Former Mob Hit Man Gravano Arrested

Former Mafia hit man Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano--whose testimony helped send crime boss John Gotti to prison for life--was arrested Thursday in Phoenix for his role in allegedly financing a drug ring that supplied the drug Ecstasy to the area’s burgeoning “rave” scene, police said.

Gravano and his wife, daughter and son were among 35 people arrested in early-morning raids around the Phoenix metropolitan area. Authorities said the former underboss of the Gambino crime family was the group’s financial backer and that Gravano effectively controlled the market of the designer drug in the state.

Authorities said the ring is connected to a white supremacist gang known as the Devil Dogs, so named because members bark as they assault victims. The gang is made up of young, white males from mostly middle-class families based in suburban Gilbert. At least eight of those arrested Thursday were affiliated with the gang, officials said.

Sgt. Jeff Halsted, a spokesman for the Phoenix Police Department, said the drug organization peddled as many as 30,000 Ecstasy pills a week, with each pill having a street value of up to $30. The pills, which contain methamphetamine, look like candy and are stamped with symbols such as the Nike swoosh and Christmas trees, Halsted said.

Gravano, 54, who has admitted to ordering or committing 19 murders, has been living in suburban Phoenix in semi-seclusion after his turncoat testimony in Gotti’s blockbuster trial in New York City. His testimony in 1992 allowed federal officials to finally convict Gotti, a mob boss who in three previous trials had gained acquittals and who had come to be known as the “Teflon Don.”

In return for his testimony, Gravano made a deal with prosecutors that allowed him to serve five years for racketeering.

Gravano cut a dashing if somewhat brutal figure and managed to charm many in law enforcement. During his sentencing the judge noted positive comments from federal officials and concluded that Gravano had “irrevocably broken with his past.”

He was in the limelight again when author Peter Maas recounted his story in the book “Underboss,” later made into a television movie. He entered a federal witness program but dropped out in 1997, proclaiming he was not afraid of being the target of a hit man himself. Gravano was living under an assumed name and had installed his family in a sprawling home in suburban Tempe.

That home was raided at 6:30 Thursday morning, as SWAT teams and police officers burst in, disturbing the early morning quiet of the residential neighborhood. Few neighbors were aware of the background of the home’s occupants, whom they described as quiet and friendly.

“A few years ago they came in and leveled an old house and began to build this beautiful home. We all thought, ‘Who’s got the money to do that?’ ” said neighbor Nancy Christensen. “Then, we were out walking this morning and we saw this big line of cars coming down the street and saw the SWAT team. Now we know who lives there.”

Tow trucks removed the family’s two luxury automobiles and a boat.

Gravano was charged with conspiracy to distribute dangerous drugs and is being held on $5-million bond. His family members were arrested on the same charge, as was Mike Papa, described by police as the co-founder of the Devil Dogs. According to one law enforcement official, Papa recruited his associates “for the purpose of intimidation.”

Along with Ecstasy pills, authorities also confiscated an as yet undetermined quantity of steroids, allegedly the drug of choice for the gang members, according to Jack Lane, narcotics chief of the Arizona Department of Public Safety. The ring’s sophisticated distribution network led to other states and countries, police said. Officials said 25 more arrests are expected.

The operation began as an undercover investigation into the rave scene, which authorities said can involve parties of as many as 2,000 people. Gravano was implicated about a year ago, when police began to track the source of the Ecstasy used at the raves. Police estimated that up to 90% of the youths who attend rave parties in Phoenix take the drug.

The Devil Dogs gang was in the news recently when seven members pleaded guilty to the beatings of two teenagers that left one disfigured and another hospitalized. During a police raid on the home of one gang member, authorities seized photographs showing the young men posing with an array of weapons and flashing the Nazi salute. The young men are said to wear caps with the initials WP, for White Power.

A former member told the Arizona Republic that the gang recruits boys from prominent families in an effort to protect themselves from authorities. Gilbert officials downplayed the size and even the existence of the gang. Former Mayor James Farley, writing to a judge on behalf of a wrestling star convicted of assault, said the teens “acted like jocks are supposed to act, obnoxious and aggressive.”

Some were critical Thursday that an admitted murderer who was known to local law enforcement was able to consort with a notorious gang leader and mastermind a drug ring.

New York attorney Ron Kuby, who pursued a civil suit on behalf of the families of those on Gravano’s hit list, said the former Mafioso never gave evidence that he had changed his ways.

“It’s nice to see Sammy Gravano back behind bars where he belongs,” he said. “Sammy Gravano never changed his ways; Sammy Gravano is a murderous sociopath. People this bad are inherently untrustworthy and dangerous.”

Arizona Atty. Gen. Janet Napolitano addressed the issue, saying: “His prior testimony against the mob was not a free pass to peddle drugs to Arizona youth.”