Kenneth McCabe, 59, a Dogged Investigator of the Mob
Hyfler/Rosner
Kenneth McCabe, 59, a Dogged Investigator of the Mob, Dies
By DOUGLAS MARTIN NY Times
Kenneth McCabe, an investigator who became a quiet legend
among crime fighters by spying on and testifying against
mobsters to help topple godfathers, died on Feb. 19 at his
home in Breezy Point, Queens. He was 59.
His daughter, Kelly McCabe Casey, a prosecutor in the office
of the Brooklyn district attorney, where Mr. McCabe was an
investigator for many years, said the cause was melanoma
that had spread to his brain.
Mr. McCabe was known for his careful observations of Mafia
chieftains at their social clubs, weddings and funerals.
Then he testified at their trials with such detail that few
defense lawyers dared question him for fear of surprises.
He took a great many pictures, including some mobsters'
children's weddings, inspiring some to call him the Cosa
Nostra's unofficial photographer.
Mr. McCabe was a member of the New York Police Department
for 18 years, most of that time as a detective assigned to
the Brooklyn district attorney's office, and then for 20
years was an organized crime investigator for the United
States attorney's office in Manhattan. Even after illness
forced his retirement in December, he was asked to assess
evidence.
Mr. McCabe, a towering, beefy man with a gentle manner and a
Brooklyn accent, was regarded as a master of surveillance.
By studying behavior, he sorted out bosses, soldiers and
pretenders and was said to never have forgotten a face.
In 1972, The New York Times reported the scene when he
identified Carmine Tramunti, then the acting boss of the
Luchese crime family.
"That's him, all right," Mr. McCabe said as the man appeared
after a three-hour stakeout. "Easy now. Wait till be gets
into his car."
A car carrying detectives suddenly screeched around the
corner and cut off Mr. Tramunti at the curb. They thrust a
subpoena in his hand, which he promptly crumpled, while
mouthing obscenities. That was one of 300 subpoenas issued
that day in the sort of sweeping operation that typified Mr.
McCabe's career, a period when law enforcement ground down
organized crime. Proving conspiracies was a dominant part of
this effort, and Mr. McCabe's photographic memory was as
necessary as his photographs.
James B. Comey, a former United States attorney in
Manhattan, cited an example: investigators needed to link
someone in the Luchese family directly with a Gambino capo.
"That's easy," Mr. McCabe said. "The 1983 Gallo wedding."
Seemingly tiny things he discerned mattered mightily, said
Walter Mack, former chief of the organized crime unit in the
Manhattan federal prosecutor's office.
"If so-and-so is walking in with so-and-so, that's a major
seismic change," Mr. Mack said.
Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the Valerie
Plame leak investigation, who had worked with Mr. McCabe in
Manhattan, said: "If you went to ask him a name of somebody
involved in organized crime, not only did he know the
person, but he might have arrested him once or twice, or
been to his house."
Mr. McCabe contributed critical evidence to the trials of
Paul Castellano, the head of the Gambino family until he was
gunned down in 1985; the "commission" that coordinated Mafia
activities; John Gotti and many more.
A 1984 picture, reproduced many times, showed Mr. McCabe
arresting Mr. Castellano. According to 1986 court papers, he
then doggedly watched social clubs and funerals to determine
definitively that Mr. Gotti had succeeded him.
Mr. McCabe wrote no books, did not court politicians and
avoided interviews. In court, however, he revealed much. His
command of detail recalled "the steel-trap mind of a card
counter," the columnist Steve Dunleavy wrote in The New York
Post in 2004.
In a trial in 2003, Mr. McCabe told of a new edict requiring
Cosa Nostra initiates to have both a mother and father who
are Italian. He also revealed then that the Bonanno crime
family had changed its name to Massino.
Joseph Massino later went to prison for murder, and his
successor, Vincent Basciano, faces murder and racketeering
charges. Mr. Basciano's trial was postponed because so many
law enforcement leaders attended Mr. McCabe's funeral.
Kenneth James McCabe was born in the Park Slope neighborhood
of Brooklyn on May 14, 1946. His father was an assistant
district attorney in Brooklyn.
He attended local Roman Catholic schools and graduated from
Loyola College in Maryland. He joined the Police Department
in 1968, the same year he married Kathleen Moriarty.
She survives him, along with his daughters, Kerry McCabe and
Kelly McCabe Casey, both of Breezy Point, and Kristen McCabe
Ryan, of Rockaway Beach, Queens; his son, Kenneth Jr. of
Marine Park, Brooklyn; his sisters, Rosemary Travis of
Fairfield, Conn., and Anne Marie Grozinger, of Breezy Point;
his brothers, John, of Hampton, N.J., and James, of
Chesapeake, Va.: and five grandchildren.
