Read Mafia Men - Hoodwinkers, suckers and scams (True Crime) for Free Online

Once, when he and another Ramper stole a car to carry out a robbery, they were shot at by the car’s owner. One bullet hit Sammy’s partner and another ripped a chunk out of Sammy’s head just above the right ear. He was lucky to survive.
    When he reached the age of twenty-three, in 1968, Sammy got his first introduction to serious crime when he met Thomas ‘Shorty’ Spero, a member of the Colombo crime family, who invited him to work with him. Shortly after, he met Shorty’s capo , none other than the notorious Carmine ‘the Snake’ Persico, who would become head of the family several years later.
    Sammy’s first jobs for the Family were robberies and he experienced some bad luck when a witness to a robbery at a clothing store identified him from a mug shot. Luckily for Sammy, the witness was ‘persuaded’ not to identify Gravano in court. On another occasion, a bank guard developed a loss of memory that may have been connected to the $10,000 he was paid by Persico. Gravano had to pay it back at $300 a week, plus interest, of course. That was not a problem, however, as he was now earning around $2,000 a week from loansharking and from a club he had opened, even after he had paid off police and made his weekly donation to Family coffers.
    After the Colucci hit, Gravano’s star was on the rise and Persico was reported to be very pleased with him. He married seventeen-year-old Debra Scibetta in 1971 but marriage did not help him to mend his crooked ways. That same year, he created a scam whereby he would pretend to be a cop who would burst in when a drug dealer, called Michael Hardy, was doing a deal to buy dope. He would handcuff the men selling the stuff and he and Hardy would walk off with the money, as well as the drugs. Meanwhile, he was also making good money fencing stolen goods.
    Sammy was transferred from the Colombo Family to the Gambinos after tensions between him and the Speros. He was sure he was being ripped off by Tommy Spero’s father, Ralph. He now became part of a team headed up by Salvatore ‘Toddo’ Aurello, a capo whose career stretched back to the days when Albert ‘Mad Hatter’ Anastasia was head of the Family. Aurello became an influential figure to Sammy.
    However, he was still unsure about the gangster life and at one point tried to go straight, working nine or ten hours a day in construction. He and Debra still had no money and were sleeping on the floor of his sister’s apartment, but he planned to start his own firm. A phone call changed that, however. He, Louis Milito and ‘Alley Boy’ Cuomo’ were being sought for the 1969 murder of the Dunn brothers. They were innocent and so, decided to turn themselves in. To pay their legal expenses, Sammy quit his construction job and joined Cuomo on a robbery spree lasting eighteen months. It paid off when they were acquitted one week into the trial.
    Gravano had earned his spurs and was now proposed for full membership of the Gambino Family. He sat next to Paul Castellano, head of the Family, and underwent the ritual of pricking the index finger, burning the image of the saint, taking the vow of omerta , and kissing other members on the cheeks.
    When he opened an after-hours drinking club, called The Bus Stop in Bensonhurst, a group of bikers walked in and told him to get out, that they were taking over. A fight broke out in which Gravano broke his ankle, but the bikers ran off. Observing the Mob protocol of not undertaking a hit without the permission of your boss, he went to Castellano and gained permission to murder the leader of the bikers. Still in his cast, Gravano, accompanied by Louis Milito, killed the man and injured one of his associates. When Castellano heard that Gravano had carried out the hit himself, in a plaster cast, he is reported to have exclaimed: ‘He’s got the balls of a fucking elephant!’
    He became more involved in the construction industry after helping Paul Castellano out with some building work at his