BEFORE I WENT on the air about the eight mob-related buildings and the rest, I wanted to make sure I’d exhausted every possible way to get more information for this story.
That’s what I was doing with Maggie. I’d asked her to do more research on the three key people who appeared to be involved: Victor Morelli, Terri Hartwell, and Chad Enright.
Morelli was the most obvious target because I now knew he was the silent owner of the buildings. I wasn’t sure exactly what roles Hartwell or Enright might have in this—but there was certainly enough to suspect Morelli could be paying off powerful politicians, under the guise of campaign contributions, to look the other way when it came to buildings owned by Morelli and others.
I also didn’t know how Thomas Wincott fit into the whole payoff picture, but I put Wincott aside for now. He was not the owner of the eight buildings we were looking at. Although he did seem to be part of the bigger problem of wealthy landlords who could be getting special favors for paying off powerful political figures in the city.
For now, though, I was going to focus on the eight Morelli-owned buildings that I had visited.
Maggie started by telling me what she’d found out about Morelli.
“Victor Morelli has been the head of one of New York City’s biggest crime families since the nineties. He began moving up in the ranks soon after John Gotti got convicted of murder and sent to prison for life. That’s the thing about mob bosses. You get rid of one, another comes along to take his place.
“Morelli is smart and tough and brutal. He’s lasted a long time because of that. He ostensibly runs a sanitation company, a construction business, and manages real estate interests as a legitimate businessman. But he makes his real money from loansharking, extortion, and other illegal activities run by his men.
“He’s been compared to Gotti because of the Teflon Don thing. Like Gotti was for a long time, Morelli never seems to get convicted of any crime. The charges always go away or he beats the rap in court. One of the reasons for that might be because Morelli plays the role of the legitimate businessman so well. Goes to social events and art galleries and Broadway openings. Raises money for charities and helps people in his Brooklyn neighborhood, where’s he’s beloved by many people.
“But the bottom line is he’s a stone-cold killer. And reputed to have a terrible temper. Especially if he believes anyone has betrayed him or double-crossed him in any possible manner.
“There’s a lot of stories about this. One of his top mob capos was found dead in the East River with—well, his genitals—missing. At first, authorities thought it was a rival mob hit. But now they believe Morelli did it himself because the guy had been showing an interest in Morelli’s wife. There was a neighbor in Brooklyn who complained to the police that the fireworks in Morelli’s backyard were too loud one Fourth of July. That neighbor mysteriously disappeared afterward. And a few years ago, a cop was found dead in his car in the Bronx, shot in the mouth with his own gun. It was ruled a suicide, but there are people who think that the cop was taking payoffs from Morelli—and he tried to renege on the deal or squeeze more money out of him. No question about it, Morelli is a violent man if anyone crosses him.”
“Nice guy,” I muttered.
“Morelli’s top henchman is a mobster named Michael Grasso. Or Michael—The Enforcer—Grasso, as he’s known in underworld circles. He’s supposed to carry out most of the heavy-duty violent work for Morelli.”
She showed me a picture of Grasso on her laptop computer screen. I recognized him right away. He was the same man with the gravelly voice that I’d met the first night outside the Manhattan building where the kinky BDSM dungeon was being operated. The same man who’d given me the warning to forget about this story. And the same man who I was pretty sure gave me the follow-up warning in the gravelly voice on the phone.
Should I be worried about him and the Morelli temper if I named Morelli on the air as the owner of the buildings? Not really, I decided. I knew the mob didn’t normally come after journalists. Besides, what was I going to do? Drop the story because I was afraid of Victor Morelli. That wasn’t going to happen.
“Speaking of bad guys, we come now to Chad Olsen Enright,” Maggie was saying. “Everyone I talked to agrees with you he’s a prick. But an extremely successful one so far. He started out as a producer on Terri Hartwell’s radio show, helped make her a star there, and got promoted to a top aide since she ran for and won the district attorney’s job. He is supposed to be insufferable, but he’s gotten away with it by staying so close to Hartwell. At least for now.”
“What do you mean?”
“The word in political circles is there’s going to be a shakeup in Hartwell’s office soon. She’s gearing up for a run at the mayor’s office, as you know. Rumor is she will bring in a big political operative to run her mayor campaign—instead of giving Enright the job. He could even be out in the shakeup. So maybe she isn’t quite as much of a big Chad Enright fan as everyone has always thought.”
I thought about the conversation between Hartwell and myself that day in her office. The way she overruled Enright and agreed to see me after he said no. The way she made fun of him and his pomposity a bit during our conversation. I remembered, too, the pictures in Enright’s office of him with the celebrities and the fancy cars and the beautiful women on his arm. Chad Enright had been living the good life because of his relationship with Terri Hartwell. Maybe that was going to end soon.
“Does Enright know about the shakeup coming in Hartwell’s office for the campaign?” I asked.
“If I heard about it, Enright must have some inkling, too.”
“He can’t be very happy about that.”
“You think?” Maggie laughed.
As for Hartwell herself, pretty much everything Maggie found out was what I already knew about her. Happily married, mother of two teenagers, former crusading lawyer, former popular radio show host, now a successful political figure running the Manhattan DA’s office with her eye on the mayor’s job. She’d spent her life waging war one way or another against crime, special interests, and corruption without a hint of any scandal.
“There’s got to be something more going on,” I said.
“With who?”
“Morelli. Enright. Hartwell. All of them.”
“Well, if there is, I sure don’t know what it is.”
“Maybe I’ll try one more thing. Some old-school journalism.”
“Old-school journalism?”
“A stakeout,” I said.