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Organized Crime Michael Benson Digital Instant
Download
Author(s): Michael Benson
ISBN(s): 9780791094105, 0791094103
Edition: None
File Details: PDF, 2.12 MB
Year: 2008
Language: english
CRIMINAL
INVESTIGATIONS

ORGANIZED CRIME
 Bank Robbery
Celebrities and Crime
Child Abduction and Kidnapping
Cons and Frauds
Crime Scene Investigation
Cybercrime
Drug Crime
Gangs and Gang Crime
Homicide
Organized Crime
Serial Killers
Terrorism
Unsolved Crimes
White-Collar Crime
CRIMINAL
ww

INVESTIGATIONS

ORGANIZED CRIME

MICHAEL BENSON

C O N S U LT I N G E D I T O R : JOHN L. FRENCH,
CRIME SCENE SUPERVISOR,
BALTIMORE POLICE CRIME LABORATORY
 CriminaL inVeSTigaTiOnS: Organized Crime

Copyright © 2008 by Infobase Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in

any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval
systems, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information contact:

Chelsea House
An imprint of Infobase Publishing
132 West 31st Street
New York NY 10001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Benson, Michael.
Organized crime / Michael Benson ; consulting editor, John L. French.
p. cm. — (Criminal investigations)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7910-9410-5 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-7910-9410-3 (alk. paper)
1. Organized crime—United States. 2. Crime—United States. I. French,
John L. II. Title. III. Series.
HV6446.B44 2008 364.106’0973—dc22
2008016594

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Text design by Erika K. Arroyo

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Cover: John Gotti speaks with a lawyer during the first day
of deliberations at New York State Supreme Court
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 Contents

Foreword 7
acknowledgments 11
introduction 13
1 making money 21
2 the mole: infiltrating the mob 25
3 informants: they Call them rats 31
4 Surveillance: Wiring informants,
tapping phones, and Snapping pictures 41
5 the Big Bust 49
6 innovations and new law 55
7 Other mobs 61
8 famous rubouts 71
9 When the government declares War 81
10 a Brief history of the gambino
Crime family 89
Chronology 97
endnotes 101
glossary 104
Bibliography 105
6 Organized Crime

Further resources 109

index 110
about the author 115
about the Consulting editor 116
 Foreword

I n 2000 there were 15,000 murders in the United States. During

that same year about a half million people were assaulted, 1.1
million cars were stolen, 400,000 robberies took place, and more
than 2 million homes and businesses were broken into. All told, in
the last year of the twentieth century, there were more than 11 mil-
lion crimes committed in this country.*
In 2000 the population of the United States was approximately
280 million people. If each of the above crimes happened to a sepa-
rate person, only 4 percent of the country would have been directly
affected. Yet everyone is in some way affected by crime. Taxes pay
patrolmen, detectives, and scientists to investigate it, lawyers and
judges to prosecute it, and correctional officers to watch over those
convicted of committing it. Crimes against businesses cause prices
to rise as their owners pass on the cost of theft and security mea-
sures installed to prevent future losses. Tourism in cities, and the
money it brings in, may rise and fall in part due to stories about
crime in their streets. And every time someone is shot, stabbed,
beaten, or assaulted, or when someone is jailed for having com-
mitted such a crime, not only they suffer but so may their friends,
family, and loved ones. Crime affects everyone.
It is the job of the police to investigate crime with the purpose of
putting the bad guys in jail and keeping them there, hoping thereby
to punish past crimes and discourage new ones. To accomplish this
a police officer has to be many things: dedicated, brave, smart, hon-
est, and imaginative. Luck helps, but it’s not required. And there’s
one more virtue that should be associated with law enforcement. A
good police officer is patient.

7
8 Organized Crime

Patience is a virtue in crime fighting because police officers and

detectives know something that most criminals don’t. It’s not a
secret, but most lawbreakers don’t learn it until it is too late. Crimi-
nals who make money robbing people, breaking into houses, or steal-
ing cars; who live by dealing drugs or committing murder; who spend
their days on the wrong side of the law, or commit any other crimes,
must remember this: a criminal has to get away with every crime
he or she commits. However, to get criminals off the street and put
them behind bars, the police only have to catch a criminal once.
The methods by which police catch criminals are varied. Some
are as old as recorded history and others are so new that they have
yet to be tested in court. One of the first stories in the Bible is of
murder, when Cain killed his brother Abel (Genesis 4:1–16). With
few suspects to consider and an omniscient detective, this was an
easy crime to solve. However, much later in that same work, a
young man named Daniel steps in when a woman is accused of an
immoral act by two elders (Daniel 13:1–63). By using the standard
police practice of separating the witnesses before questioning them,
he is able to arrive at the truth of the matter.
From the time of the Bible to almost present day, police inves-
tigations did not progress much further than questioning witnesses
and searching the crime scene for obvious clues as to a criminal’s
identity. It was not until the late 1800s that science began to be
employed. In 1879 the French began to use physical measurements
and later photography to identify repeat offenders. In the same year
a Scottish missionary in Japan used a handprint found on a wall
to exonerate a man accused of theft. In 1892 a bloody fingerprint
led Argentine police to charge and convict a mother of killing her
children, and by 1905 Scotland Yard had convicted several criminals
thanks to this new science.
Progress continued. By the 1920s scientists were using blood
analysis to determine if recovered stains were from the victim or
suspect, and the new field of firearms examination helped link bul-
lets to the guns that fired them.
Nowadays, things are even harder on criminals, when by leav-
ing behind a speck of blood, dropping a sweat-stained hat, or even
taking a sip from a can of soda, they can give the police everything
they need to identify and arrest them.
In the first decade of the twenty-first century the main tools
used by the police include
 Foreword 9

n questioning witnesses and suspects

n searching the crime scene for physical evidence
n employing informants and undercover agents
n investigating the whereabouts of previous offenders when a
crime they’ve been known to commit has occurred
n using computer databases to match evidence found on one crime
scene to that found on others or to previously arrested suspects
n sharing information with other law enforcement agencies via
the Internet
n using modern communications to keep the public informed and
enlist their aid in ongoing investigations

But just as they have many different tools with which to solve
crime, so too do they have many different kinds of crime and criminals
to investigate. There is murder, kidnapping, and bank robbery. There
are financial crimes committed by con men who gain their victim’s
trust or computer experts who hack into computers. There are crimi-
nals who have formed themselves into gangs and those who are orga-
nized into national syndicates. And there are those who would kill as
many people as possible, either for the thrill of taking a human life or
in the horribly misguided belief that it will advance their cause.
The Criminal Investigations series looks at all of the above and
more. Each book in the series takes one type of crime and gives
the reader an overview of the history of the crime, the methods
and motives behind it, the people who have committed it, and the
means by which these people are caught and punished. In this series
celebrity crimes will be discussed and exposed. Mysteries that have
yet to be solved will be presented. Readers will discover the truth
about murderers, serial killers, and bank robbers whose stories have
become myths and legends. These books will explain how criminals
can separate a person from his hard-earned cash, how they prey on
the weak and helpless, what is being done to stop them, and what
one can do to help prevent becoming a victim.

John L. French,
Crime Scene Supervisor,
Baltimore Police Crime Laboratory

* Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in the

United States 2000.” Available online. URL: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/
00cius.htm. Accessed January 11, 2008.
10
acknowledgments

T he author would like to gratefully acknowledge all of the per-

sons who helped in the production of this book. Without their
help it would have been impossible. Editor James Chambers, my
agent Jake Elwell, private investigator Vincent Parco, court attor-
ney Lisa Grasso, author David Henry Jacobs, Gary Goldstein, Philip
Semrau, Nathan Versace, Keith Brenner, Eddie and Cate Behringer,
Larry Beck, Scott Frommer, and Carl Soloway.

11
12
 introduction
Law enforcement professionals call it knowing your enemy. The
more police know about those who break the law, the better chance
they have of obtaining justice. Learning about the enemy is called
gathering intelligence. Intelligence is particularly important when
investigating organized crime, a large group of criminals who are
working together. These criminal organizations have established
rules and can run with a military-like precision, with a clearly
defined chain of command. Organized crime is often more complex
than a simple gang, and can entail many gangs that work together
for a common criminal cause. Because the organizations are made
up of nothing but criminals, there is a high rate of infighting and
betrayal within their ranks. Knowledge of the structure of the orga-
nization and who works for whom can help police make the correct
arrests at the correct time.
That intelligence also includes the history of organized crime,
how it has grown in sophistication, how it has evolved, and how it
has adapted to police methods to fight it. Organized crime emerged
in North America as far back as the early nineteenth century and
the days of Jean Lafitte and John A. Murel.
John A. Murel—known as the Napoleon of American Crime—
stole the slaves of other men. He was called a “land pirate” and was
notorious during the 1830s from Tennessee to Mississippi. Murel’s
gang included lawyers prepared to take care of any legal difficulties
as efficiently as possible. Others were thugs who helped keep the
public quiet. The gang stole slaves in great numbers and shipped
them to Texas, where they were sold at great profit.
Murel was arrested in 1834 for stealing slaves. According to the
Mississippi Local History Network he was later accused of being a

