Chris Rosenberg: Difference between revisions
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{{Short description|American criminal (1950–1979)}} |
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[[Image:Harveyrosenberg.jpg|frame|Harvey 'Christopher' Rosenberg in an NYPD mugshot taken sometime in the early [[1970s]].]] |
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{{More footnotes|date=January 2008}} |
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{{Infobox criminal |
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| name = Chris Rosenberg |
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| image_name = Harveyrosenberg.jpg |
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| image_size = |
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| image_alt = |
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| image_caption = Mugshot |
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| nationality = |
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| birth_name = |
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| birth_date = {{Birth date|1950|10|6|mf=y}} |
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| birth_place = [[Canarsie, Brooklyn, New York]], U.S. |
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| death_date = {{Death date and age|1979|5|11|1950|10|6|mf=y}} |
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| death_place = [[Brooklyn, New York]], U.S. |
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| cause = Gunshot wounds |
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| alias = Chris DeMeo |
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| motive = |
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| conviction = |
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| conviction_penalty = |
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| conviction_status = |
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| occupation = Car thief, drug dealer |
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| spouse = |
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| parents = |
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| children = |
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}} |
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'''Harvey " |
'''Harvey''' "'''Chris'''" '''Rosenberg''' (October 6, 1950 – May 11, 1979), also known as '''Chris DeMeo''' and '''Christopher Rosalia''',<ref>[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/30840371/dominick-montiglio-pg3/ 'Murder Machine'] ''[[New York Daily News]]'' (September 20, 1992)</ref> was an American gangster who was a member of the DeMeo crew run by [[Gambino crime family]] soldier [[Roy DeMeo]]. The gang is suspected of between 75–200 murders in the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. Following a failed narcotics deal with a Cuban drug cartel that Rosenberg stole from, DeMeo killed Rosenberg as restitution. |
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==Early |
==Early life== |
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Chris Rosenberg grew up in [[Canarsie]] on a block dominated by Italian-Americans. He attended [[Samuel J. Tilden High School]] in [[East Flatbush, Brooklyn]]. Despite the [[Italian-American Mafia|Mafia]] rule that only full Italians could be "[[made man|made]]", or officially inducted into the organization, Rosenberg reportedly believed that his earning abilities and willingness to murder might eventually lead to his becoming a member of [[Cosa Nostra]]. He reportedly did not like his Jewish last name, and preferred for people to call him "Chris DeMeo" instead. |
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==Career== |
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Christopher Rosenberg grew up in [[Canarsie]] on a block dominated by Italian-Americans, and considered his Italian friends his brothers. He too wanted to be Italian and despised his heritage because of it. Rosenberg's criminal career began relatively early, when he began dealing in [[narcotics]] at age 13. His first arrest was in [[1970]] for car theft, which started out as a felony case, but was reduced to a misdeamenor. He walked away with a fine as his only punishment. He was arrested again in 1971 for possession of the drug [[hashish]], then again in [[1972]] for the attempted stealing of a snowplow. Both cases were dismissed. |
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Rosenberg's criminal career began at the age of 13, when he began dealing [[marijuana]]. His first arrest was in 1970 for car theft, which started out as a [[felony]] case but was reduced to a [[misdemeanor]]. He was given probation rather than jail time. He was arrested again in 1971 for possession of the drug [[hashish]], then again in 1972 for the attempted theft of a snow plow. Both cases were dismissed. |
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==DeMeo crew== |
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Rosenberg was dealing in small amounts of marijuana and hashish when he first met [[Roy DeMeo]] at a Canarsie gas station in 1966. DeMeo recruited Chris to steal cars, which would then be sold off through connections DeMeo had within Canarsie junkyards. Rosenberg was also the first crew member to interact with DeMeo socially at family barbecues and get-togethers at DeMeo's house. |
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Between his adept car abilities as well as his fledgling drug business, Rosenberg became successful and opened his own car shop named Car Phobia Repairs, which soon became a hotspot for stolen vehicles. By 1972, Rosenberg had his friends stealing cars for him. Two of these friends were the [[Gemini twins (mafia)|Gemini twins]], [[Joseph Testa]] and [[Anthony Senter]], who Rosenberg would introduce to DeMeo and become two core members of the DeMeo crew. Testa and Senter, who were both full-blooded Italians, had known Rosenberg since their teenage years. |
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==Andrei Katz murder== |
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==The DeMeo Crew and Murder== |
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{{details|Andrei Katz}} |
