Strife And Death in the Family

Monday, Jan. 18, 1988 By DAVID BRAND
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Five years were far more than the family had bargained for when Pistone began the undercover operation in September 1976 with the idea of spending six months infiltrating fences who dispose of Mob swag. Pistone's name was erased from agency files, and contact agents were selected to deliver his spending money (sometimes meeting him in the Metropolitan Museum of Art) and to take his phone calls several times a week. Donnie Brasco (Pistone chose the name at random) never took notes and rarely carried a recorder or radio transmitter because they might be discovered when he greeted fellow Mafiosi with the traditional hug and kiss. He began by frequenting Manhattan clubs and restaurants where wise guys hang out and gradually joined the fringes of the Colombo family. As he started establishing relations with Bonanno Family Members Lefty Ruggiero and Sonny Black, the FBI decided to continue the operation.

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A constant problem was how much Pistone could participate in Mob dealings without breaking the law himself. He could not initiate or encourage crimes, but to win credibility he had to participate in such activities as unloading stolen trucks and buying stolen guns. "What would happen, I thought, if I'm out with Sonny and Lefty and we get caught in a battle," he recalls. The situation never arose, but as he came closer to being initiated into the Mob, he was given a contract by Sonny Black to kill a fellow Mafioso. Before Pistone could run the mobster to earth, the FBI ended the operation, and on July 26, 1981, Agent Pistone came in from the heat.

Lefty at first refused to accept that his buddy Donnie would testify against him, but he was forced to believe it when he was confronted by Pistone on the witness stand in federal district court in Manhattan in 1982 and was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Sonny Black disappeared 17 days after Donnie Brasco's identity was revealed. In August 1982, Black's body was found on Staten Island. His hands had been chopped off, a symbol of a violation of Mafia security. "I felt a little bad," says Pistone, "but I always kept in mind that if he had found out who I was, he would have had no hesitation about killing me." For the undercover agent, as for the mobster, it was just business.

With reporting by Jeanne McDowell/New York