Lion in the Basement Growing up in the Gallo Crime Family Read online

  Me my cousin Blake and Goomba Louie these guys had my back for years

  Michael and me fucking around at Alantic City 1972

  CHAPTER 13

  Screw Magazine and the World of Porn

  We made the deal with Al Goldstein owner of "screw". Now we are his sole distributors for the five boroughs. Believe it or not, the pornography business has become a billion dollar a year industry, the NBA, NFL and MLB combined cannot even boast about earning that. Porn has always been a moneymaking endeavor so, true to form, the Mafia found a way to sink their teeth into it.

  The mob and the porn industry make strange, but extremely profitable, bedfellows. We first formed a partnership with the pornography industry in 1971. It grew so rapidly that by the mid 80's, the distribution of almost every major pornographic newspaper and magazine in the United States was controlled by Star Distributors or Astro News Distributors.

  When these publications first were starting out, they were having great difficulty getting distribution from the so-called "legitimate" distributors.

  They would say that they 'were afraid of being brought up on obscenity charges by associating with such graphic material' and so the porn publishers had nowhere else to go and would eventually turn to alternative means of distribution. That's right, that is where the mob came in, we had our opening, and swiftly took advantage.

  The largest national distributor of pornography publications at the time was Star Distributors. They were located at 150 Lafayette Street in Manhattan.

  Another major player in distribution was owned by us, called "Astro News", which had its headquarters on 118 Eighth St in Brooklyn. It should come as no surprise that both of these companies were controlled by "the mob".

  Robert DiBernardo, who was known in circles as "DB", made his bones in the DeCavalcante crew from New Jersey and later became a Caporegime in the Gambino family. He, fittingly enough was the Vice President of Star Distributors. On paper, he was listed as a corporate officer, a suit and tie, but on the street, he was the last word regarding the Star and it's business decisions. He was the man at Star Distributors.

  Astro News was another story, they were the major New York City distributor of pornographic papers. Astro was operated by my father, Ricky DiMatteo, who ran the company for the Gallos.

  Astro's biggest client at the time was Milky Way Productions Incorporated, which published Screw, a large weekly tabloid-sized porn newspaper that had a circulation of about 100,000. Between Astro News and Star we were distributing close to 300,000 papers. Al Goldstein, who was the notorious publisher and editor of Screw, was quoted as saying "We have no options as to who we deal with".

  "No legitimate distributor will touch us, I'd deal with Hitler if I had to. I'll deal with anyone I can do business with".

  Dissatisfied with the independent distributors he had hired, Goldstein realized that he had chosen incompetent and inexperienced people for the newspaper distribution business. He was in desperate need of a New York based distributor, and he wound up turning to a friend of his who was the brother-in-law of Peter "Pete The Greek" Diapoulos, his business partner was Robert "Bobby Darrow" Bongiovi, my godfather, who were members of the Gallo gang.

  After getting the okay from the Gallos, The Greek and Darrow and Roy Roy, started distributing Screw Magazine for Goldstein. Roy Roy went to the major newsstands in the city like Nathans on Forty-fourth Street and Broadway, and Block on Forty-second and Eight Avenue and told them. If they didn't take the Screw paper, when they came to their stands in the morning, it won't be there.

  They took the paper and at one point each selling ten thousand copy a week, we had to send a truck out three times a week to deliver to them.

  The independent distributor who Goldstein had originally hired were not only clueless when it came to business, they were clueless as to who they were dealing with. They had gone to Goldstein and adamantly protested their firing so The Greek and Darrow rounded up a bunch of guys including me and Ricky from President Street and destroyed their trucks with baseball bats, leaving them in pieces. The independent distributor never protested or even came around again.

  Gallo consigliere Louis Louie "The Syrian" Hubela handed off the distribution business to my father to run. It had become so profitable that they had to set up a separate company just to handle the pornographic papers and magazines. Goldstein was absolutely thrilled with the arrangement, having the Mob as your business partner did have it's up and downs.

  The up side would be that if anybody tried to step in and wrestle any type of control away from Goldstein or mess with (or screw with) him in any way, he had the Gallos to protect him and his business, just ask the independent distributor.

  There was one time when some guys approached Goldstein to end his relationship with Astro News and deal with them instead. He quickly told Ricky all about it and he never heard from those guys again.

  The down side of the partnership, how ever, was that Goldstein and his Milky Way company had little control over the printing, distribution and bookkeeping.

  Astro News, and by extension, the mob, handled it all from start to finish, to the sharing and distribution of profits.

  The process was as follows, when a paper was ready for distribution, it was taken from Milky Way's offices at 116 West 114th Street to the paper's printer on Kings Highway in Brooklyn.

  Once all printing was done, the trucks from Astro News would pick up the papers and distribute them to newsstands and stores.

  The profits were split as such, Astro News would take 60% of every dollar while Goldstein and his Milky Way Company would receive 40%. Astro News would give Goldstein his share about two weeks from the date of publication and he was responsible for all the overhead, including paying employees. all legal fees, it all came out of Goldstein's share.

  The mob didn't necessarily support or approve of Goldstein's paper, they were mostly ambivalent. Many in the secret society believed he went too far when he occasionally criticized the Catholic Church in the press.

