CHAPTER 30

THE NEXT DAY, JANUARY 4, 1983, DAWNED JUST AS COLD AND GLOOMY as the previous day, the day of Dovishaw’s last meatball sub.

“I called Niggsy at his place about noon,” Montevecchio disclosed to DiPaolo. “All he said was, ‘I have something for you. Stop over.’”

“Did you meet with him?” DiPaolo asked.

“Yeah, but first I called Dorler in Ohio. I told him I’d meet him at that pancake house along Interstate 90, you know the one, ‘Mr. C’s’ or something like that. It’s right off the Ashtabula and Warren exit.”

“What was that all about?”

“Well, I was thinkin’ that after I met with Niggsy, I’d have something for Dorler. You know, get it over with so there would be no more loose ends for us to tie up,” as he would later say in court.

Arnone’s Italian import business at the corner of West 18th and Cherry Streets was just down 18th Street from the popular Sons of Italy Club and the National Club at West 17th and Cherry, with a favorite Italian funeral home, St. George, close by, as well as the Calabrese, LaNuova Aurora and Knights of St. George Clubs and many other businesses reflecting Westside Erie’s Italian ethnicity and culture. When Montevecchio arrived at the importing business shortly after noon, a nervous Anthony “Niggsy” Arnone quickly ushered Caesar to a long-vacant second floor apartment in the century-old brick and frame building, Montevecchio said.

“When we get up there, he tells me there is much less than he had thought there would be in Bolo’s safe-deposit boxes,” Montevecchio said. “Of course, that wasn’t what the fuck I wanted to hear.”

“Then what?”

“Then he hands me a brown paper bag filled with cash, a lot of cash. He says, ‘That’s for the shooter. Twenty grand. Just like we agreed to. I’ll get the rest to you later. Fuck, this has already cost me thirty seven thousand dollars!’”

Arnone, fidgeting uncharacteristically according to Caesar, also handed over to Montevecchio, Dovishaw’s bank safe-deposit box keys and issued a new set of instructions.

“He says, ‘Put the fuckin’ keys back into Bolo’s car, wherever the hell you have it stashed.’ I still wanted to know more, y’know, like when I’d get the rest of the money. But he just wanted everything to go away. Including me.”

Fascinating how these wannabe big shots acted when they were scared, DiPaolo thought to himself, but decided against commenting to the talkative Montevecchio.

“So Niggsy tells me to leave. He says, ‘Just get the hell out of here. I’m fuckin’ nervous enough as it is already. Just leave, plant the keys in the car, and we’ll talk later.’ So, I left. With the money and the keys.”

With dry road conditions, the drive west along Interstate 90 to Mr. C’s Pancake House, strategically situated almost exactly halfway between Erie and Cleveland, took Montevecchio slightly less than an hour. The road conditions were excellent for the dead of winter, so Montevecchio made good time, even though he was cognizant about speeding. It would make no sense to get stopped and ticketed by either Pennsylvania or Ohio state troopers, he knew. The restaurant itself was located directly off the exit ramp. It had long been a popular roadside eatery for locals and travelers alike, including long-haul truckers. The prices were cheap enough and the food relatively good. Especially popular was the all-day breakfast fare.

“Both of them were already there I when I pulled in,” Caesar Montevecchio told DiPaolo.

“Both?” DiPaolo asked for clarity.

“Yeah, the both of ’em. You know, Bob Dorler and Billy Bourjaily.”

“Hmmm, were you surprised that Bourjaily was with Dorler at the time?”

“Not really. Actually, I kinda expected it.”

“What happened next?”

“I gave the bag of money to Dorler. He just nodded. But then I gave him the safe-deposit box keys. I told him he needed to get the keys back into Bolo’s car, you know, so it wouldn’t look like anything was missing when the car was eventually found by the cops or whoever.” Montevecchio paused, took a deep breath and became somewhat pensive.

After a minute, maybe two, DiPaolo again prodded, “So, okay, how did Dorler respond to that?”

“Not very well. At first he just flat out fucking refused to do it. He says, ‘You want the keys back in the car, then you put the keys in the car. No way in fuckin’ hell I’m driving all the way back into Erie. The car’s at the Holiday Inn. The one off I-90. You fucking do it.’”

Now it was DiPaolo’s turn to pause for a moment. “So how’d you convince him to change his mind?” the Erie detective finally asked.

