CHAPTER 36
FIVE AND A HALF YEARS AFTER FRANK “BOLO” DOVISHAW WAS GUNNED down in his west Erie home, DiPaolo and the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office finally arrested the suspected shooter.
On September 7, 1988, Robert Dorler, Sr., 53, a Medina, Ohio hit man who would do anything for a buck, was charged with homicide and conspiracy in the January 3, 1983 execution of Erie’s well-known gambling kingpin and bookie Dovishaw. At that time, Robert Dorler, considered to be a cold-blooded killer without conscience or emotion, was serving a five-year stint in the federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, on counterfeiting and arson charges stemming from his many previous criminal activities in Cleveland, Ohio.
Pennsylvania Attorney General LeRoy Zimmerman and Deputy Attorney General Dennis Pfannenschmidt, who supervised the state and grand jury investigations involving the Dovishaw case for the previous 18 months, made the announcement of the charges against Dorler in a statement to the local news media. The two Commonwealth prosecutors accused Dorler of being the actual triggerman who carried out the contract hit for a $20,000 cash fee. Also in their announcement, the Attorneys General accused notorious Erie crime figure Caesar Montevecchio of recruiting Dorler for the job. What’s more, in a story below the Erie Morning News headline reading “Con charged in Dovishaw hit murder,” Zimmerman was quoted as saying he’d seek the death penalty against the suspected killer Dorler. According to the Attorney General, “Evidence indicates this was a carefully planned contract murder, carried out in cold blood for profit.”
The law enforcement officials also disclosed publicly for the first time that a third person – in addition to Dorler and Erie’s favorite son of crime, Caesar Montevecchio – was also under investigation in the Dovishaw murder. Reports of how the planners and plotters wanted to get to the cash in Dovishaw’s bank safe-deposit boxes now began to emerge publicly in the media as well as details about another offered contract killing that had been put out on the 46-year-old Dovishaw’s bookmaking partner, acknowledged mob killer Raymond Ferritto of Erie.
According to the Morning News story that day, “The grand jury presentment (state grand juries issue presentments; federal grand juries issue indictments) alleges that Dorler also had a contingency contract to kill another reputed bookmaker, Dovishaw’s alleged partner, Raymond Ferritto. The grand jury contends that the contingency contract worth another $10,000 was put out by someone other than the person who paid for Dovishaw’s killing. That unnamed Erie crime figure was more interested in taking over Dovishaw’s lucrative bookmaking operation, but needed Ferritto out of the way, too . . .” the newspaper story speculated.
Media members could not know at the time that Joe Scutella, Jr., was the one being accused of putting out the “contingency contract” on Ferritto, but the newspaper story did in fact point out that Ferritto’s life was spared only because Dovishaw was alone in his 1634 West 21st Street home when Dorler assassinated him that frigid wintry night in January 1983.
As published in the newspaper, the grand jury presentment, the legal term also used to outline the case, said Dorler “went to Dovishaw’s house alone and overpowered Dovishaw after he answered the door. He took Dovishaw into the basement and tied his hands and feet, whereupon Dovishaw begged him not to kill him. He told Dovishaw to stop begging and to be a man, then ordered him on his knees. He then shot Dovishaw in the back of the head. When he saw that Dovishaw had not emptied his bowels, Dorler stabbed him in the eye to be sure that he was dead.”
Such matter-of-fact reporting describing a knife that was stabbed into the victim’s eye socket, of course, had a more than chilling, eye-opening effect upon the newspaper’s horrified readers that morning. After the killing, the newspaper article continued to report, Dorler fled from Bolo’s west Erie home in Dovishaw’s car, then met Caesar Montevecchio and gave Montevecchio two keys to Dovishaw’s bank safe-deposit boxes. Dovishaw’s car was then abandoned, the newspaper reported, in the parking lot of a hotel along Interstate 90 just south of Erie. An acquaintance, William Bourjaily, the story also reported, then drove Robert Dorler back to Ohio. There, a .32 caliber Beretta, the murder weapon, was tossed into a lake.
