CHAPTER 20

AS DIPAOLO BEGRUDGINGLY FUMBLED WITH VARIOUS COMPARTMENTS of Caesar Montevecchio’s spanking new golf bag, he suddenly became aware there were more than tees and balls in one neatly zippered storage area. Inside that compartment was a small, innocuous, brown paper sack. In it was another bag, a plastic one; and inside the little plastic bag was pure, snow-white powder. Dominick DiPaolo, who had formerly worked the narc beat, held his breath. Please don’t let this be bleached flour, he prayed silently as he field-tested the powder. Please just let all this routine drudgery pay off.

The cop exhaled, expelling his breath in one satisfying whoosh. The field-test confirmed the contents of the plastic bag: Cocaine. One full pound, thank you. Yes! A cop’s prayers had been answered. DiPaolo allowed himself a brief smile. That and a single thought: Goodbye, Caesar.

At the time DiPaolo collared Montevecchio on the burglary job with “Fat Sam,” Caesar was still serving an 18-month probationary sentence on a reduced charge of the unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. The charge stemmed from an arrest a year earlier in mid-1983 when Montevecchio was seen getting out of a car stolen from the Hammermill Paper Company’s massive parking lot along Erie’s lower eastside. There was no doubt the car was being used by Montevecchio and his cronies, perhaps “Fat Sam,” DiPaolo thought, for burglaries and home-invasion robberies.

Caesar Montevecchio’s lawyer, however, with help from a cooperative Erie County judge, had the stolen car felony count reduced to unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, a misdemeanor offense. The man once claiming he would make John Dillinger look like a choir boy drew only a probationary sentence. But now, with these new burglary charges – and especially the cocaine find – DiPaolo had enough on Caesar to force the judge to revoke Montevecchio’s probation and resentence him to a full 22 months in jail on the unauthorized vehicular use alone!

It was indeed the cop’s most fervent dream! DiPaolo would have Montevecchio under wraps for nearly two years! What’s more, the detective, through prosecutors, insisted that bail-bond be set at $100,000 cash, further ensuring Caesar would be kept on ice for the duration. Even if the Dovishaw murder trail grew colder, Caesar was still behind bars. And there, DiPaolo would have ample opportunity to work on him.

Leonard Ambrose III, Esquire. Attorney Ambrose, a nattily, impeccably-dressed criminal lawyer with a taste for the finest suits, shirts and ties, shoes, had a reputation for taking on the biggest and most publicity-worthy cases, including some with suspected links to organized crime. DiPaolo had known Lenny Ambrose since their grade school days at Sacred Heart. In his early days as a lawyer, Ambrose had enjoyed a modicum of success that enhanced his reputation throughout the1970s and beyond. Tall, with slicked-back inky black hair and a wide, engaging smile, Ambrose could have been a network TV anchorman in another life. During his earlier years in the practice of law, Ambrose was an intense student of courtroom demeanor and behavior. It was during those early years, with many major cases in Erie County Court, observers could find young Attorney Ambrose sitting in one of the rear rows of the spectator section, intently taking in the work of various district attorneys and their assistants, as well as the county’s best criminal defense lawyers. Ambrose also studied judicial rulings and seemed to have kept a book on the local judges. He knew how far he could go with each jurist before exhausting their patience.

Many attorneys knew that in Erie, Pennsylvania, practicing criminal law wasn’t likely to get them rich. Yet Ambrose made an art of such a law practice and became a favorite of the local underworld, as well as garden variety criminals who made the big-time with their capital offenses. Ambrose also knew how to work the media well. Among the regular newspaper and television reporters covering the courthouse, he was a favorite, always highly-quotable for reporters in need, always prepared for an interview with print or broadcast journalists. Ambrose, by the 1980s, was perhaps Erie’s best-known criminal defense lawyer.

Ambrose succeeded in practicing criminal law, easily surpassing many of his contemporaries. DiPaolo never forgot that early in Ambrose’s career he used what the cop described as a legal technicality over a questionable, or defective search warrant to win acquittal for two young men who had been charged by Cleveland, Ohio, police in a major cocaine case. Ambrose also represented reputed wacko Marjorie Diehl, who killed her live-in boyfriend. The attorney, employing the relatively new defense of domestic violence, won her an acquittal. Having had run-ins with Diehl over the years on assorted narcotics investigations, DiPaolo believed that the domestic violence defense in the murder case appeared to have been a sham. “She’ll kill again,” DiPaolo thought at the time. She did.

