Man of the Mob: the Making and Breaking of Tom Marotta Byline: Gary Craig SPECIAL REPORT
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Publication: Rochester Democrat and Chronicle Publication date: 04/25/2004 Page: 1A Edition: Metro Section: National Copyright: Byline: Gary Craig Day: Man of the Mob: The Making and Breaking of Tom Marotta Byline: Gary Craig SPECIAL REPORT Man of the Mob THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF TOM MAROTTA Gary Craig Staff writer The hit TV series The Sopranos is only the most recent example of America's longtime fascination with mafia myth. but there's nothing fictitious about Rochester's mob. Vicious crime and bloodshed were common during its heydey, the 1950s through 1980s. By focusing on one powerful mobster, this four-day serial exposes the inner workings of the underworld and shows how police destroyed it -- and began unraveling two of Rochester's most notorious unsolved crimes. In July 1996, one of Rochester's most prominent mobsters left prison. Thomas E. Marotta, then 54, had served a dozen years for racketeering crimes. Beefy and muscular when he entered prison, the former mob captain was now much trimmer. His forearms still bulged, courtesy of a prison weightlifting regimen. But Marotta's heart, already unsteady after a massive heart attack in 1977, was even less reliable. His wavy dark hair had thinned and grayed; his complexion was slightly wan. His wife, who would be the fourth of five, picked him up at the Federal Correctional Institution in Milan, Mich., to drive him home. A very different Rochester, his home place, awaited Marotta, known as Tom or Tommy. The ranks of organized crime - the circles in which Marotta made his name and reputation - had long been decimated by a combination of aggressive law enforcement and the mob's own implosion from turf rivalries and petty jealousies. 1/10 Drug trafficking was now the city's most prominent crime, and violence was even more common, and more random, than in the days when the warring mob factions embarked on a bombing spree to protect their respective domains. During the 1970s and early 1980s, Marotta was a fixture in the news, as were his mob friends and foes. Not so anymore. Few people in Rochester could even pick him out of a lineup now. No more notoriety. No more unrelenting media attention. That was fine with Marotta. The father of 10 children, he longed for a quieter life, time to spend with his family. And he wanted to play golf - lots of golf. But to the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, an aging Marotta was still a threat. Although conventional wisdom held that organized crime in Rochester had been wiped out, police feared it could be revived. And if anyone could pull some of the ranks back together - especially with a handful of former mobsters exiting prison - Marotta was likely the guy. Prison hadn't sapped Marotta of his charisma, his charm, his quiet machismo. Police figured Marotta's past would be prologue. It wasn't long after he left prison that he fell under steady police surveillance. To the cops, Marotta's past sins were not youthful transgressions but the acts of a man with crime in his blood. In the end, their suspicions would be wrong - and right. Marotta would not try to resurrect Rochester's mob. In fact, he'd chafe at rumors that he wanted to do so. But, in concert with seven other men, Marotta would return to crime. And the investigation into Marotta's activities would ultimately help lead police to a major score: the resolution of the 1990 armored-car robbery of nearly $11 million and the 2000 execution-style slaying of a pool hall owner involved in illegal sports betting. Here's the irony: Marotta, the former mob captain, had nothing to do with either crime. Getting into trouble Marotta refused to be interviewed for these stories, but did allow the Democrat and Chronicle access to evidence, including undercover audio and videotapes made while he was under surveillance between 1997 and 2000. Born in 1942 in Rochester, Thomas Emilio Marotta was the son of working-class parents - his father an elevator operator and his mother a seamstress. Russell Frantz, a 62-year-old harness racing driver from Wallington, N.J., has been a lifelong friend of Marotta's. "We patronized the same playgrounds as children," Frantz said. "The playground was the only place to go." Interviews with his friends and acquaintances and a review of court records show that he fell into trouble as a teen. He skipped school and committed crimes, including a burglary when he was 16. In their early teens, both Frantz and Marotta were sent to the State School at Industry, in Rush, for troubled youths. The kids whose delinquency was considered harder to crack often ended up in cottages assigned more 2/10 