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By 1974, Rosenberg, now 23, began selling [[cocaine]] and [[quaaludes]], again backed by DeMeo. He acquired the Quaaludes through a [[pharmacist]] connection, as well as the cocaine, which at the time could be prescribed for medical purposes. Through this pharmacist, Chris Rosenberg and the rest of the early DeMeo crew met 22-year-old [[Andrei Katz]], a man who became what was most likely the crew's first murder victim. When Katz was arrested because of a stolen vehicle he purchased from the crew, he blamed Rosenberg for his predicament. |
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The situation soon escalated to violence when Katz was pulled from his vehicle and severely beaten by two men and put in the hospital. Andrei's brother Victor later testified in court that Andrei claimed the two men were Testa and Senter. Victor also testified that while still in the hospital recovering from his injuries, Andrei swore to his brother that he would get revenge on Chris and the others. |
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By [[1974]], then 23 year-old Chris Rosenberg began selling [[cocaine]] and [[quaaludes]], again backed by [[Roy DeMeo]]. He aquired the [[quaaludes]] through a pharmacist connection, as well as the [[cocaine]], which at the time could be prescribed for medical purposes. Through this pharmacist, Chris Rosenberg and the rest of the early DeMeo crew met 22-year old Andrei Katz, a man who became what was most likely the crew's first murder. |
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The revenge came on November 13, 1974, when Rosenberg opened his garage door and was struck with 3 bullets fired from an automatic rifle. Rosenberg survived through sheer luck, one bullet hitting him in the lower jaw, another his right arm and a third that was aimed for his chest merely glancing off. Surviving what should have been a fatal shooting, Rosenberg was reportedly furious. His jaw was left disfigured from the bullet wound. Despite undergoing reconstructive surgery, from that point on Rosenberg wore a beard to mask the scars that resulted from this attack. |
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Like Rosenberg, Andrei Katz was of jewish descent, both of his parents being concentration camp survivors. Despite such a humble background, Katz was flashy and arrogant, dabbling heavily in drugs and women. Chris and Andrei began a business relationship, with Chris providing stolen spare parts for Andrei's car service shop. From this a friendship blossomed between Katz and the early DeMeo crew and the group were often found at Andrei's apartment snorting [[cocaine]]. The business relationship strengthened as well, when in the next few months Andrei purchased cocaine, car parts and tag jobs (stolen vehicles), as well as a .38 revolver from the crew. With the early DeMeo crew as his backing Andrei himself also began dealing in [[cocaine]]. Things soon became complicated when a friend of Katz was stopped while driving one of the stolen vehicles Andrei had acquired from Rosenberg. The police were led to Andrei, and they arrested him in October of 1974. The police offered him a deal if he cooperated, and for now, he refused and was released on bail. However, Andrei was angry at Chris and blamed him for his arrest. Andrei soon found himself in a confrontation with the crew, who stopped by his shop to make sure he was going to keep his mouth shut. Words became heated and an argument broke out. The following day Chris confronted Andrei again and punched him in the mouth. A few days later Andrie was yanked out of his vehicle and badly beaten by two masked men. He was in the hospital for a few days with horrible injuries from being pistol-whipped and beaten with a blackjack. Once healed, Andrei began carrying a handgun with him and planning revenge. |
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The man who had shot Rosenberg that morning was never seen, but it was assumed by Rosenberg and the rest of the DeMeo Crew to be Andrei Katz. After this incident, and while Rosenberg was still in the hospital recovering from his gunshot wounds, DeMeo met with his followers and it was decided that Katz had to be murdered. |
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The revenge came on November 13, 1974, when Chris Rosenberg opened his garage door and was struck with 3 bullets fired from an automatic rifle. Chris survived through sheer luck, one bullet hitting him in the lower jaw, another his right arm and a third that was aimed for his chest merely glancing the target. Despite the fact that he survived what should have been a very fatal shooting, Chris was furious. The bullet that tore into his jaw had disfigured his face, and reconstructive surgery did little to alleviate this anger. For the rest of his short life Rosenberg wore a beard to mask the scars that resulted from this attack. |
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Directly taking care of Katz was considered by the men to be too much of a risk due to the back and forth violence that had already occurred. [[Henry Borelli]], who had become involved with the crew shortly after Chris was shot, suggested that he use a woman friend of his to bait Andrei to a location where he could be abducted and then dealt with discreetly. Arriving at the woman's apartment complex expecting to take her out on a date, Andrei was forcefully abducted by Rosenberg, Borelli, Testa and Senter and taken to the meat department of a grocery store, where DeMeo was waiting. |
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The man who had shot Chris that morning was never seen but it was correctly assumed that the shooter had to be Andrei Katz. After this incident, and while Rosenberg was still in the hospital recovering from his gunshot wounds, the rest of the Canarsie men who made up the still-formative DeMeo crew made sure to travel together and always armed. During this time, the Gemini Twins [[Joseph Testa]] and [[Anthony Senter]] were arrested for carrying loaded handguns, but were soon released. Around this time, another core crew member emerged onto the scene, [[Henry Borelli]]. Once the Gemini Twins were released and Chris was out of the hospital following the shooting, a meeting was called with [[Roy DeMeo]] to figure out what to do about the situation. Having since murdered for his superior, [[Anthony Gaggi]], Roy wasted no time coming up with a solution: kill Andrei Katz. |
