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Early life and criminal career Roy Albert DeMeo was born in 1941 in Brooklyn , New York into a working class Italian immigrant family. DeMeo grew up on the same block as nephews of crime boss Joseph Profaci and often sat with them on their porch on nights when members of the Profaci Family would visit, watching the various expensively dressed men pull up in their brand new cars. As a teen, he began a small loan sharking operation which turned into a full time job by the age of 17. DeMeo graduated High School in 1959 and began working seriously in criminal enterprise while maintaining legitimate business practices. He married and fathered three children, and worked his way up the criminal career ladder, initially through a continuing Loansharking operation. Although in the early 1960s DeMeo had minor connections to members and associates of the Lucchese Family through the junkyard scene, it was not until DeMeo met Anthony 'Nino' Gaggi in 1966 that he would begin a criminal career that would eventually lead to becoming an official member of Cosa Nostra . At the time, Nino was a well-respected soldier in the Gambino Family , prospering from a large and varied assortment of Loanshark customers as well as Silent Partner positions in a number of legitimate businesses. DeMeo reportedly saw his future with the Luccheses as a drab prospect and quickly put his full attention toward cultivating a working relationship with Gaggi . The first piece of business conducted between Roy and Nino was a co-loan to the owner of a used car dealership who was already a customer of Nino 's and was looking towards expansion of his business. DeMeo reportedly put in much effort to present himself as a dependable and worthwhile associate, always collecting the interest money on time and personally delivering it to Gaggi at his home. This also served to give DeMeo more time one-on-one with Nino to further develop a professional relationship. Through the late 1960s , DeMeo's Organized Crime prospects increased on two fronts. He continued in the Loansharking business with Anthony Gaggi , and also began developing a crew of young men involved primarily in Car Theft and Drug Trafficking . It was this collective of criminals that would become known both in the underworld and in law enforcement circles as the DeMeo Crew. The first member of the crew was Harvey 'Christopher' Rosenberg , who met DeMeo in 1966 at the age of 16. Rosenberg was dealing drugs at a Canarsie gas station, and Roy helped him increase his business and profits by loaning Chris money so that he could deal the narcotics in larger amounts. 1st Murder According to the book ''Murder Machine'' by Jerry Capeci , DeMeo committed his first murder in July of 1973 at the age of 32, shooting to death Paul Rothenberg , the proprietor of a Pornography film lab in which Roy was a Silent Partner . After Rothenberg's lab was raided by police, DeMeo's mentor Anthony Gaggi (also a Silent Partner in Rothenberg 's business) began to suspect that he would fold under police pressure. This suspicion was rightly held, as immediately after the arrest Rothenberg had already begun the process of official cooperation with authorities, informing the police that both DeMeo and 'a man named Nino' were extorting him. More than one meeting with law enforcement was set up and then called off, with the last one canceled being on Friday, July 27 , 1973 . That same day, DeMeo contacted Rothenberg and set up a meeting at a local diner scheduled for that Sunday, July 29 . When Rothenberg showed up for the meeting, DeMeo ordered him out of his car and into an alleyway at gunpoint, then shooting him in the head two times with the Silencer -equipped Pistol . Although law enforcement suspected DeMeo played a role in the slaying, and even tailed DeMeo to a meeting with Rothenberg 's official partner in the Pornography lab shortly after the murder, the case was never resolved and DeMeo was never charged. It is widely believed that this was the first murder committed by DeMeo and served to permanently solidify his relationship with Anthony Gaggi , putting him on the path to becoming an official, or 'made', member of the Gambino Crime Family . DeMeo Crew By the time DeMeo had committed his first murder in the early 1970s , he had become prosperous in all facets of his criminal life, and so had the crew of young men he oversaw. The DeMeo crew were becoming more involved with auto-theft operations, drug-dealing, loansharking and as the 1970s continued, murder. With Gambino capo Nino Gaggi as his boss and protector, Roy and his crew's notoriety continued to increase within the underworld. Roy cultivated his followers into a crew experienced