Winter Hill Mob rat through and through

The ratings for last night's edition of "60 Minutes" will no doubt be boffo. They had a football playoff game lead-in. They had a segment with Roger Clemens, professional baseball player, denying he took steroids. And they had Johnny Martorano, professional murderer, waxing philosophic about the art of blowing people's brains out.

more stories like thisYou'll have to forgive Emily Connors for not tuning in. Johnny Martorano helped murder her husband 33 years ago, as Ed Connors stood in a phone booth in Dorchester.

"You know what?" Emily Connors said of Martorano's schtick. "It's getting old."

She got that right. It would almost be bearable to watch this stuff if we knew it would be over and done with. But it's pretty obvious Martorano's appearance was the launch of another attempt to capitalize on the very marketable concept of the sensitive sociopath. After Martorano wraps up his government-witness obligations, which allowed him to trade the 20 human lives he took for 12 years in prison, there will be another kill-and-tell book. Another movie treatment. Some clueless Hollywood type will be snookered by all this tough-but-thoughtful hit-man jive, and we'll have to endure an endless string of breathless whispers about scripts, stars, and on-location shoots in Southie and Winter Hill.

Liesguys Lit is a lucrative genre. It's revisionist history for murderers, allowing them to imbue their venality with a sense of nobility that is otherwise missing from the brutal act of shooting someone in cold blood. And the best part for the purveyors of this junk is that almost everyone who can dispute its authenticity is either dead or not talking.

It's just as well Emily Connors didn't watch last night, because Martorano's performance was far more offensive to his victims than anything he said in court some years back when he got the sweetheart deal that allowed him to walk out of prison last year.

Johnny told Steve Kroft he didn't enjoy killing, but that he did it for his family and friends.

What a guy.

"You could never pay me to kill anybody," said Johnny, who, by job description, was paid to kill people.

"I didn't enjoy risking my life," Johnny said, "but if the cause was right I would."

He never got around to identifying these causes. Perhaps it was to free Tibet, or maybe help the nuns pay off the mortgage at an orphanage. Oh, and even though Johnny is a government witness he is not a rat because he's testifying against those who ratted before he ratted.

Got that?

Like all these criminals who trade their infamy for a few bucks, Johnny Martorano comes across as a guy who is sorry only that he got caught.

Paul Rico, the disgraced, and now dead, former FBI agent who helped Johnny kill people also helped frame a guy named Joe Salvati. Asked how he felt about Salvati doing 30 years for a murder he didn't commit, Rico replied, "What do you want, tears?"

Well, yeah, actually, we do. It would be refreshing to see one of these guys look into a camera and say, "I can't make up for my past. But I don't want to talk about it, either, because all it will do is hurt the families I already hurt."

Don't hold your breath waiting for that one.

There were a lot of names thrown around on "60 Minutes" last night. Whitey Bulger. Stevie Flemmi. They mentioned Martorano's first victim, Robert Palladino, and his last two, Roger Wheeler and John Callahan.

Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.c

Me and My Shadow, Bugsy

Allen Smiley aka "Smiley The Russian"
1947

.First of all, and last of all, Allen Smiley was Bugsy Siegel’s friend. In a sense, he was Bugsy’s shadow. When you saw one, you usually saw the other The hitman that shot Bugsy Siegel saw them together too…
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Bugsy and Smiley were both seated on the same couch when the Slugger blasted Bugsy to smithereens..Smiley dove down on the floor, and he ended up with three bullet holes in his jacket sleeve
but none of them in him.

Bugsy had died , but his legend was alive and well in the person of Allen Smiley.

Fast Forward 30 years
I walked into the La Cierniga Bridge Club on Pico blvd with my shylock partner Puggy Zeichick..The place was a haven for big time Jewish bookies and gamblers. Even a few hoodlums were allowed in the joint. That would be us.

But on this particular day we are meeting Danny Wilson aka James Iannone. Danny was a made guy back when Pikes Peak was just a pebble. He was sitting at a table with a guy playing gin.


Like a goo-goo-eyed-groupie, Puggy says to me, ” Anthony , look, look, do you see the guy with Danny Wilson? That’s Al Smiley, Al was there with Bugsy Siegel when he got whacked” .

I already knew that about Al. I had heard it many times before Like the time I was in Schwab’s drug store on Sunset boulevard with my cousin Mario the actor. Smiley was sitting in a booth talking to the owner Leon Schwab

After Smiley left, Leon Schwab sees us and rushes over to the counter where we are sitting and says, ” Mario , did you see that guy I was talking to.”?. I stop Leon, I say, “ I bet you one of your famous coffee shakes that I know what you’re about to say.” Bingo, the boy won a shake.


Al Smiley wasn’t a gangster, or mobster, those labels are stamped on tough guys. His persona was more polished than rough. It made him a fabulous front man for the Mob. So “Organized Crime Figure” fits him better.



Al knew many of the Mob’s General’s . He was well connected with Mafia , maven, Frank Costello. He steered suckers with big bankrolls to Costello’s illegal gambling parlors for a percentage of their losses.

He was a first class felon.. On his rap sheet his repertoire of rackets included Ponzie schemes and trafficking in narcotics.

I knew Al, but not that well . He was old when I met him. His star had long since fallen, and mine was on the rise. He was always a big gambler and sometimes he went bust.


Although one day I ran into Al at the track when he was flush with cash . I knew he had just made a score with a scam artist associate of mine named Jack Fine.

Jack could sell holy water to a Vampire. They both probably sold some sucker the Brooklyn Bridge. That was the last time I saw Al .




Al Smiley died broke,but he ended his criminal career on a high note when he beat a racketeering beef with Mob boss, Dominic Brooklier and Capo, Pete Milano… .


Smiley lived in Bugsy’s shadow, but the shadow belonged to Al’s best friend.




By Anthony Fiato

GOTTI HIT OF ACID

Carneglia in photo

The man who accidentally ran over John Gotti's young son was allegedly dumped in a vat of acid by a twisted Gambino hit man.

Charles Carneglia, 62, who is awaiting trial for five Mafia murders, once boasted of his sick specialty in a tutorial for a turncoat would-be mobster, explaining "that acid was the best method to use to avoid detection," according to court papers filed yesterday.

The accused mob killer was allegedly part of a seven-man hit squad that targeted John Favara on July 28, 1980, in retaliation for killing the Mafia leader's 12-year-old son, Frank.

Favara, 51, a neighbor of the Gotti family in Howard Beach, Queens, made the fatal mistake of hitting Frank with his car when the boy darted into the street on a borrowed dirt bike.

As of last year, prosecutors believed Favara's remains were stuffed in a barrel of concrete and tossed off a Sheepshead Bay pier.
But Carneglia's love of acid and his use of it in Favara's case came to light thanks to new information from the cooperating witness, according to the documents filed in Brooklyn federal court.

The reputedly bloodthirsty mob killer - who sports long, scraggly hair and an unkempt beard - went so far as to keep vats of the caustic, flesh-eating liquid in his basement.

When it came time to clean house, Carneglia asked the turncoat for help in moving the acid, and "alluded to the fact that the barrels had been used in connection with disposing of a number of bodies," Assistant US Attorney Roger Burlingame wrote.

The turncoat told prosecutors he believed this expertise was "a key component of [Carneglia's] value to the Gambino family," the court papers say.
Body disposal was a studied art for Carneglia, who also told the turncoat about the latest page-turner he'd picked up - a book on dismemberment.

Carneglia was arrested in February 2008, along with more than 60 wiseguys, in one of the biggest roundups in mob history. All the other defendants have pleaded guilty, and his trial is set to begin next month