.............................................................. >From the New Paradigms Project [Not Necessarily Endorsed]: From: "Alex Constantine" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Lloyd" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Rudy Giuliani/Family Mob Ties Date: Friday, July 07, 2000 1:47 AM Rudy's Kin Tied to Mob Father, uncle and cousin surface in new biography By MICHAEL R. BLOOD Daily News City Hall Bureau Chief Mayor Giuliani a former federal prosecutor who won notice for pursuing the Mafia had relatives linked to organized crime, including a mobbed-up cousin who was gunned down by FBI agents in 1977, a new book says. Mayor Giuliani Lewis D'Avanzo, a son of the mayor's uncle and a guest at Giuliani's first wedding in 1968, was a "ruthless and widely feared mob associate" who headed a massive stolen car ring, according to FBI documents and interviews detailed in "Rudy! An Investigative Biography of Rudolph Giuliani," by Village Voice senior editor Wayne Barrett. Due in stores next week, the book sketches a largely unflattering portrait of the clan, depicting his father, Harold, as a hothead and the "muscle" behind a brother-in-law's loansharking operation, run out of a Brooklyn bar. Along with cracking heads, it says the mayor's father served time in state prison for a stickup, rarely held an on-the-books job and once was a gunman in a mob shootout in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. The book never makes clear how much of the family's alleged dark side is known to the mayor, who has talked lovingly of his father, who died in 1981 of prostate cancer the same disease that the mayor is fighting. The mayor's spokeswoman, Sunny Mindel, said yesterday that Giuliani "hadn't seen the book and had no comment." On Tuesday, Giuliani defended his father as "a complete man" who taught him the value of honesty, but the mayor refused to address questions about his father's alleged criminal past. "The details of his life died with him," the mayor said. And they almost stayed that way. Barrett said a source told him the elder Giuliani had spent time behind bars, but the author couldn't find city court records documenting it. Barrett eventually looked in the 1934 state prison archives in Albany and discovered a single sheet a Sing Sing Prison receiving blotter that listed Harold Giuliani at the top of the page. On the next line, Barrett found the key to the story: Harold Giuliani's alias, Joseph Starrett. Barrett then found all the New York court records under the name Starrett. Initial excerpts of the book appeared in Talk magazine and in this week's Voice; another excerpt was released yesterday. According to the book, Giuliani's cousin Lewis D'Avanzo was known as "Steve the Blond" and listed as armed and dangerous in FBI bulletins. His criminal record included a 10-year federal sentence for the armed hijacking of a truck loaded with $240,000 worth of mercury. The book alleges that he was suspected of taking part in several murders. D'Avanzo was gunned down by the FBI in October 1977, when he tried to run down an agent after being stopped on a warrant that accused him and two associates of transporting 100 stolen luxury cars. Quoting an unnamed friend of D'Avanzo, the book describes a 1962 shootout pitting a local mobster against the mayor's father and Leo D'Avanzo, Lewis D'Avanzo's father. The book says Leo was later sanctioned by mob bosses for shooting at a Mafia member. Born two years apart, Giuliani and his cousin attended the same elementary and high schools, but Giuliani's father forbade the two from spending much time together. Giuliani met D'Avanzo's wife, Lois, only once at the mayor's first wedding, to Regina Peruggi, the book says. The book says Leo D'Avanzo, who was known in family circles as a black sheep, ran loansharking and gambling operations out of a Brooklyn bar where Giuliani's father worked as a bartender. In his role as debt collector, his father "broke legs, smashed kneecaps, crunched noses," the book says. Leo D'Avanzo left town after the shootout, and gave the bar to Harold Giuliani, the book said. Based on interviews with family members, the book also claims that Joan Ellen D'Avanzo, a cousin who at one time lived with Giuliani when he was a youngster, became a drug addict who was beaten to death in 1973 at age 34. Her cause of death was listed as undetermined, but several family members said she was murdered. Original Publication Date: 7/6/00 Jail Big's 1992 Mafia Mess Drew Just Silence ooking back, you wonder why Rudy Giuliani didn't show a little sympathy now and then. In the spring of 1992, an article appeared in The New York Times under the headline: "Correction Head's Father Tied To Mafia". The father of Catherine Abate, then the commissioner of the city's jails, was described as a "captain" in the Luchese crime family. Joseph Abate's entire record of criminal convictions apparently came from an arrest in 1938 for bootlegging. After the arrest, a New Jersey newspaper reported, Abate served for 50 years as a mob "sleeper," a job that involved not getting into trouble. Which he didn't. By the time the story appeared, Abate was senile. Catherine Abate, who had a spotless record as an administrator in New York City, landed on the griddle over this stale meal. An editorial in The Times faulted her shortage of "candor" about her father, who had sent her to Vassar and law school. At the time these stories appeared, Rudy Giuliani was in private law practice, having just made a national name for himself as a crimebuster as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. We had met a few times in the street and had cordial exchanges, so I called Giuliani to ask his thoughts on Abate. This was the kind of drama that is written a half-inch below the skin of every person on earth. His aide, Dennison Young, called back. What did I want to talk to Rudy about? The questions were obvious: Did Giuliani think that something