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Graziano Vitale Biography & Facts

Salvatore "Good Looking Sal" Vitale (born September 22, 1947) is an American former underboss of the Bonanno crime family before he became a government informant. After his arrest in 2003, Vitale agreed to cooperate with the government and testify against his brother-in-law, boss Joseph Massino, and in July 2004, Massino was convicted in a RICO case. Vitale had admitted to 11 murders, however, in October 2010, was sentenced to time served due to his cooperation, and entered the witness protection program. Early life Vitale was born on September 22, 1947, in Maspeth, Queens in New York City. He was the son of Giuseppe and Lilli Vitale, who had emigrated from the village of San Giuseppe Jato in Sicily after World War II; the couple had already had three daughters, but Salvatore was their only son to survive childbirth. Salvatore was described by his family as emotionally distant as a child. Vitale first met Joseph Massino, future boss of the Bonanno family, as a child. Massino had begun dating Vitale's sister Josephine in 1956, and the couple married in 1960. Massino also befriended Salvatore Vitale, becoming a surrogate "big brother" to his future brother-in-law. Unlike Massino, Vitale graduated from Grover Cleveland High School in Ridgewood, Queens. He also attempted to have a legitimate career; Vitale entered the U.S. Military and had been trained as a paratrooper. Discharged in 1968, he went on to work briefly as a New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision corrections officer, working in Queens with drug offenders. He and his wife Diana moved to Long Island, a safe distance from mob-entrenched Maspeth to have a better life for themselves. Salvatore managed his own social club in Maspeth not far from Joseph Massino's CasaBlanca Restaurant and Catering Service where he would meet with his underlings. His son Anthony would later work for mob associate Robert Perrino at The New York Post after he dropped out of college. Criminal career When he quit that job, Vitale approached Joseph Massino for criminal work. He soon became involved in burglaries and transport truck hijacking. He was given a no-show job as a food consultant for King Caterer's. Massino began jockeying for power with Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano, another loyalist capo to the boss Philip Rastelli. Both men were themselves threatened by another faction seeking to depose the absentee boss led by capos Alphonse "Sonny Red" Indelicato, Dominick "Big Trin" Trincera and Philip Giaccone. The Commission initially tried to maintain neutrality, but in 1981, Massino got word from Carmine "Tutti" Franzese (Sonny Franzese's cousin) that the three capos were stocking up on automatic weapons and planning to kill the Rastelli loyalists within the Bonanno family to take complete control. Massino turned to Colombo crime family boss Carmine Persico and Gambino boss Paul Castellano for advice; they told him to act immediately. Massino, Napolitano and Gerlando Sciascia, a Sicilian-born capo linked to the Montreal Rizzuto crime family, arranged a meeting at a Brooklyn social club with the three capos for May 5, 1981. They had four gunmen, including Vitale and Bonanno-affiliated Montreal boss Vito Rizzuto, hiding in a closet to ambush them. When Trinchera, Giaccone and Indelicato arrived with Frank Lino to meet Massino, they were shot to death, with Massino himself stopping Indelicato from escaping. Lino escaped unscathed by running out the door. The hit further improved Massino's prestige, but was marred by both Lino's escape and the discovery of Indelicato's body on May 28. On April 21, 1983, Rastelli was paroled, and he and Massino ordered the murder of Bonanno soldier Cesare Bonventre. Massino summoned Vitale, Louis Attanasio and James Tartaglione to his hideout and gave them the order. By this time, even though Rastelli was still officially head of the family, Massino was considered by most mobsters to be the family's street boss and field commander in all but name, as well as Rastelli's heir apparent. According to Vitale, Massino had Bonventre killed for giving him no support when he was in hiding. In April 1984, Bonventre was called to a meeting with Rastelli in Queens. He was picked up by Vitale and Attanasio and driven to a garage. En route, Attanasio shot Bonventre twice in the head but only wounded him; he would kill Bonventre with two more shots when they reached their destination. The task of disposing of Bonventre's corpse was handed to Gabriel Infanti, who promised Vitale that Bonventre's remains would disappear forever. However, after a tipoff, the remains were discovered on April 16, 1984, in a warehouse in Garfield, New Jersey, stuffed into two 55-gallon glue drums. For his part in the hit, Massino had Vitale initiated into the Bonanno family. Later in 1984, Massino and Salvatore Vitale secured no-show jobs with the Long Island based King Caterers in exchange for protecting them from Lucchese extortion. In 1985, an indictment charged Vitale as a co-conspirator in the hijacking cases alongside Massino. On October 15, 1986, Massino was found guilty of racketeering charges for accepting kickbacks on the Bonannos' behalf. On January 16, 1987, Massino was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, his first prison term. Rastelli, also convicted and in poor health during the trial, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Around this time, Massino was believed to be the Bonanno family's official underboss. With Rastelli in declining health, Massino was also reckoned as the operating head of the family, though consigliere Anthony "Old Man" Spero was nominally acting boss. In April 1987, Massino and Vitale went on trial for truck hijacking and conspiracy to commit the triple murder, defended by Samuel H. Dawson and Bruce Cutler respectively. On June 3, while both men were convicted on hijacking charges, they were cleared of the murder conspiracy charges. Further, the only proven criminal acts took place outside the RICO act's five-year statute of limitations; without evidence that the "criminal enterprise" was still active in this timeframe the jury returned a special verdict clearing Massino and Vitale of these charges as well. During Massino's imprisonment, Vitale functioned as his messenger, effectively becoming co-acting boss alongside Spero. On Massino's orders, Vitale organized the murder of Gabriel Infanti, who had also botched a 1982 hit on Anthony Gilberti and was suspected of being an informant. During his meetings with Massino in prison, Vitale, on behalf of the Bonannos' capos, urged his brother-in-law to become boss in name as well as in fact. Rastelli had spent all but two years of his reign behind bars, and many felt Massino would bring the family stability. Massino was reluctant to take over as long as Rastelli was alive. Not only was he respectful of Rastelli's sponsorship of his Mafia career, but Mafia tradition dictates that a boss keeps his title for life unless he abdicates..... Discover the Graziano Vitale popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Graziano Vitale books.