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It was this night, Friday, June 13, 1975, that the DeMeo crew is first known to have been involved with murder and [[dismemberment]]. While first-hand accounts of the incident are unavailable, information provided by crew members who cooperated with the government years later as well as the actual remains of Andrei Katz provided clues that were used by law enforcement as well as author [[Jerry Capeci]] to reconstruct the events. Katz was stabbed multiple times in the heart with a [[butcher knife]], presumably by Rosenberg in revenge for the shooting that had ruined his face. |
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A direct hit was considered by the crew to be risky given all that had happened, so a woman friend of [[Henry Borelli]]'s was used to successfully bait Katz to a location where he could be directly confronted. He wasn't killed outright however, instead he was brought by Chris, [[Henry Borelli]], [[Joseph Testa]] and [[Anthony Senter]] to the meat deparment of a grocery store, where [[Roy DeMeo]] was waiting. It was this night, Friday, June 13, 1975, that the DeMeo crew entered into the realm of murder and dismemberment. While first-hand accounts of the incident are naturally unavailable, the remains of Andrei Katz held clues that were used by law enforcement and reporter/author [[Jerry Capeci]] to reconstruct the events. First, Andre was stabbed multiple times in the heart with a butcher knife, presumably by Chris Rosenberg in revenge for the shooting that had put Chris into the hospital and ruined his face. Andre's body was then stripped of it's clothes and dismembered by [[Roy DeMeo]] and [[Joseph Testa]], both former butcher's apprentices, while Chris and [[Anthony Senter]] bagged the body parts. The crew then left the plastic bags filled with the grisly remains in the grocery store's dumpster, failing to realize that the garbage wasn't picked up on weekends at that particular store. Because of this oversight, the remains sat there until that Sunday when a homeless man happened across the remains and fled, after which a pedestrian walking his dog discovered them. The police reported to the press that a grisly, brutal killing had occurred, but that was the extent of the information given. |
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After Katz was already dead, his body was stabbed over a dozen times in the back, again presumably by Rosenberg. Katz's body was then stripped of its clothes and dismembered, likely by DeMeo and Testa, both former butcher apprentices. After the corpse was decapitated, one of the men, presumed to be Rosenberg, crushed the head with a machine normally used to compact cardboard boxes. Because of the damage done to the remains, dental records had to be used in order to positively identify the victim as Katz. |
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Eventually, the woman friend of [[Henry Borelli]] was linked to Andrei Katz and his final day seen alive and she was brought in for questioning. She ended up confessing to her role in the setup of Katz and led police to [[Henry Borelli]] and [[Joseph Testa]], who were promptly arrested. The woman did not have enough evidence to identify Rosenberg or [[Anthony Senter]] so no charges were brought against them. At Testa and Borelli's trial, the defense lawyers tore the woman's testimony to pieces. This, coupled with the lack of evidence linking either of the men to the crime scene, secured the release of both Testa and Borelli. Surprisingly, no retaliation was brought towards the woman who turned them in, and she ended up testifying a second time against them, for the very same crime, in the mid-1980s when the FBI had finally built up a solid case against the DeMeo crew. By this time, however, Rosenberg would not be around to worry about it. |
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Although the woman friend of Henry Borelli's would confess her role soon after learning about Katz's murder, she was unable to identify Rosenberg. Borelli and Testa were arrested however, and spent months in jail while waiting for trial. They would secure an acquittal in January 1976, but the case would come back to haunt the surviving members of the crew in the late 1980s, when a Federal/State task force targeted the DeMeo Crew. |
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As the 1970s continued, Chris Rosenberg along with the rest of the DeMeo crew would allegedly contribute to many more killings in the next couple of years which included suspected informants and other mobsters [[Roy DeMeo]] and his followers were contracted to kill. Rosenberg would also deal more and more heavily in narcotics, particularly in cocaine and the Colombian marijuana trade. At one point during this time, an associate of Rosenberg claimed he had many contacts to whom he could sell [[cocaine]]. After Rosenberg fronted the man an amount to sell off, the man claimed his house was broken into and the drugs stolen. Chris shot the man dead. More murders committed by Chris and members of the DeMeo crew were attributed to the drug business, notorious for it's shady participants and nonstop violence resulting from deals gone bad. It was one of these drug scams, committed by the DeMeo crew themselves, as well as Rosenberg's habit of introducing himself as Italian, that ultimately sealed his fate. |
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The nephew of Demeo's superior [[Anthony Gaggi]] within the Gambino Family, [[Dominick Montiglio]], later testified that he learned of the murder from Rosenberg shortly after it happened. He also testified that Rosenberg claimed Katz's murder had driven DeMeo and his crew to decide that any future conflicts would be settled in a similar manner of dismemberment to make the victim disappear. |
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==The "Cuban Crisis"== |
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==Gemini Method== |
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The origins of the fateful drug deal actually began in the early 1970s, when one Charles Padnick, owner of a body shop in Flatlands, became one of Roy's loan customers. Padnick soon moved to Florida, only to borrow more money from Roy when his business there floundered. Charles Padnick then entered the [[cocaine]] business, like many otherwise legitimate citizens did in the 1970s and 1980s, to continue paying off Roy's loans. It was through the drug business that Charles Padnick, as well as his son Jamie, got closer to Chris Rosenberg who by the late 1970s had become very successful and wealthy through narcotics. The Padnick's sold Chris pounds of [[cocaine]], who in turn sold it for a higher price and reaped a huge profit. |