13
14 Organized Crime

member of a secret society called the Mystic Clan, much like the
Ku Klux Klan, that routinely murdered black people.1
Not all of the pirates of the nineteenth century worked on land.
In the years following the War of 1812, Jean Lafitte, who was known
as the Gentleman Pirate of New Orleans, took desperate sailors and
banded them together into a profitable gang of pirates. He managed
to stay out of trouble for years by following one simple rule: He
never attacked an American ship.
According to crime historian Joseph Geringer, “Lafitte is known
for his piracy in the Gulf of Mexico, and lauded for his heroism in
the Battle of New Orleans. Each persona seems to balance the other.
He hated being called ‘pirate,’ for, as he saw it, he was a ‘privateer’
serving an economic purpose in an economically frugal time in a
new country that needed to economize. When he at last sailed away
from American shores, he felt betrayed by a country that didn’t
understand the difference.”2
Right up until the time of Prohibition, the period of time
between 1920 and 1933 when the production, sale, and possession
of alcoholic beverages was illegal, America was plagued by loosely
organized gangs of bank and train robbers. Modern organized crime
emerged primarily in the early twentieth century.
In 1890, a Sicilian organization known as the Mafia first became
known following the execution-style murder of New Orleans Police
Superintendent David Hennessy. In the decades that followed the
Mafia took the concept of organized crime to a whole new level.
Organizing individual criminals into gangs was only the first
step. The next came when gangs united and worked together. Such
organizations could become hugely powerful. And, because there
were so many people working together, crimes committed by such
an organization were difficult for police to detect and bust.
The Italian island of Sicily is a tough place with poor soil and a
harsh climate. Throughout its history, conquering armies have over-
run it. The government in charge was almost always corrupt. Over
time the natives, who were mostly poor, began to feel helpless.
Out of this atmosphere was born the Mafia, a secret society,
which offered citizens protection from the government in exchange
for a fee. They called their society La Cosa Nostra, which means
“Our Thing.” The term Mafia, and sometimes the mob, is mostly
used by outsiders.3
 Introduction 15

The name Mafia has become a somewhat generic term for eth-
nic organized crime. Today people refer to the Irish Mafia, or the
Russian Mafia, but the Mafia discussed here is the one to first arrive
in the United States from Italy between 1880 and 1914.
These immigrants were poor and lived in large cities. Jobs were
hard to come by. Many of the immigrants—due to their poverty
and their experiences in Sicily—thought the federal, state, and local
governments of the United States were as corrupt as those in their
homeland and weren’t giving them a fair shake. Sicily had spent
so many years under foreign rule by Greeks, Romans, Byzantines,
Normans, French, Spanish, and Austrians that it became an unwrit-
ten rule in Sicilian families to leave the government and their
police out of private affairs. A small percentage of these immigrants
turned to crime and organized themselves along the lines of the
Sicilian Mafia. In some cases, crime bosses left Sicily and resumed
their rackets in America.
Mafia members live by the code of omerta, which means:
“Those who call the police are fools or cowards. Those who need
police protection are both. If you are attacked, do not give the name
of your attacker. Once you recover, you will want to avenge the
attack yourself. A wounded man shall say to his assailant: ‘If I live,
I will kill you. If I die you are forgiven.’”4
In the early days of the American Mafia, the top moneymak-
ing racket was extortion. In exchange for money, a man’s business
would be “protected.” If the money wasn’t paid, something bad
would happen, courtesy of the Mafia. A man’s store might burn
down in the middle of the night. Or, less subtly, the store would be
blown up by a bomb.
Another early Mafia business venture was counterfeiting. In
1909 Ignazio Lupo was tried and convicted of counterfeiting in New
York City. Lupo was an underling of crime boss Peter “The Clutch
Hand” Morello in what would one day be known as the Genovese
family. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison, but he only served
12 years because President Warren G. Harding commuted his
sentence.
Prostitution has also been a big Mafia business throughout its
existence. The mobsters did not actually run the brothels, however,
as this was considered demeaning. Instead, they took a cut of the
profits in exchange for protection. Or they came by the brothels
16 Organized Crime

weekly to collect the coatroom tips. There were different ways for
them to get their percentage.
Bribery was an important feature of mob activities. Cops, judges,
and politicians were often paid off to leave the mob alone. These
bribes were paid regularly. The officials whose job it was to inves-
tigate and arrest the criminals were therefore “on the payroll,”
employees of those very criminals.
While today legal casinos exist in many parts of the United
States, legalized gambling was unknown during the early years of
the twentieth century. In those days, the only casinos were illegal
and operated by organized crime. These casinos were not huge
operations such as the ones today in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, or
on various Native American reservations. They were “back room”
affairs and functioned behind social clubs, barber shops, and stores.
Available were all sorts of card games and slot machines. Another
popular form of organized crime gambling was the “numbers”
game, which was much like today’s legalized lotteries.
During the Great Depression and Prohibition era of the 1920s
and ‘30s, the Mafia grew. The groups of criminals organized into
“families,” which were sometimes real families, but were called
families even if their membership did not follow strict bloodlines.
Sometimes the family in question was merely the family of the
boss, whose sons were, like princes, expected to take over the fam-
ily business.
During Prohibition, the Mafia went into bootlegging, the pro-
duction and sale of illegal beer and liquor. Speakeasies—illegal
taverns—operated in big cities across the country. Liquor was either
made illegally in bathtubs by mobsters or was smuggled into the
United States from countries like Canada, where its production was
still legal. Not all of these operations were small-time. Beer and
liquor continued to be produced in large breweries and distilleries
as well.
Not all mobsters got along with one another. Battles took place
between rival crime families and within them among their mem-
bers. Some families competed with other families over “turf,” while
other families had internal battles over matters of leadership. The
Mafia became known as a violent organization, but an organization
whose members killed each other more often than outsiders.
Perhaps the most famous example of organized crime violence
came on February 14, 1929, when mobsters working for Al Capone
 Introduction 17

machine-gunned to death seven members of the rival Bugs Moran

gang in a garage in Chicago, Illinois. This event became known as
“The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.”5 Capone, it should be noted,
was not associated with the Mafia families in the East. His Mid-
western organization at the time was called The Syndicate. In later
years, after Capone was gone, it brewed into an organization some-
times referred to as The Outfit.6
During World War II the U.S. government first worked side by
side with the Mafia as the organized crime group helped provide
intelligence regarding the Nazis and fascists who were then in con-
trol of Italy and Sicily. Later, the U.S. intelligence services called
upon U.S. mobsters who had casinos in Cuba, seeking their aid in
ousting communist Fidel Castro from the government of Cuba.
After World War II the Mafia became more aggressive. They
sought to take over labor unions. They fixed elections to put their
friends in political offices. As illegal drugs became big business in
the United States—the new prohibition—the Mafia quickly took
over drug-smuggling and sales operations.
At one time there were 26 crime families operating in the United
States, which amounted to approximately one per major city. The
families were connected via a “Commission,” which included the
various bosses. In general, the families of New York City and its
surroundings were in charge.
For decades, there were many people who denied the Mafia’s
existence, including Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) head J.
Edgar Hoover. That is, until 1957, when a meeting of the “Com-
mission”—with representatives from many of the major families
throughout the United States—was raided in the small town of
Apalachin, New York.
Many people know the popular image of what a typical mobster
looks and acts like because mob activities have frequently been
portrayed in books, movies, and on television. No criminal element
in society has been as glamorized by show business as the Ameri-
can Mafia. The Godfather movies and The Sopranos TV series are
among the most popular depictions, but the process began back in
the 1930s when gangster pictures such as Little Caesar with Edward
G. Robinson helped shape the public image of the classic mobster.
One thing Hollywood gets right is the language of the Mafia. In
Italian mobs and some others the leader is called the godfather. His
lieutenants are called capos. Mobsters who are official members
18 Organized Crime

of La Cosa Nostra are known as “button men” and “made men.”

These men have pledged themselves to an organization that started
out as an underground government and still considers itself as out-
side the law.
Unlike TV and the movies, in real life a large percentage of orga-
nized crime is not Sicilian or Italian at all. Organized crime comes

Caesar Enrico “Rico” Bandello, played by Edward G. Robinson, points

a gun at a shadow of a man he just shot in Little Caesar. Robinson’s
portrayal of Caesar shaped the way the public viewed mobsters.
John Springer Collection/Corbis
 Introduction 19

in all ethnicities. This is best evidenced by white-collar crime, such

as the fleecing of Enron stockholders by executives from that com-
pany, although such outfits lack the element of violence associated
with other mobs.
This book will focus on the ways in which law enforcement
combats organized crime, but it will be necessary along the way to
explain what organized crime is and how it works in order to under-
stand how law enforcement confronts it. Among the techniques law
enforcement has used over the years to disrupt organized crime are

n The Canary. An informant who is willing to spill his guts

about his higher ups in exchange for favorable treatment in the
courts.
n The Mole. A spy who infiltrates crime organizations and reports
back to his superiors what he learns.
n Legislation. Congress has passed new laws that make it easier
than ever to battle organized crime.
n Technology. Electronic surveillance, listening, and viewing
devices that make it harder than ever for known mobsters to do
anything in secret.
n The IRS. The Internal Revenue Service, the government agency
that collects taxes. Mobsters don't like to pay taxes, and many
a mobster, including Al Capone, has been brought down from a
life of luxury to a life in prison because he cheated on his taxes
and got caught.
 1
making money
Organized crime makes money in many different ways. Sometimes
they operate illegal businesses. In other cases they use fear and
intimidation to take a cut of businesses operated by others.
For example, if a small-business owner wanted to operate a bar
in a neighborhood controlled by the mob, he would have to pay
a monthly protection fee to the mob. If he didn’t, something bad
might happen to the bar, such as a fire or a bombing, or the busi-
nessman might be attacked and beaten.
If someone wants to open a pizzeria in such a neighborhood,
that’s fine, but to avoid trouble with the Mafia, the owner must
order the pizza boxes and ingredients from one specified sup-
plier—usually a place owned by a member of the Mafia or someone
connected to the mob.
If an entrepreneur wants to open a fancy restaurant or a club,
that’s fine, but once a week someone from the organization is going
to visit and pick up all the coat-check money.
In a similar racket, street hoods charge people parking their cars
a fee to watch the car while they’re away. If the driver doesn’t pay,
the car has a flat tire when he gets back. The mob takes this simple
“protection” scheme and expands it until they are getting a percent-
age of many everyday commodities in their community.
It’s a form of extortion that seeps its way into the fabric of soci-
ety. The mob has its finger in many pies. For law enforcement, get-
ting rid of it is more complicated than simply arresting those who
are breaking the law. If one part of a crime organization is removed
and its members put in jail it is simply replaced with a new part,
and the organization continues to function without interruption.
Another organized crime moneymaker is infiltrating and con-
trolling labor unions. The unions were formed to protect laborers

