Reputed boss of Montreal Mafia arrested in murder case

The corner of Ruby and 76th Streets was a desolate dumping ground in the Ozone Park section of New York when, on May 24, 1981, children at play noticed a bad smell. One kicked at the ground and uncovered an arm, part of a body in a shallow grave.

The remains belonged to a Mafia captain known as Sonny Red. He still wore a $1,500 Cartier watch, which had stopped after he was shot dead three weeks earlier.

Now, the killing may lead to the downfall of Vito Rizzuto, the alleged godfather of Montreal's Mafia. Arrested yesterday, he faces up to 20 years in jail if extradited to the U.S. and found guilty.

Court documents unsealed in Montreal yesterday say that U.S. police have informants willing to testify that Mr. Rizzuto was part of a ski-mask-wearing hit squad that ambushed three Mafia captains, Alphonse (Sonny Red) Indelicato, Philip (Phil Lucky) Giaccone and Dominick (Big Trin) Trinchera.

According to the documents, the three had been purged for trying to wrestle control of the Bonanno crime family while its head, Philip Rastelli, was in prison.

Mr. Rizzuto, 57, is Montreal's own version of a Teflon Don. In various court proceedings, Canadian authorities have alleged that he is a drug trafficker, tax evader, and money launderer. But apart from serving a two-year sentence for the 1972 arson of a mini-mall, Mr. Rizzuto has never been convicted. He once said he earned a living as a "jack of all trades."

He was arrested yesterday at his lavish Tudor-style house in north-end Montreal.

The latest charges are part of a broader set of accusations against 27 alleged members of the Bonanno family. Most, who have nicknames such as Jimmy the General, Mickey Bats and Patty Muscles, are accused of involvement in 15 murders or murder conspiracies between 1978 and 1992.

According to the extradition request, one informant will testify he was part of a four-man hit squad with Mr. Rizutto on May 5, 1981. Armed with pistols, a submachine gun and a shotgun, they hid in a closet of a Brooklyn building, where the three victims had been lured for a meeting with the acting Bonnano family boss, Joseph Massino.

Also present was a powerful Canadian mobster, Gerlando Sciascia, the representative of the Bonnano family in Montreal. He ran his hands through his hair, a prearranged signal to start the shooting.

After the killings, the bodies were wrapped up and driven away in a van as a crime boss quipped that "it wouldn't take long for rigor mortis to set in," according to the court documents.

The informant said Mr. Rizzuto returned to Canada to serve Mr. Sciascia. In 1999, Mr. Bonnano ordered Mr. Sciascia killed, and the informant travelled to Montreal to ask Mr. Rizutto to take over as captain of the Canadian wing of the crime family.

"Rizzuto requested that his father . . . instead be appointed the captain as a sign of respect."

Nevertheless, the U.S. court extradition request said, Mr. Rizzuto is "an extremely powerful and influential member of the Canadian faction of the Bonanno family."

A second witness is said to have driven members of the crime family from the building on the day of the 1981 murders. A third witness, who accompanied the victims to the building, is to testify that he met Mr. Rizzuto several times in Canada on crime-family business in the 1980s and 1990s.

A U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation agent is expected to testify that on the day after the killings, he photographed Mr. Rizzuto meeting mob bosses at a New York hotel.

Canadian authorities have never had much luck prosecuting Mr. Rizzuto. In 1987, he was accused of conspiring to import 16 tonnes of hashish through Newfoundland. The charges were dropped, however, because wiretap evidence, which included client-lawyer conversations, was ruled inadmissible.

Always publicity-shy, Mr. Rizzuto kept an even lower profile after July, 2001, when police nabbed two heavily armed men who were scouting the coffeehouse he frequented. The following month, he settled with Revenue Canada, which alleged that he took $1.5-million in undeclared revenue and got middlemen to invest it in a mining company whose shares then jumped tenfold because of illegal trading.

A Toronto broker disappeared without a trace after he improperly sold the shares and pocketed the money, not realizing that his clients were fronting for Mr. Rizzuto, documents say.

Mr. Rizzuto's next court appearance in his extradition case is scheduled for Feb. 6.