with the process of murdering and dismembering victims. With the exception of a few killings, a set method of execution was established by Roy and crew to ensure that victims would be dispatched quickly and then made to disappear to avoid the intense pressure of a murder investigation. The method of execution was dubbed the Gemini Method, named after the , and into the apartment that made up the back portion of the building. At this point, a crew member (almost always Roy DeMeo according to crew member turned government witness Frederick DiNome ) would approach with a silenced pistol in one hand and a towel in the other, shooting the victim in the head then wrapping the towel around the victim's head wound like a turban in order to staunch the blood flow. Immediately after, another member of the crew ( Chris Rosenberg , according to government witness testimony) would stab the victim in the heart in order to prevent any more blood from pumping out of the gunshot wound. By then the victim would usually be dead, at which point the body would be stripped of its clothing and dragged into the bathroom where it was left while the remaining blood drained out and/or congealed within the body. This was to eliminate the messiness of the next step, when crew members would place the body onto plastic Tarps laid out in the main room and proceed to dismember it, cutting off the arms, legs and head. The body parts would then be put into bags, which were placed in cardboard boxes and sent off to the Fountain Avenue Dump in Brooklyn , where so many tons of garbage were dropped each day that it would be a near impossibility for the bodies to ever be discovered there. Although this Gemini method was the most common method the crew practiced, some victims were killed in other ways for varying reasons. At times, suspected informants or those who committed an act of disrespect against a member of the crew or their superiors had their bodies left in the streets of New York to be discovered to serve as a message and warning to other criminals. As well, there were occasions were it would not be possible to lure the intended victim into the Gemini Lounge , in which case other locations would have to be used. A yacht owned by one of DeMeo's men was sometimes used as a way to dispose of bodies as well. By 1978 , Roy was heard bragging to associates that he was up to "one hundred notches" (or victims) on his belt. It was also during this year that he put out word among not just the Gambino Family but the other New York Cosa Nostra families as well that he and his crew were available for murder contracts. In at least one case, the crew charged a relatively paltry fee of $5,000. Other murders were committed for free, Roy describing them to crew members as "professional favors". Members of the DeMeo Crew included Joseph Testa , Anthony Senter , Henry Borelli , Chris Rosenberg , Joseph "Dracula" Guglielmo (Roy's cousin), Patrick Testa , Edward Grillo , Carlo Profeta , Ronald Ustica , Peter LaFroscia , Frederick DiNome , Richard DiNome and Vito Arena . It was once widely believed that Richard Kuklinski , a convicted serial killer and the focus of three HBO Undercover programs, was a member of Roy DeMeo's crew as well. In fact, Kuklinski himself made this claim in the second of the three HBO documentaries. He also claimed that he was the one who murdered DeMeo. Both of these claims, as well as others included in the documentary interviews, have been confirmed by law enforcement authorities as being completely false {Link without Title} . The Westies Alliance In the late 1970s, DeMeo entered into an alliance with Jimmy Coonan , an Irish-American mobster from Hell's Kitchen . DeMeo is believed to have murdered Mickey Spillane at the behest of Coonan, who then took over as leader of the Westies . Shortly afterwards, Jimmy Coonan and his second in command Mickey Featherstone met with Paul Castellano , becoming a de-facto arm of the Gambino Crime Family and agreeing to share 10-percent of all profits. In exchange, the Westies would be privy to several lucrative union deals and take on murder contracts for the Gambino Crime Family . As lethal as the members of Roy DeMeo's crew were, violence was not the only area Roy and his followers excelled in as the 1970s continued. Large profits were made in a variety of illegal activities, including pornography and drug trafficking. Additionally, many members of the crew had managed to successfully branch out and start up independent illegal business ventures, making both themselves richer as well as Roy, who received a cut of their profits. In turn, the numerous sources of large amounts of income allowed Roy to pass up greater amounts of profit to his superior, Nino Gaggi , who in