Mr. McCabe was beaten at least once and threatened many
times, but his straightforward manner earned a grudging
respect even from mobsters, some of whom requested that he
be the one to arrest them. In 2001, Jerry Capeci wrote in
his online column, "This Week in Gang Land," about an
encounter Mr. McCabe had in 1991 with Anthony Spero, a
consigliere in the Bonanno family, while observing him in
Bath Beach, Brooklyn.
Mr. Spero approached Mr. McCabe's car and the two exchanged
jokes. Mr. Spero said he planned to retire. Mr. McCabe
replied that he hoped he would go somewhere warm, because he
"didn't want to do surveillance in the cold."
The mobster did not retire. Mr. McCabe watched his comings
and going in Bath Beach for seven more years, until Mr.
Spero was arrested on charges of racketeering and murder,
charges on which he was convicted in 2001.
MWB
Mark
Hyfler/Rosner
">
> Mr. McCabe wrote no books, did not court politicians and
> avoided interviews. In court, however, he revealed much.
> His command of detail recalled "the steel-trap mind of a
> card counter," the columnist Steve Dunleavy wrote in The
> New York Post in 2004.
>
The New York Post
November 17, 2004 Wednesday
A CASE OF HIT AND MISS
BYLINE: STEVE DUNLEAVY
AS a tough, honorable cop, Ken McCabe was a credit to the
NYPD.
As a tough, honorable government investigator, he is a
credit to the Justice Department.
But one must ask, is the Justice Department a credit to
McCabe, a 35-year veteran of rooting out the bad guys?
When the Justice Department smells the blood of a wiseguy
not yet dead, they call in Ken McCabe.
On countless occasions, he has been an expert witness doing
a running commentary on undercover and video pictures of
wiseguys.
With a card counter's memory, he can reel off names, ranks
and family ties of literally dozens of mobsters without even
referring to a note.
I felt uncomfortable for him yesterday when defense attorney
Joseph Bondy asked were there any audiotapes of his client
Peter Gotti linking him to the conspiracy to murder "Sammy
Bull" Gravano.
McCabe: "No."
Bondy: "Is there any audiotape linking Peter Gotti to
shakedowns of construction companies?"
McCabe: "No."
To be sure, there are many pictures of Peter Gotti entering
and exiting mob funerals, mob weddings and mob hangouts.
Ten years ago, at 9 one morning, talking to a friendly fed
in Washington, he told me exactly where I was in the Lower
East Side at 5 a.m. . . . exiting an after-hours club on
Front Street with a well-known wiseguy.
The same went for a place called Mootchies, the postmortem
pub and a social club on Market Street where the Bonannos
used to hang out.
I wasn't there to get information, I was there after a
14-hour day to guzzle many beers at a place within walking
distance of my office. Nobody accused me of being a wiseguy.
As someone who worshipped his brother John Gotti, you might
get a real shock if you saw Peter Gotti entering or exiting
the Yale Club. Interesting pictures, but in this case a
picture is not as good as a thousand words.
So, as usual, the feds trot out the rat patrol.
The latest in the rat patrol is a former DeCavalcante family
member who has admitted to killing four humans and reveled
in the fact that he believed the life of his and his
partners were a blueprint for "The Sopranos." A quality
witness?
Stop me before I fall down laughing.
The New York Post
July 12, 2004 Monday
MAFIA BANNED MURDER - HALTED HITS UNDER HEAT
BYLINE: Steve Dunleavy
AS THE sensational Bonanno-Massino trial draws to a close
this week, I will reveal one shocking secret about New
York's mobdom.
At one time, the heads of the five families found God -
well, sort of. They observed the sixth commandment of "Thou
shalt not kill."
In trial transcripts, chief prosecutor Greg Andres was
talking to special investigator Ken McCabe, of the Justice
Department's Southern District. They were discussing what
happened after the bloodfest of the Colombo crime family's
internal wars in Brooklyn.
I recall it well. There were more bodies strewn in the
streets of Brooklyn than confetti after a wedding.
Consider the transcript:
Andres: "Has the number of murders in organized crime
decreased in recent years?"
McCabe: "Yes, there has been actually a moratorium on
murders."
Andres: "When you say there's been a moratorium on murders,
who issued that moratorium?"
McCabe: "The commission."
Andres: "Can you explain why?"
