8 Who Sat on Mafia ‘Board of Directors’ Found Guilty : Biggest Victory in War on Mob

Three organized crime bosses and five lower-ranking mobsters were convicted of racketeering today in the operation of a national Mafia “board of directors” that has ruled the underworld for more than half a century.

The convictions were the government’s most successful attack yet in its war on the Mafia. A jubilant U.S. Atty. Rudolph Giuliani said: “I think that it is realistic to think that the Mafia can be crushed if we continue to make these cases. We have now proven in a court of law that there is a Mafia, and that it is run by a commission who directed heinous crimes. . . . This is only the beginning.”

A federal court jury found Genovese crime family boss Anthony (Fat Tony) Salerno, 75; Colombo boss Carmine (Junior) Persico, 53, and Lucchese boss Anthony (Tony Ducks) Corallo, 73, guilty of racketeering and racketeering conspiracy.

Same Charges

Also convicted of those charges were Gennaro (Jerry Lang) Langella, 47; Salvatore (Tom Mix) Santoro, 72; Christopher (Christy Tick) Furnari, 62; Ralph Scopo, 58, and Anthony Indelicato, 38.

After the verdict, the gangsters were denied bail and were taken into a holding tank behind the federal courtroom where they had stood trial for 10 weeks. A heavy metal door slammed shut behind them.

Jurors, whose names were kept secret for fear of mob reprisal, were led out of the courthouse through a back stairway and put into a blue van, where they were led by a police car away from the courthouse.

The jury delivered the verdict after more than five days of deliberation. By their convictions, the jurors found that all eight defendants had sat on or worked for a commission that acted as a board of directors of the Mafia and kept organized crime organized since 1931, settling disputes among crime families.

Territorial Disputes

Prosecutors charged that commission members periodically met to settle territorial disputes, divide money, accept new members for the Mafia and, sometimes, authorize high-level mob executions, including that of reputed Bonanno boss Carmine Galante.

In addition to the racketeering and conspiracy counts, all but Indelicato were convicted of extortion conspiracy, extortion and labor payoffs in a scheme to control New York’s concrete-pouring industry.

Corallo and Santoro were also convicted of loan-sharking conspiracy.

Salerno, Persico, Langella, Furnari and Scopo face a total maximum sentence of 306 years. Corallo and Santoro face 326 years and Indelicato faces 40 years.

Each of those convicted faces a minimum of 20 years in prison.

Second Setback

The jury’s verdict was the second blow this week for Persico and Langella. Persico was sentenced Monday to 39 years in prison for a previous racketeering conviction, and Langella was hit with a 65-year sentence for his conviction in the same case.

Persico took the unusual step of serving as his own defense lawyer in the commission case.

When the multicount racketeering indictment was delivered in February, 1985, Justice Department officials described it as the most powerful blow ever directed at the Mafia’s “symbol of power,” a commission of crime lords that the government said has ruled the underworld since the 1930s.

Originally, the heads of all five of New York’s Mafia families were charged in the case. But Paul Castellano, reputed boss of the Gambino crime family--the nation’s largest and most powerful Mafia family--was gunned down outside a Manhattan restaurant last December. And the case of reputed Bonanno crime boss Philip (Rusty) Rastelli was severed a month before the trial.