  The mob made it known in their first meeting with Goldstein when Albert "Kid Blast" Gallo met with him in the back of a black Cadillac. Gallo expressed his dissatisfaction with the derogatory comments Goldstein was printing and wanted him to tone it down. However, Goldstein wasn't one to hold back and in fact, told Blast to go fuck himself when he was told to bring it down a notch, he would do the opposite. He became more difficult to deal with, he saw himself as a kind of pioneer and an anti-censorship crusader, in the spirit of a Lenny Bruce. This was all well and good but the real truth was, deep down inside, Al Goldstein was a degenerate. He was in the right business.

  There was no mistaking that Goldstein and the Mafia were different types of people, but for the most part, they did get along. For a bunch of "old school" men, the President Street boys were conservative in their world view, basically they were a walking, talking contradiction. While they spent their days and nights committing crimes, they still supported overzealous progovernment politicians like Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. They looked at Goldstein as a leftover hippy or flower child whose publication of naked pictures meant nothing to them.

  He looked at himself as some sort of revolutionary for showing hard dicks and vaginas as the mobsters simply looked at him as a human cash cow. Money is a great deodorant that can cover up even the foulest stench.

  The odor coming off Goldstein and his paper may have been personally offensive to the mob but money is money and business is business. Business always comes first.

  Like the President Street boys, I got along with Al Goldstein to, for the most part. Kid Blast had told Goldstein that he would deal with my father only, and that all New York distribution issues would be run by and through Ricky DiMatteo.

  There were no papers, no lawyers, no bull shit, just a handshake between Kid Blast Gallo and Goldstein and it was a done deal.

  I was working very close to my father at this point and had many encounters with Goldstein and his sleazy world of
pornography. I remember going into S&M clubs, sex clubs and even some fetish joints for numerous meetings. I could not believe and sometimes I was downright shocked by some of the things I saw in these cesspools.

  One time, I was in Manhattan at a sex club called "The Nutcracker Suite" that catered to any sick depravity one could think of. Twisted orgies were the norm there but usually it was things like sex slaves, men locked in cages and on dog leashes, those kind of immoralities.

  That night while I was sitting at the bar, waiting for someone I was supposed to meet, I glanced over and a few feet away was a grown man in nothing but a diaper and a bonnet, sitting in a play pen like a baby. To make it even more comical was the fact that the guy weighed at least 300 pounds. I started to laugh uncontrollably and when he saw me laughing, he became highly insulted.

  I couldn't for the life of me figure out how, but he looked at me with a straight face as if he had been caught doing something mundane like mailing a letter and asked, "Why are you laughing at me?" I didn't feel like I needed to state the obvious but I did anyway "Because you're dressed up like a fuckin' baby and you're a grown man!" He pouted like a child and literally crawled away, I thought I was going to have to call him back and ask for a diaper because I thought I was going to pee in my pants! The only way I can explain what it was like being in one of these "establishments" is to say it was like being trapped inside one of those episodes of the HBO series "Real Sex". Strange people doing strange things out in the open for everyone to see.

  My whole life I've been around career criminals, even contract killers, but none of them were as bizarre as the freaks encountered in those places and the mob has taken me to odd corners of the world. I've seen it all, believe me. Like I've said, Al Goldstein and the mob got along most of the time but on occasion he could be somewhat of an asshole and it was usually due to his huge ego.

  The only thing that could keep him somewhat humble was the fact that he knew that the Mafia owned him and were in complete control of his business. He might have talked a good game and walked around with a chip on his shoulder like he wasn't afraid and nobody was going to tell him what to do. Deep down, he knew that if push came to shove, these men that he was now partners with would have a bullet put in his head if he ever did anything foolish.

  Goldstein's real partner, Jim Buckley, was not in favor of doing business with the mob and was downright petrified of them.

  Goldstein was more self-serving and had a greater sense of outward bravado. The mob liked that about him because he could diffuse tensions with his sarcasm and his off-color remarks.

  He was superior when it came to making his point in a humorous way without infuriating anybody, he was quite the character.

  There was no doubt that Goldstein knew his place, he also knew it was a good one for him, and he liked having a distributor that no one would mess with.

  The mob tolerated Goldstein's antics and his big mouth because he was making money for them, hand over fist, period. Personalities didn't matter because business was very prosperous.

  Goldstein was being fed envelopes full of cash, the Mob was making tons of money off of the distribution and everything was going along like a well-oiled machine. Everyone was getting their fair share and the paper was getting out there to the public without a hitch. As time went on, my family became friendly with Goldstein and we would spend a good amount of social time together, including barbecues at our home (in Gerritsen Beach).

  Goldstein was also close with Robert "DB" DiBernardo, who he had known from even before the Screw Magazine days. Before those days, Goldstein had written for other sex magazines that DB had circulated. They got along very well and when you're making money an everybody is playing by the rules, people are satisfied and nobody gets hurt. That was about to change.

