Deathbed Testimony : Informant Details Mob Shakedown of Gamblers

The deathbed testimony of an FBI informant who helped collect debts for the mob in Los Angeles was played Thursday in federal court, revealing evidence of several key meetings in which reputed Mafia “street boss” Luigi Gelfuso Jr. and his lieutenants allegedly ordered shakedowns of gamblers and bookmakers behind on their payments.

In a videotaped deposition taken from his hospital bed, Robert Kessler told of late-evening dinner meetings during which debtors were threatened quietly with getting their throats cut and a broad-daylight encounter with a real estate agent, who was thrown into the bushes near his office for falling behind on loan payments.

Kessler, stricken with cancer, was to have been a star witness at the upcoming trial of Gelfuso and co-defendants John De Mattia and John Vaccaro, identified in the federal indictment as members or associates of the Mafia in Los Angeles. The three face charges of racketeering, extortion and conspiracy.

But because his doctor has said he has less than six weeks to live, Kessler’s testimony was taken two weeks ago at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York. With tubes running into his arm and his nose, Kessler was frequently panting heavily and gasping for breath as he recounted chilling violence from his years as a secret FBI informant.

Objection Raised

Defense lawyers have objected to playing the videotape for the jury when the trial gets under way next week, arguing that it may be given too much credence by jurors who, attorney Wenlee D. Jensen said, are likely to view it as a “dying declaration.”

But Richard Stavin, a prosecutor with the Justice Department’s Strike Force on Organized Crime, said jurors must be able to watch Kessler in order to decide whether he is speaking truthfully about the threats, beatings and assaults that he claims to have witnessed.

Deputy Public Defender John Martin, who is representing Gelfuso, introduced evidence that Kessler has received $118,434 from the FBI for his cooperation.

But Kessler testified that he nearly paid with his life on one occasion, when Gelfuso suspected--correctly--that he was wearing a hidden tape recorder.

The incident occurred on Aug. 6, 1984, when Kessler went to a restaurant in Sherman Oaks to meet Gelfuso and several associates, apparently to discuss an alleged plan in which the mob would guarantee labor peace on an upcoming Hollywood film production.

Kessler said he stood up to greet Gelfuso and Albert Nunez, one of 15 original defendants in the case.

Recording Device

Nunez, Kessler said, patted him on the back and apparently felt the recording device he had strapped to his back. At that point, he said, Nunez and Gelfuso went over to another part of the restaurant and began whispering, and Kessler got up and told the others he was going to get some cigarettes.

Instead, he said, “I went out the door, ran around the building . . . taking the belly band off and threw the unit in a . . . dumpster.”

By the time he returned, he testified, Gelfuso and Nunez were leaving and demanded to know what he was doing.

“I said, ‘I went to get some cigarettes.’ They said, ‘Why didn’t you get them out of the machine?’ I said, ‘They didn’t have my brand . . . .’ ”

When the parking attendant brought around his car, Kessler said, he grabbed his cigarettes out of the glove box. But Nunez and Gelfuso, their suspicions clearly aroused, searched both Kessler and the car, “under the trunk, under the seats, the hood. . . .”

Nunez told him after that: “It’s a good thing I didn’t find anything on you, because I don’t care how many cops are here; we will leave you dead in the parking lot.”

Searched City

That evening, the indictment alleges, Nunez and another alleged “family” member fruitlessly drove all over Los Angeles looking for Kessler in order to kill him.

Nunez pleaded guilty earlier this week to extortion and cocaine distribution conspiracy charges.

U.S. District Judge Ferdinand F. Fernandez will rule next week on the videotape matter. Opening statements are scheduled Tuesday.