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The rest of the 1970s would see Rosenberg, along with the rest of the DeMeo crew, commit many more killings. The victims included suspected informants and other mobsters DeMeo and his followers were contracted to kill. Dominick Montiglio, who visited DeMeo frequently to pick up payments for Anthony Gaggi, said in an interview that if the crew didn't kill at least three people a week, they would be depressed. Some were shot to death and left to be found, but the majority of murders committed by the crew followed what came to be known as the "Gemini Method", named so because the main location where the murders took place was the [[Gemini Lounge]], the headquarters of the DeMeo crew through much of the late 1970s. |
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The Gemini Method usually consisted of the victim entering the apartment in back of the Lounge, dubbed 'The Clubhouse' by crew members. At this point, a crew member (almost always Roy DeMeo according to crew member turned government witness [[Frederick DiNome]]) would approach the victim with a silenced pistol and shoot them in the head, then wrap a towel around the head wound like a turban in order to prevent blood from pouring out. Immediately after, another crew member would stab the victim in the heart in order to prevent any more blood from pumping out of the gunshot wound. |
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What Chris didn't know at the time was that Padnick's cocaine contact was a cuban man named William Serrano. Serrano's connection was a man known only as "Pepon", who in turn was connected to man who was a member of a Colombian organized crime family, whose only known alias was "El Negro". Through these contacts, "El Negro" was alerted of the Padnick's wealthy Italian connection that was on the lookout for a huge shipment of [[cocaine]]. After a 1-kilo dry run to ensure things would run smoothly, a 12-kilo deal was arranged between the Padnick's contact William Serrano and Christopher Rosenberg. Charles Padnick, William Serrano and two associates of "El Negro" booked a flight to New York and promptly disappeared, murdered in a violent shootout ambush with the DeMeo crew, who ripped off the [[cocaine]] in order to gain a multiple hundred thousand dollar profit. The ambush did not go entirely smooth however, as Chris Rosenberg suffered two superficial bullet wounds, one to his head and the other on his hand. Charles Padnick's son, Jamie Padnick, then flew to New York to investigate the disappearance of his father and was killed by the crew as well, most likely ending up alongside many of the other DeMeo crew victims somewhere in the Fountain Avenue Dump in Brooklyn. |
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By then, the victim would usually be dead, at which point the corpse would be dragged into a bathtub and hung over it for a short period of time. This was done so that the corpse would bleed out and the remaining blood would congeal, making the following step, the dismemberment of the victim, as clean as possible. The body parts would be put into bags, boxed and then sent off to Brooklyn's [[Fountain Avenue]] dump among other places. |
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This would have been the end of the treacherous dealing, if not for a terrible mistake Rosenberg committed. Knowing he would be killing William Serrano in short time, but not knowing Serrano was only the middle man brokering the cocaine deal, Christopher Rosenberg had introduced himself to Serrano as "Chris DeMeo". Thus, El Negro knew that his associates were ambushed and killed in New York, and by an Italian named DeMeo. Naturally all of this drama led back to [[Roy DeMeo]] and subsequently the [[Gambino crime family]], and the ultimatum was passed on by the Colombian drug cartel: a violent war could be stopped if Christopher Rosenberg was murdered, and only if the murder was in a newspaper as proof. It took weeks to play out, but after ever-increasing pressure from his superiors, [[Roy DeMeo]] got the crew (minus Chris) together for an emergency meeting and explained the situation. Rosenberg never knew about the tumultuous drama going on behind his back, therefore had no reason to suspect anything from his closest friends and crew members. Thus, on May 11, 1979, Christopher Rosenberg went to the regular nightly meeting with his crew. He walked in, greeted his friends and sat down at the table with the rest of them, at which point [[Roy DeMeo]] pulled a pistol out of a brown bag sitting on the table and shot Chris in the head, wounding but not killing him. [[Anthony Senter]] then stood up and shot Chris two more times in the head. The violent criminal career of Christopher Rosenberg had ended just a few years after it truly began, and as expected in an equally violent way as many of his victims. |
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Crew members who became government witnesses all contend that during the time period that Rosenberg was alive, he was always the crew member who stabbed the victims after they had been shot in the head. These same witnesses also claim that Rosenberg usually did the stabbings, as well as the subsequent dismembering of the body, in his boxer shorts or underwear in order to avoid staining the expensive clothes he wore. |
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Rosenberg's body was then placed in his car, which was driven and left parked on a street in New York. Crew member [[Frederick DiNome]] then drove by the vehicle while [[Henry Borelli]] raked it with machine gun fire, to ensure the murder was a blatant enough assassination to guarantee it a spot in the local newspaper. The Colombians had their proof of revenge and the crisis was averted, at the cost of [[Roy DeMeo]]'s closest and most loyal crew member. |