21
22 Organized Crime

from being underpaid and overworked by greedy employers. But,

when corrupted by the mob, they can serve to pad the pockets of
criminals while leaving the poor working person even poorer and
with more work to do.
Criminal organizations also make money by selling illegal prod-
ucts. The mob has been known to sell drugs and counterfeit goods,
sponsor prostitution, and provide gambling opportunities in areas
where placing a bet is against the law. They also lend money, then
charge very high interest rates. This is called loan-sharking, and
bad things happen to the people who do not pay back their debts
on time.
The bootlegging side of the Mafia business began during Pro-
hibition, when alcoholic beverages were illegal. The mob made,

LOrganized Crime and Sports

Mobsters have been involved in sports events in the United States
since the early days of Prohibition. Back then the premiere sport
for mob activity was boxing. Hoods like Charles “Lucky” Luciano,
Al “Scarface” Capone, and Dutch Schultz (born Arthur Flegen-
heimer) were all involved in promoting boxing cards, taking bets
on fights, and fixing fights so the right guys won their bets. By
the 1940s “Mr. Big” in the fights was Frankie Carbo, who con-
ducted his boxing business under the false name “Mr. Grey.”1
Another sport in the grip of organized crime was horse racing.
In addition to fixing races—bribing a horse’s trainer or jockey
usually did the trick—the mob also controlled the news. In those
days, race results on the West Coast were sent east via telegraph.
By intercepting those signals and delaying their transmission,
mobsters could learn the result of a race and place bets on that
horse before the news of the winner reached the gambling parlor.
In many cases the parlor would be mob-run as well. More sophis-
ticated communication systems—fast long-distance telephone, for
example—put these rings out of business.
Today the mob still makes a buck off the sports world. Bookies,
who take bets on pro football or other sports, either by phone or
through runners (people who run bets and money between gam-
blers and their bookie), can usually be found to have an organized
 Making Money 23

transported, and sold its own beer and liquor—and made millions
of dollars in the process.
The government eventually realized that prohibition was creat-
ing a bigger problem than it was preventing. With access to ille-
gal booze, there were just as many people drinking as before, but
now criminals were making all the money rather than legitimate
businesspeople. The government repealed Prohibition, and alcohol
became legal again.
The end of Prohibition put many mobsters out of business. Oth-
ers adapted and changed with the times. Bootlegging still exists
in certain forms. For example, criminals might buy cigarettes in a
state or country where the tax on that product is low, then transport
the cigarettes to a state where the tax is high and sell the cigarettes

crime connection. Gamblers who run out of money sometimes bor-

row money from loan sharks and end up owing even more money
to organized crime.

Frankie Carbo enters U.S. District Court in December 1959. He was

sentenced to two years in prison for his underground boxing
operation. Bettmann/Corbis
24 Organized Crime

at below the market price. Some mobsters moved their operation

to the smuggling and sale of drugs. Today drugs such as marijuana,
cocaine, and heroin are routinely sold around the world by orga-
nized crime families.
Because the mob makes money in so many different ways, it
is difficult for law enforcement to completely dismantle an entire
organization. Adding to the difficulties is the fact that many crimi-
nal organizations also operate legitimate businesses.
Even as famous mobsters are arrested and put in jail, lesser
known criminals take their place and the mob continues to take
a percentage—known as the skim—from many businesses, and
the operations work pretty much the same whether they are local,
national, or global.
 2
the mole:
Infiltrating the Mob
You have just been assigned the most dangerous job in law
enforcement. You are going to be a “mole.” It is more than
a nine-to-five job. It is practically a change of identity. You
are no longer yourself. You are the character you are play-
ing, like an actor who can never leave the stage. You are a
spy, and inside your clothes you wear “a wire,” a recording
device so that you will leave with evidence that can send
the criminals you are investigating “up the river.” The job
might last for weeks, months, or years—and you can never
relax, never let down your guard. You must not get caught. If
the criminal organization you are infiltrating discovers the
truth, that you are not the person you claim to be, the result
will be instant death.

One of the most successful methods used by law enforcement to

break up organized crime is the undercover agent. This is a person
employed by law enforcement who, after much training, pretends
he is a street kid who wants to be a soldier in the mob.
If the undercover agent is accepted into the fold, he learns
what he hopes is enough for arrests to be made, and then testifies
in court, helping the prosecution convict the arrested mobsters.
Being an undercover agent investigating the Mafia is the same as
being a spy. The use of undercover agents to gather information
or sabotage the efforts of the infiltrated organization is called
espionage.

25
26 Organized Crime

Of course, there are millions of places along that route for some-
thing to go wrong. In some cases, everything goes well. The mob-
sters take the bait, the agent is accepted into the family, and hoods
are arrested, tried, and convicted. The best example of this is the
Donnie Brasco case. One man, as it turned out, put a big hurt on one
of the nation’s most dangerous crime families, the Bonannos.1
Agents who have gotten inside the mob are said to have infil-
trated the organization. The goal is for the agent to rise as high as
possible within the organization. The higher within the mob the
agent gets, the bigger the mobsters he will be able to testify against
in court. The agent known by the hoods as Donnie Brasco managed
to stay inside the mob for an astounding six years and rose to the
level of capo.
Donnie Brasco was actually FBI Special Agent Joseph Pistone.
As Brasco he was given the usual beginner’s job when it comes to
organized crime. He was told to hijack trucks and steal the goods
they held. Trucks filled with dresses or furs were best because the
items were so easily sold, even though they were hot. From there he
gained the trust of his bosses and worked his way up. He eventually
got so high up the mobster ladder that he had first-hand knowledge
of negotiations between the Bonannos and other crime families in
New York and elsewhere. In the long run Brasco, one lone agent,
caused grief in several crime families, changing the face of the New
York Mafia forever. He disrupted a huge heroin-trafficking operation
and supplied evidence that led law enforcement to what became
known as the “Pizza Connection” case.
During Brasco’s time undercover he was often wired so that
his conversations with mobsters were recorded. When he wasn’t
wired, he wrote down the things he had heard soon after so he
would be able to accurately testify about his conversations at
a later date. One of the most memorable quotes Brasco dug out
was by Benjamin “Lefty Guns” Ruggiero, who explained to Don-
nie and another undercover agent why it was such a great thing
to be in the Mafia. Ruggiero said, “As a wiseguy you can lie,
cheat, steal—all legitimately. You can do anything you want and
no one can say anything about it. Who wouldn’t want to be a
wiseguy?”2
The FBI knew that, even after all of the evidence was gath-
ered, their case against the Bonanno mobsters would fall apart if
 The Mole 27

something happened to Brasco. To make sure nothing did, the FBI

handled it in a way that the mob could understand.
Two special agents, Brian Taylor and Pat Marshall, paid a visit
to mob boss Tony Salerno in his home. The agents told the mobster
that nothing must happen to Brasco or his family. If it did there
would be “massive retaliation.”
“You guys have a job to do,” Salerno said. “You have my
guarantee.”
Salerno sent the word out; Pistone (Brasco) and his family were
off limits. No violence. And no harm came to Pistone and his fam-
ily. The agents were impressed by Salerno’s gentlemanly behavior.
Much different treatment was in order for the members of the
Bonanno family who were duped by Brasco and allowed him access
to the information he gathered. Some of those members were
killed. Others were kicked out of the family. Add that to the fact
that Lefty Guns and his ring of truck hijackers were arrested and
put out of business, and the FBI considered the operation a major
success.3

LJoey Bananas
Joseph “Joey Bananas” Bonanno was a hood who made his first
million selling illegal booze. During the Roaring Twenties he
expanded his network by running numbers games across Brooklyn.
During that era Bonanno found himself on the winning side of
a vicious mob war, and when the dust settled he was one of the
most powerful hoodlums in America, heading his own family.4
The hunger for power was Bonanno’s undoing. Unlike other
godfathers, Bonanno did like to be called “Father” by his mob
underlings. He was not in the business just for the money. He saw
money as secondary to power. Bonanno knew the other top mob-
sters saw it the other way around, with power being a byproduct
of money. He was planning to bump off the nation’s other top
mobsters, but his hitman squealed on him. Bonanno appeared
before a Mafia Commission and was stripped of his mob power. In
1964 Bonanno was kidnapped in New York City and held captive
(continues)
28 Organized Crime

(continued)
in Buffalo, New York, for 19 months. He was released only after he
agreed to retire to Arizona and allow the Commission to pick his
successor as the head of the Bonanno family.5
Law enforcement did not let up on Bonanno just because he
was aging and had been stripped of his power. They called him
before a grand jury and asked him to testify about what he knew.
Joey refused and was jailed for a time. Unlike most hoods, Joey
lived to be very old: 97.6

Joseph Bonanno, notorious founder of the Bonanno crime family,

leaves the U.S. courthouse in New York after being freed on bail
in May 1966. AP
 The Mole 29

The information regarding Brasco and the problems he caused

the mob were first made public at U.S. Senate hearings in 1981.7
Brasco is just one example. There have been, and there are,
many informants who have gotten inside the mob, gained trust,
and then reported back to law enforcement so their information
could be used to arrest mobsters and interrupt organized crime
operations. Many of them, fearing retaliation from the mob, like
to keep a low profile, and the public never hears of them. But they
are out there, enough of them so that mobsters never know whom
they can trust.
The Donnie Brasco case became famous when Pistone wrote
a series of bestselling books about his adventures inside the mob,
including Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia (1987),
The Way of the Wiseguy (2004), Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Busi-
ness (2007), and the novel Donnie Brasco: Deep Cover (1999),
among others.8 The first book was made into a movie called Donnie
Brasco, released in 1997.