  DB was a well respected capo and a good earner for the Gambino family. In addition to his pornography distribution operation, he was also involved in labor unions and other legitimate businesses. He was intelligent and articulate and many guys thought he could make a great boss one day. DB's one deadly flaw was that he was a loner. He came and went on his own, no posse, no entourage. He paid his tribute but he had his own mind. He expressed his own opinion, especially in a family that was in upheaval after boss Big Paul Castellano was gunned down outside Sparks Steakhouse. DB became a victim of his own success. Guys in the ranks grew jealous of DB's position, some owed him a lot of money. Those closest to the new boss, John Gotti, namely Sammy "The Bull" Gravano and Angelo Ruggiero began to conspire against DB. They had Gotti's ear and filled it with negative stuff about DB. Gotti became convinced that DB was bad mouthing him and his leadership and that he was a potential threat. In June of 1986, DB was called to a meeting in the basement of Gravano's drywall company in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn and he was shot in the back of the head, by Joe Paruta Sammys main shooter. This proved just how feeble one's position in the Mafia could be, here was a man who had the respect of most everyone around him and he was one of the highest earners, which are two very essential traits to have in that life. DB's murder was the beginning of the end for Screw Magazine and the distribution business. We continued on with business but over time, Screw's circulation was dropping, Goldstein had legal troubles, legitimate papers and magazines began running escort ads and with the eventual popularity of the internet, the world didn't need a raunchy underground sex newspaper anymore.

  The arrangement between Astro and Goldstein was one that benefitted both parties for many years. Goldstein was a pain in the ass at times, who would complain and grumble about the distribution of profits, but in the end it was a gravy train for everybody and he didn't want to do or say anything that could jeopardize that. We were all making a boat load of money. As strange as it may sound, distributing Screw and other porn papers and magazines, became a family business.

  I started working for Astro, as a helper to the drivers on the trucks, when I was only 13 years old. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, I was on the trucks, stayed in the office on Fridays and dropped off the payments to Goldstein. I was the bosses' son, after all, so I (sometimes) got the easier assignments, and I wasn't complaining. It all ended in 2003 Screw finally went out of business.

  Al Goldstein and Ricky in the good old days

  Robert "DB" DiBernardo, A good friend, Ricky told him not to go anywhere alone, he didn't listen

  We sold over 300,00 Copies of this issue when it came out it came out in the 1970's

  MARRIED TO THE MOB AL GOLDSTEIN'S INTERVIEW IN HUSTLER

  Pornographic Periodicals Tied to Organized by Nicholas Cage

  Nearly all of the major hardcore pornographic newspapers and periodicals in the United States are distributed by companies controlled by organized crime members, according to law inforcement officals, underworld figures and some of the newspaper owners themselves.

  The largest of these publications is Screw, a weekly tabloid-sized newspaper that has a circulation of 85,000. The total circulation of the dozen leading pornographic papers, all distributed by the same two companies is about 300,000.

  In a interview, Al Goldstein, publish and editor of Screw, openly discussed the ties of the two companies that distribute these papers.

  "We have no options at to who we deal with," he said.

  "No legitimate distributor will touch us. I'd deal with Hitler if I had to. I'll deal with anyone I can do business with."

  Screw is published by Milky Way Productions, Inc. Which was founded in 1968 by Mr. Goldstein and James Buckley, who recently gave up his interest to his partner to devote his time to producing and distributing movies.

  The Liberalization of city state and Federal obsenity laws has spawned dozens of papers containing sexually explicit articles and pictures. They bear such names as, Pleazure, Hooker, San Franciso Ball, Whips & Chains, Hot Stuff and Smut. According to law enforcement officials, Mafia members are involved in the distribution of all of them'.

  These papers had difficulty finding distribbutors when they started
and ultimately turned to companies connected with organized crime. Police officals and Federal agents who have been investigating organized- crime involvement in the pornography industry said that publishers of such publications had to give these companies a higher share of profits then is customary or an outright interest in their paper to obtain distribution.

  Mr. Goldstein who is 39 years old, said that neither of the two distrributors he dealt with owned any interest in Screw, but he said that he paid them much higher rates then regular publications paid. Most pornographic papers are distributed nationally by a company called Star Distributors. Which is situated at 150 Lafayette Street, inManhattan. In New York City, distribution of pornogaphic papersis manly handled by Astro News, with offices at 118 8th Street Brooklyn.

  Bolt Star Distributors and Astro News have strong Mafia ties, according to law-enforcement officials and underworld socrces. The officers of Star DistRibbutors are Theodore Rothstein president: Robert DiBernardo vice president and Nathan Gramer, secretary- treasurer. DiBernardo is listed by the New York police and the Justice Department as a member of the Mafia familt of Sam DeCavalcante, which is based in New Jersey.

  Shipment for Cash

  Star originally was operated by Theodore Rothstein says a report of the State investigation Commission. It operation, according to one withness, were severely hampered by its need for cast Shipments to Star were on basis of cash payments, where as most firms at that time received materials on a consignment basis.

  "However Stars financial position and credit rating suddenly improved and it began receiving merchandise on consignment," the report said "Along with this financial change, came a new corparate office, Robert Di Bernardo. it was also clear, according to one withness, that in all subsequent business rtransactions, Di Bernardo had the last word in Star."