Alphonse "Sonny Red" Indelicato (February 25, 1931 - May 5, 1981) was a caporegime in New York City's Bonanno crime family. He is portrayed in the 1997 movie Donnie Brasco as "Sonny Red" by actor Robert Miano.
Mob family roots
Born in New York City, Indelicato was a stocky man with string tattooed arms and dark hair. He favored wearing large tinted sunglasses which is suggested to have been adopted from fellow Bonanno capo Cesare Bonventre.
Indelicato's family came from Giarre, in Catania, Italy. Indelicato had one older brother Joseph Indelicato and a sister. He has several relatives in East Boston, Massachusetts who are connected to the Patriarca crime family. Indelicato is the great uncle of Los Angeles crime family mobster Danyael Shovera Caliberi (Sho Caliberi), the father-in-law of Bonanno crime family associate Salvatore Valenti, and ex-son-in-law of Bonanno capo Charles (Charlie Prunes) Ruvolo. Indelicato was also related to Gerald Thomas Indelicato, an education adviser to Governor of Massachusetts Michael Dukakis, and Giuseppe Indelicato, a prolific heroin trafficker
He was married twice, the first time at a young age to Ruvolo's daughter, with whom he fathered his son Anthony Indelicato. Indelicato later married Margaret Elizabeth McFhadden, but the two later become estranged. Alphonse has a close physical resemblance to actor Gary Swanson. Alphonse became the head of the disaffected and dissident faction over Phillip Rastelli's leadership. He built a power base around close friendships and family ties.
He had his son Anthony also brought in to the life of organized crime at an early age. Anthony was a huge supporter of his father; the two socialized and conducted serious mob business including extortion and loan sharking together.
Military career
While in his teens, Indelicato enlisted in the U.S. Armed Forces and fought in World War II in Holland. He was later tatooed with "Holland 1945 Dad", ostensibly to commemorate his tour of duty. It is unknown if he suffered any battle wounds or when he was discharged. In 1950, Indelicato was arrested in New York for possession of heroin.
Criminal career
From an early age, Alphonse displayed an early interest in drug trafficking and earned a reputation for demonstrating stark displays of violence. After his honorable discharge from the Armed Forces, he was first charged with possession of heroin in 1950, and quickly convicted. Not long after serving six months in jail for possession, he was identified as a gunmen in a social club shooting on Boxing Day 1951 that left one man dead and another, a witness to the attack, wounded. His poorly planned gangland slaying led to a conviction for murder and attempted murder for which he received a twelve year sentence at Sing Sing Penitentiary. After he was released, due to his history of involvement with organized crime and violence, he was placed on life time parole he was repeatedly named by confidential mob informants as a major narcotics distributor. This denied him to attend the wedding of Sicilian mob boss drug trafficker Guiseppe Bono. Over the next fifteen years since his release from Sing Sing Prison in 1966, he built himself into a formidable presence within the Bonanno crime family, not only because of his opinionated, charismatic swagger, but because at least four other Bonanno crime family capos supported any move he made. With each of his loyal capos controlling an estimated half-dozen to a dozen other made men, the tight-knit group of loyal mobsters presented to law enforcement and the Bonanno crime family as a significant force. This made fellow mobsters lead to the conclusion that Alphonse was in a reasonable position to seize control of the Bonanno crime family. Alphonse had firm and solid criminal connections to the other Five Families of New York City, including senior members of the Colombo crime family, and a mobster ex-father-in-law Charles (Charlie Prunes) Ruvolo, who was a Lucchese crime family mobster. He was considered a serious mobster by both Joseph Massino and Dominick Napolitano. He preferred bright, garish casual clothing -- orange t-shirts, bright red shorts, baseball jackets, striped track suits, multicoloured socks and blue jeans. He was particularly fond of a certain pair of custom made red leather cowboy boots. On his left arm he had two tattoos, of two hearts and a dagger and another that was inscribed "Holland 1945". He was cocky towards the head of the family, Phillip Rastelli and disrespectful to both Joseph Massino and Dominick Napolitano, but he was dismissive of the power of the Bonanno crime family's Sicilian faction. He and his rival mobsters had been reaping the profits from distributing the Canadian-based Sicilian Bonanno crime family faction's heroin from Montreal to New York. In late 1980 or 1981, he is said to have taken $1.5 million worth of heroin on consignment from Gerlando Sciascia and Joseph LoPresti and then declined to pay for it. Vincent Gigante was backing Alphonse at the time. Etched on his forearm was a tattoo depicting a dagger embedded in twin hearts, which was the classic design of the Sacred Heart, often associated with heartbreak. He had broad shoulders and a sculptured torso. At the time of his murder, Alphonse was being investigated for his suspected role in the gangland slaying of Colombo crime family capo Crazy Joe Gallo in 1979.