How the FBI Fights Organized Crime

The number one U.S. weapon against organized crime is the FBI,
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States’ national
police. Over the years the bureau has become very good at arresting
mobsters and pulling apart crime organizations. This is somewhat
ironic because, during the first half of the twentieth century, the
federal government did little or nothing to stop organized crime.
The longtime director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, claimed that
the Mafia did not exist and said that organized crime was a matter
for local law enforcement. He was proven wrong, and now, in the
twenty-first century, the FBI is the government’s number-one tool
against the mob.9
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the FBI has
been concentrating more on homeland security and has had fewer
resources with which to combat organized crime. Before 9/11 the
FBI had the Italian Mafia on the ropes, routinely indicting and con-
victing don after don and breaking the power of New York’s mob.
(A family’s boss is known as a “don,” a capofamiglia, or as made
famous by the movies, a “godfather.”) The increased need to inves-
tigate terrorism has taken a lot of the heat off organized crime and
given it the breathing room it needs to grow back.
30 Organized Crime

In a recent press release, the FBI noted that its new streamlined
anti-mob strategy has four parts. They are:

n To damage the mob as much as possible with their limited

budget.
n Whenever possible, pursue national rather than local criminal
organizations.
n Remain flexible enough to pursue regional organized crime
groups conducting significant racketeering activity.
n Dismantle or disrupt target organizations.10

The FBI is aware of organized crime as a global phenomenon, a

problem not just here in the United States but around the world.
According to the FBI’s official Web site, “The Center for Strategic
and International Studies, Global Organized Crime Project, Finan-
cial Crimes Task Force estimates global organized crime reaps
profits of close to $1 trillion per year. The FBI’s fight against orga-
nized crime is unlike other criminal programs. Instead of focusing
on these crimes as individual events, the FBI’s Organized Crime
Program targets the entire organization responsible for a variety of
criminal activities. The FBI has found that even if key individuals
in an organization are removed, the depth and financial strength of
the organization often allows the enterprise to continue.”11
The FBI’s stated mission is to eliminate organized crime from
the United States. This is done through the use of laws put in place
for the express purpose of busting organized crime rings. These
laws are called the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization
(RICO) laws, which will be discussed in detail in Chapter 6.
The fight against the mob comes out of The Organized Crime
Section at FBI Headquarters, in conjunction with field office execu-
tive management. That section is responsible for the overall coordi-
nation and support of all organized-crime investigations. According
to the FBI Web site, the Organized Crime Section determines pri-
orities, training needs, budgets, and conducts training. In addition
to special agents, the FBI Organized Crime Program uses joint task
forces with other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.
It takes a team to fight organized crime.12
 3
informants:
They Call Them Rats
It is September 1963. You are a low-ranking member of orga-
nized crime and you can barely read and write, but on this
day, you are going to change the world. You are sitting at
a long table with two microphones in front of you. Facing
you are Senator John L. McClellan and the Senate Perma-
nent Investigations Subcommittee. A national TV and radio
audience is tuned in and waiting. Today you are going to do
something no one has ever done before. You are an informant,
the first ever to spill the secrets of the secret society the world
calls the Mafia. Your name is Joseph Valachi, and you are
going to give that organization a new name: La Cosa Nostra.

An informant is someone inside a criminal organization, or

with knowledge of that organization, who tells police what they
know. If this individual is a member of the Mafia, it means that, by
talking, he is breaking his solemn oath to never cooperate with the
police. But, as it turns out, when a goodfellow is facing hard prison
time, solemn oaths don’t mean that much anymore. There has
been a significant increase in the number of informants in recent
years. As La Cosa Nostra grows one generation older and further
from its Sicilian roots, young hoods routinely sell out their bosses
in exchange for reduced prison sentences. Using informants, law
enforcement authorities can successfully break entire organized
crime operations.1

31
32 Organized Crime

In most cases it works like this: A low-level member of the

crime organization is arrested. A deal is made and the arrested
person agrees to inform on his crime bosses in exchange for a short
jail term. The boss is then arrested and is urged to inform on his
boss. And so on, and so on. If everything goes the way police want
it to, they can arrest everyone right up to “the Boss of Bosses,” the
godfather.
Hoods call informants rats. Prosecutors call them canaries.
Ratting out and singing amount to the same thing, it just depends
on the point of view. Either way informants are hoods who need a
favor, probably because they have recently been arrested and face
long jail time. And so they talk to authorities about who and what
they know.

Joseph Valachi
One of the best-known canaries, and one that hurt the mob a lot,
was Joseph Valachi. He was a mob defector who testified before a
Senate committee in 1963. His testimony was so explosive that it
was broadcast on TV and radio. It was because of Valachi’s public
revelations that America got its first clear picture of the Italian ver-
sion of organized crime, and the public interest in the Mafia has
remained high ever since.
Valachi revealed the family structure of Italian mobs, the cer-
emonies that men must go through, the vows they must take to
become “made” members, and the many ways in which the families
had earned their riches and built their powerful empires. According
to the FBI, Valachi was “the first made member of the Italian gangs
to cooperate with law enforcement. Valachi testified that he was a
soldier in what he referred to as the ‘Genovese Family’ named after
Vito Genovese who was boss of the family at the time.”2
Before Valachi sang, he got himself into a jam. It started when
he was arrested on narcotics charges, convicted, and sent to a
prison in Atlanta, Georgia. Unfortunately for him, it was the same
prison that held Vito Genovese, who was still running his illegal
operation from inside his prison cell. Valachi earned a reputation
as a prison informer (a guy who told guards about other prisoners
who were breaking the rules) and life was hard. Fellow inmates
tried to kill him three times. In 1962 Valachi thought he was being
attacked again. He thought he saw a hitman from the Genovese
 Informants 33

Underworld informer Joseph Valachi testifying before the Senate

Investigations subcommittee. A U.S. Marshal stands behind him to
ensure his safety. Bettmann/Corbis

family approaching him, but it was actually another inmate. He

went to a construction site in the prison yard, grabbed an iron
pipe, and used that pipe to beat the other inmate to death. He
claimed he was killing the man to protect himself. Despite the
34 Organized Crime

circumstances, Valachi was convicted of murder and sentenced

to life in prison.
That is, unless he was willing to talk.
Valachi agreed to cooperate, and from that point on he answered
every question the authorities asked.
America learned a lot from Valachi, such as how Carlo Gambino,
godfather of the Gambino crime family, had made his early riches.
Gambino, Valachi said, earned millions of dollars by selling bootleg
food ration stamps during World War II. Because of the war, people
were only allowed to purchase so many groceries, depending on the
size of their families. In order to buy food people had to use ration
stamps. Gambino used theft and bribery to acquire truckloads of
food stamps from the federal agency that printed them, then sold
them to people who wanted more than their share of goods. Valachi
said that he himself was clearing $150,000 a year just as a soldier in
the operation. When asked what the families called their organiza-
tion, Valachi said it was La Cosa Nostra, which meant “our thing.”
They asked him if they used the term Mafia. Valachi said, no. That
was a term used by outsiders.3
Valachi was asked by a member of the Senate committee why
there were so many Italian Americans in the rackets.

LDon Carlo’s Words of Wisdom

Carlo Gambino, who ran the Gambino crime family in New York
City for many years, was born in Sicily in 1902. He was born into
an organized crime organization known as The Honored Society,
later to become known as the Mafia. He committed his first mur-
ders as a teenager and came to America during the 1930s. He made
his living during Prohibition as a bootlegger and then as a profes-
sional killer for crime boss Lucky Luciano. Gambino rose up the
ranks and became a crime boss himself during the 1950s.
When Carlo Gambino was talking to young men whom he
wanted to become full-fledged mobsters he would tell them, “You
have to be like a lion and a fox. The lion scares away the wolves.
The fox recognizes traps. If you are a lion and a fox, nothing
will defeat you.”4 Usually those underlings who were listening
to Gambino’s speech did not know that he stole it from the six-
teenth-century philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli.
 Informants 35

“I’m not talking about Italians. I’m talking about criminals,”

was Valachi’s reply.5
There has been a lot of analysis of Valachi’s testimony over
the years and it was determined that he testified to more pieces of
information than he could have possibly known. It is suspected that
he was heavily coached by FBI agents before he gave his testimony,
that he testified to items that had been picked up by the FBI’s spy
microphones, and not things that Valachi had known personally.6
The Valachi revelations led to increased funds for battling
organized crime, money that U.S. Attorney General Robert Ken-
nedy used to go to war with the mob from 1961 until 1963. It was
a war that may have contributed to the assassination of Robert’s
brother, President John F. Kennedy, in Dallas, Texas, on Novem-
ber 22, 1963.

