me the gun. He
gave me pictures. He gave me directions. I went there. I shot the two men. I
came back to the airport. Kept looking in the rear view mirrors. Nobody was
following me. I made a few extra turns. Felt very safe. Got back to the airport.
Waited until they were boarding the plane. And I got on the plane. And all that
was on the plane was policemen. And as soon I boarded the plane, they said my
name. They put handcuffs on me. Telling me I was under
arrest for shooting two men. And they even knew the names of the two men. I
didn't even know their names. I only had their picture. Brought me before a
judge.
And the judge said, "You
know, you're Italian. You're from New York. And you're down here shooting
people. Are you in the Mafia? Is this a contract?" And I had taken a
vow of silence at seventeen years old, and I didn't even answer the judge. And
he said, "If you're going to be quiet like this when you come before me for
the trial," he said, "I'll send you away for the maximum time that I
can." When it came time for me to go before the
judge, I still kept that vow of silence. I didn't say a word. He sentenced me to
two 5 to 10 year sentences in the Kansas State Penitentiary.
I went there, and at that time,
it was probably the worst and toughest prison in the United States. As big
as I was, and as tough as I was handling myself, I had to fight almost every
other day for survival in that place. My mother and father had found out that I
was arrested and put in jail for shooting somebody. And my father disowned me.
He said, "I didn't have a mother, I didn't have a father." And not to
write any letters, not to make any phone calls, that they didn't exist any more.
And that I had chosen a new family. And my father wrote to tell me that I had
broken my mother's heart, and he never wanted me to speak to my mother again. Five
and a half years went by. I finished the first sentence. I was paroled to my
second sentence and sent back to New York.
When I got back to New York, I
didn't want to go see those men right away. I thought I had failed them. They
told me to go shoot two men and come back right away. I shot the two men. But,
it took me five and a half years to get back. And I really believed that I
had failed them. But, they knew I was out, and very shortly they sent for me to
that same storefront where everything started. When I went there I had a gun. I
always walked around with a gun. The day I got of jail, I got a gun.
As soon as I walked in, a man came
up to me and said, "Tom, do you have a gun on you?" I said, "Of
course, I do." He said, "Well, can we have it?" And I said,
"No". And there was a table close by. I said, "But, I'll put the
gun on the table." And they said it was all right. I wanted that gun as
close to me as possible, so if these men were going to kill me, then I can get
the gun and kill as many of them as I could before they killed me. And I sat
down and the first question I was asked was, "How was prison?" And I
was *****y and arrogant, and I said, "Look, I don't have any scars, no
broken bones or anything." I said, "I handled myself. I
survived." And then he leaned back, and he said, "Is there any one
thing that you had thought about all the time that you were in prison?" And
that was very easy for me to answer. Because the day that I was arrested
until the day I was released, five and a half years later, I wondered what I did
wrong. How I messed up that I was caught. And this is what I told him. And
he looked at me and he said, "Now, you are going to understand why we
wanted your gun." And he said, "You may not understand this right
away." He said, "In time, you will.
We gave the police your name. And
we told them everything."
He said, "Everything that we
asked you to do so far, you've been very loyal, you've done it. But, we didn't
know what would happen under pressure. We didn't know if you had to go to jail,
how you would hold up. So, we had to give you a test." And he said,
"You passed our test." And got up and opened up his arms, and
said, "Welcome to our family, son."
First man that ever called me,
"son", that sent me to jail for five and a half years. Broke my
mother's heart. And he's got his arms opened with a smile, calling me,
"son". All I could think of was that gun on the table. Killing him and
everybody in that room. But, before I had a chance to reach for the gun, there
was a book on this table. And he opened up the book. I had seen this book many
times before. This was the book where they lent people money. And the amounts
and all the interest were in there. And he turned to me and he said, "Tom,
if you could have any business that you want, any at all, which would you
choose?" And he knew that I always like the nightclub and discotheque
business. And I told him that. And he turned the book around, and he said,
"Pick one". You know it's amazing how fast the rage and anger
disappeared. How quick I forgot about my mother's broken heart. How quick I
forgot about those five and a half years in prison. I was going to be a
nightclub owner now. Now I had a smile on my face. And I looked at the book, and
there was two of them there that I really liked that I knew were very good
clubs. And I asked him if I could have some time to think it over, 'cause I
couldn't make a decision right now. And he said, "No problem. Take both of
them. You deserve it." This was the beginning of my business life in the
Mafia"]