The state grand jury’s presentment, as outlined in the morning newspaper story began for the first time to unravel for the citizens of Erie the cold and calculated brutality of the horrific and gruesome murder of Frank “Bolo” Dovishaw a half decade earlier. It was a public glimpse of how those who occupy the slimy underbelly of Erie, combined with their equally loathsome counterparts in other cities and states, demonstrate a total absence of mind and heart for the sanctity of any life. Odd, DiPaolo, with his strong family upbringing, often thought. Especially considering that many of Erie’s hoods came from solid Italian-Catholic roots where, like Caesar Montevecchio, they served as altar boys and faithfully attended Saturday morning Catechism instruction as well as Sunday morning and most Holy Day masses. Odd that these men would turn out so horribly and without feeling as they grew up surrounded by extended families of loving grandparents from the “old country” as well as a wide assortment of aunts, uncles and cousins, often times all under the same roof in Erie’s “Little Italy” neighborhood.
The newspaper article went on to describe how Dorler collected his $20,000 fee from Montevecchio the day after the slaying. The story told of how Caesar Montevecchio then returned Bolo’s bank box keys to Dorler, who later planted the keys in Dovishaw’s car, which was at the time still parked in the back lot at the Interstate 90 hotel. Speaking of Montevecchio’s appearance before the statewide grand jury, the newspaper article related that Montevecchio acknowledged he had been the middleman in the plan to kill “Ash Wednesday” when he was at home taking bets during an NFL game.
The newspaper account told of how Dorler, several days later during that January of 1983, visited Bourjaily, showed him a newspaper report of the murder and said he wouldn’t be captured based upon what was reported, according to the presentment. So much for Dorler’s reasoning ability, DiPaolo thought.
In other statements to law enforcement officials presented to the grand jury, according to the September 7, 1988, newspaper article, Dorler admitted that he had direct knowledge of Dovishaw’s murder, but the career criminal vehemently denied killing Dovishaw.
These fascinating facts finally released to the public were the result of DiPaolo’s years of toil. He was ultimately credited in the very last paragraph of the newspaper story as being on special assignment and having “aided” the Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation in the Bolo Dovishaw murder probe. But DiPaolo didn’t mind what others might have considered a slight. It was more important to him that the investigation was moving forward and there were concrete results to show for the years of effort. Besides, he was well aware the investigation was still far from over. It would be months before there would be a final arrest.
Hindsight is always 20-20. That’s why, in retrospect, it might have been a tactical error to brag. At least at that point in time. But in late September 1988, that’s just what Pennsylvania Attorney General LeRoy Zimmerman’s office did.
The Erie Daily Times reported that a grand jury was told of the Erie businessman who ordered the “Ash Wednesday” hit, but that Zimmerman wanted enough evidence to win the case before he arrested the man.
A spokesman for Zimmerman, the newspaper said, disclosed that the Attorney General wanted to tie up the Dovishaw case, but not until he believed prosecutors would be successful. The words were anything but prophetic, DiPaolo, the lead investigator in the case, would eventually know.
The newspaper explained that Zimmerman’s office, the result of a special grand jury probe, already arrested Montevecchio and Dorler, pointing out Montevecchio’s admission and guilty plea to third-degree murder. Zimmerman, the paper reported, would seek the death penalty for Dorler.
But the article aroused even bigger interest in what it didn’t reveal – the actual identity of the man the paper claimed was behind the hit, again pointing out the Erie businessman was still on the loose and wouldn’t be arrested until the AG’s office believed it could win in court.
Famous last words, DiPaolo would later think.
It would take another five months. But it finally happened in late May of 1989 – and more than six years after the horrific, brutal murder.
When Erie businessman Anthony “Niggsy” Arnone was shockingly outed as the alleged mastermind behind the Frank “Bolo” Dovishaw hit, it was by his former underworld pal, Erie’s longtime career criminal Caesar Montevecchio. Arnone’s name finally surfaced publicly during a preliminary hearing for the ruthless Dovishaw triggerman Robert Dorler Sr., of Ohio, who was months earlier charged with criminal homicide and criminal conspiracy.