Sammy “The Bull” Gravano

Perhaps the second most famous Mafia rat is Sammy “The Bull”
Gravano. Salvatore “Sammy” Gravano was born in 1945 in Brook-
lyn, New York. He was the son of a Palermo dressmaker who entered
the United States illegally through Canada in 1920. Sammy was the
baby of the family. His father, Gerardo, was 43 when he was born,
and Sammy was his only surviving son. An older brother had died of
an illness as a child. Sammy knew about the mob from a very early
age. Gerardo had to pay protection money to “the mafiosi” to keep
his Brooklyn dress factory from being burned down.
Sammy was a small kid and a natural born thief. He began to
steal not long after he learned to walk. On his way to grammar
school at P.S. 186 in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, his rou-
tine was to boost (steal) cupcakes for his snack that day from one of
the several corner stores that were on his route.
Sammy was never much of a student. He was dyslexic, a learning
disability that made it very difficult for him to read. He dropped out
of school at 16. He spent a couple of years dividing his time between
working in his dad’s garment factory and running with a gang of
toughs called the Rampers. When Sammy was 19 he was arrested.
A cop had tried to break up a street fight he had been involved in.
In the heat of the moment Sammy took a swing at the cop and the
next thing he knew he was face to face with a judge. The judge said
Sammy had two choices, jail or the army. Sammy picked the army.
36 Organized Crime

He reported for duty in South Carolina. The army and Sammy were
a good match. He served his two years and received an honorable
discharge.
When he got back to Brooklyn he found that his parents had
retired and moved to Long Island, but he stayed in the old neigh-
borhood. His sister, Frances, had married a guy named Eddie Gara-
fola, who gave Sammy work now and again in his construction
business.
He was 23 years old when he was asked by his old buddy Thomas
“Shorty” Spero to join his gang of Mafia wannabes who stole cars
and committed armed robberies. Sammy quickly established him-
self as a fellow unhampered by a conscience. When Shorty needed
someone who had double-crossed him “taken care of,” meaning
killed, he asked Sammy to do the deed and Sammy eagerly accepted
the job. Sammy had been told that the double-cross was business
oriented but the truth of the matter was that the guy had put moves
on Shorty’s wife, and Sammy actually whacked the guy because of
Shorty’s jealous rage. Sammy put two bullets in the victim’s brain
and learned that he could kill. He didn’t have any trouble sleeping
at night afterward, either.
Sammy never did grow to be terribly tall. He topped out at
five foot five, but he was made out of rock. Despite his size, word
of Sammy’s effectiveness as a hood made its way up the ranks. He
made friends with John Gotti, a brutal yet popular man who was
also moving up the organization in the fast lane.
By 1983 Sammy was an acting, although not official, capo in
the Gambino crime family. On the streets of New York there were
few more respected or feared. But soon thereafter his luck ran out.
Sammy was arrested on drug charges and sent to prison.7
In 1991 he was pulled out of prison and put in an FBI facility
where he was interrogated daily. It was during this time that the
FBI first learned the details behind the murder of mobster of Paul
Castellano and his driver outside a Manhattan restaurant. Gravano
gave detailed information about how John Gotti had taken over the
Gambino family. In 1986 the government had tried Gotti on rack-
eteering charges but he’d been acquitted. Gravano now told the FBI
that there was a reason for the acquittal. The Gambino family had
made it clear to the jury that it was in their best interest to vote
“not guilty.”8
 Informants 37

Gravano sang loud and clear. He said that he himself had been
involved in 19 murders—all mob hits. He said, “I was the underboss
of the Gambino crime family. John Gotti was the boss and I was the
underboss. John barked and I bit.”9

Sammy “The Bull” Gravano testifies at a Senate inquiry into the

underworld of boxing in April 1993. Jeffrey Markowitz/Sygma/Corbis
38 Organized Crime

In exchange for his singing, Gravano and his family were given
new identities and a new home in Tempe, Arizona. He couldn’t stay
out of trouble, though, and was arrested after his relocation for drug
trafficking.10
Gravano’s new life was provided by the government’s Witness
Protection Program, which began in 1970. To encourage canaries to
sing, the program guaranteed to protect these songbirds for the rest
of their lives. To make sure they didn’t get whacked, informants
were given new identities and were set up in homes far from where
they had lived their lives of crime.

Family Secrets
The use of canaries came in handy for FBI and IRS agents during the
spring of 2005, when an informant’s statements led to the arrests
of 14 mobsters. The indictments involved 18 murders between
1970–86, including the June 1986 hit on Tony “The Ant” Spilo-
tro, the Chicago mob’s top man in Las Vegas who was buried in a
cornfield.11
The arrests were the result of a lengthy investigation known as
“Operation Family Secrets.” The canary in question was Nick Cala-
brese, an imprisoned mobster who sang his revealing tune to federal

LBensonhurst
Bensonhurst is a neighborhood in the southern portion of
Brooklyn that has been very important to organized crime over
the years. New York’s major families—the Gambinos, Luccheses,
Colombos, Genoveses, and Bonannos—all ran operations there.
Joseph Colombo Sr. lived with his family in a split-level house at
83rd Street and 11th Avenue, near the Dyker Beach Golf Course.
Gambino underboss and turncoat Salvatore “Sammy Bull” Gravano
lived in a brick row house on 78th Street near 18th Avenue, ran
an after-hours social club at the corner of 62nd and 17th, and had
his headquarters at Talis Restaurant—called Danzas today by new
owners—at 6205 18th Avenue. When a local mobster died, either
from natural causes or from getting whacked, people paid their
respects at Scarpaci’s Funeral Home at 1401 86th Street.12
 Informants 39

