Word: valachi
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...VALACHI PAPERS by Peter Maas. 285 pages. Putnam...
Died. Thomas Gaetano Luchese, 67, alias "Three-Finger Brown" (he lost his right forefinger in an accident), shadowy underworld figure named in 1963 by Gangland Songbird Joe Valachi as a ranking dope racketeer and presumed successor to Frank Costello as the Mafia's New York political fix-it man, a dapper native of Sicily whose only prison time, despite two murder arrests, was a short term on a 1922 stolen-car rap, all the while fiercely maintaining that his luxurious home and six-figure income was the product of honest hard work in his Seventh Avenue garment factories; after...
Actually, U.S. lawmen have not made a single major arrest as a result of Valachi's reminiscences, oral or written, though federal officials still maintain that his evidence is invaluable. It certainly...
These days, Joe, 62, has his stocking filled without ever hanging it. For, unlike most axed network heroes, he has a lifetime contract. Under a life sentence for killing a fellow inmate at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary in 1962, Valachi now resides in a fourth-floor, 25-ft. by 50-ft. chamber known as "the penthouse," a District of Columbia jail cell that boasts a well-stocked refrigerator, television, and-as a chastening reminder of the 32 murders in which the Justice Department estimates he took part-an electric hot plate. The Government feels obliged to protect Valachi because...
...Cosa Nostra boys, who would like to put a big dent in Joe, so far have had to be content with advertising a $100,000 price on his head. That price may go higher. Last week the Justice Department announced that it had offered Valachi's memoirs, entitled The Real Thing, to a dozen U.S. and European publishers. Valachi was asked to write his life's story on the chance that he might recall some forgotten tidbits of information. No luck. Rather than junk the monumental tome, federal officials decided to waive the rule against federal prisoners writing...