“I told him to go fuck himself. I was yelling at him. I shouted, ‘Fuck you! That’s part of the deal, man. You know I can’t go anywhere near that goddamned car! Are you outta your fuckin’ mind?’”

“So Dorler took the keys after all? Reluctantly?”

“Yeah, I guess you could probably say that. Reluctantly. He wasn’t at all happy, but he took them and he agreed to get them into Bolo’s car.” Without there being much left to be said, the three men parted company, Montevecchio said.

Prior to driving to meet Dorler and Bourjaily at “Mr. C.’s” restaurant, Montevecchio told the detective, he had made a recognizance drive by the Holiday Inn parking lot where Bolo Dovishaw’s car had been abandoned just the night before.

“There was nothing there. No activity. Nothing,” he said. “Just an occasional car coming or going.”

Then, once again, on Caesar Montevecchio’s return drive back to Erie from the Ohio pancake house, he also felt compelled to cruise past the hotel parking lot. “Still quiet. Nothing,” he told the cop.

But later, about 11 p.m., while driving past the intersection of Greengarden Road and West 21st Street, a location from which Montevecchio could easily observe Frank “Bolo” Dovishaw’s home, the scene was now anything but tranquil.

“It scared the shit outta me,” Montevecchio said. “There were fuckin’ cop cars everywhere!”

The next day, Wednesday, January 5, 1983, was again cold, but now snowy. As Montevecchio continued his account of the days immediately following Frank “Bolo” Dovishaw’s murder, Caesar said the snow didn’t stop him from driving to Arnone’s import business and warehouse in Little Italy.

“When I walked into his office, I could see right away that Niggsy was not only worried, but now he was clearly upset. Apparently, he had a major problem at the bank where Bolo had his safe deposit boxes.”

“Yeah? What kind of a problem would that be?” DiPaolo wanted to know. Although the detective was already very familiar with some parts of Montevecchio’s account, others he was now hearing for the first time.

“He said that when he walked into the bank, there were too many people around. He got scared and left. Then later, when he came back to the bank again, he said there were still way too many customers around. So he says he took out a loan to ‘make it look good,’ you know, to give him some kind of a legitimate reason for being there at the bank, but the dumb fuck had to sign his name for the loan. I mean, how fuckin’ stupid can you be?”

During their conversation, Montevecchio said, as Niggsy discussed his contact at the bank, Caesar said Arnone mentioned “she” at least several times. Now DiPaolo was getting information that could lead to a game of connect the dots as he believed the noose was beginning to tighten on Niggsy Arnone. Yet still nonchalant, DiPaolo asked, “Yeah? So who’s the woman?”

“Like I told you at first, I don’t know, at least not for sure. Arnone never told me or anyone else who it was. But I’m thinking it had to be Theresa. Theresa Mastrostefano Mastrey. You know, Niggsy’s first cousin who works right there at the bank. They’re cuginos.” Niggsy Arnone’s mother, Rose Giamanco Arnone, and Theresa Mastrey’s mother, Anna Giamanco-Altadonna Palilla, were sisters.

Even more important, DiPaolo believed, was that Theresa Mastrey, the assistant bank manager where Bolo Dovishaw kept his sacred safe-deposit boxes, could be an integral part of Niggsy Arnone’s scam, although she consistently denied any involvement.

“Was that all that transpired during your meeting with Niggsy on the 5th?” DiPaolo asked, hoping Montevecchio would not detect how fast the cop’s heart was beating.

“No, there’s a little more. Niggsy wanted me to get rid of those bank bags he snatched from the safe deposit boxes.”

“Well, did you?”

“Fuck no! I don’t know why he didn’t dump them himself. But he said he would get ‘The Hawk,’ you know, Serafini, to do it for him.”

“Why the hell would Serafini agree to put himself squarely in the middle of something that could come back and bite him in the ass?”

“Money. Because he ain’t got none,” Montevecchio replied. “Then he told me it was the Hawk,” adding that Arnone often treated Serafini like a little brother.

