David Kocieniewski - The Brass Wall. The Betrayal of Undercover Detective #4126

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CONTENTS

For Denise, Devin, and Katia

AUTHORS NOTE

THIS IS A true story.

It does not use composite characters, invented dialogue, or any other techniques of fictionalization. The only literary license taken by the author was to conceal the true identity of Undercover #4126, his relatives, and one other undercover who worked on the investigation. Because the detective work of #4126 has led to the conviction and imprisonment of dozens of organized crime figures and drug dealers, the publication of his true name might endanger him or his family, so he is identified by the pseudonym Vincent Armanti. The other undercover is identified by the pseudonym Terry OMadden.

This book is based on hundreds of hours of interviews with more than one hundred people who participated in these events, along with thousands of pages of confidential police documents, fire department investigative files, FBI records, secret grand jury testimony, and trial transcripts. It also relies on transcripts and tapes of more than a hundred hours of secret recordings made by the NYPD and FBI in the streets of Throgs Neck, plus the surreptitiously tape-recorded conversations between Undercover #4126 and various officials within the FBI and Internal Affairs.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

THE FIRE

Thomas A. Williams, lieutenant in FDNY, commander of Rescue 4

Michael Milner, firefighter Rescue 4

Jack Ferranti, owner of Todays Styles, site of the suspicious fire

Shelly Anthony, resident of apartment above Todays Styles

Michelle Anthony, resident of apartment above Todays Styles

THE INVESTIGATORS

Vincent Armanti, undercover detective #4126

Edward Dowd, detective 104th Precinct

Cindy Peil, special agent for FBI

Richard Rudolph, special agent for FBI

George Stamboulidis, assistant U.S. attorney

Bobby Thomson, fire marshal

James Desocio, fire marshal

James Kelty, fire marshal

Anthony Lombardi, retired IRS agent

THE BAR

Michael Myron Dobbs, bartender

THE CAF

Carlo Cuzzi, manager

Joey Scams, patron

Joe Red Bastone, patron

THE NEIGHBORHOOD

John K. Wrynn, NYPD detective

James Patrick Wrynn, his father, an inspector in Internal Affairs

Ann Wrynn, his sister

Jane Wrynn, his mother

Tommy the Torch Tocco, boyhood friend of John Wrynn

Vincent Basciano, Toccos cousin, reputed soldier in Bonanno family

Mario Ferranti, Jack Ferrantis brother, boyhood friend of John Wrynn

Joey Ferranti, cousin of Jack and Mario Ferranti

Steve Turuk, John Wrynns neighbor, boyhood friend

Tommy Gross, John Wrynns neighbor, boyhood friend

Eric Mergenthal, John Wrynns neighbor

Melissa Paradiso, John Wrynns girlfriend

Linda Nelson, John Wrynns girlfriend

Angelique Montemurro, John Wrynns neighbor, later married and divorced Tommy Gross, then married Tommy Tocco

INTERNAL AFFAIRS

Robert Matthiessen, Internal Affairs sergeant

Sixto Santiago, Internal Affairs detective

John Shields, Internal Affairs lieutenant, supervisor of John Wrynn case

Michael Gagliardi, Internal Affairs lieutenant

Robert Beatty, chief of Internal Affairs 19881992

Walter Mack, commissioner of Internal Affairs May 1993January 1995

Patrick Kelleher, chief of Internal Affairs January 1995July 1996, then promoted to chief of detectives, and promoted to first deputy commissioner in April 1997

Jerry Walker, investigator assigned to Internal Affairs headquarters

William Gorta, Internal Affairs captain, driver for Chief Kelleher

Al James, deputy chief in Internal Affairs, longtime friend of James Wrynn

THE DEPARTMENT

Nancy McLaughlin, lieutenant in NYPD, married Inspector James Wrynn

Tommy Dades, narcotics detective, close friend of Vincent Armanti

William Plackenmeyer, captain in NYPD Detective Bureau

Michael McGovern, sergeant in NYPD, assistant to Patrick Kelleher

Raymond Kelly, police commissioner 19921994

William Bratton, police commissioner 19941996

Jack Maple, top adviser to William Bratton

John Timoney, first deputy commissioner under William Bratton

Howard Safir, police commissioner 19962000

Richard E. Mulvaney, assistant NYPD special prosecutor

Richard Kubick, special prosecutor

THE FERRANTI TRIAL

Jack B. Weinstein, federal judge

Lauren Resnick, assistant U.S. attorney

Sean OShea, assistant U.S. attorney

Vincent Marziano, cooperating witness

Thomas Klem, defense expert witness

Marion Seltzer, lawyer for Mario Ferranti

Jeffrey Hoffman, lawyer for Jack Ferranti

Lisa Ziccardi, former employee of Jack Ferranti

Gina Esposito, former employee of Jack Ferranti

Theresa Rodriguez, former employee of Jack Ferranti

Miriam Breyer, Jack Ferrantis wife

THE TOCCO TRIAL

William Zalenka, assistant Bronx district attorney

Ron Kuby, Tommy Toccos lawyer

Marlene Besterman, lawyer assigned to NYPD Legal Bureau

Richard Lee Price, judge in Bronx State Supreme Court

PROLOGUE: DEADLY ECHO

JUNE 9, 1993

THEYVE GOT ME doing hand-to-hands, said Myron Dobbscocaine dealer, drug addict, bartender to the mobas if he were speaking any old words in the English language.

Im gonna get indicted, theyve got me in the bathroom doing hand-to-hands, Dobbs said. Just like thathis voice so cool, so nonchalant, that had he been chatting up anyone other than Detective Vincent Armanti, New York City Undercover Detective #4126, there would have been no reason to expect gunfire.

But Armanti wasnt himself at the moment. He was posing as Vinnie Blue Eyes, a Brooklyn street thug who had come to the Throgs Neck neighborhood of the Bronx three months earlier, looking to do business with associates of the Bonanno and Luchese crime families.

And the words Dobbs had just spoken, standing behind the bar at Sebastians Pub on Tremont Avenue, were far more than just the workaday grumbling of some struggling coke dealer relegated to tiny deals with trifling profits. They were the exact words, the same hackneyed police jargondoing hand-to-hand cocaine salesthat Armanti himself always used, the same words he had written on a confidential police report three weeks earlier. To hear them repeated here, from the lips of Myron Dobbs, was startling. As if Dobbs had told him: Youre going to be murdered, brutally, this very minute.

During his three months undercover, Detective Armanti had been investigating the homicide of Lieutenant Thomas Williams, a decorated New York City firefighter who had died battling an arson blaze. During this strange tour of duty, Armanti had spent his nights sipping espresso with Sambuca, swapping war stories with Dobbs and the criminals who congregated in his bar, trafficking in a half dozen varieties of contraband. All the while, a concealed tape recorder was capturing it for posterity, the microphone wired just an inch from his heart.

Although Sebastians billed itself as a sports bar, it was little more than a dive with a bookie in the back, named for Saint Sebastian, patron saint of alcoholics. Its decor was appropriately sullen: dingy wood paneling, a few strings of white Christmas lights, andbecause it was the Bronxa smoke-stained photo of the New York Yankees World Series team of 1961, arguably the greatest Yankees squad of them all. An odd rubber mat nailed to the floor beneath the stools ran along the length of the bar, ostensibly to keep spills and scuff marks from ruining the linoleum. But the clientele was such a collection of meat eaters and malcontents that Armanti had wondered whether it might be there to catch their drool.