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Other victims murdered by the crew had their bodies either left where they were killed or dumped in nearby locations. They were killed for various reasons, usually involving cooperation with law enforcement or the drug trade, which Rosenberg was heavily involved in by the mid-to-late 70s. One victim, Kevin Guelli, had been given cocaine by Rosenberg to sell off to customers Guelli claimed he had available. When Rosenberg demanded payment shortly after giving him the drugs to sell, Guelli claimed someone had robbed his house and stolen the product. Rosenberg allegedly shot him dead on the spot. Another man was found shot to death and dumped into the trunk of a car allegedly after attempting to rip Rosenberg off in a marijuana deal. |
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=="Cuban Crisis"== |
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By the late 1970s, Rosenberg's continued involvement in the drug trade as well as his business with the DeMeo Crew had given him a prosperous lifestyle. He was living in an affluent neighborhood and when not working was training for his pilot's license. He also owned a number of businesses, including a pizzeria and his body shop. His heavy involvement in drug trafficking included importing marijuana from Colombia and dealing in large quantities of cocaine. He was Roy DeMeo's second-in-command and when conducting drug deals sometimes referred to himself as "Chris DeMeo". Roy had become somewhat of a [[father figure]] to Rosenberg. |
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In 1979 he visited [[Florida]] to set up a cocaine deal with a [[loanshark]] customer of Roy DeMeo's who had entered the drug business in an attempt to pay off his debts. This man, Charles Padnick, was acquainted with a Cuban man named William Serrano. Serrano had connections with two Cuban drug merchants known only as "Pepon" and "El Negro". He was informed by Padnick that a group of Italians were interested in purchasing a large quantity of cocaine. After he met with Rosenberg, who introduced himself as Chris DeMeo, Serrano told his Cuban associates and a deal was set up, although Rosenberg was never informed of Serrano's source of the drugs. |
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A group of four, comprising Charles Padnick and William Serrano as well as the cousin and girlfriend of Serrano's Cuban drug connection "El Negro" flew to New York to facilitate the deal. Within hours of landing, they were shot to death, dismembered and disposed of by Rosenberg and other members of the DeMeo crew. That same night Rosenberg visited a hospital with gunshot wounds on his hand and on the side of his head, suggesting that the group may have tried to fight back before being killed. When the mysterious "El Negro" did not receive a phone call from his cousin or girlfriend that night to ensure that the sale had been completed, he contacted Charles Padnick's son Jamie in an attempt to get more information. Jamie Padnick flew to New York shortly after and disappeared as well after being murdered and dismembered by Rosenberg and his fellow crew members. |
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With the only information available being the location of [[New York City]] and the name "Chris DeMeo", the Cubans had contacts there inquire and eventually the situation led to Roy DeMeo and the Gambino family. [[Dominick Montiglio]], the nephew of DeMeo's superior Anthony Gaggi, became a government witness in 1983 and claims that he was in charge of delivering messages back and forth between the Cubans' contact in New York and the Gambinos. "El Negro" stated that if Chris Rosenberg were murdered, there would be no further conflict. The murder would have to be in the newspapers, otherwise they would not believe it had actually occurred. After being ordered to kill Rosenberg by his superiors, DeMeo stalled for a number of weeks, reportedly due to the close relationship he and Rosenberg had. After a period of inaction on the part of the Gambinos, the Cuban drug lord sent a group of enforcers to New York and threatened violence if Rosenberg was not murdered soon. |
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During this situation between the Gambino family and the Cuban cartel, DeMeo committed his most public murder after mistaking a man for a Cuban assassin. The victim, Dominick Ragucci, was actually a 19-year-old paying his way through college by selling vacuum cleaners door to door. After DeMeo saw him parked in front of his house, he mistook him for a Cuban hitman and ended up pursuing the young man in a car chase that ended with Ragucci being shot to death by DeMeo after his vehicle became too damaged to continue driving. After this Anthony Gaggi met with DeMeo and ordered him to stop stalling and kill Rosenberg before there were any more innocent victims. |
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==Death== |
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Rosenberg was reportedly never informed about the Cuban situation and thus had no indication that his life was in danger. On May 11, 1979, he went to the regular nightly meeting with DeMeo and crew. As he sat at the table with his associates, DeMeo pulled a pistol out of a brown bag sitting on the table and shot Rosenberg in the head, wounding but not killing him. When Rosenberg got up off the floor and stumbled onto one knee, [[Anthony Senter]] stood and shot him four more times in the head. |
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Rosenberg's body was then placed in his car, which was driven and left parked on a street near the [[Gateway National Recreation Area]] in New York City. Crew member [[Frederick DiNome]] then drove by the vehicle while Henry Borelli raked it with machine gun fire, to ensure the murder was a blatant enough assassination to guarantee that it would be mentioned in the local newspaper. This gave the Cubans proof of the killing and defused the situation. Witnesses claim that for years afterward DeMeo expressed genuine regret at having to kill Rosenberg. |
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Members of the DeMeo crew were suspects in Rosenberg's murder but there was not enough evidence to charge them. Years later however, the murder would be among many other charges in a 1984 indictment against the surviving crew members after cooperating witnesses for the government provided a great deal of information on the crew's activities. At the trial in 1988, testimony was given by [[Dominick Montiglio]] and [[Vito Arena]] linking the remnants of the DeMeo crew with Rosenberg's murder. In 1989 the defendants were convicted of all charges and Joseph Testa and Anthony Senter, the only core DeMeo Crew members who had not been murdered or already imprisoned, were sentenced to life in prison. |