Years later, Marjorie Diehl was charged with slicing apart the body of her latest boyfriend and sticking the pieces in the freezer. She was also charged in another capital crime, Erie’s nationally-known “Pizza Bomber” case. She wouldn’t skate this time, but her mental capacity is still being questioned.

DiPaolo recalls a memorable case that appeared to highlight Ambrose’s sense of self-confidence. It was 1974 while Ambrose represented a major heroin dealer, James Thomas Sr., also known as “Fizz.” Once the case got to court, Erie County District Attorney R. Gordon Kennedy, who only several months later would tragically die of an insidious, fast-growing stomach cancer, decided to personally prosecute Fizz Thomas. After Ambrose’s barrage of pre-trial motions were disposed of by President Judge Edward Carney and Judges Lindley McClelland and Fred Anthony, a jury was finally selected February 13.

Testimony began and ended the next day. After the jury began deliberations, DiPaolo and his partner, Detective David Bagnoni, waited in the DA’s office with Kennedy for the verdict. Minutes later, DiPaolo recalls as though it were yesterday, a beaming Leonard Ambrose entered the office, looked at DiPaolo, and said, “No hard feelings? I have to represent this guy like he was my father.”

“Yeah, sure. Okay, Lenny. You do what you have to do,” the cop shrugged.

Ambrose turned to Kennedy with a smile. “What do you think, Gordon? I kicked your ass pretty good, you have to admit!”

“Pardon me?” Kennedy shot back.

“Well, you tell me,” Ambrose replied. “How do you think I did?”

Kennedy studied Ambrose coldly, then smiled and said, “Let me tell you something. If I were you I would make a citizen’s arrest on the dean of my law school and have him charged with theft, and then see if you can get your father’s money back as they didn’t teach you anything there.” After a moment of silence, a roar erupted from the DA’s staff while Ambrose left.

The wait for the jury didn’t take long. The panel took less than an hour to convict Fizz on all charges. As the jury filed out of the courtroom, Kennedy smiled at Ambrose, “They must not have caught the ass-kicking you gave me.” Ambrose later appealed the guilty verdict all the way to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. And after all the appeals were denied, his client was sentenced by Judge Anthony to serve 10-to-20 years in a state penitentiary.

Now, Ambrose’s star client was Caesar Montevecchio. Montevecchio’s brother, Albert, owned a successful electronics business in Rochester, New York, so money was available for Caesar’s legal bills.

As a sub-plot to the Dovishaw case, the battle of wits was on. It was as much between Dom DiPaolo and Len Ambrose as it was between the cop and Montevecchio.

Along with Montevecchio, DiPaolo burned up the arrest books with the collaring of nine others as a result of the snitching “Fat Sam” Esper. Booked and charged with burglaries and home invasion robberies were many of Detective Sergeant Dominick DiPaolo’s usual suspects. But it was Chuckie “The Hawk” Serafini who DiPaolo took particular satisfaction in collaring. DiPaolo, Gunter and Lewandowski waited late one night at West 16th and Cherry Streets outside the Circolo Nazionale Club, anglicized to “National Club,” and with great fanfare dragged Serafini from his car.

Not that they intentionally roughed him up, but Serafini would later claim they “beat the crap out of me” as the suspect, the cops reported, lost bowel and bladder control during what appeared to be the use of force against a suspect officers said somewhat resisted arrest.

Serafini, like the others arrested on April 10, 1987, was brought in front of Erie County Judge William E. Pfadt for arraignment. Local Attorney Lee Fuller, who DiPaolo had on surveillance tapes attending Barbute and poker games with “the boys,” represented Serafini. Prior to the setting of bail-bond, Fuller asked Judge Pfadt to take notice of his client’s face – cuts, bruises, dried blood.

“Yes, I can see it,” the judge, a former prosecutor said. “Now what?”

Fuller said, “My client did not look like that prior to his arrest.”

“Okay, Mr. Fuller. $100,000 cash bond. Next case,” Pfadt said. Later that month, Pfadt refused to lower Serafini’s bond.

Susan DeSantis DeMichele Murosky was next before the judge. She had no attorney to represent her. But after she told Judge Pfadt that she worked for Lou Tullio at City Hall, he released her on her own recognizance. DiPaolo at once became suspicious. She was the daughter of a prominent Erie newspaper sports editor, the late Frank DeSantis, and DiPaolo believed phone calls had been made prior to her arraignment.

