THE POPE OF NEWARK

I believe the foundation of the American economy and politics rests on contradictions. For example, it is legal for the most profitable industry in the world (oil) to skim off $ 4 billion in profit before taxes, but if an individual should protest this “depletion allowance” by refusing to pay for a $40 fill up, the police will rush to arrest them, guns drawn. The only real crime in America is to not stealing enough. 

Consider the rise and fall of Hugh Joseph Addonizio (above). When asked why, after twelve years as a respected congressman, he decided to run for mayor of Newark,  the short, bald, bullnecked blunt man they called “The Pope of New Jersey” explained, “There's no money in being a congressman, but you can make a million bucks as mayor of Newark" Over two terms, from 1962 to 1969, Mayor Addonizio made more than a million dollars. But as usual with capitalists, that was still not enough.

At the end of February 1959, after Jewish mobster Abner Zwillman, was found hanging by the neck in his West Orange apartment - just after receiving a subpoena to testify before a grand jury -  a 60 year old Genovese crime family capo named Richie-”the-boot”- Boiardo (above) was given sole permission to plunder Newark, New Jersey. 

Richie (above) earned his moniker because he avoided wiretapping prosecutors by using public pay-phone booths. In Jersey parlance, Richie was always “in da boot”. It was a very profitable place for Richie to be.

During the late 1040's and early 1950's, Newark invested heavily in urban renewal, replacing thousands of substandard single family homes with 46 huge impersonal substandard apartment blocks. The construction of those buildings proved a gold mine for organized crime. 

These new white elephants were badly built, but the graft from their construction allowed Richie the Boot to build a "Transylvanian traditional" mansion and estate in Livingston, New Jersey. He adorned the gated entrance with a garish statue of himself astride a horse (above), towering over a row of busts of his children,  resembling, to my mind, clowns in an amusement park game ready to be shot with water pistols. And in a position of honor, at statue Richie's foot was the effigy of his eldest son Anthony, aka "Tony Boy".

Tony Boy (above) took over the family business just as a long planned Southside Sewer project was finally getting started. The primary contractor was Paul Rigo, who claimed he had founded his company after winning $65,000 in the Irish Sweepstakes. He pleaded with Richie "The Boot" to lower his required kickback to 5%, but Richie insisted, “You'll pay 10%, or I'll break both your legs.” Then Tony Boy offered a solution, 

Tony Boy set up a shell company called Kantor Supply. The subcontractors all paid their kickbacks with regular business checks. Kantor Supply would then issue invoices to match those payments. Rigo could use his construction company to launder that cash before distributing it to Richie, Tony Boy and “The Pope”, Mayor Addonizio. For this service, Rigo could keep 10% of everybody's kick, making a hell-of-a profit for himself.

There were just three problems with this gravy train express. First, there has never been honor among thieves. After all, they not only steal for a living they also steal out of habit. Secondly, Tony Boy was seeing a psychiatrist, and some of his soldiers had taken to calling him “nut case.” Another of Tony Boy's soldiers, Anthony “Little Pussy” Russo (above), even called him a “weasel”, and referred to “The Boot” as “the most treacherous fucker in the world”. And fourthly,  there was a real Kantor behind Kantor Supply. Plumber Irving Kantor took a 5% cut for running the shell company, but he was not a healthy man. And unhealthy men are prone to soul cleansing confessions. And lastly, in part because of all the graft, Newark was not a healthy city.

By 1965 Newark was half Italian and half African American, and burdened with an astronomical tax rate, thanks to all those kickbacks. The manufacturers in Newark, who had once paid middle class salaries, had moved south to find lower taxes and cheaper workers. Capitalism again. . The local unemployment rate was over 8%, and among young black men in Newark it was almost 40%. Ten percent of the city residents survived on welfare. Of the 136,000 apartments in the city, over 40,000 of which (mostly those (above)  built by Richie Boiardo ), were substandard or dilapidated. 

To make matters even worse, Mayor Addonizio had just announced a plan to replace several public housing blocks with a medical school, proving that in Newark “urban renewal” had become synonymous with “Negro removal”.   And finally, of the 1,400 officers in the police force, only 150 were African-American. This all came to a head about 9:40 pm on the evening of Wednesday 12 July, 1967

On that hot, humid night, two Newark Police Officers, John DeSimone and Vito Pontrelli, pulled over a taxi at the corner of 15th Avenue and South 9th Street. According to the officers, the cab had illegally passed them on the right side. According to the taxi's African-American driver, John Smith (above)  the police car was double parked. 

Half an hour later, when a crowd saw the bleeding driver dragged into the 4th Precinct station, it set off six days and nights of looting and burning that left 26 people dead, and $10 million in property damage. The root cause of the Newark Riot, said a Governor's commission, was a “pervasive feeling of corruption” in Newark. The most common phrase heard around town was “Everything in city hall is for sale.”