During that balmy May Day hearing, it was Montevecchio, who, while testifying against Dorler, identified Arnone as the man who allegedly hired him to arrange for the January 1983 slaying of the Erie gambling kingpin Dovishaw. Arnone, who was living in the upscale Colonial Avenue neighborhood of Millcreek Township just west of the City of Erie, was at the time the president of Arnone & Sons Food Importers on Cherry Street.
In Erie Daily Times reporter Jim Thompson’s article about the hearing, an Arnone employee said his boss was making an out-of-town delivery and not available to comment on Montevecchio’s damaging testimony.
The story reported there was tight security for the Erie County Courthouse hearing, and that the name of the man who hired Montevecchio to arrange the Dovishaw killing was revealed publicly for the first time that day.
Caesar Montevecchio had already pleaded guilty to third-degree murder for his involvement in arranging Dovishaw’s murder, and was still awaiting sentencing at the time of Dorler’s preliminary hearing. Montevecchio was called to the witness stand to testify by lawyer Skip Ebert, Pennsylvania’s chief deputy attorney general. Ebert wasn’t one to waste questions or deal with informal chit-chat with his witnesses. He quickly got down to the business at hand, asking Montevecchio whether he had been hired to arrange for Dovishaw’s death.
Caesar answered affirmatively in terse fashion.
Ebert wanted to know who did the hiring. Montevecchio paused, then quietly gave up Anthony “Niggsy” Arnone.
DiPaolo had waited six and a half long years for those words to be uttered in court. But now, on this day, and in this court, the words rang almost hollow and anticlimactic.
Montevecchio’s testimony continued. He said at first Arnone offered him 20 to 30 percent of the money held in Dovishaw’s bank safe deposit boxes. But he said he hesitated to agree to such a deal because he had no idea how much – if anything – was in those boxes. In his testimony, just like in earlier interviews with DiPaolo, Montevecchio said Arnone eventually offered him $10,000 in cash for arranging the killing. Caesar Montevecchio accepted the offer, he told the court.
Furthermore, Montevecchio said, Arnone didn’t want to know the identity of the actual killer. He recounted how he met Dorler in the summer of 1982, had spoken with him about criminal activity, and Dorler later agreed to kill Dovishaw.
After January 3, 1983 was settled upon for the murder, Montevecchio testified that Dorler went to Dovishaw’s home alone, then met up with Montevecchio about an hour later in a restaurant parking lot, according to court records and the newspaper account.
Montevecchio had been a good witness, a very good witness, a credible witness. Even though he was betraying longtime friends for a break in his own sentence, there appeared to be no real doubt that the Erie hood might have been lying. His words, to cops and courtroom observers alike, had a ring of truth to them. Montevecchio’s and Dorler’s long and filthy criminal careers were about to be ended, DiPaolo was convinced. With the investigation still proceeding on schedule, it would be the Erie businessman Anthony “Niggsy” Arnone’s turn to begin to sweat. And sweat he would. DiPaolo would make sure of that. For at least a few more months.
The Fourth of July might very well be the best-known American national holiday. But for DiPaolo, it was two days later in 1989 – on July 6 – that became such a red-letter day. For it was on that day when Anthony Frank “Niggsy” Arnone was finally arrested for what was believed to be his alleged role in organizing the January 3, 1983 brutal murder of Erie bookie Frank “Bolo” Dovishaw. It was DiPaolo’s pleasure, he would later remember, to personally drive from Erie to Arnone’s Millcreek Township home in the suburbs and serve the arrest himself.
It was about 6 p.m. on one of those absolutely beautiful summer afternoons in northwestern Pennsylvania. DiPaolo found Arnone outside, enjoying the balmy day in a lawn chair. As Niggsy read the local sports page, seemingly without a care in the world, DiPaolo thought at the time, the Erie cop rudely intruded upon the serene pastoral scene. “Anthony, I have a warrant for your arrest,” DiPaolo proclaimed.