The interview with Caesar Montevecchio was proceeding even much better than DiPaolo had initially hoped. It appeared to DiPaolo that at last Montevecchio was truly telling all he knew about Frank “Bolo” Dovishaw’s murder on January 3, 1983, even disclosing his own role in allegedly arranging the hit for Erie businessman Anthony “Niggsy” Arnone. But DiPaolo had learned long before from practical experience to be skeptical, even cynical, even in the best of circumstances when dealing with any career criminal, especially Caesar Montevecchio. Montevecchio was no longer the innocent altar boy and high school football hero of so many years earlier. A pathological liar who was willing to do anything dishonest for money, Montevecchio would not be one to reform overnight, DiPaolo knew. That’s why the cop was wary of anything passing Montevecchio’s lips. Still, DiPaolo was prepared to listen as Caesar continued to relate his version of Dovishaw’s untimely death and unseemly aftermath. Montevecchio continued:

Two days after their January 5 meeting, Caesar said, Arnone telephoned Montevecchio at his home wanting to set up yet another meeting.“He wanted to meet again at the warehouse,” Montevecchio said. When Montevecchio got there, just a short drive from Montevecchio’s own home, Caesar said Arnone was beside himself, seething with anger at none other than one Dominick DiPaolo.

“He says, ‘That fucking DiPaolo went to the bank, then drilled Bolo’s boxes and found the money and some jewelry. But he don’t suspect nothin’ about us.” Montevecchio said Arnone told him he had been tipped off and warned by the woman, who cautioned Niggsy the tenacious pain-in-the-ass detective was now “asking a lot of questions” at the bank branch where she worked. “But Niggsy said she told him nobody saw nothin’ and that he thought we were still pretty much home-free. Arnone told me he left something like 10-to-20 grand and jewelry that was Bolo’s mother’s, so that there would be no suspicions that the boxes had been scored.”

DiPaolo knew the only female he dealt with at the bank since the investigation began was Mastrey, the assistant manager. It was such a fine bit of rich irony, the detective thought to himself. With Arnone taking money from the bank boxes and giving some of it to Robert Dorler, Frank “Bolo” Dovishaw had in reality unintentionally paid for his own execution. Montevecchio would later say as much in court.

“Anything more?” a now weary Detective Sergeant DiPaolo asked Caesar Montevecchio when it appeared Montevecchio was nearing the end of his long, often rambling narrative of greed, betrayal and murder.

“Well, yeah. After Bolo was hit, when I was in jail on all the other stuff you threw at me, Arnone often gave Bonnie money. I knew it was Bolo’s money he was giving, but at least she was getting something. A couple of times it was a few grand. So, you know, I feel pretty bad about all this, about shitting the bed on Anthony.”

But Caesar did not feel bad enough to cover for his one-time friend, Niggsy Arnone, DiPaolo thought. Montevecchio still wasn’t done. He related what he knew about the Aziz hit in Cleveland later the same year Bolo was killed and a call he received from the Dovishaw hit man, Robert Dorler.

“Just before I was arrested in 1983, Dorler called me. He wanted me to be a part of the hit on Aziz in July. But I begged off – too many things were happening. So I was glad to just hook up Dorler with ‘Fat Sam.’ You know, everything Fatso told you back then was true. Even the cocaine I got for Esper came from Dorler.”

It had been an exhausting 10 hours for both Montevecchio and DiPaolo. They agreed to take a break until the next day. DiPaolo needed the time to reflect on Caesar’s confession. But he knew he still had more to do. Much more.

He needed to confirm everything Montevecchio claimed, Caesar’s entire account of the Dovishaw killing, including why Cy Ciotti was sent out of town for the weekend before the hit. Quickly, however, it all checked out. Montevecchio’s account of the money and jewelry left in the bank boxes was also accurate – $10,000 to $12,000; relatively little compared to what Dovishaw had taken in, plus his mother’s valuables.

But still, DiPaolo would have to wait to learn if Montevecchio’s final promise – that Bourjaily would sing as well when he was returned to Erie – would become reality. And more, Montevecchio also insisted that Ricky Cimino would reveal all that transpired in connection with the Pal Joey’s fire. At this point, DiPaolo was finding little reason to doubt Caesar.

What remained to be done was comparing how Dorler’s statement, related to DiPaolo at the conclusion of the killer’s first visit to the state grand jury in Westmoreland County, matched up with Montevecchio’s rambling tale. The job of tying it all together, DiPaolo knew, was just beginning.