The Essex county prosecutor now empaneled a grand jury to investigate the new summer home Mayor Addonizio had just bought with a loan from Paul Rigo. But the minute that happened, Richie and Tony Boy were aware of it. One of Tony's soldiers, John “Big Pussy” Russo (above), bluntly warned Paul Rigo “Keep your mouth shut.” 

And when the mayor was served with a subpoena, Rigo found a note in his car which read, "This could have been a bomb. Keep your mouth shut." Not surprisingly Rigo lied to the grand jury. Then the IRS subpoenaed the books for Kantor Supply.

Caught in a three way squeeze between the mob,. the feds and the grand jury, Paul Rigo asked his lawyer to cut a deal with the feds. Almost immediately, Rigo received a phone call, telling him bluntly, “Keep the hell away from the federal building!”. When he realized there must be a leak in the prosecutor's office, Paul Rigo was on the next plane for Acapulco.

From Mexico Paul Rigo called a high powered lawyer in Washington, D.C.. and through him revealed to the feds that he had a diary, recording in code every sub contractor who paid kickbacks, when and how much, and every mobster and politician who received cash, with dates, and amounts. Addonizio (above) was dragged back to the U.S. and given a seat in front of the grand jury. This time, “The Pope” took the fifth amendment. It didn't help. Addonizio was indicted along with 11 others, for 65 counts of money laundering, extortion, tax fraud, and perjury. 

Even that didn't stop him from mounting a campaign for a third term as mayor. He would eventually lose the job, but even while on trial Hugh Addonizio won 45% of the vote.  The over taxes citizens of Newark preferred they devil they knew because they had been trained to hate blacks rather than the mobsters who were stealing from them.

The trial began with Irving Kantor, testifying from his hospital bed. The dying man recounted his phone conversations with Richie “the Boot”, and how he handed the cash over to Paul Rigo, for distribution.. Rigo testified for two straight weeks, detailing many late night meetings in empty offices. It was during one of those meetings that Rigo told Addonizio, "I don't know why in the world you ever left Washington and a nice job in Congress to come up here in this mess.” Addonizio (above) had replied, “Simple. There's no money in Washington, but you can make a million bucks as mayor of Newark.”

The case was handed to the jury just before 5:00 pm, 22 July, 1970. They were back by midnight. Their verdict was guilty for all the defendants on all counts. Two months later the judge sentenced Addonizio and Richie the Boot to ten years in prison and $25,000 each in fines, each.

It wasn't a bad outcome for the mayor, really. Convicted of “literally delivering Newark into the hands of organized crime”, and for the bargain basement price of a million dollars, Hugh Addonizio could almost pay the fine out of petty cash. It was the tax penalties that took most of his money,  And on the bright side, after just five years,  Addonizo  was released on parole. In "retirement" he bred and raced homing pigeons. Not the sport of kings, but evidently the sport of Popes. 

Anthony “Tony Boy” Boiardo also died of a heart attack, on 20 April, 1978. Just a year later, the big mouth, Anthony “Little Pussy” Russo, was found in his bathrobe and slippers, with three bullets in his brain. He'd been killed by three members of his own crew, who shot him and then stole cash and property from his house. A day after his body was discovered and removed, the assassins broke back into the murder scene, and returned the property. But they kept the money.

In February of 1981, The Pope of Newark,  Hugh Joseph Addonizio, died at 67 years old,  On the day of his funeral, all the flags in Newark were lowered to half staff in his honor.  But they didn't put is name on the family memorial. 

The longest living of the conspirators was Richie-”the-boot”- Boiardo (above) . After Tony Boy's death he rarely left his Livingston estate, tending his tomatoes under a sign that read “The Godfather's Garden”, as Richie was convinced he had been the role model for the infamous literary and movie gangster, Vito Corleone. The Boot suffered a heart attack and died in November of 1984, at the age of 95 -  just another crook who had not stolen enough to become a hero of capitalism.  Crime, you see, does not pay. But politics does, and well enough to make it's crimes legal.

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THE FLAMBOYANT JAMOOK

I gotta' tell you about this big jamook named David Friendland, who is a suitcase  (i.e. a mob lawyer) with a very big motor mouth. He could sell life insurance to your dead grandmother, he never shuts up. He's also what you call, flamboyant.

Friendland was the lawyer for Johnny Dee -  that’s Johnny Digilo (above), an ex-boxer and a lieutenant in the Genovese crime family in New Jersey.   Now, the Genovese have been running Jersey unions since forever, and they made Johnny Dee Treasurer of the Longshoreman’s Local 1588 in Bayonne. Johnny is a little crazy sometimes, but he's a big earner, and between the Union pension skim and the protection rackets, not to mention the loansharking, its a cash cow for the Genovese.