DeSantis DeMichele Murosky, DiPaolo thought, was streetwise at an early age, part of a large family growing up in Erie’s “Little Italy.” Some of her siblings were familiar with the inside of jail cells. Susan started off for a year in a correctional facility for girls, DiPaolo recalls. After working various jobs, including one in downtown Erie’s Richford Hotel Velvet Room, she took her talents to Las Vegas where she became involved with the heavy hitters of the strip. Returning to Erie, Susan hooked up with mob hit man Ray Ferritto. She appeared to live the high life for a time, but was arrested after “Fat Sam” Esper stooled on her and one of her brothers. Susan was the only defendant of the six released on her own recognizance. Later, she claimed in her book she met with the judge after her arraignment in the privacy of his chambers and told him not to worry, that she took his name out of her black book. Judges, politicians, attorneys, physicians, all supposedly were inscribed in said black book, she claimed.

By the time her preliminary hearing rolled around, “Fat Sam” had forgotten his lines, claiming it wasn’t Susan who gave up the house burglary – the home of a woman Susan was working for at the Richford – but maybe it was her sister; he was confused, he said. The charge against Susan was dismissed. After the hearing, DiPaolo was all over Esper, reminding him the deal was for him to testify truthfully – and that if he did not, there was no deal and “Fat Sam” would spend the rest of his life rotting in the slammer.

“Hey, she was just a little player and I felt bad seeing her in court,” Esper said. “She always treated me really good when I called her – you know what I mean. And anyway, her brother, Billy, went down. I told the truth on him.”

“I’ll determine who the little players are!” DiPaolo roared. “Do this one more time and you’re gone.”

“I just wanted to help out Susan, the only reason I said it was her sister, Patty, was because I know she’s going away on a cocaine charge.”

DiPaolo yelled at his witness: “You lied on the stand! You keep doing that to help out your friends after you gave them up and you will do more time than anyone else.” DiPaolo later said, “This was Fat Sam’s one and only fuck-up.” (Several months later, Esper was proven correct on his earlier assumption. Susan’s sister, Patty DeSantis Young, was sentenced to serve two years in a federal penitentiary for dealing cocaine.)

After Ferritto died, much of Susan’s meal ticket was gone. Freddy Tomassi, aka Fred Thomas, an 88-year-old well-known Erie figure, had operated restaurants, and owned many apartment complexes. Freddy’s wife had died years earlier, and his mind was deteriorating. DeSantis began as his caregiver/nurse, then Fred married her. So as not to let his grown children know, the couple traveled to Meadville, just south of Erie in Crawford County, to obtain their marriage license. Only a year after such wedded bliss began, Fred passed away. Just before he died, according to his family, his second wife attempted to have him change his will, signing over significant assets of wealth – which were to go to his daughter and son, Dana Tomassi and Dr. Rick Tomassi, respectively – to her. But the family protested in court and it was determined Freddy simply was not of sound mind to do so. Then the Tomassi family approached the late District Attorney Brad Foulk, asking that she be charged. Foulk declined, prompting the always suspicious DiPaolo to question that decision.

Susan DeSantis-DeMichele-Murosky-Ferritto-Tomassi again sought a pay day. She authored her own book about mob hit man husband Ferritto. The section about the “Bolo” Dovishaw hit, DiPaolo knew, was pure fantasy. If it’s a pay day she wanted, DiPaolo suggested, she’d have more luck with Pennsylvania Powerball.

Meanwhile, in the burglary case at hand, Serafini entered into a deal with the Attorney General, who allowed the defendant to plead no contest to a reduced charge of theft by deception prior to jury selection for his trial. Serafini caught only four years of probation, the plea and sentence particularly annoying DiPaolo.

However, it was Attorney Leonard Ambrose’s efforts in his defense of Caesar Montevecchio that especially aggravated the Erie police detective sergeant. In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the criminal code requires suspects be brought to a trial within 180 days of arrest, the so-called speedy trial rule. Whether or not it was because of his full calendar, Ambrose was known for delaying. In his representation of Caesar Montevecchio, Ambrose used his legal ability to delay whenever he could, DiPaolo believed.

The criminal lawyer sought evidence and alleged rules violation suppression hearings at the pre-trial level, first claiming illegal arrest, then entrapment, then illegal search, then failure to secure probable cause as well as other issues. As these tactics continued, the Erie County District Attorney’s office was required to sign continuances under Commonwealth Rule 1100, the state law designed to preserve the 180-day limit. Ambrose was also required to sign-off on the continuances, so as to keep the case from being dismissed for not going to trial within the 180 days.

In January 1985, Ambrose petitioned the court to dismiss the charges against Montevecchio, allegedly because the District Attorney violated the 180-day rule. The 180 days, Ambrose argued, had expired without Montevecchio having been brought to trial. The district attorney objected. A hearing was scheduled. During the hearing, Ambrose successfully demonstrated that after the previous appeal of the evidence, the subject of the DA’s objection, no Rule 1100 had been issued.