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==References== |
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{{Reflist}} |
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==Sources== |
==Sources== |
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*''Murder Machine'' by Gene Mustain & Jerry Capeci, 1993, |
*''Murder Machine'' by Gene Mustain & Jerry Capeci, 1993, {{ISBN|0-451-40387-8}}. |
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*''For The Sins of My Father: A Mafia Killer, His Son, and the Legacy of a Mob Life'', by Al DeMeo, 2003, {{ISBN|978-0-7679-1129-0}} |
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*{{cite news |title=2 Held in Murder of Auto Mechanic |date=July 6, 1975 |newspaper=The New York Times |page=34 |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1975/07/06/355308122.pdf}}{{subscription required}} |
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*{{cite news |author= William Glaberson |title=After 15 Months, Mob Trial Nears End |date=May 28, 1989 |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/28/nyregion/after-15-months-mob-trial-nears-end.html}} |
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==External links== |
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*{{Find a Grave|19524476}} |
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{{Gambino crime family}}{{American Mafia}} |
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{{authority control}} |
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosenberg, Chris}} |
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[[Category: |
[[Category:1950 births]] |
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[[Category: |
[[Category:1979 deaths]] |
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[[Category: |
[[Category:1979 murders in the United States]] |
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[[Category: |
[[Category:Criminals from Brooklyn]] |
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[[Category:Deaths by firearm in Brooklyn]] |
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[[Category:DeMeo Crew]] |
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[[Category:DeMeo Crew victims]] |
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[[Category:Gambino crime family]] |
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[[Category:Jewish American gangsters]] |
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[[Category:Murdered Jewish American gangsters]] |
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[[Category:People from Canarsie, Brooklyn]] |
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[[Category:People murdered in New York (state)]] |
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Latest revision as of 03:21, 9 November 2024
 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (January 2008) |
Chris Rosenberg | |
|---|---|
 Mugshot | |
| Born | October 6, 1950 |
| Died | May 11, 1979 (aged 28) Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Gunshot wounds |
| Other names | Chris DeMeo |
| Occupation(s) | Car thief, drug dealer |
Harvey "Chris" Rosenberg (October 6, 1950 – May 11, 1979), also known as Chris DeMeo and Christopher Rosalia,[1] was an American gangster who was a member of the DeMeo crew run by Gambino crime family soldier Roy DeMeo. The gang is suspected of between 75–200 murders in the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. Following a failed narcotics deal with a Cuban drug cartel that Rosenberg stole from, DeMeo killed Rosenberg as restitution.
Early life
[edit]Chris Rosenberg grew up in Canarsie on a block dominated by Italian-Americans. He attended Samuel J. Tilden High School in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. Despite the Mafia rule that only full Italians could be "made", or officially inducted into the organization, Rosenberg reportedly believed that his earning abilities and willingness to murder might eventually lead to his becoming a member of Cosa Nostra. He reportedly did not like his Jewish last name, and preferred for people to call him "Chris DeMeo" instead.
Career
[edit]Rosenberg's criminal career began at the age of 13, when he began dealing marijuana. His first arrest was in 1970 for car theft, which started out as a felony case but was reduced to a misdemeanor. He was given probation rather than jail time. He was arrested again in 1971 for possession of the drug hashish, then again in 1972 for the attempted theft of a snow plow. Both cases were dismissed.
DeMeo crew
[edit]Rosenberg was dealing in small amounts of marijuana and hashish when he first met Roy DeMeo at a Canarsie gas station in 1966. DeMeo recruited Chris to steal cars, which would then be sold off through connections DeMeo had within Canarsie junkyards. Rosenberg was also the first crew member to interact with DeMeo socially at family barbecues and get-togethers at DeMeo's house.
Between his adept car abilities as well as his fledgling drug business, Rosenberg became successful and opened his own car shop named Car Phobia Repairs, which soon became a hotspot for stolen vehicles. By 1972, Rosenberg had his friends stealing cars for him. Two of these friends were the Gemini twins, Joseph Testa and Anthony Senter, who Rosenberg would introduce to DeMeo and become two core members of the DeMeo crew. Testa and Senter, who were both full-blooded Italians, had known Rosenberg since their teenage years.
Andrei Katz murder
[edit]By 1974, Rosenberg, now 23, began selling cocaine and quaaludes, again backed by DeMeo. He acquired the Quaaludes through a pharmacist connection, as well as the cocaine, which at the time could be prescribed for medical purposes. Through this pharmacist, Chris Rosenberg and the rest of the early DeMeo crew met 22-year-old Andrei Katz, a man who became what was most likely the crew's first murder victim. When Katz was arrested because of a stolen vehicle he purchased from the crew, he blamed Rosenberg for his predicament.
The situation soon escalated to violence when Katz was pulled from his vehicle and severely beaten by two men and put in the hospital. Andrei's brother Victor later testified in court that Andrei claimed the two men were Testa and Senter. Victor also testified that while still in the hospital recovering from his injuries, Andrei swore to his brother that he would get revenge on Chris and the others.