agents. He named names, which allowed investigators to match

DNA samples from the suspects with DNA found at crime scenes.
Match after match came up in the laboratory, and all of Calabrese’s
information was proven to be accurate.
Those arrested included James Marcello of Lombard, Illinois,
who the FBI said was the head of the Chicago mob, and Joey “The
Clown” Lombardo, long known as one of the top leaders of orga-
nized crime in the Chicago area.
“The charges announced today are a milestone event in the FBI’s
battle against organized crime here in Chicago. This is the first
investigation that I can recall an indictment that involved so many
murders that gets to the heart of what the LCN [La Cosa Nostra] is,
and that is a bunch of murderous thugs,” said Robert Grant of the
Chicago FBI. Arrests were made in Illinois, Arizona, and Florida.13
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
“By virtue,” he says, “of Article 113 of the code of military justice,
which says that, if publicity appears dangerous to good order or
to public morals, the council may order the trial to proceed behind
closed doors, I move that the doors be closed. You know the
documents that are included in the file. I do not need to insist; I
know that it will be enough to appeal to your patriotism.”
M. Demange asks the floor.
The Judge.—“In giving the floor to the counsel, I ask him to
confine himself to the question of closed doors, with which alone
we are now concerned.”
The counsel then begins the reading of his motion, in which, after
examining the legal texts permitting the ordering of closed doors,
he declares that, since the legislator had in view no special case,
it is necessary, whenever the question of closing the doors shall
be raised, to inquire into the circumstances of the case, in order
to ascertain whether any of them are of such a nature as to make
a public trial dangerous to good morals or to good order. And he
continues thus:
“In fact, from the point of view of the charge here preferred,
whereas the only document” ...
But the judge abruptly stops him, and says in an imperious tone:
“I remind the counsel of my pressing invitation to make no
reference to any document here involved.”
M. Demange.—“I have the floor to read my motion formulating
my opinion regarding closed doors. Under these circumstances,
and in my remarks in support of my motion, I shall divulge no
documents, but it seems to me necessary to point out” ...
The Judge.—“I do not think that it is necessary to point out a
single document. Otherwise, the demand of the representative of
the government would be entirely illusory.”
But M. Demange insists:
“I offer a motion. I ask the council to examine certain documents.
I reveal nothing of the contents of these documents. I confine
 myself to my right to specify the facts and circumstances
concerning which the members of the council must be satisfied
before deciding to close the doors. You will see that I shall reveal
nothing.”
And he resumes: “Whereas the only document” ...
The Judge.—“I cannot allow you to continue thus. You cannot
speak of the only document.”
M. Brisset, the representative of the government.—“On a
question of closing the doors the defence can offer observations
only. It is not allowed to offer motions.”
M. Demange.—“I had asked to be given a record of the refusal to
allow me to offer a motion.”
The Judge.—“I give you the record. You can offer your
observations, and say what you like, but you must not touch the
substance of the question.”
M. Demange.—“How can I demonstrate that publicity is not
dangerous, if I cannot refer to the material proofs?”
The Judge.—“You have no right to do so.”
M. Demange.—“But the interest of the defence requires me to
develop my motion.”
“Gentlemen, when I read that for the first time, I did not know that I
was reading a phrase of which we should hear an echo in this court-
room.
M. Brisset.—“There are other interests at stake in this trial than
those of the defence and of the prosecution. Moreover, the judge
has the file of documents. He will tell these gentlemen of what
they consist.”
M. Demange.—“True, the presiding judge knows these
documents, and I regret that all the members of the council are
not familiar with them. I desire to show that there is no matter of
fact here to furnish a sufficient ground for closed doors.”
The Judge.—“There is a decree of the court of appeals in 1883
which declares that closed doors may be ordered without
consultation of the accused, if higher interests require it.
Therefore I do not wish you to touch upon the substance of the
issue.”
M. Demange.—“Yes or no, is my motion accepted?”
M. Brisset.—“File your motion without reading it.”
M. Demange.—“I ask for a record of the filing of my motion, and
of the refusal to allow me to read it.”
M. Brisset.—“But you have been doing that for the last half-hour.”
M. Demange.—“I have examined only the question of right.”
The Judge.—“That is sufficient.”
M. Demange.—“I have read only a part.”
M. Brisset.—“It is the principal part.”
M. Demange.—“How do you know, since I have not read the
whole? My motion is filed. Now I have a right to speak in support
of it. I offer two observations.”
And M. Demange proceeds to maintain that, if it is true that the
court of appeals has decided that a decree is not nullified by the
simple fact that the accused was not consulted concerning the
question of closing the doors, it is no less true that the accused
must be heard when, either in person or through his counsel, he
asks to offer observations or motions. M. Demange quotes three
decrees in support of this view.
“You are,” he adds, “the sole judges of the question of closing the
doors. You decide according to your conscience, from an
examination of the facts and documents.”
The Judge.—“You must not speak of the documents.”
M. Demange.—“A decree has declared that the court must
consider the circumstances of the case.”
The Judge.—“That is what I deny, for then your argument
begins.”
M. Demange.—“No, Monsieur le Président: I have a right to say
that in every case there are moral and material elements. Here I
must put them in evidence. I say that the moral elements, like the
previous conduct of the accused and his motives, cannot concern
order.”
The Judge.—“You are now making an argument.”
M. Demange.—“So far as the material elements are concerned,
order is not endangered, if I ask the counsel to refer to the
documents which I simply indicate. The report contains the
official record of the document” ...
The Judge.—“There I stop you. Otherwise the demand for the
closing of the doors becomes illusory.”
M. Brisset.—“These are the tactics of the defence.”
The Judge.—“In view of the demand of the defence, the council
will retire for deliberation.”
M. Demange.—“One word more. If we ask publicity, let it be well
understood that we do not do so from any belief that your
decision will be governed by publicity. We know that you will
decide according to your conscience, and that your impartiality
will not be affected by a closing of the doors. But no one will
contradict me, if I declare that for the last seven weeks the honor
of an officer of the French army has been exposed to all sorts of
rumors.”
At these words the presiding judge rises abruptly and says:
“By virtue of my discretionary power, I order that the council now
retire.”
M. Demange.—“I ask a record of the interruption to which my
remarks are thus subjected.”
“Yes, I give you the record,” said the judge, as he withdrew.
And the council retired amid much excitement.
“You see, gentlemen, that everything was done to make the
darkness complete. I do not say that the members of the council of
war are to be suspected of bad faith. I do not say that, knowing
Dreyfus to be innocent, they were determined to convict him at any
rate. But I do say that, having entered upon a certain path, a little
lightly and almost unconsciously, these men of good faith worked
upon themselves by a phenomenon of auto-suggestion which it is
very easy to understand. In this respect nothing is more
characteristic than the exhibition that M. Bertillon made of himself
here. So convinced that he had become as deaf as a stone to the
truth, he said: ‘Though I should be shown a hundred officers in the
French army who could have written the bordereau, I would declare
nevertheless that Dreyfus wrote it, because I have the proof.’
“I add, gentlemen, that it was with the best faith in the world that
Colonel Maurel, who presided over the council of war, exhibited the
brutality and rudeness of which I have just given you the proof,
unaware that he was thus rushing into error perhaps, and at any rate
into the illegality that was to come.
“Such, gentlemen, was the position of the Dreyfus case at the
opening of the trial before the council of war. Do not think that the
trial added anything to the charges. The minister of war, speaking
from the tribune of the chamber, has referred to the fact that twenty-
seven officers were called as witnesses. In the first place, it is to be
noted that these twenty-seven officers included witnesses in favor of
Dreyfus as well as witnesses against him. But, for or against, it is
now plain that their evidence amounted to nothing. If there existed
any serious facts regarding this matter of spying; if there existed
between Dreyfus and any foreigner designated by name, between
Dreyfus and specified spying agencies, between Dreyfus and
definite international agencies, suspicious and intimate relations; if
there had been any suspicious journeys or any guilty connections,—
they would have been proclaimed before this. Perhaps they would
not have been spoken of to M. Trarieux or to M. Scheurer-Kestner,
and, when the latter went to see his old friend General Billot,
perhaps his old friend would not have taken him into his confidence.
But it would have been printed baldly in ‘Le Jour,’ in ‘L’Echo de
Paris,’ in ‘L’Eclair,’ which are the recipients of the confidential
declarations of the staff. And, if they had not done that, they certainly
would have proclaimed them here; and General de Pellieux, if he
had been in possession of serious proofs of an earlier date than that
of the conviction, would not have been reduced to the introduction
into this trial of pretended proofs of a later date, of no more
significance than the others.
“Such, then, was the position of the prosecution at the beginning of
the trial before the council of war. And, before approaching the
capital fact that led to the condemnation,—I mean the
communication to the council of one or more secret documents,—I
desire to say a word of a certain method that has been employed on
several occasions during the last few months to close the mouths of
those who champion Dreyfus’s cause. I refer to the confessions said
to have been made by him to Captain Lebrun-Renault, on the day of
his degradation. If you had been allowed to hear testimony on this
matter, you would know what these confessions amount to. You
would have seen Captain Lebrun-Renault at this bar. If he had been
the first witness to be heard on this point, perhaps they would have
allowed him to say that he had received confessions; after which
they would have closed the mouths of any witnesses that might have
come to contradict him, on the ground that they were talking of the
Dreyfus case, and we should have been prohibited from asking any
questions. He did not come, but be sure that, if he had come, he
would have told a story of pretended confessions. Only, if I had been
allowed to question him, I should have asked: ‘At what date did you
record these confessions?’ And, if I am not greatly mistaken, he
would have answered me that he recorded them at a very recent
date,—November, 1897. Then I would have answered him,
gentlemen, by a succession of witnesses. We should have seen at
this bar M. Clisson, who, in ‘Le Figaro,’ on the day after the
degradation, told a story in which, though he had received the
confidences of M. Lebrun-Renault, he did not say a word of any
confession. His story would have been confirmed by M. Dumont and
M. Fontbrune; and finally we should have called to the stand various
other persons, notably the baron de Vaux and Mme. Chapelon. I
speak of Mme. Chapelon, because in her case no sort of doubt is
possible. She gave an interview to ‘L’Aurore,’ which appeared in that
journal on January 25, 1898. That interview concludes thus:
“Do you assert that Captain Lebrun-Renault has always declared
that ex-Captain Dreyfus made him no confession?”
“I assert it on my honor.”
And solemnly Mme. Chapelon added, as we took our departure:
‘I swear it.’
“Would Mme. Chapelon have come here to maintain her declaration
under oath? There is reason to doubt it, since she afterward went to
the office of ‘L’Aurore’ to declare that she was anxious, that threats
had been made to her, and that, yielding to these threats, she would
not testify. Here, indeed, is the account given by M. Philippe Dubois,
which I read from ‘Le Temps’ of February 12, 1898.
M. Dubois was summoned regarding the pretended confessions
of Dreyfus. The judge having refused to put to Major Forzinetti
the question relating to the confessions, M. Labori abandoned
the hearing of all the witnesses who were to testify on this point.
