A capo in the Bonanno crime Family, Michael Zaffarano was a kingpin of the porn industry in the 1970s and ran some of the most illicit clubs in New York City. He also once served as a driver and bodyguard to Family Boss Joe Bonanno. It was even rumored he “kidnapped” his boss when Bonanno was feeling the heat from his fellow Mafia Commission members as well as the law.
Zaffarano had to deal with his own “heat” in 1980 and tried to pull a Houdini act of his own, but the only person waiting to “save” him from the law – was the Grim Reaper.
Michael (Mickey) Zaffarano – aka “Mickey Z”- was born on May 19, 1923. Originally raised in Lower Manhattan, he would later reside for years at 1721 66th Street in Brooklyn.
But as Mickey better established himself in the New York underworld, he would move with his wife Rosalie and their young son out to a split-level home with a neatly trimmed lawn situated along a canal at 2848 Riverside Drive in Wantagh, Long Island.
At almost 6 feet tall and stocky, he started out as a rough street hood who quickly affiliated with the Joseph Bonanno Family’s Little Italy crew. It was thought that Zaffarano had caught the eye of a top Bonanno capo named Carmine (Lilo) Galante.
His criminal arrest record started in 1947 and included assault, robbery, kidnapping, transporting stolen securities, criminal contempt, violation of obscenity laws, and possession of pornographic film.
A Captain in the Family
In time, Mickey would become an official “soldier” within this borgata. By the late 1960s, local and federal law enforcement authorities said that Zaffarano had indeed risen to become a “captain” in the Family.
In this capacity, he was said to be in control of a vast pornography racket empire for the Bonannos and had such power that he actually arbitrated underworld disputes related to the smut trade between competing borgatas from coast to coast.
As a young guy, he originally hung around with other Mulberry Street toughs such as future Family capo Mike Sabella, and a young soldier in the Lucchese Family named Vincent Potenza, who was better known by his street nickname of Jimmy Jones.
Zaffarano had started as a thief, burglar, all-around hood, and strong-arm man for the underworld. He was a very active hoodlum.
Early on he listed himself as the operator of a sportswear company. By the 1960s, he also owned and ran a Brooklyn restaurant as a front. As a fledgling young hoodlum in 1958, he was arrested in a highly publicized case along with six other mob suspects for operating a huge burglary and stolen goods ring in Brooklyn.
During the raid, Brooklyn detectives recovered about $100,000 worth of stolen merchandise as well as a load of worthless, out-of-circulation German currency. The loot recovered included cases of cigarettes, tape recorders, gold watches and chains, men’s and women’s sweaters and coats, and a wide variety of other items. The haul was so large that it took over 15 squad cars plus 3 paddy wagons to truck the loot back to police headquarters.
Detectives said the ring specialized in high-end safe-cracking, burglaries, and truck hijacking. They found full sets of burglar tools during the arrests.
One of the suspects was a beautiful 20-year-old brunette named Betty Funt of Manhattan who was a former hat-check girl in a New York nightclub, charged with possessing stolen goods. Others nabbed with Zaffarano included Bonanno soldier Pasquale (Patsy) Barranca, and mob associates Attilio Chiodine and Anthony Mascolo.
One of the key suspects was Vincent (Jimmy) DePietro, originally of Mulberry Street but then living down in Miami Beach, Florida. Jimmy DePietro had a well-earned reputation as a master thief, jewel burglar, and all-around top heist man. His reputation within the New York underworld was near legendary.
The American Express Theft
In 1959, he was charged along with Potenza and two more hoods named Anthony Bonacci and Gerald Purazzo for their daring daylight armed robbery and burglary of an American Express office at Idlewild Airport (better known today as JFK International).
The daring gang heisted $93,000 in blank Amex money orders, traveler’s checks, cash, and foreign currency.
Mickey and Jimmy both hightailed out to California to dispose of the stolen securities as well as try and duck authorities who had splashed news of the heist all over the newspapers. Bonacci, meanwhile, hid out in Upstate New York.
A federal crime, Zaffarano and Potenza were eventually tracked down in San Francisco and nabbed by the FBI. Bonacci and Purazzo was nabbed as well.