Abate's father might have done 50 years earlier had any bearing on her ability to run the city jails? Did she bring some of the headache on herself by not being candid? Was this a case of visiting the supposed sins of the father on his children? A little while later, Young called back. "Rudy has no comment to make," said Young. Now Wayne Barrett has published the first pieces from his new book, "Rudy! An Investigative Biography of Rudolph Giuliani," and for all the light he shines, some of the Giuliani mysteries only become darker. Harold Giuliani, arrested in 1934, emerges from the excerpt in the current Village Voice as a hot-tempered street thug, an armed robber, who moved on to a life of "respectability" as an enforcer for loansharking in-laws. Catherine Abate has said she still does not know if her father was a Mafia captain, but saw none of it in her life at home. All she knew was love, support and a father who went to work every day in a clothing manufacturing business. It was a mistake, she said, to see her rise in public life as a tale of overcoming a difficult family background. Quite the opposite. Did Giuliani come further in his life despite the chronically troubled life of his father, or because of it? "The influence my father had on me was to drill into my skull from the time I was a little boy that you had to be very honest," the mayor said of his father. It is plain that Giuliani loves the memory of Harold Giuliani, but life with father did not seem to burden the future mayor with much empathy. When the police physically ripped mentally ill homeless men out of their beds for unpaid summonses, the mayor could not have been happier in his public statements. With a bad turn of luck or two, one of those men jailed for public drinking or urination might have been Harold Giuliani, who was arrested in 1961 for "loitering," Barrett writes, before the charges were dismissed. One New Year's Day a few years ago, the mayor's office announced that he would be visiting Rikers Island to thank the correction officers for their good work. The office pointedly announced that unlike David Dinkins, Mayor Giuliani would NOT visit the criminals. To skip visiting the prisoners is one thing; to boast about it is quite another, particularly for people raised in a faith in which they are explicitly instructed to comfort people in jail. With the remarkable excerpt from Barrett's book, it is suddenly clear how raw a betrayal that truly was. Original Publication Date: 7/6/00 Rudy Mum on Dad's Past Defends him but refuses to discuss 1934 robbery rap By LISA L. COLANGELO Daily News Staff Writer efending his father as a kind, generous man who taught him the importance of honesty, Mayor Giuliani refused yesterday to address questions of his dad's alleged criminal past. Rudy Giuliani "My father died 19 years ago and the details of his life died with him as far as I am concerned," Giuliani said after marching in the Travis Fourth of July Parade in Staten Island. According to The Village Voice, Harold Giuliani spent more than a year in Ossining State Prison (Sing Sing) for the armed robbery of a milkman in 1934. His only child, best known for his strict law-and-order persona, was born 10 years later. The revelation was from an excerpt of Voice reporter Wayne Barrett's upcoming book "Rudy! An Investigative Biography of Rudolph Giuliani." The article paints the elder Giuliani as an impulsive and hot-tempered young man who easily used his fists to defend a woman's honor or collect a gambling debt. He worked as a bartender and a collection agent for his brother-in-law. The report says 26-year-old Harold Giuliani was one of two men who held up milkman Harold Hall on April 2, 1934, in a building on E. 96th St. in Manhattan. Hall told police Giuliani thrust a gun into his stomach while an accomplice pulled $128 from his pocket. One week after Giuliani was indicted, Hall changed his statement, saying Giuliani's accomplice wielded the gun. According to court documents, Hall changed his statement after being threatened by several people. "The fact is, I am not going to discuss that article or the book," Giuliani told reporters. "It has no relevance to me and to what I do as mayor of New York City or to my life." According to a psychological exam conducted before he went to prison, Harold Giuliani was both aggressive and aimless. "A study of this individual's makeup," wrote Dr. Benjamin Apfelberg, a psychiatrist with the then-city Department of Hospitals, "reveals that he is a personality deviate of the aggressive, egocentric type. This aggressivity is pathological in nature and has shown itself from time to time even as far back as his childhood. He is egocentric to an extent where he has failed to consider the feelings and rights of others." Harold Giuliani succumbed to prostate cancer in 1981 at the age of 73. Earlier this year, the mayor was diagnosed with the same disease. When asked if his father's alleged past pushed him to seek a career in law enforcement, Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney, responded, "It has had no influence on me. "The influence my father had on me was to drill into my skull from the time I was a little boy that you had to be very honest and that you had to be honest with yourself first and honest with other people second," Giuliani said. "I appreciate the lessons that he taught me. He was a very, very fine man. He was a complete man." Forwarded for info and discussion from the New Paradigms Discussion List, not necessarily endorsed by: *********************************** Lloyd Miller, Research Director for A-albionic Research a ruling class/conspiracy research resource for the entire political-ideological spectrum. **FREE RARE BOOK SEARCH: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ** Explore Our Archive: <http://a-albionic.com/a-albionic.html> <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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