M. Dubois says that he desired to tell the court that a certain
Mme. Chapelon, whose husband was intimately connected with
M. Lebrun-Renault, had declared to one of his collaborators on
‘L’Aurore’ that, not once only, but a hundred times, Captain
Lebrun-Renault had said to his associates that he never had
received any important confidence from the ex-captain.
“L’Aurore” having reproduced these declarations, M. Dubois
received a visit from Mme. Chapelon, who expressed a fear that
she might lose her situation, and that her son might not obtain
the scholarship at Chaptal which he was seeking. Mme.
Chapelon was taken into the office of M. Clemenceau. In his
presence and in the presence of M. Gohier, she confirmed the
remarks that had been attributed to her by “L’Aurore,” and again
expressed her fears, adding that, to save her situation, she would
refuse to speak before the assize court.
“If Mme. Chapelon had not come, we should have heard MM. Dubois
and Gohier, in whose presence she made her declaration. Since
then, an incident has occurred between Major Forzinetti and Captain
Lebrun-Renault, of which you undoubtedly know through the
newspapers, and which seems to me sufficiently serious to make it
indispensable that I recall it to you. The story is told in ‘Le Temps’ of
February 12, 1898, in the following language:
M. Dubois, one of the editors of “L’Aurore,” who was summoned
as a witness in the Zola trial, relates an incident that occurred
yesterday afternoon in the witnesses’ corridor between Major
Forzinetti and Captain Lebrun-Renault. “During the last recess,”
says M. Dubois, “Captain Lebrun-Renault was walking up and
down the room, when, in my presence, Major Forzinetti
approached him and said:
‘A newspaper pretends that you have declared to a deputy,
whose name I do not remember, that you have never said
anything regarding Dreyfus. Now, you know very well that, when,
six months ago, I asked you a precise question, you told me that
Dreyfus had never made any confession to you.’
“Visibly embarrassed, Captain Lebrun-Renault sought to evade
the question, but Major Forzinetti followed him up.
“‘Come, let me refresh your memory. You even added that you
had been very much annoyed by this matter, and that, in
consequence of the newspaper stories, you had been summoned
before the minister of war, and then before the president of the
republic.’
“As Captain Lebrun-Renault still did not answer, but tried to
escape, Major Forzinetti seized his cloak, and shouted:
“‘If you used the language that is attributed to you, you are an
infamous liar.’
“The witnesses of this scene intervened. General Gonse, who
was present, said to M. Forzinetti:
“‘In these things we get too much excited. Come, Major, calm
yourself.’
 “And that was all. Captain Lebrun-Renault went into the room
assigned to the witnesses for the prosecution, and General
Gonse shook hands with the former superintendent of Cherche-
Midi.”
This morning we asked Major Forzinetti ...
“And it is because of this concluding paragraph that I read the
extract.
This morning we asked Major Forzinetti if the story in “L’Aurore”
was true. “Absolutely,” he answered. “I add that there is no trace
of any confession on the part of Dreyfus in the report addressed,
according to custom, by the captain to his corps commander,
concerning his mission as a chief of escort, entrusted to him on
the day of degradation. If there is any report from Captain
Lebrun-Renault in which such confessions are mentioned, it was
made afterward.”
“That, gentlemen, is the point that I desired to establish. If any
confessions exist, or, rather, any record of pretended confessions,
this record was made long afterward. But we may judge of this
matter, not by the declarations of any witnesses whatsoever, but by
the attitude of the government, and by that of the prime minister
himself. You remember, gentlemen, that a few weeks ago certain
members of the Left invited the government to publish these
confessions. Whereupon the government published this singular
note, officially communicated to the newspapers.
Several journals ask the minister of war to publish the
declarations made to Captain Lebrun-Renault by Dreyfus on the
day of the execution of the sentence of the council of war. Were
the government to publish these, it would call in question, and
seem to throw doubt upon, the authority of the thing judged. We
are in a position to know, moreover, that the government thinks it
has no right to make such a communication, for reasons
analogous to those which determined the council of 1894 to order
closed doors.
“This note, gentlemen, was followed by an interpellation. M.
Godefroy Cavaignac insisted that the government should
communicate the document, and the attitude taken by the president
is very interesting. Answering M. Cavaignac, M. Méline said:
We are asked the reasons why the government thinks that it may
not publish the declaration of Captain Lebrun-Renault, received
on the day of the execution of the Dreyfus trial. I admit—and
everyone knows it—that there is such a declaration. It seems to
me that the note of L’Agence Havas, concerning which M.
Cavaignac questions me, said so with sufficient clearness. The
first reason why the government thinks that it should not repeat
this declaration from the tribune is that the chamber, the
parliament, the government, have so far steadily refused—and
rightly, in my view—to discuss the matter. From the first we have
declared that this affair was of a judicial nature ...
“And when an affair is of a judicial nature, you know the pretence
that they make is that it is of a political nature, and that
considerations of national defence do not allow the bringing out of
the light.
From the first we have declared that this affair was of a judicial
nature, and must preserve this character; that the public powers,
in handing it over to parliamentary discussion, would completely
change its nature, and effect a veritable confusion of powers. Yet
to such a discussion M. Cavaignac invites us today. He has
proved it by trying to enter into the substance of the matter, and
by reading certain pamphlets relating to the case. It is not to be
doubted that, if the declaration of Captain Lebrun-Renault were
read from the tribune, it would be discussed, for, everything is
discussed in this case. The discussion once opened, you could
not stop it, and we should soon be involved in a debate
concerning the question of revision. The tendency would be to
encourage the belief that, without this document, the verdict
could not stand. Now we have always proclaimed,—and we
repeat it,—that the verdict is sufficient unto itself. It is the legal
truth. Nobody has a right to discuss it. This said, I give the last
reasons, which are but supplementary to the others, for they are
 not needed. We consider that the publication would involve
serious embarrassments, and the same reasons that determined
the judges to order closed doors forbid us to publish this
document, the significance of which, however, I do not wish to
exaggerate.
“Well, gentlemen, I ask you if we can be content with such reasons.
What is, then, this excessive respect for form? The thing judged, the
thing judged, even illegally judged? Would they thus appeal to form,
if, by a word, by a decisive document, they could close the mouths of
those whom they accuse of agitating the public by a pernicious
campaign? The government, gentlemen, is not bound to respect the
thing judged. It is its duty, when it can, to quiet the public conscience.
Then, if M. Lebrun-Renault’s declaration has any value, what is the
meaning of the government’s reserve? The truth is that it has no
value, and I shall tell you why.
“I do not look at the matter solely from the standpoint of the evidence
that M. Lebrun-Renault would have given, and of the contradictions
with which we should have met him. I take the ground that the
attitude of Dreyfus throughout is a protest against these pretended
confessions. And here pardon me for reading once more. My longest
quotations come in this first part of the argument; and, when we shall
have finished with them, we shall go on faster; but they are
indispensable to enable you to travel this long road, step by step, as
it has been travelled by all who have arrived at our opinion.
“There is a scene, gentlemen, which it is necessary for you to review,
—the degradation. I know none of more grandeur, none that, from a
moral point of view, could have greater influence in a trial like this.
Again from ‘L’Autorité’ I borrow the story,—a journal that entertains a
hostility towards Dreyfus that amounts to hatred. I might read you
also ‘La Libre Parole’s’ version; it is almost the same thing. If you
listen as judges, you will see how things can be distorted by
prejudice and passion. You will see how this man’s proclamations of
his innocence, which tell me that he is innocent, are received as
indications of cynicism, and are met by a clamor of wrath and hatred.
I want you to see that, gentlemen; and do not forget that I read the
story as told by an enemy.
The School clock strikes the first stroke of the hour of nine.
General Darras lifts his sword and utters the command, repeated
from company to company: “Carry arms!”
The troops execute the movement. Absolute silence follows.
Hearts cease to beat, and all eyes are directed toward the right-
hand corner of the square, where Dreyfus has been confined in a
small building. Soon a little group appears. It consists of Alfred
Dreyfus, surrounded by four artillerymen, accompanied by a
lieutenant of the republican guard. Between the forms of the
artillerymen may be seen very clearly the gilt stripes and glittering
sword of the captain, and one may distinguish at a distance the
black sword-knot at the hilt of the sword. Dreyfus walks with a
firm step.
“See how erect the scoundrel is,” they say.
The group starts toward General Darras, in front of whom is the
clerk of the council of war, M. Vallecalle. A clamor goes up from
the crowd.
But the group stops. Again there is silence, this time tragic. The
cannoneers accompanying Dreyfus step back a little; the
condemned man appears, detached from the group. The clerk
salutes the general in military fashion, and, turning to Dreyfus,
reads in a very distinct voice the sentence condemning him to
exile and imprisonment in a fortified spot, and to military
degradation. Then the clerk turns to the general again, and
makes the military salute. Dreyfus has listened in silence. Then is
heard the voice of General Darras, and, although there is a touch
of emotion in it, this phrase is distinctly heard:
“Dreyfus, you are unworthy to bear arms. In the name of the
French people, we degrade you.”
Then Dreyfus is seen to raise both his arms, and, holding his
head high, cry in a loud voice, in which there is not the slightest
trace of tremor:
“I am innocent. I swear that I am innocent. Long live France!”
 “Death to him!” is the immense shout that goes up from the
crowd. But immediately the noise subsides. The adjutant
entrusted with the sad mission of taking off his stripes has laid
hand upon Dreyfus, and already the first stripes, which had been
loosened in advance, have been torn off by him and thrown upon
the ground. Again Dreyfus protests against his condemnation,
and his cries reach the crowd very distinctly.
“On the head of my wife and the heads of my children I swear
that I am innocent. I swear it. Long live France!”
Meanwhile the adjutant has very swiftly torn the bands from his
cap, the stripes from his sleeves, the buttons from his dolman,
the numbers from his collar, and from his pantaloons the red
band which the condemned man has worn since he entered the
Polytechnic school. There remains the sword. The adjutant draws
it, and breaks it across his knee. A snapping sound, and the two
pieces lie with the rest upon the ground. Then the sword-belt is
detached, and the scabbard falls in its turn.
It is finished. These seconds have seemed a century. Never was
there an impression of acuter anguish. And again, clear, without
sign of emotion, the voice of the condemned man rises: “You
degrade an innocent man.”
Now he has to pass before his former comrades and
subordinates. For any other it would have been a frightful torture.
“You are listening to his enemies, gentlemen of the jury.
Dreyfus, however, does not seem embarrassed. He strides over
what were the insignia of his office, which two gendarmes will
presently pick up, and places himself before the four cannoneers,
who lead him before General Darras. The little group, with the
two officers of the republican guard at the head, starts toward the
band placed before the prison vehicle, and begins to march along
the line of troops, at a distance of about a yard. Still Dreyfus
walks with head erect. The public shout “Death to him!” Soon he
nears the railing; the crowd has a better view of him; the shouts
increase. Thousands of lungs call for the death of the wretch,
who shouts again: “I am innocent. Long live France!” The crowd
does not understand, but it has seen Dreyfus turn toward it and
shout. A storm of hisses answers him; then a clamor that
traverses the vast court-yard like a tempest. “Death to him! Death
to him!” And outside there is a terrible swaying of the dark mass,