This Friendland (above) is brought in by his old man when the kid graduates law school, back in 1961. Father and son are both Teamster suitcases, so it seems like the perfect deal, one hand watches the other - you know? But the younger Friedland, first he's oobatz – he's crazy – and then he decides to become a politician. That oughta make everything perfect, but for one little problem.

See, in 1966 Johnny Dee approved a one 'G' loan to this car wash goomba named Julius Pereria. The vig is fifty small a week, until Pereria pays off the principal. Of course he never pays off the principal. That's the whole point of making the loan.  And a year later this goomba borrows another 'G', under the same terms. So now the vig goes up to $100 a week. Well, when the hundred a week adds up to seven “G's', and the goomba is still hasn't paid off a dime of the principle, Pereria decides he's paid enough. 

This goomba Pereria gets outraged and calls the state police. Now he's really in trouble. And when four of Johnny Dee's associates visit the Du-Rite Car wash in Iselin,  Pereria won't come out of the toilet. So the boys leave him a few messages, smashing up a couple of windows, some water pumps and electric motors.  To the state police this is evidence. But Pereria gets the message and suddenly develops amnesia in court. Case closed, right? Wrong.

The local D.A. now has a hard on for Johnny Dee, and calls Pereria in front of a Grand Jury. Safe behind closed doors the goomba remembers again, and Johnny Dee gets indicted for racketeering. This is a problem. And that's where this jamook Freidland comes in to our story. 

Its 1968 by now, and Friedland is still a suitcase for the Teamsters, but now he's also a state representative from Hudson County and the “quintessential New Jersey politician”. Flamboyant, you know?  He approaches the goomba's suitcase and tells him, if Pereria doesn't take a $6,500 cash gift from Johnny Dee in exchange for dropping the whole thing, then Johnny Dee is going to sue him, Pereria, for slander or liable or false arrest or something. 

When Pereria takes too long thinking about the offer, Johnny Dee (above, light jacket)) calls and tells the goomba if the doesn't take the money then people are going to come down to the car wash and "chop your fucking head off!"  Not surprisingly, that intimidates Pereria all over again.

But, see, the problem is not that Pereria can't be intimidated. Oh, he's intimidated. And he takes money. The problem is, the goomba has a record of not staying intimidated. So Friedland shows the $6,500 to Pereria,  But instead of handing it over, Friendland puts it in his desk drawer. He says he's gonna hold onto it until Pereia  suffers another memory lapse in front of the new Grand Jury. So Pereria does, and the charges against Johnny Dee are dropped, again.  

Of course, on his own,  Friedland takes a fee for holding the cash. And the goomba's lawyer takes his cut. By the time the cash gets to Pereria, there's only like $2,500 left. You gotta love suits. What Johnny Dee did was called extortion. What Friedland did was called an out-of-court settlement. 

Anyway, now the D.A. is so pissed, he brings ethics charges against Friedland. The New Jersey Supreme Court suspends Friendland's law license for six months. He doesn't lose his seat in the Jersey Senate, of course. But Friedland is now on the Fed's radar.

All this is B.R., Before RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, named after some ancient movie gangster. Anyway, After RICO, in 1971,  the feds start prosecuting the family bosses. And knocking them off.   

By 1979 they are down to smaller fish, indicting Friedland and his old man for taking a 360 “G” kickback for setting up that $4 million loan from their Teamster's local 701 pension fund to Johnny Dee. On Wall Street they call that a “finders fee”, business as usual. Across the river in Jersey, that's a RICO violation.  And in 1980 Friedland and his papa are convicted and the jamook is forced to  resign  from the state Senate. 

Well, this jamook Friedland doesn't want to go to prison. So in 1982 he turns C-double U,  a cooperating witness. He even wears a wire. Now this could be a problem, a connected suitcase wearing a wire. Except everybody knows Friedland is a jamook, and that he's facing serious jail time. Nobody is going to talk to him;. What strunz of a prosecutor signed that deal? But Friedland is nothing if not adaptable. He tells the feds a long and colorful story that leads pretty much no where, and then he disappears into the witness protection program. 

And guess where they ship him off to? Miami. Which in 1982 is the cocaine empire. So here is David Friedland, ex-mob lawyer, ex-mob state senator, a guy with the morals of a rat. . He's got a new name, a new job - working for a mortgage company, like nothing illegal ever went on in the legit banking business - a  new name, even a new girl friend ...

...The smoldering brunette named Colette Golightly, who had just dumped her cold and cloudy Indiana optometrist husband for sunny Boca Rotan, Florida (above).  Now single, she becomes an underwater photographer, which is how she meets David Friedland. Underwater.  And together they are gonna go straight. Right? Fur-getta-bout it!