Just as Caesar Montevecchio was giving up so much, Erie County ADA Tim Lucas phoned DiPaolo at the Attorney General’s Office. “Dominick, good news!” Lucas said. “The Superior Court reversed (Judge) Nygaard. All the original charges are reinstated! Didn’t I tell you Nygaard fucked up! I already talked with your buddy Veshecco and he and I would like to package these charges with Caesar’s others and have him plead to these with the same deal. Could you arrange that with Caesar and the Office of the Attorney General?”

“No problem!” the cop replied. “Do you want to call Lenny – or do you want me to?” DiPaolo added with a wry smile.

DiPaolo told Montevecchio about the reinstated charges, offering him the same deal by pleading guilty to the burglary charges that were dismissed in 1983. Knowing when he was beaten, Montevecchio replied, “Whatever I have to do I will.”

Now that the 1980 Nardo burglary was back in play, DiPaolo demanded a full explanation from Montevecchio about who was involved and where the stolen goods ended up. The statute of limitations had expired on anyone else’s involvement, but now DiPaolo was thinking of toying with some of those “who broke my balls” way back when.

Montevecchio began by saying the Louie Nardo house burglary and safe job was “the craziest” with which he was ever involved. Montevecchio termed Tony DeMauro one of his best 10-percenters – the man who first put Montevecchio onto the Nardo score.

How did it go down? First, after learning of this sweet deal, Caesar telephoned his pals in Warren, Ohio: Amil and Jimmy Dinsio. The Dinsios drove to Erie to scope out the job. Although Bob Bocci was originally supposed to join them on the job, Montevecchio said, he backed out at the last minute.

According to Montevecchio, DeMauro wanted Nardo to be hit on a Tuesday night. But Montevecchio said that would not go down well as he played poker every Tuesday and “it would look funny if all of a sudden I wasn’t at the game.” He hosted the game at his late mother’s home.

It nonetheless turned out to be a Tuesday that late November of 1980 while he was playing cards that Tony DeMauro walked in and announced the burglary was going down that night. Montevecchio initially disputed DeMauro’s claim, saying Nardo’s wasn’t supposed to be hit until the following Wednesday.

Just then, several men walked in and sat nearby, so the conversation of the Nardo burglary came to an abrupt end. Montevecchio told Bocci, “Let’s take a ride.” The two got into Bocci’s car and drove to Nardo’s Glenwood Estates home. After exiting the car, as Montevecchio cautiously approached the house, he first spied the wide open front door. The next thing he saw was a bright gold pocket watch lying on the sidewalk near the front door. Stooping to scoop up the watch as he headed for the door, Montevecchio was momentarily stunned when someone inside the house fired off a gun shot at him.

Bocci immediately took off in the car, with Montevecchio now running in the street to catch up. Eventually, Bocci circled back and picked up Montevecchio.

“What a mother fucker! They were shooting and the crazy fucking Bocci left me there. I didn’t know what the hell was going on,” Montevecchio said in his statement. After being picked up, the two drove back to the card game at Montevecchio’s mother’s house and quickly pulled Tony DeMauro aside. Tony told them he had set up the burglary with the Dinsios because it was raining that night – with nobody out walking around, less chance of being observed by nosy witnesses – and that he arranged for the burglars to take the loot to Carl Stellato’s farm house, just southwest of Erie in McKean Township, where it would be divvied up among the participants.

It was then that Montevecchio learned Amil Dinsio had shot at him in front of Nardo’s house. Dinsio, not knowing who was approaching the house, said he thought Montevecchio might have been another intruder or even a cop.

The next day, Bocci traveled to Pittsburgh, Montevecchio said, where he met up with his fence, Harry Fleming, to sell the stolen loot from the Nardo job. Fleming, as it turned out, had done a stint for murder in the early 1960s. Bocci befriended Fleming while both were serving time at Western Penitentiary near Pittsburgh. Robert Bocci was doing his stretch there for his part in a burglary.

Meanwhile, Bocci convinced Montevecchio to toss the gold pocket watch down a sewer, so there would be no evidence to link Caesar to the break-in. As for DiPaolo’s part, he wasn’t about to let all this good information go to waste: He arrested both Stellato and Fleming to pressure them for whatever information they might be able to provide about the Owen and Dovishaw investigations. They were joined by Bob Bocci in cooperating with the cop, and charges against all of them eventually were withdrawn in return for said cooperation.