As a result, at 12:01 a.m. on January 23, 1985, two years after Frank “Bolo” Dovishaw’s murder, Caesar Montevecchio was released from jail. Not only was Caesar free, but he was now also off probation as well. Assistant District Attorney Tim Lucas told DiPaolo he believed Judge Richard Nygaard was wrong in dismissing the charges and that he would appeal at once, believing the higher courts would reinstate them. In addition, Lucas said that when he told District Attorney Michael Veshecco he was appealing, Veshecco said he was wasting his time. The first appeal was to Nygaard, who denied it. Lucas said Veshecco responded, “What did I tell you.” Lucas appealed to the Pennsylvania Superior Court.

DiPaolo, upset with Veshecco, thought back to when “Fat Sam” Esper first began snitching. One Saturday morning, DiPaolo, along with Assistant DA’s Shad Connelly and Frank Scutella, arranged to have Esper meet with Veshecco. The plan was to get Esper to give Veshecco information about Montevecchio.

When DiPaolo brought Esper into Veshecco’s office, Esper sat and said, “Good morning.” To which Veshecco said, “Go ahead, Fatso . . . talk.”

DiPaolo stared hard at Veshecco and said, “What the fuck are you doing?” Veshecco, according to DiPaolo’s recollection, remained silent.

Esper shrugged, “Fuck him,” and walked out. From that date in 1984, DiPaolo never again spoke to his former good friend Veshecco. Meanwhile, ADAs Connelly and Frank Scutella later told DiPaolo that Veshecco would not believe anything Esper would say. Turned out Veshecco was wrong about Esper.

Dom DiPaolo was frustrated. “Fat Sam” Esper was still under protective custody of the Erie Police, costing taxpayers thousands of dollars a month. Thousands more had been spent attempting to prosecute Caesar Montevecchio. A grand jury had been convened. Ten others who were arrested and charged with various crimes associated with Montevecchio had pleaded guilty and were sentenced to time in prison. And Caesar had gone home!

DiPaolo had sent all the “little” players to prison. But the big fish had swum away without homicide charges being filed. And now DiPaolo knew he was no closer to solving Frank “Bolo” Dovishaw’s murder than he had been two years earlier.

ADA Tim Lucas, who had been working with DiPaolo on this case from Day One, told DiPaolo, “I know this fucks up your game plan. But believe me, Nygaard fucked up and Lenny got away with one for now, but I am appealing this to the Superior Court and I know it will come back. Look what the Superior Court did on the Gemelli case. Nygaard threw out all the gun charges, but on appeal all were reinstated.” Former Erie Police Chief Sam Gemelli had been charged with 29 counts of theft, but Nygaard had dismissed them all. But, as Lucas said, they came back. “Nygaard gets a little nervous with these high profile cases,” Lucas said. “Don’t worry, these cases will be back, too.”

But now what? DiPaolo thought. The answer again came from unexpected quarters.

This time, DiPaolo’s savior was a young woman. It was Judith Guldenborth, an eager lawyer with impressive credentials who was recently named Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western Pennsylvania District of Pennsylvania in Erie.

Just about the time Guldenborth received her appointment to the Erie office in the old U.S. Courthouse on Perry Square in the heart of downtown Erie, DiPaolo found himself pulling at straws to get to Montevecchio and resolution of the Dovishaw murder case. During his initial meeting with the new assistant U.S. Attorney, DiPaolo laid out the facts, then asked her to research the law and the cocaine case against Montevecchio. Would such a case fall under federal jurisdiction? And, if so, would she prosecute? DiPaolo’s premise, as explained to the new federal prosecutor, was that ingredients for Caesar’s pound of cocaine were transported across state lines. Could those facts alone place the case under federal jurisdiction? It’s big-time coke, the cop figured. Why wouldn’t the feds want it?

Guldenborth was intrigued. Yes, she would research the case. But she made no commitment to prosecute. But she had given DiPaolo hope when other avenues of hope were diminishing.

While the Feds were deciding whether to prosecute Caesar’s cocaine case, DiPaolo’s “Bolo” Dovishaw murder investigation again was interrupted. This time the delay came from a few of Caesar Montevecchio’s best pals and wannabe wise guys. This delay, however, would have positive results on many fronts. Including the “Bolo” investigation. And especially Caesar Montevecchio. And it would come as no surprise to DiPaolo that the Scutellas were involved, heavily involved.