McCabe: "There was too much law-enforcement scrutiny, and it
was bringing too much attention and heat to the Cosa Nostra,
to the families."
Andres: "Is it fair to say that if there are a large number
of murders, that's not good for organized crime?"
McCabe: "Absolutely."
McCabe, both a veteran cop and federal investigator, is
recognized as one of the ultimate experts and probers of the
mob as we know it. The moratorium first came in the early
'90s, although all rules were made to be broken.
Throughout the trial, with the steel-trap mind of a card
counter, investigator McCabe has identified literally
hundreds of "made men" in all the families, recording the
rank as beginners and their eventual rank as the top
echelon, whether it be at wakes, funerals or weddings.
Quite phenomenal.
In another exchange, Andres says: "Is there a rule with
respect to narcotics?"
McCabe: "You are not supposed to deal with narcotics, but
it's a rule that's more famous for being broken than for
being adhered to."
While certainly that is true, mob bosses tend to get very
protective about their religion and church.
In May of 1952, at the Regina Pacis Votive shrine at 12th
Avenue and 65th Street in Brooklyn, jeweled crowns worth
$100,000 were stolen from the altar.
Joe "Olive Oil King" Profaci was outraged. He sent his boys
out, the jewels were returned, and Ralph "Bucky" Emmino, 38,
of Brooklyn was found mysteriously shot to death on the
Fourth of July.
When a nun was raped in East Harlem, mobster Carmine
Galante, a furious man and a very bad man, in 1982 ordered
two of his soldiers to plead to a robbery they never
committed.
That way, they could be in Rikers Island and assassinate the
two rapists who had been caught.
Today, the trial resumes with turncoat Salvatore Vitale
retaking the stand, watched closely by his sister Josephine
Massino, wife of Joseph Massino, who her brother is
informing on.
Not too much religion and not too many prayers for Sal -
especially from his sister.
Bill Schenley
> many times, but his straightforward manner earned a
> grudging respect even from mobsters, some of whom
> requested that he be the one to arrest them. In 2001,
> Jerry Capeci wrote in his online column, "This Week
> in Gang Land," about an encounter Mr. McCabe had in
Pretty cool obit. Here's Jerry Capeci's column about that meeting:
http://www.ganglandnews.com/column220.htm
And here is McCabe's Daily News obit:
Mourning Good Guy Who Went After Wiseguys
FROM: The New York Daily News ~
By Thomas Zambito
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/394905p-334826c.html
(w/photo)
Federal mob investigator Kenneth McCabe scoured the death notices for
the names of mobsters so he could be sure and pay his respects. Or he
turned up at their weddings, where they'd greet him with a slice of
cake and coffee that was always refused.
For more than three decades, first as an NYPD detective and then with
the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, McCabe deftly handled
skittish government cooperators while charting the Mafia underworld's
every move with his camera.
His work provided the backbone for dozens of successful prosecutions,
including the late mob boss John Gotti and his brother Peter, that
have left the city's Mafia families weakened to the point of
extinction.
McCabe, 59, died last Sunday after a year-long battle with cancer.
His intense preparation and his shun-the-spotlight manner won the
6-foot, 6-inch former college basketball player the respect of
colleagues - and of the mobsters he arrested.
They would regularly counsel their attorneys not to ask McCabe a
question when he took the witness stand, said former Manhattan U.S.
Attorney David Kelley.
"The mob is all about playing by the rules," said Kelley. "He didn't
lie. He dealt with them fairly. They got arrested fair and square."
At his funeral Thursday at St. Thomas More Church in Breezy Point,
Queens, a priest told the story of a wiseguy who ambled up to McCabe's
car while he was conducting another surveillance.
"You know, Kenny," he said. "I'm thinking of retiring. I'm getting too
old for this."
To which, McCabe replied: "Make sure it's someplace warm because I'm
tired of freezing out here."
Mob informant Michael (Mikey Scars) DiLeonardo paid tribute to McCabe
during his testimony at John A. (Junior) Gotti's federal kidnapping
trial last week. Asked to identify a surveillance shot, DiLeonardo
guessed that it was probably taken by McCabe.
"He was relentless," DiLeonardo said.
McCabe was reared in Park Slope and attended Cathedral High School
before playing power forward for Loyola College in Maryland.
His photographs allowed prosecutors to piece together mobster
associations and link them together at key moments in a conspiracy. In
some shots, smiling mobsters wave hello to McCabe.
Less known was McCabe's handling of wiseguys-turned-informants. "The
cooperators had a tremendous amount of respect for him," Kelley said.
"He didn't pull any punches. He told it like it was."