turn could then give greater payments up to his boss, and the boss of the entire Gambino Family , Paul Castellano . Despite the considerable contributions Roy had already made to the Gambino Family , not least of which were his tens of thousands of dollars worth of weekly payments to Nino Gaggi , DeMeo was still not a made, or official, member. This reportedly angered DeMeo, who felt he should have been inducted into the Family many times over, since the mid- 1970s when he first began to exhibit his ability to lead a crew, to murder on command and to earn money through his own efforts. Nino is said to have attempted multiple times to talk boss Paul Castellano into officially inducting Roy. However, Castellano , who considered himself more of a businessman, looked on the more hardened street gangsters like Roy with disdain. Distraught at his situation, Roy continued to look for more opportunities to bring in larger amounts of profit to his superiors, and instructed his crew to do so as well. - It should be noted that in his book ''For the Sins of My Father'' DeMeo's son Albert strongly contests much of the writing in the book, however the number of factual errors in the book serves to weaken his argument. to the early )]] DeMeo eventually achieved his ambition to become a 'made' man, a formal member of the Gambino Family . However, the Gambino Godfather, Paul Castellano , reportedly never liked DeMeo, especially when he heard DeMeo was dealing in drugs (Castellano, like the heads of the other four Mafia Families, did not like his men being involved in narcotics, because the penalties for drug-trafficking were so harsh that they often tempted suspects to become informants. John Gotti earned Castellano's disfavor for the same reason.) By 1982 , the FBI was investigating the enormous number of missing and murdered persons who were linked to DeMeo or who had last been seen entering the notorious Gemini Club. DeMeo grew paranoid and increasingly on edge. It is around this time that an FBI bug in the home of Gambino Family soldier Angelo Ruggiero picked up a conversation between Angelo and Gene Gotti , a brother of John Gotti . In the conversation, it is discussed that Paul Castellano had put out a hit on DeMeo, but was having difficulty finding someone willing to do the job. Gene Gotti mentions that his brother John was very wary of taking the contract, as DeMeo had an "army of killers" around him. It is also mentioned in this same secretly recorded conversation that, at that time, John had killed less than 10 people, while DeMeo had killed at least 38. According to mob turncoat Salvatore Gravano aka 'Sammy the Bull', eventually the contract was given to Frank Decicco , but Frank and his crew couldn't get to DeMeo. It was deemed too risky, thus Decicco allegedly handed the job to Roy's own men. According to the book Murder Machine, in his final days Roy DeMeo was seen always wearing a leather jacket, which concealed a shotgun underneath. His paranoia was at an all-time high. Despite this, on January 10 of 1983 , DeMeo went off to crew member Patrick Testa 's auto shop for a meeting with fellow Mafiosi (Patty was Joey Testa's brother.) A few days later, on January 18 , he was found murdered; in traditional Mafia fashion, DeMeo's bullet riddled corpse was found stuffed in the trunk of his own car, his leather jacket covering his head like a shroud. He had been shot multiple times in the head and also had a bullet wound in his hand, probably from throwing his hand up to his face in a last ditch self-defense reflex as the shots were fired at him. DeMeo's immediate superior in the Gambino Family, Anthony Gaggi , was suspected by law enforcement officials of being the one who personally killed DeMeo, although it is highly likely crew members Joseph Testa and Anthony Senter were present as well. Gaggi was not charged with this crime, although he was charged with a number of other murders. He died of a heart attack during his trial in 1988 , aged 62. DeMeo's crew was soon rounded up and most were imprisoned for life after a series of trials that saw them convicted of a collective total of 25 murders, in addition to extortion, car-theft and drug trafficking. Paul Castellano was indicted for ordering the murder of DeMeo, as well as a host of other crimes, but he was killed in December 1985 whilst out on bail and awaiting trial. The murder was ordered by John Gotti , who thus became the new Gambino Godfather. The FBI and NYPD say that DeMeo and his Gemini Crew murdered at least 70 people between 1973 and 1983 , but the true total could be as high as 200. The vast majority were disposed of so thoroughly that they were never found. New Information
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