75 roses for Galante

Press, 18 July 1979, Page 8

75 roses for Galante

NZPA-Reuter New York The murdered Mafia leader, Carmine Galante, has been buried just a stone’s throw from the grave of the top mobster whose power he aspired to, and may have been killed for trying to get. Galante’s grave in New York’s St John’s cemetery is near that of Vito Genovese, the Mafia’s “capo di tutti capi” (boss of all bosses) who died in 1969 — peacefully, in prison. The Galante burial lasted seven minutes — just enough time for 75 mourners to each toss a rose on the solid bronze coffin adorned with a heart-shaped rosary, and for a priest to ask God to welcome the 69-year-old mobster. The priest, Father Felician Napoli, said: “Lord God . . . bless this grave and send your angel to watch it. Forgive the sins of our brother. 1 ’ There had been no church service because the New York Roman Catholic Archdiocese refused to grant Galante either a Mass or a church service because of “the scandal it would create.” Police sources say no wellknown gangland figure attended the burial, in contrast to the funerals of other Mafia mobsters. As Galante was being buried, reports circulated that a Mafia council of “dons,” the group that allegedly runs the five families of New York, had decided on Galante’s murder because he tried to reach into the operations of the family that rules crime in Atlantic City. According to some detectives, Galante had demanded a 50 per cent cut into the profitable loan and prostitution operations run by the Bruno family in the New Jersey casino gambling mecca.

His demand proved too much for the underworld, the detectives say, adding that this was the reason for his death.

But other police sources say it may take weeks for a reliable report of the reasons for Galante’s murder in a Brooklyn restaurant to emerge.

' “Nobody wants to talk just now,” said one police source.

Although newspapers dubbed Galante the mob’s “capo di tutti capi,” police sources say that he never gained that degree of power, and may have been killed for trying to get it. Galante's main concern was narcotics — a business that other mob leaders now tend to avoid.