The revenge came on November 13, 1974, when Rosenberg opened his garage door and was struck with 3 bullets fired from an automatic rifle. Rosenberg survived through sheer luck, one bullet hitting him in the lower jaw, another his right arm and a third that was aimed for his chest merely glancing off. Surviving what should have been a fatal shooting, Rosenberg was reportedly furious. His jaw was left disfigured from the bullet wound. Despite undergoing reconstructive surgery, from that point on Rosenberg wore a beard to mask the scars that resulted from this attack.
The man who had shot Rosenberg that morning was never seen, but it was assumed by Rosenberg and the rest of the DeMeo Crew to be Andrei Katz. After this incident, and while Rosenberg was still in the hospital recovering from his gunshot wounds, DeMeo met with his followers and it was decided that Katz had to be murdered.
Directly taking care of Katz was considered by the men to be too much of a risk due to the back and forth violence that had already occurred. Henry Borelli, who had become involved with the crew shortly after Chris was shot, suggested that he use a woman friend of his to bait Andrei to a location where he could be abducted and then dealt with discreetly. Arriving at the woman's apartment complex expecting to take her out on a date, Andrei was forcefully abducted by Rosenberg, Borelli, Testa and Senter and taken to the meat department of a grocery store, where DeMeo was waiting.
It was this night, Friday, June 13, 1975, that the DeMeo crew is first known to have been involved with murder and dismemberment. While first-hand accounts of the incident are unavailable, information provided by crew members who cooperated with the government years later as well as the actual remains of Andrei Katz provided clues that were used by law enforcement as well as author Jerry Capeci to reconstruct the events. Katz was stabbed multiple times in the heart with a butcher knife, presumably by Rosenberg in revenge for the shooting that had ruined his face.
After Katz was already dead, his body was stabbed over a dozen times in the back, again presumably by Rosenberg. Katz's body was then stripped of its clothes and dismembered, likely by DeMeo and Testa, both former butcher apprentices. After the corpse was decapitated, one of the men, presumed to be Rosenberg, crushed the head with a machine normally used to compact cardboard boxes. Because of the damage done to the remains, dental records had to be used in order to positively identify the victim as Katz.
Although the woman friend of Henry Borelli's would confess her role soon after learning about Katz's murder, she was unable to identify Rosenberg. Borelli and Testa were arrested however, and spent months in jail while waiting for trial. They would secure an acquittal in January 1976, but the case would come back to haunt the surviving members of the crew in the late 1980s, when a Federal/State task force targeted the DeMeo Crew.
The nephew of Demeo's superior Anthony Gaggi within the Gambino Family, Dominick Montiglio, later testified that he learned of the murder from Rosenberg shortly after it happened. He also testified that Rosenberg claimed Katz's murder had driven DeMeo and his crew to decide that any future conflicts would be settled in a similar manner of dismemberment to make the victim disappear.
Gemini Method
[edit]The rest of the 1970s would see Rosenberg, along with the rest of the DeMeo crew, commit many more killings. The victims included suspected informants and other mobsters DeMeo and his followers were contracted to kill. Dominick Montiglio, who visited DeMeo frequently to pick up payments for Anthony Gaggi, said in an interview that if the crew didn't kill at least three people a week, they would be depressed. Some were shot to death and left to be found, but the majority of murders committed by the crew followed what came to be known as the "Gemini Method", named so because the main location where the murders took place was the Gemini Lounge, the headquarters of the DeMeo crew through much of the late 1970s.
The Gemini Method usually consisted of the victim entering the apartment in back of the Lounge, dubbed 'The Clubhouse' by crew members. At this point, a crew member (almost always Roy DeMeo according to crew member turned government witness Frederick DiNome) would approach the victim with a silenced pistol and shoot them in the head, then wrap a towel around the head wound like a turban in order to prevent blood from pouring out. Immediately after, another crew member 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 corpse would be dragged into a bathtub and hung over it for a short period of time. This was done so that the corpse would bleed out and the remaining blood would congeal, making the following step, the dismemberment of the victim, as clean as possible. The body parts would be put into bags, boxed and then sent off to Brooklyn's Fountain Avenue dump among other places.
Crew members who became government witnesses all contend that during the time period that Rosenberg was alive, he was always the crew member who stabbed the victims after they had been shot in the head. These same witnesses also claim that Rosenberg usually did the stabbings, as well as the subsequent dismembering of the body, in his boxer shorts or underwear in order to avoid staining the expensive clothes he wore.
Other victims murdered by the crew had their bodies either left where they were killed or dumped in nearby locations. They were killed for various reasons, usually involving cooperation with law enforcement or the drug trade, which Rosenberg was heavily involved in by the mid-to-late 70s. One victim, Kevin Guelli, had been given cocaine by Rosenberg to sell off to customers Guelli claimed he had available. When Rosenberg demanded payment shortly after giving him the drugs to sell, Guelli claimed someone had robbed his house and stolen the product. Rosenberg allegedly shot him dead on the spot. Another man was found shot to death and dumped into the trunk of a car allegedly after attempting to rip Rosenberg off in a marijuana deal.
