Chris Rosenberg

Harvey 'Christopher' Rosenberg in a mugshot taken sometime in the early 1970s.

Harvey "Christopher" Rosenberg (1950–May 11, 1979) was a notorious member of a crew ran by Gambino soldier Roy DeMeo that is suspected of 125-200 murders in the mid 1970s to the early 1980s. He was said to be violently defensive about his height, and despite his Jewish heritage, felt his killing ability would eventually earn him a button in the Italian-only Gambino Family.

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. 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.

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 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 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.

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 look 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 didn't go entirely smooth however, as Chris Rosenberg suffered two superficial bullet wounds, one on 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.

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 introducted 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 Cuban drug cartel: a violent war could be stopped if only Christopher Rosenberg was murdered, and only if the murder was in a newspaper as proof. It took weeks to play out, but eventually Roy DeMeo got the crew (minus Chris) together for an emergency evening 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, at which point Roy DeMeo pulled a pistol out of a brown bag sitting on the table and shot Chris in the head. 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.

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 cubans had their proof of revenge and the crisis was averted, at the cost of Roy DeMeo's closest and most loyal crew member.

Sources

• Murder Machine by Gene Mustain & Jerry Capeci, 1993, ISBN 0-451-40387-8.