It takes Friendland just six moths before this jamook is back in New Jersey, setting up yet another loan from local 701 Pension fund, again for his old buddy Johnny Dee, and taking his cut.  Now, who thinks the feds have forgotten about Teamsters' local 701? 

Two years later the Jamook gets indicted again, for falsifying loan documents.  And in 1986 he gets convicted again. And this time the feds are not interested in a deal. Friedland is going to have to do something really flamboyant to get out of this one. Like, name names. And his boss, Johnny Dee, has got to be thinking, this jamook is finally gonna start singing. Maybe he ought to clip Friedland first. And this is exactly what Friedland is also thinking.

So, the jamook drowns. While scuba diving, 12 miles off Grand Bahama.  His good buddy, Jack Wynn, tells the Coast Guard he personally saw the Friedland take pain killers just before he disappeared beneath the waves, with only half an hour of air in his tanks. And, of course, hours later he still had not surfaced.  Of course Wynn does not radio the Coast Guard until the next morning, and while they search most of the next day, they really don't expect to find anything. And they don't. But they can't prove Friedland isn't really dead. 

Until...a month after he makes a clean getaway,  the flamboyant David Friedland, jamook extraordinaire, reappears healthy enough to call his lawyer from beyond his watery grave and insist he is innocent. Which nobody believes that anymore.  But for once, Freidland's timing is really good.

Back in Jersey in April of 1988, Friedland's old boss, Johnny Dee, beats the racketeering rap for the Teamster loan. But his people who run the local 701 are convicted. And  all the Genevese union officers, including Johnny Dee, are forced out. Not that the management goes clean, but all the Genevese union officers are replaced by Gambino union people.

This angers the Genevese bosses because of the loss of income, and they blame Johnny Dee. In May pf 1988 the Genevese mob takes Johnny Dee for a ride in a Lincoln Continental, and put five .38 rounds into the back of his head. He is next seen floating down the Hackensack river. 

This provides a major distraction, while the jamook and Colette are playing hopscotch across the globe, with the FBI half a step behind; from Bermuda, to Kenya, to Switzerland, to France, to Venice, to Hong Kong, to Singapore. When they get to Sri Lanka the feds lose track of them. 

And then for a year, the jamook and Colette disappear completely. Clean getaway. Almost. Because Friedland keeps popping up in various countries, like a whack a mole, just long enough to empty various bank accounts he has under various names, before vanishing again. And then the feds get a phone call from a string of coral atolls out in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

The cops in the Republic of the Maldive Islands had gotten curious about a flamboyant American resident named Richard Smith Harley who seems to be floating in money. He's an avid scuba diver, with pockets full of cash that nobody seems to know where it came from. And he has invested this cash in a half dozen local diving schools. 

And it seems the flamboyant mister Harley likes to have his picture taken with his scuba students, feeding sharks, while holding dead fish held in his teeth. Flamboyant. He even started a health clinic on tiny Bondos Island (above), and everybody there calls him “Pappa”. 

But what really peaks the Maldive cops' interest is that every couple of months Harley would get his American passport stamped when he flew out of the Maldives (above). But when he flew back, always a few days later,  it was never stamped to show entry into any other country. It was like he was traveling into the Twight Zone.  So the cops started comparing Harley's passport photo with the pictures on their alert sheets. And early in December of 1988, they found a match - David Freidland. Same jamook. A couple of days later Frieland was arrested, and at the end of December the feds brought him back to the states.

“Tanned and smiling”, David Friedland tells the press, “I had a good time, but I'll tell you it's good to be back." (above)   Apparently it was not good because he was coming home to his wife Carol, and their daughter, because he wasn't doing that.  Rather, the smoldering Colette came to the states to be  with him, if only on visiting days.  Awaiting sentencing the jamook announced he had converted to Christianity, and tried to cut another deal with the feds. But nobody was impressed anymore. That's the problem with being flamboyant. Over time the your bilge tends to fill with water, until you are not so buoyant anymore  You are just flam.

In 1989 the bars of the Correctional Complex in Coleman, Florida (above)  finally slam shut behind the Flamboyant jamook.  And they did not open again until July of 1997, when David Friedland was released from a West Palm Beach halfway house. The jamook told a reporter, “''I can't tell you the nights that I lay awake just crying, because I realize the opportunity I had to do so much good, and how I blew it.”'  He never stopped selling this stuff.  He was by then about 60, and after working for a Florida advertising firm, he retired to Boca Roton, with Colette. And he finally learned to shut up.

Maybe the final word on the jamook belongs to Thomas Kean (above, left), who became the Republican governor of New Jersey, thanks in part to the political deals he cut with the Democrat David Friedland (above, right). Kean described him as “He was one of the most brilliant people I ever worked with. He just was a bit crooked.” Just a bit, do you think? Another jamook.

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