"Cuban Crisis"
[edit]By the late 1970s, Rosenberg's continued involvement in the drug trade as well as his business with the DeMeo Crew had given him a prosperous lifestyle. He was living in an affluent neighborhood and when not working was training for his pilot's license. He also owned a number of businesses, including a pizzeria and his body shop. His heavy involvement in drug trafficking included importing marijuana from Colombia and dealing in large quantities of cocaine. He was Roy DeMeo's second-in-command and when conducting drug deals sometimes referred to himself as "Chris DeMeo". Roy had become somewhat of a father figure to Rosenberg.
In 1979 he visited Florida to set up a cocaine deal with a loanshark customer of Roy DeMeo's who had entered the drug business in an attempt to pay off his debts. This man, Charles Padnick, was acquainted with a Cuban man named William Serrano. Serrano had connections with two Cuban drug merchants known only as "Pepon" and "El Negro". He was informed by Padnick that a group of Italians were interested in purchasing a large quantity of cocaine. After he met with Rosenberg, who introduced himself as Chris DeMeo, Serrano told his Cuban associates and a deal was set up, although Rosenberg was never informed of Serrano's source of the drugs.
A group of four, comprising Charles Padnick and William Serrano as well as the cousin and girlfriend of Serrano's Cuban drug connection "El Negro" flew to New York to facilitate the deal. Within hours of landing, they were shot to death, dismembered and disposed of by Rosenberg and other members of the DeMeo crew. That same night Rosenberg visited a hospital with gunshot wounds on his hand and on the side of his head, suggesting that the group may have tried to fight back before being killed. When the mysterious "El Negro" did not receive a phone call from his cousin or girlfriend that night to ensure that the sale had been completed, he contacted Charles Padnick's son Jamie in an attempt to get more information. Jamie Padnick flew to New York shortly after and disappeared as well after being murdered and dismembered by Rosenberg and his fellow crew members.
With the only information available being the location of New York City and the name "Chris DeMeo", the Cubans had contacts there inquire and eventually the situation led to Roy DeMeo and the Gambino family. Dominick Montiglio, the nephew of DeMeo's superior Anthony Gaggi, became a government witness in 1983 and claims that he was in charge of delivering messages back and forth between the Cubans' contact in New York and the Gambinos. "El Negro" stated that if Chris Rosenberg were murdered, there would be no further conflict. The murder would have to be in the newspapers, otherwise they would not believe it had actually occurred. After being ordered to kill Rosenberg by his superiors, DeMeo stalled for a number of weeks, reportedly due to the close relationship he and Rosenberg had. After a period of inaction on the part of the Gambinos, the Cuban drug lord sent a group of enforcers to New York and threatened violence if Rosenberg was not murdered soon.
During this situation between the Gambino family and the Cuban cartel, DeMeo committed his most public murder after mistaking a man for a Cuban assassin. The victim, Dominick Ragucci, was actually a 19-year-old paying his way through college by selling vacuum cleaners door to door. After DeMeo saw him parked in front of his house, he mistook him for a Cuban hitman and ended up pursuing the young man in a car chase that ended with Ragucci being shot to death by DeMeo after his vehicle became too damaged to continue driving. After this Anthony Gaggi met with DeMeo and ordered him to stop stalling and kill Rosenberg before there were any more innocent victims.
Death
[edit]Rosenberg was reportedly never informed about the Cuban situation and thus had no indication that his life was in danger. On May 11, 1979, he went to the regular nightly meeting with DeMeo and crew. As he sat at the table with his associates, DeMeo pulled a pistol out of a brown bag sitting on the table and shot Rosenberg in the head, wounding but not killing him. When Rosenberg got up off the floor and stumbled onto one knee, Anthony Senter stood and shot him four more times in the head.
Rosenberg's body was then placed in his car, which was driven and left parked on a street near the Gateway National Recreation Area in New York City. Crew member Frederick DiNome then drove by the vehicle while Henry Borelli raked it with machine gun fire, to ensure the murder was a blatant enough assassination to guarantee that it would be mentioned in the local newspaper. This gave the Cubans proof of the killing and defused the situation. Witnesses claim that for years afterward DeMeo expressed genuine regret at having to kill Rosenberg.
Members of the DeMeo crew were suspects in Rosenberg's murder but there was not enough evidence to charge them. Years later however, the murder would be among many other charges in a 1984 indictment against the surviving crew members after cooperating witnesses for the government provided a great deal of information on the crew's activities. At the trial in 1988, testimony was given by Dominick Montiglio and Vito Arena linking the remnants of the DeMeo crew with Rosenberg's murder. In 1989 the defendants were convicted of all charges and Joseph Testa and Anthony Senter, the only core DeMeo Crew members who had not been murdered or already imprisoned, were sentenced to life in prison.
References
[edit]- ^ 'Murder Machine' New York Daily News (September 20, 1992)
Sources
[edit]- Murder Machine by Gene Mustain & Jerry Capeci, 1993, ISBN 0-451-40387-8.
- For The Sins of My Father: A Mafia Killer, His Son, and the Legacy of a Mob Life, by Al DeMeo, 2003, ISBN 978-0-7679-1129-0
- "2 Held in Murder of Auto Mechanic" (PDF). The New York Times. July 6, 1975. p. 34.(subscription required)
- William Glaberson (May 28, 1989). "After 15 Months, Mob Trial Nears End". The New York Times.