At the time of Zaffarano’s arrest, he had $3,000 of the stolen money orders in his possession. Charged with transporting stolen securities in interstate commerce, besides the armed robbery charges, they were also charged with a kidnapping count because during the robbery they had actually detained and held the manager on duty at the time against his will for hours while they threatened him to release the combination to the company’s safe.
They both went away and did a ten-year bit in Atlanta Federal Penitentiary for that little foray.
Upon his release from prison “Mickey Z” eventually got his finger pinched and became a “made guy” under Joe Bonanno. In fact, for a time it was said that he served as the loyal driver and bodyguard for his boss “Joe Bananas.”
A few years later, in 1968, he was thrown back in jail for a while after being nabbed on a parole violation charge.
The Bonanno Kidnapping
Previous to all that, one night back on October 21, 1964, Family leader Joseph Bonanno claimed to have been kidnapped by two masked gunmen who accosted him on a Midtown Manhattan street at Park Avenue. This was on the eve of a scheduled federal grand jury appearance investigating mob rackets by Joseph Bonanno the following day.
In 1966, Mickey Zaffarano was brought from Atlanta Penitentiary where he was still serving his prison term to testify before the grand jury after he was subpoenaed and questioned about his knowledge of this alleged incident. It was highly suspected in some circles that he indeed had been one of those two kidnappers that evening.
Side Note: This appearance would be only one of many grand jury subpoenas Zaffarano would receive during his underworld career. He ended up serving several 30-day contempt of court sentences during the 1960s-1970s period because of it.
Mickey had been questioned about his knowledge and involvement in several gangland murders of mob figures in the early 1970s such as that of Carlo Lombardi in 1972. He received a jail term of 30 days for contempt after clamming up.
He was also once subpoenaed before a Los Angeles grand jury probing the mob murder of Jake Molinas, a disgraced former Columbia University basketball star who was killed after involving himself in gambling and pornography rackets in partnership with Mickey and other hoodlums.
Zaffarano had allegedly once ordered Molinas to a sitdown to settle porno conflicts out in California where Zaffarano was said to hold sway.
It was later strongly suspected that Joe Bonanno had staged his own kidnapping to disappear. This enabled him to duck several pesky grand juries probing his crime Family, as well as avoid other fellow Commission bosses requesting his appearance to explain several murder conspiracies for which he was accused.
In any event, Zaffarano figured into this probe. It was during a tumultuous period for their mob Family that would culminate with the “Banana War” that raged from 1967 through 1969.
Michael Zaffarano and His Criminal Associates
Among the closer of Zaffarano’s mob associates were:
- Carmine (Lilo) Galante – A rough and tumble capo who in the late 1950s-early 1960s rose to serve as Bonanno underboss, and eventually, its acting boss until his 1979 assassination. Mickey and Lilo were known to be very close.
- Michael (Mimi) Sabella – A very low-key and capable capo based in Little Italy. Sabella later opened a popular Italian restaurant he named Ca Sa Bella (which in Italian means “here’s Sabella”.”
- Girolamo (Jerry) Asaro and his son Vincent Asaro – Both were longtime members of the Family based out on Long Island. The Asaro family was also related by blood to Zaffarano.
- Florio (Flo) Isabella – A longtime soldier of their “fourth ward” regime, and a well-known, convicted narcotics peddler and hoodlum.
- Anthony Mirra – A notorious, vicious hoodlum and convicted heroin peddler who stood trial in 1958 with Galante, Vito Genovese, and a dozen others for controlling a huge international narcotics network operating from France to America.
- Salvatore (Sally Burns) Granello – A top Genovese soldier from Mott Street whom Zaffarano had known since their youth. Mickey, Sally Burns, and the formerly mentioned Jimmy DePietro were the best of friends. The outspoken and boisterous Granello would later be murdered.
- Matthew (Matty the Horse) Ianniello – Another important Genovese member who also became a top kingpin in the sex trade and porno rackets of midtown. The two mafiosi would sometimes partner on porn-related racket operations.
- Other friendly competitors operating within the Times Square porno rackets included the Gambino Family’s Robert (DB) DiBernardo and the Lucchese Family’s Joseph (Joe Bikini) Brocchini.