Harry Fleming was an old time slug with many connections to powerful attorneys and politicians, mostly in Pittsburgh. One such attorney was the recipient of a $5,000 woman’s necklace that Fleming gave him instead of the cash he owed the lawyer. The attorney’s wife was said to have been a recipient of a necklace, which came from the Nardo job. After questioning Fleming on where the jewelry and coins had gone, Fleming was let out of jail on bond and began making phone calls.

Eventually, DiPaolo teamed up with a Pittsburgh burglary detective. They went from pawn shop to pawn shop when the Pittsburgh cop got a radio transmission with a phone number for DiPaolo to call.

DiPaolo did not recognize the Erie phone number, and was slightly miffed that someone knew he was in Pittsburgh and attempting to contact him through the Pittsburgh Police Department. When DiPaolo called the number, he found himself speaking with Erie Attorney Jess Jiuliante, later to be President Judge of the Erie County Court of Common Pleas.

“Hey, Dom,” Jiuliante began, “just to let you know, I got a call from an attorney friend in Pittsburgh and his wife doesn’t have any necklace from the Nardo job. He would be more than happy to talk with you.”

“Jess,” DiPaolo asked, “how does your buddy know I want to talk with him?

“Gee, I don’t know. I’m only trying to help out.”

Suddenly, it became obvious to DiPaolo that Fleming had called his lawyer pal, who in turn called Jiuliante. If there had indeed been a stolen necklace in the possession of a prominent Pittsburgh lawyer’s wife, DiPaolo knew it was now gone. Later, however, some of the stolen goods from the Nardo job were found at the pawn shops Fleming had given up. Fleming was sent to prison on new burglary charges, and died shortly after.

Meanwhile, DiPaolo is still amazed when he thinks of Bocci, who simply could not stop talking. “He wouldn’t shut up! He gave up everyone he knew and then cried – he didn’t want to go back to jail, he told us,” DiPaolo recalled of his interview with the talkative Bocci.

Eventually, it was determined that the total take from the Louis Nardo burglary and safe job was valued at more than $700,000 in jewelry and cash. Two years later, Nardo was again a victim of an armed robbery at his home perpetrated by Caesar Montevecchio and his gang. Another case of history repeating itself.

Some eight years earlier, Amil Dinsio made national headlines when he hit a bank in trendy Laguna, California. That gig resulted in a movie, a book and a television documentary. While serving a stint at Leavenworth for the California job, Amil Dinsio met Caesar Montevecchio. The relationship resulted in a crime partnership that led to the Nardo break-in barely two months after Dinsio’s release from prison on October 6, 1980.

On Thanksgiving weekend 1980, more than eight years after the California job, Louis Nardo’s house safe was broken into in the same way – bypassing the alarm system, drilling holes, filling the safe with water and using blasting caps to gain entry. But by the time in 1987 that Montevecchio confirmed it was Dinsio who hit Nardo, the five-year statute of limitations on felony burglary had run out. It meant the Dinsios and others involved in the Nardo job could not be charged.

Montevecchio, in his statement, also told DiPaolo that in 1980 Dinsio constructed a fake steel bank night deposit box which could be installed directly over a real bank deposit box. Customers’ keys appeared to unlock the fake night deposit box, although there was no lock mechanism involved. Once the customers thought they had access to the night deposit box, they dropped in their bank bags. The phony night deposit box even had the name of the manufacturer, “Diebold,” engraved on the front to further add to its authentic look.

Twice, Montevecchio used the phony bank box in Erie, he claimed to DiPaolo. He would install the phony box at a bank on a Friday evening, then remove it by Sunday night, he said. Each time, the fake box was jammed with bank bags, over 100 of them, according to Montevecchio. Caesar said he took the bags to the Westside home of Charles “The Hawk” Serafini, and they, along with the Hawk’s girlfriend, opened the bank’s bags with scissors and knives. After splitting the cash, Montevecchio said, the trio then burned the checks and the bags. Montevecchio swore to DiPaolo he only employed Dinsio’s fake night deposit box twice.

Although the statute of limitations had expired on the Nardo break-in and the fake night deposit box endeavors, Montevecchio’s confession provided DiPaolo insight to the culture of crime in Erie, as well as a new understanding of what some consider an entitlement to the belongings of others. He became aware of an almost total lack of remorse by those who would take a human life.

As for Amil Dinsio, at 74 years old he’s serving 25 years for armed robbery and won’t be released until 2018 at the earliest.