Before the stunned Arnone could respond, DiPaolo read the suspect the murder warrant and advised him of his Miranda rights. If Arnone was upset, he did not let on. He remained cool. collected.
“Call my lawyer,” Arnone ordered his wife, in quiet, measured tones.
All the while, DiPaolo would later recall, Arnone continued to remain calm, even as the detective hand-cuffed him and drove the suspected murder-arranger to Erie Police Headquarters, and then to the on-call district magistrate to be formally arraigned. It was in obvious stark contrast to Arnone’s alleged nervousness when Montevecchio came calling at his business six-and-a-half years earlier, and even when Detective DiPaolo initially started snooping around Bolo’s bank safe-deposit boxes.
At the conclusion of the arraignment – basically a formal reading of the criminal complaint – and with no bond allowed on murder charges in Pennsylvania, Arnone was ordered committed to the Erie County Prison. Arnone, however, had reason to be calm. He had been smart enough to retain a high-profile criminal lawyer from Philadelphia – Attorney Joseph Santaguida.
The headline in the Erie Morning News the next day shouted, “Erie man charged in Dovishaw ‘hit.’” The story was accompanied by a large photograph of DiPaolo leading Anthony “Niggsy” Arnone by the arm as they exited from the magistrate’s office.
The suspect was still wearing the white, short-sleeved pullover shirt and faded black jeans he had on when arrested at his home. Setting the judicial process in motion, Arnone was sent to prison to await a preliminary hearing before District Justice Ronald Stuck, filling in on Erie’s Westside, the jurisdiction that covers the geographical area in which the murder occurred, specifically Dovishaw’s West 21st Street home.
The crime had occurred in District Justice John Vendetti’s district. But Vendetti had recused himself from hearing the case partly because his father had booked illegal numbers just as Niggsy Arnone did in years past. The elder Vendetti, known as “Jiggs,” had been previously arrested and convicted for his illegal numbers operation. This information was also contained in federal court dockets and newspaper accounts. Vendetti phoned DiPaolo to say he also had to get out of hearing the case because he had been friends with Niggsy and some of the others involved. DiPaolo said, “John, do what you have to do.”
Again, DiPaolo marveled at Erie’s intertwined criminal relationships, the few degrees of separation between respectability and dishonor.
During the preliminary hearing less than a month later, it must have appeared to Niggsy Arnone that the bottom was starting to fall out of his life. Niggsy listened intently as his former pal, career criminal Caesar Montevecchio, fingered the Italian food import business owner with arranging bookmaker Dovishaw’s murder. Montevecchio, speaking in quiet tones that at times seemed to trail off into nothingness, told District Justice Ronald Stuck that Anthony Arnone paid him to hire an Ohio killer in 1982 to murder Dovishaw. According to Caesar, he was acting at the request of Arnone when he hired Robert Dorler as the killer. Montevecchio testified that Arnone had wanted the keys to Dovishaw’s bank safe-deposit boxes at an Erie bank branch. Montevecchio went on to describe how he met with the killer Dorler before and after the arranged hit at Dovishaw’s home January 3, 1983.
But there seemed to be more of a dark cloud over Montevecchio’s testimony against Arnone than when Caesar earlier testified against Dorler. At least, that’s what a newspaper writer speculated in his article. According to the story in the Erie Morning News describing the preliminary hearing, Montevecchio’s testimony did not appear as strong to the reporter as the middle man’s earlier testimony against Dorler. The story reported that Arnone’s lawyer, Joseph Santaguida, attacked Montevecchio’s character and criminal history.
“‘You are a thief. Is that correct?’’’ the reporter quoted the lawyer as asking Montevecchio.
“‘I have been a thief,’ Montevecchio replied.
“‘You are a robber. Is that correct?’ Santaguida continued.
“‘I have been a robber,’ came the slow reply.
“‘Is being a robber when you get a gun and say to someone, give me all your money?’” Santaguida scornfully asked.
“‘That’s what a robber is,’” Montevecchio agreed.”