and the agents have the greatest difficulty in preventing the
people from rushing upon the Military School and taking the
place by storm, in order to do swifter and more rational justice to
the infamy of Dreyfus.
Dreyfus continues his march. He reaches the group of journalists.
“You will say to entire France,” he says, “that I am innocent.”
“Silence, wretch!” answer some, while others shout: “Coward!
Traitor! Judas!”
Under the insult the abject personage straightens up. He casts at
us a glance of ferocious hatred.
“You have no right to insult me.”
A clear voice comes from the group, answering:
“You know well that you are not innocent.”
“Long live France! Dirty Jew!” they shout again, and Dreyfus
goes on his way.
His garments have a pitiful look. In place of the stripes hang long
bits of thread, and the cap has lost its shape. Dreyfus straightens
up again, but he has now passed only half the line of troops, and
it is evident that the continual shouts of the crowd and the various
incidents of the parade are beginning to tell upon him. Though
the head of the wretch is turned insolently toward the troops,
whom he seems to defy, his legs are beginning to weaken, and
his gait seems heavier. The group makes slow progress. Now it
passes before the “Blues.” The tour of the square is finished.
Dreyfus is handed over to the two gendarmes who picked up his
stripes and the remnants of his sword. They put him in the prison
vehicle. The coachman whips up his horses and the wagon starts
off, surrounded by a detachment of republican guards, preceded
 by two with drawn revolvers. The parade has lasted just ten
minutes.
After the parade Dreyfus was taken to the anthropometric
department. The operation of measuring lasted another ten
minutes. From beginning to end the condemned man was
perfectly calm, and maintained an absolute silence. Then several
photographs were taken, after which he was returned to his cell,
where he again protested his innocence.
“Such, gentlemen, was the attitude of Dreyfus. You are to judge of it
for yourselves. It is tragic to reread such a recital after an interval of
three years, and under the present dramatic circumstances, but it
was necessary for you to hear it. And after the degradation? After
and before, rather? Let me read you the letters that he wrote to the
minister of war and to his counsel.
Monsieur le Ministre:
I have received by your orders the visit of Major du Paty de Clam,
to whom I have again declared that I am innocent, and have
never been guilty of the slightest imprudence. I am condemned. I
have no pardon to ask. But, in the name of my honor, which, I
hope, will one day be restored, it is my duty to beg you to
continue your investigations. After I am gone, let the search go
on. That is the only favor that I ask.
“And here is the letter that he wrote to M. Demange on the eve of his
degradation:
January 3, 1895.
Dear Master:
I have just been notified that tomorrow I must undergo the most
terrible affront that can be administered to a soldier. I was
expecting it; I had prepared myself for it; yet the blow is terrible.
In spite of everything, I hoped up to the last moment that some
providential chance would lead to the discovery of the person
really guilty. I shall march to this frightful torture worse than
death, with head high, without blushing. To say that my heart will
not be frightfully tortured when they tear from me the insignia of
 the honor that I have gained by the sweat of my brow would be to
lie. I would have preferred death a thousand times. But you dear
master, have pointed out to me my duty, and I cannot fail in it,
whatever the tortures that await me. You have taught me to hope.
You have persuaded me that an innocent man cannot remain
forever condemned. You have given me faith. Thank you again,
dear master, for all that you have done for an innocent man.
Tomorrow I shall be transferred to La Santé. My happiness would
be great if you could come there to give me the consolation of
your warm and eloquent voice, and revive my broken heart. I rely
always on you, and on all my family, to unravel this frightful
mystery. Wherever I go, your memory will follow me. It will be the
star from which I shall expect my happiness,—that is, my full and
entire rehabilitation. Accept, dear master, the expression of my
respectful sympathy.
A. Dreyfus.
P. S.—I just learn that the degradation will not take place until
Saturday. I send this letter just the same.
“And then this second letter, written also to M. Demange, a few
hours after the degradation:
Prison de la Santé, Saturday.
Dear Master:
I have kept the promise that I had made you. An innocent man, I
have faced the most frightful martyrdom that can be inflicted
upon a soldier. I have felt the contempt of the crowd around me. I
have suffered the most terrible torture imaginable. How much
happier I should have been in the grave! There all would have
been over; nothing would have reached my ears; there would
have been perfect calmness, and all my sufferings would have
been forgotten.
But, alas! duty forbade, as you so clearly showed me. I am forced
to live, forced to undergo martyrdom for long weeks yet, in order
to arrive at a discovery of the truth, at the rehabilitation of my
name. Alas! when will it all be over? When shall I be happy
 again? I rely on you, dear master. I tremble yet at the thought of
all that I have endured today, of all the sufferings that still await
me. Sustain me, dear master, with your warm and eloquent
words. Bring this martyrdom to an end. Let them send me as
soon as possible to my place of exile, where I shall wait patiently,
in company with my wife.
“You see, gentlemen, that he hoped for the company of his wife.
Let the light be shed on this mournful affair, and let my honor be
restored. For the present, that is the only favor that I ask. If
doubts are entertained, if any believe in my innocence, I ask but
one thing,—the society of my wife; then I will wait till all who love
me have found a solution of this dreadful mystery. But let it be
done as quickly as possible, for my strength is nearing its end. It
is really too tragic, too cruel, to be innocent, and yet to be
convicted of a crime so terrible.
Pardon this disconnected style. In my physical and moral
depression, I am not in full possession of my ideas. My heart has
bled too much today. For God’s sake, then, dear master, let my
unmerited torture be abridged. Meantime you will seek, and it is
my firm conviction that you will find. Believe me always your
devoted and unfortunate
A. Dreyfus.
“Well, gentlemen, for all men who have hearts, these letters have
greater weight than all the declarations of a M. Lebrun-Renault.
“There is in the law an article of which there has been no mention
here,—Article 377 of the code of criminal examination. It provides
that in capital cases (and is not this of the nature of a capital case,
when they condemn a man to an exile so absolute that his wife
cannot even see his handwriting?)—it provides that those who are
condemned to death can have until the last moment to make
confession. The article says. ‘If the condemned man wishes to make
a declaration, it shall be received by one of the judges at the place of
execution, in the presence of a clerk.’
“Well, why were not such forms observed, if the confessions were to
have a value?”
The Judge.—“M. Labori, you know that this article applies only to
those who are condemned to death.”
M. Labori.—“Agreed, Monsieur le Président. I have not finished, and
I am glad of your interruption, for you will see that I have an answer.
It is certain, at any rate, that the law has made such a provision in
capital cases, because people condemned to death are the only
ones who cannot come back. As for others, their confessions cannot
be used against them, unless they have been submitted to them and
signed. To these the question can always be put: ‘Do you admit that
you have made confessions?’ Put this question to Dreyfus, and you
will see what reply he will make. He will be asked this question
during the revision that is sure to come, and we shall hear his
answer.
“There has been no case, gentlemen, where greater efforts were
made to obtain confessions from an accused man,—a new proof that
they had no evidence against him, for, when evidence is
overwhelming, confessions are not solicited. But, when the evidence
against a man is made up of things as ridiculous as the scene of the
dictation from the bordereau, they will go to the point of fraud to
extract a confession. I say that, if they had had the good fortune to
obtain serious confessions, they would not have failed to get the
prisoner’s signature thereto. I have in my hands some fragments of
the examination to which Dreyfus was submitted at the last hour
before the prosecution. Well, gentlemen, listen; and listen also any
jurists, any magistrates, who may be here. On October 29, 1894,
Major du Paty de Clam appeared in Dreyfus’s cell, and asked him
these questions.
“Do you admit that what you have just written strangely
resembles the writing of the bordereau?”
Captain Dreyfus.—“Yes, there are similarities in the details; but,
as a whole, there is no resemblance. I declare that I never wrote
it. I now understand very well how this document could have
 given rise to the suspicions of which I am the object. But on this
subject I should like to be heard by the minister of war.”
“On October 30 Major du Paty de Clam appeared again.
“You asked, during your last examination, to be heard by the
minister of war, in order that you might propose to him that you
be sent away for a year, no matter where, under the eye of the
police, while a thorough investigation should be carried on in the
war department.”
Captain Dreyfus.—“Yes.”
Major du Paty de Clam.—“I show you the reports of experts who
declare that the incriminated document is in your hand. What
have you to answer?”
Captain Dreyfus.—“I again declare that I never wrote it.”
“And now, gentlemen, pay all your attention to this:
Major du Paty de Clam.—“The minister is ready to receive you, if
you have anything to say in the direction of confession.”
Captain Dreyfus.—“I tell you again that I am innocent, and that I
have nothing to confess. It is impossible for me within the four
walls of a prison to arrive at an explanation of this frightful
enigma. But, if I may be allowed to work with the police, all my
fortune and all my life shall be devoted to the unravelling of this
mystery.”
“Well, that is what they did to get confessions. I say boldly that they
went to the point of fraud, for they said to this man, after reminding
him of his last words: ‘You ask to be sent away under police
supervision; you wish to explain yourself to the minister; he will
receive you if you confess.’ That meant: ‘Perhaps he will comply with
your request.’ It was a trap. Dreyfus met it by repeating his
declaration: ‘I will not confess; I have nothing to confess, though I
should not see the minister.’ And this is the man against whom they
would produce today confessions said to have been received by
Captain Lebrun-Renault,—confessions whose exactness I dispute.
The president of the cabinet is a prudent man, when he says that
these confessions, if published, would be debated, because
everything is debated in this affair,—and, I add, because everything
in this affair is debatable. Of such material is the edifice constructed
that we have to bear on our shoulders,—an edifice of hypocrisy on
the part of those highest in place, who are the most guilty. Let them
remember that, in history, the most humiliating name on the pillory is
that of Pontius Pilate.”
The usual hour of adjournment having arrived, the conclusion of M.
Labori’s argument was postponed until the following day.

Fifteenth Day—February 23.

The Judge.—“M. Labori, you have the floor to continue your
argument.”
M. Labori.—“I have shown you the value of all the lies scattered
through the trial. I have endeavored also to establish the value of the
famous secret document. Before entering into the heart of the
discussion, it remains for me to speak to you of the pretended proofs
—absolute this time, they declare—of which General de Pellieux and
General de Boisdeffre have spoken at one of the later sessions. No
more importance attaches to this proof than to the rest, as I shall
prove to you irrefutably, though I have not the document before my
eyes. I would not have complained of General de Pellieux’s
sensational declaration, if I had been permitted, not to answer him,
but to question the witnesses. But I was not permitted, and that is the
saddest incident of this trial,—an incident which threatened for a
moment to turn aside the course of the trial by a species of moral
violence practised upon the defence. We asked ourselves what we
should do, and then we said to ourselves that, whatever might
happen, it was necessary to go to the end,—sadly, but courageously.
If we could have asked General de Pellieux and General de
Boisdeffre to explain themselves more in detail, the proof of the
emptiness of their statements would have been made on the spot.
We should have asked the original of the pretended documents.
Now I am going to prove to you that, while one of the two
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