Planning a coup
In 1979 when the powerful rebellious capo Carmine Galante was shot dead by Sonny Red's son, Anthony Indelicato, Dominick Trinchera and Phillip Giaccone. Sonny Red Indelicato wanted to take over as boss but others in the Family disagreed and wanted former boss Phillip Rastelli (who was then in prison) to take charge. One of those in favor of Rastelli taking over was Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano. Sonny Red and Sonny Black were soon on a collision course. Alphonse partnered up with Phillip Giaccone, Dominick Trinchera, Anthony Indelicato, Alphonse's brother Joseph Indelicato, Michael Sabella, Frank Lino, Nicholas Marangello, Steven Maruca and Cesare Bonventre. Michael Sabella, Maruca and Marangello would later switch sides and align themselves pro-Phillip Rastelli, which proved to be a wise decision on their part, before the slayings of Trinchera, Giaconne and Alphonse Indelicato. He once drove an ice pick so far through a victim's chest and into the floor beneath him that tire irons had to be used to pry the body loose. His paranoia of a civil war in the Bonanno crime family were heightened rather than eased by the peace talks with the Phillip Rastelli loyalists. His paranoia heightened so much, that before the second gathering, called a month prior to May 5, he braced for an all out civil upheaval within the mob ranks. The second meeting was scheduled at Brooklyn's Embassy Terrace on Avenue U and East 2nd Street, again close to Frank Lino's My Way Lounge. On the morning of May 5, 1981 Alphonse ordered his men who were not attending the meeting to disperse themselves around New York City so they could not be murdered in a sweep if the anticipated purge widened. The men stayed in Staten Island which was where Indelicato claimed his territory and others were at Thomas Pitera's home in Brooklyn. Before heading to the meeting he would tell Frank Lino, Phillip Giaconne and Dominick Trinchera, "If there is shooting, everybody is on their own, try to get out."
Ambush
On May 5, 1981, Sonny Red Indelicato and two of his associates, Phillip Giaccone and Dominick Trinchera, were shot to death in an ambush at the old 20/20 Club that was a night club once run by Gambino crime family underboss Sammy Gravano. Indelicato's body turned up three weeks later in the Ruby street lot (mafia graveyard) in Ozone Park, Queens, but the remains of the other two were not unearthed until 2004 [1]
It later came out that Sonny Red's corpse was supposed to be hacked into pieces before it was disposed of, but was instead simply buried in a hasty manner. On May 24, 1981, nineteen days after the murders, shortly after 4:00 p.m. children playing in a vacant garbage-strewn lot on Ruby Street in Lindenwood, Queens were drawn by an odd smell to a section of rough dirt and garbage. The lot, plowed under just two months before, had quickly become an unofficial dump. Kicking the loosened soil, a neighborhood boy discovered a hand. The boy ran for his parents who called police. At 4:20 p.m., New York City police officer Andrew Cilienti arrived at the lot to find a left arm, bearing a tattoo of two hearts and a dagger and bejeweled with a $1,500 Cartier watch, poking out from underneath the dirty bedsheet in which the body had been wrapped. The watch had stopped ticking two days after Alphonse's murder, with its hands resting at 5:58. The cool pressure of the soil around it in its rough tomb had slowed decomposition of the body, so, prior to autopsy, fingerprints were successfully taken from the malleable hand. The prints came back to police as a match to Indelicato. Four days later, Alphonse's son-in-law Salvatore Valenti, who was thirty-three at the time of his father-in-law's murder was called in to officially identify the body. His son Anthony Indelicato had fled New York City after hearing of his father's slaying and hid in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Incredibly, despite the involvement of so many people from the Gambino crime family and the Bonanno crime family, the unexpected discovery of Indelicato's body, the accidental crippling of gun man Santo Giordano and the improbable escape of Frank Lino, the conspiracy by Joseph Massino, the Sicilians and the Bonanno crime family Montreal satellite faction seemed to remain a secret. The two fellow loyalist capos, Phillip Giaccone and Dominick Trinchera were dismembered and placed in plastic green garbage bags.
According to FBI agent Joe Pistone, the murderers involved in the assassination of Alphonse Indelicato were Sonny Black, John Cersani, Joe Massino, his underboss and brother-in-law Salvatore Vitale, Joseph DeSimone, Nicholas Santora, Vito Rizzuto, career felon Louis Giongetti, Santo Giordano,Gerlando Sciasca, and mobster who would later turn informant Frank Lino. Benjamin Ruggiero and John Cersani were lookouts, were sent in after to clean up the massacre and dispose of the bodies along with Dominick Napolitano, James Episcopia and Robert Capazzio.
Alphonse's capo son, Anthony Indelicato, also known as Bruno, was supposed to be slain too, but he did not turn up at the meeting that saw his father ambushed. Alphonse chose to bring Frank Lino instead in his place as a representative of his faction, who would later be the sole survivor of the massacre. FBI agent Joe Pistone, undercover with the mob as "Donnie Brasco," was tasked with finding and killing Bruno, which quickened Pistone's being removed from the operation.
Joe Massino, who later became boss of the Bonanno Family, was convicted in 2004 of ordering seven murders, including those of Indelicato, Giaccone and Trinchera. The informant, Salvatore Vitale (Massino's brother-in-law), confessed to being another one of the gunmen involved in the slaying.
The mob war following Galante's death was witnessed by FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone, who was undercover as Donnie Brasco. In the movie, Donnie Brasco, Sonny Red was played by Robert Miano. Unlike the movie, in reality, Joe Pistone was never involved with the murder of Alphonse Indelicato. Indelicato was never ambushed in his home, but called to a Brooklyn social club with the promise of peace talks.
References
- Pistone, Joseph, Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia. Random House Value Publishing (February 1990) ISBN 5552531299
- Crittle, Simon, The Last Godfather: The Rise and Fall of Joey Massino Berkley (March 7, 2006) ISBN 0425209393