rigorous chores. Marotta toiled at one of the more rigorous farming cottages. Dennis Brann, who is a year younger than Marotta, also was in Industry at the same time. Oftentimes, the younger kids with minor transgressions ended up mingling with older, tougher teens who had engaged in more serious offenses - "burglary, stealing cars, things like that," said Brann. "I thought (Marotta) was a great guy," said Brann, now free from prison after serving 30 years for two murders he insists he didn't commit. "Believe it or not, he was a real gentleman. If he hated you, he'd still be nice." Marotta didn't continue standard public school past the seventh grade. As an older teen and young adult, he settled into an assortment of jobs. He sold used cars, drove a cab, worked construction and became a union steward. Among Marotta's close friends was Salvatore "Sammy G." Gingello. And Gingello was among the inner circle of Rochester's mafia chieftain, Frank Valenti. Before he was even 30 years old, Gingello assumed control of some of Valenti's illegal gambling parlors and ascended to the role of power broker in the local mafia. Always stylishly dressed, Gingello frequented discos, bars and late-night joints, spending lavishly. Marotta was often at his side. "The bottom line is that they were so close, wherever Sammy was going, Tommy was going with him," Frantz said. "Whatever road Sammy took, he was going with him." That road would lead straight into the Rochester's criminal underworld. Marotta gets 'made' Sammy G. was nothing if not bold. While some of Rochester's mobsters preferred a quiet life of relative anonymity, Gingello was constantly out on the town. Often chauffeured around Rochester, he clearly had money to spare - and it was no secret how he made his living. When more than $100,000 in gambling proceeds was stolen from his Penfield home in 1969 - $50 and $100 bills stashed in a suitcase in his living room - Gingello reported the crime. Though the money was the fruit of illegal activities, Gingello wanted it back, and was brazen enough to ask the Monroe County Sheriff's Office to figure out who had stolen it. (Gingello suspected mobster William Lupo of the theft. Two months later, police found Lupo, Gingello's next-door neighbor, shot to death in his car.) Gingello provided Marotta with an entree to a glitzier life. Though their attire may have been cut from different cloth, their characters were not. Both were known as gentlemen willing to help out a friend in need. They often intervened when someone was crass or harassing a 3/10 woman at a bar - especially if the woman was attractive. Both also had reputations as tough guys who'd violently pummel anybody they considered deserving of a good beating. Gingello's slight, wiry physique belied his fierceness. But the brawnier, broad-shouldered Marotta was clearly a force to be reckoned with, and few chose to cross his path. Unlike many of the wannabe mobsters and some of the mouthier mafiosi, Marotta also could be trusted with secrets. He was loyal to friends, and loyalty, along with secrecy, were valuable attributes in organized crime. It's unclear who decided that Marotta should join the criminal ranks - perhaps Gingello or Marotta's cousin Thomas Didio, another Rochester mobster. But by the early 1970s, Marotta had been welcomed into the family. In late 1971 or early 1972 - court records are unclear on the date - the initiation became official. (Some mob families required "made" men to have participated in a homicide; there's no indication that was required in Rochester.) One day Gingello told Marotta to prepare for a swank evening out. "He said, 'Get dressed up tonight, we gotta go somewhere,'" Marotta recalled in a conversation captured in a December 2000 undercover videotape. Instead of club hopping, Gingello took him to the Henrietta home of Rochester mob boss Valenti. More than 30 people, including a local college professor, awaited Marotta in a large basement, to ask whether he wanted to officially join the mob, Marotta recalled on the videotape. In Valenti's basement, the mob adhered to an induction ceremony common with the national crime syndicate La Cosa Nostra. Valenti, or another local mafioso of prominence, pricked the trigger finger of the new member. The blood would be drained onto a tissue. The bloodied tissue would be handed to the inductee, then set afire. The newly "made" member would hold the tissue as it burned away. Marotta acknowledged on the videotape that he agreed to become one of the local family - then connected to New York's prominent Bonanno crime family - and underwent the standard rite. Still, he had his doubts about some of those sitting in judgment of his criminal worthiness. "I sat around with three guys I know are stool pigeons, and they're OK'ing me," he said.