Under that same line of questioning, the newspaper reported, Montevecchio acknowledged having been a burglar, dope dealer, participant in a murder, as well as a liar. And the lawyer ultimately got Montevecchio to reveal that he first told police that Joseph Scutella, not Arnone, was the one responsible for Dovishaw’s murder. Montevecchio told the lawyer and Stuck that he made up the story about Scutella before he began cooperating with police, that it was at a time when he did not intend to fully cooperate with authorities.
“‘Was he responsible?’” Santaguida asked,” according to the newspaper article.
“‘He (Scutella) was responsible for getting Cy (Anthony Ciotti) out of Dovishaw’s house.’
“‘Was he responsible for the death?’ Santaguida demanded loudly. ‘You know what I’m talking about!’”
Montevecchio admitted that Scutella was not responsible for the murder and that he only told Scutella about the proposed hit because he wanted someone to warn Ciotti to move out of Dovishaw’s house. Caesar did not want Ciotti to get hurt during the crime. Montevecchio also said that he had tried to implicate Scutella to win a release from prison.
“‘I didn’t tell them anything that was true,’” Montevecchio was quoted in the newspaper story and court records.
“‘I know that!’ Santaguida responded sarcastically. ‘You’ve never told anything true yet.’”
The merciless grilling continued. Now the lawyer was asking Caesar if he recalled telling Federal Bureau of Investigation agents that two Cleveland mobsters murdered Dovishaw in reprisal for Dovishaw’s alleged minor role in the killing of a Cleveland underworld figure, Danny Greene, years earlier. Montevecchio said he had no recollection of such a conversation with FBI agents.
“‘It’s not foreign to you to implicate someone in this who was not involved, is it?’ Santaguida demanded. ‘You are capable of implicating someone else . . . You’re willing to lie to help yourself, isn’t that correct?’
“‘I also told you I wasn’t in a position of helping police at that time,’ Montevecchio replied.
“‘So you told them something that was not true?’
“‘I think at that time I would have told them anything,’ Montevecchio replied,” according to the lengthy Erie newspaper article.
Caesar Montevecchio also testified he stopped talking to the cops when it appeared to him the police wanted him to connect him to the hit and with the Louis Nardo break-in.
As Attorney Santaguida continued his hostile cross-examination, Montevecchio freely acknowledged several more details relating to incorrect information given to Erie police investigators in the Dovishaw case. That prompted Santaguida, according to the newspaper article, to chide, “You should be writing books rather than being a thief, a drug dealer and a murderer.”
When asked by prosecuting attorney Skip Ebert why Montevecchio thought police would believe him years later when he fingered his friend Niggsy Arnone for arranging the murder, Caesar shrugged and said, “I knew they would (believe him at that time) because I was telling the truth and they could check it out.”
DiPaolo was also called to testify and provided testimony in support of Montevecchio’s account of how the murder was put together and came to be.
The detective sergeant told of Arnone’s safe deposit box that was situated in the same bank where Dovishaw had his safe deposit boxes. He testified that Niggsy Arnone got his safe deposit box through Theresa Mastrey, the assistant manager at a PennBank branch.
When Ebert asked if Mastrey was related to Arnone, according to the newspaper article, DiPaolo responded that Mastrey was Arnone’s first cousin.
DiPaolo also testified that when bank boxes were searched by police in 1987, Arnone’s was empty, but some $60,000 in cash was found in Mastrey’s boxes.
DiPaolo said the last recorded visit by Arnone to his safe deposit box was January 4, 1983. It was the same day “Ash Wednesday’s” corpse was found, the newspaper reported.
It was not unusual for a defense lawyer to attack the prosecution’s witnesses and evidence during a preliminary hearing, and also to withhold defense witnesses or arguments, instead holding both back until the later trial. Why reveal strategy before it was necessary? Santaguida followed the accepted defense procedure of the day – and did not present a defense case.
District Justice Stuck, apparently satisfied the state had made a prima facie case against Anthony “Niggsy” Arnone, bound over the defendant to criminal court on all charges.