In 2003 the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office charged Sammy "the Bull" Gravano with the murder of NYPD Detective Peter Calabro.  Their main—and apparently only—witness was Richard Kuklinski who confessed to his participation in the murder and accepted another life sentence on top of his existing sentence.  The Iceman was all smiles as the judge passed sentence on him, seemingly tickled to have returned to the courthouse where he was tried and convicted in 1988.

Sammy Gravano was taken from an Arizona prison, where he was already serving a long sentence for drug trafficking, and brought to New Jersey to face charges.  Gravano had previously cooperated with the government in their case against the late Gambino boss John Gotti.  As part of his deal with the government, Gravano had confessed to 19 gangland slayings.  But Bergen County officials felt that he had deliberately left out the cop killing from his resume because he feared it would have jeopardized the light sentence he received in exchange for his testimony against Gotti.

chapter continues

advertisement

So was Gravano hiding his 20^th murder, or was Kuklinski telling tall tales again?

Kuklinski belonged to an informal group of inmates at Trenton State Prison called the Breakfast Club.  They met everyday for breakfast.  (Rumor had it that Thursdays were their favorite day because that was French toast day.)   One of the members of this group was Robert "Cabert" Bisaccia, head of the Gambino family's New Jersey faction, who had been in prison with Kuklinski for over 10 years.  Bisaccia has been serving a life sentence for a murder he committed at the behest of his boss, John Gotti.  Bisaccia was reputed to be Gotti's go-to guy in the Garden State.  At Bisaccia's trial, Sammy Gravano had provided condemning testimony.

Robert Bisaccia

If it turned out that Gravano had lied to prosecutors about the number of murders he had committed, that would be grounds for granting Bisaccia a new trial.  Enter the Iceman.  Kuklinski knew he wasn't getting out of prison, but he could do a good turn for his old coffee-klatsch buddy by accusing Gravano of the Calabro murder and paving the way for a new trial for Bisaccia, one that just might set him free.

But Kuklinski never overlooked an opportunity to make a buck.    When Gravano's attorney, Anthony Ricco, visited Kuklinski in prison in April 2005, Kuklinski picked up a pen and jotted something down on Ricco's legal pad.  Ricco turned the pad around and saw "200,000" in Kuklinski's handwriting.  The attorney was astonished.  The Iceman was clearly indicating that for a price he'd refuse to testify against Gravano.  Seeing that Ricco wasn't about to even consider such an outrageous request, Kuklinski quickly ripped off the page and ate it.  But Ricco kept the pad, and later FBI lab techs had no problem showing the impression of Kuklinski's handwriting on the top sheets.

Interestingly, when Kuklinski told the story to author Philip Carlo, he turned it around and claimed that "Ricco offered him two hundred thousand dollars not to testify against Gravano."

email print