Experts say Musitanos made a grab for power

By Paul Benedetti / Hamilton Spectator

The day mob boss Johnny (Pops) Papalia was killed outside his
Railway Street office, theories about his assassination flew as fast
as bullets.

Yesterday, more than a year after Papalia was shot in the head, Pat
and Angelo Musitano were arrested and charged with first-degree
murder in connection with his death and the theories were flying
again.

Was it a sanctioned Mafia hit?

Was Papalia's murder and the murder of Niagara Falls mob boss
Carmen Barillaro two months later part of a larger
Mafia-orchestrated action?

Yes, says Antonio Nicaso, author of nine books on the Mafia and a
recognized expert on organized crime. He says you don't take out
Johnny Papalia, the top mob boss in southern Ontario, without
permission.

"I am thinking that if they (the killers) did something like that,
they for sure had to get some permission from somebody more
important than them,'' said Nicaso.

"That is my personal opinion. To kill someone like John Papalia,
for sure, they had to get the blessing and support of someone
outside Hamilton.''

Nicaso does not know who that might be, but John Papalia was part
of a triumvirate of powerful Mafia families that formed the
Hamilton-Buffalo-Montreal triangle.

The much-feared Papalia controlled Ontario, but answered to the
American Mafia, namely the Magaddino family in Buffalo, ruled by top
boss Stephano Magaddino until his death in 1974. So, Nicaso's theory
goes, if the 73-year-old Papalia was to be taken out, the hit would
have to be OK'd by the American Mafia.

Not so, says Lee Coppola, a newspaper and television reporter who
covered the Buffalo mob for 25 years.

"That is a very unlikely scenario. I don't think there is enough
organization, structure, power or authority in the Buffalo mob to
have any input or sanction into a murder in Canada,'' said Coppola,
who is now dean of the school of journalism at St. Bonaventure
University in New York state.

NO LEADERSHIP

"I can tell you, for all intents and purposes, the Buffalo mob --
as it once was when Magaddino actually ruled that part of Toronto
and the Papalias and Violis were under him -- is all diminished and
has been diminishing over the last couple of decades to a point now
where there is no leadership, there is no structure, and there
certainly is not power.''

Coppola says if a Hamilton crime family is indeed responsible for
the killings of Papalia and Barillaro, it was probably acting on its
own. That is, members of that family saw an opportunity and took it.

"That is what has always happened in the mob. When they sense a
weakness they're like animals. They see a wounded area and they take
it over,'' he said.

Coppola's view seems to fit the information provided in court
yesterday. Documents show the man who contracted the hit on Carmen
Barillaro told the shooter that, "something is gonna happen soon
and we gotta act.''

Both experts agree that John Papalia's death suddenly created a
power vacuum in Ontario, making the situation here unstable and
dangerous. Papalia had ruled about a dozen mob bosses with an iron
hand for decades, but he made a crucial error in not grooming a
successor.

"Many bosses in the Toronto region and Hamilton area and the
Niagara Peninsula were not happy with the leadership of Johnny
Papalia. He was a very centralized boss. He didn't delegate
anything,'' said Nicaso yesterday.

"And the fact that in the family there is no one with his charisma
capable of replacing him, that is an indication of his
individualistic character.''

That character may have been his undoing, leaving him vulnerable to
a hit. Coppola drew a parallel to the situation that developed in
Buffalo in the mid-'70s.

"When Magaddino was strong and in control, no one in southern
Ontario would have thought of going against him. And the same goes
in Rochester, in Erie, Pennsylvania, and in parts of Ohio where he
was in firm control,'' he said.

"But when he lost power and lost authority and there was no strong
heir to fill the void after he died, then the various factions like
Rochester said, 'Screw you. Why should we bow down to Buffalo when
we are stronger than Buffalo?'''

What followed, said Coppola, was a war.

"There was a tremendous skirmish in Rochester about 10 years ago
for control of the Rochester turf, because there was no one strong
enough in Buffalo to intercede.''

The same situation exists today, says Coppola.

"And it is very evident from the status of the New York City
families that Buffalo is looked upon now as having no power at all.
They consider Buffalo like underlings. They are not even third-rate.
There are a lot stronger mob organizations in Toronto, and not just
the Mafia as we know it, but Vietnamese mafia, Jamaican mafia, and
the Chinese mafia.'' Sensing that weakness, a Canadian crime family
may have decided to make their move, said Nicaso.

Musitanos lived in shadow of Papalia

Though the Musitano clan had a long history in organized crime back
in Calabria, Italy, they had never attained the stature of the
first-rank Mafia families in Canada, such as the Violi family in
Montreal, and the Luppino and Papalia families in Hamilton.

"They were not at the same level of Papalia. For many years, the
Musitano family lived in the shadow of Papalia,'' said Nicaso. "The
first time we heard about the Musitano family was for the murder of
(Toronto mobster) Domenic Racco,'' he said.

Dominic Musitano pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact in the
1983 murder and his nephew Giuseppe Avignone pleaded guilty to
conspiracy to commit murder.

After Dominic died of a heart attack in 1995 at the age of 57, his
sons Pat and Angelo inherited the family businesses. But this new
generation was less disciplined, more showy.

"They were totally different in terms of character than Papalia.
He always tried to keep a low profile. He was very old-fashioned
boss in that sense,'' said Nicaso. "If we can consider them (the
Musitanos) organized crime figures, then they are the new face of
organized crime. They like to show off.''

Coppola agrees. "The second and third generations have become
Americanized. And once they become Americanized, all that thick
Sicilian allegiance is diluted,'' he said.

"Look at (New York City's 'Teflon Don') John Gotti. ... The
old-timers never wanted to be seen; they didn't even want people to
know they were in control except for the people who needed to know
they were in control. But the up and comers want to flash this
Mafioso thing. They want to party in big nightclubs and have people
point at them and show respect and all that garbage.''
Nov. 25, 1998