The Kingpin of Porn
Zaffarano would eventually become not only one of the pornography kingpins of the Times Square flesh industry but of the entire nation as well.
His underworld tentacles stretched from New York City to Florida, and out to Los Angeles, California, where much of the early filming of porno loops and full-length flicks were filmed and produced.
He was described in both federal and local New York City Police Intelligence files as a “national czar and behind-the-scenes leader in the financing, production, and distribution of explicit-sex films and pornography.”
What at first puzzled investigators was Zaffarano seemingly allowing his surname to be openly and directly connected to the smut trade. No other major mafia figure had ever openly owned or operated porno businesses before Mickey Zaffarano put his name on incorporation papers.
But in his own defense, Zaffarano would only ever admit to being the owner of the various real estate and buildings housing these types of businesses, and the landlord collecting “rents” of sex-oriented establishments at those addresses.
He was not a partner of record in the businesses themselves.
In the 42nd Street – Times Square District, Mickey Z’s growing wealth had allowed him to actually purchase entire buildings in the valuable midtown Manhattan section including a string of buildings from 1603 to 1607 Broadway, off 42nd Street, and another at 207 West 48th Street off-Broadway, both smack dab in Midtown.
Zaffarano also owned the building and property at 1601 Broadway which was the location that housed the notorious Mardi Gras Topless Bar. The topless bar business was actually owned and operated by Matty Ianniello.
As the landlord, Zaffarano leased the location to Ianniello but was not his partner.
Collectively these buildings housed a half-dozen sex-related businesses and were the heart of his flesh empire, as well as his main offices and headquarters.
Flashy 2-story high illuminated signs advertised peep shows, live flesh-full nude and simulated sex shows, retail outlets for smut books and glossy fuck magazines, sex toys and paraphernalia, various raw photos and sex-related stores with smut reels offering both heterosexual and homosexual sex.
The first floor of one entire building located at 49th Street and Broadway even housed The Pussycat Theatre, a notorious full-sized movie theatre offering round-the-clock hardcore sex films on the big screen.
The related Pussycat Show Center next door housed a huge book and peep-show coin machine operation.
Another of his buildings housed the notorious Broadway Arms, a “private club” that catered to homosexuals. It was said that this particular establishment was open 24 hours a day offering gay films, and a “den” for socializing where it was said that on-premises gay sex would take place.
Zaffarano’s building at 207 West 48th Street housed The Cats Eye, which was a topless and bottomless disco “juice bar” that featured exotic dancers.
On the top floor of this same two-story building, Zaffarano’s minions ran the “Leave it to Beaver Lounge” which was an illegal-massage parlor (or whore house). It was said that he had something for everybody. He was also in control of a lesbian-themed bar in this same section of town.
These were virtual “emporiums” of smut. Collectively Zaffarano had created the sexual equivalent of the “Walt Disney World” of pornography.
Zaffarano’s operations were among the most prominent in the entire nationwide underground sex industry.
A Porn Empire
As if this was not already more than enough, behind the scenes, if one had the proper introductions and knew the right people, these outlets were also said to offer films and magazines dedicated to even darker proclivities such as extreme bestiality, violent sadomasochism, scat sex, and any other sexually degenerate-type tendencies that a person could imagine.
The sex industry in all its forms was an extremely profitable racket to begin with, but this part of the smut business was an exceptionally lucrative trade because people drawn to those darker indulgences were typically willing to pay whatever price they had to, to satisfy their deviant sexual needs and cravings.
Within a little more than one decade, Mickey Zaffarano created nothing less than a mafia racket dynasty. An interlocking medley of multimillion-dollar businesses that rode the “grey area” of both legality and morality.
His operations ran coast to coast, from The Big Apple to Los Angeles.
He held hidden ownership interests in various smut bookstores, dirty movie houses, and other sex-related businesses in a string of cities such as the D.C. Playhouse in Washington, D.C.
Federal officials stated that either through his initial monetary investments or through extortions and “shakedowns” by the mobsters of independent porno dealers, both Zaffarano and his Bonanno Family, as well as Cosa Nostra figures in other Families who controlled the sex industry across America.
In September of 1973, after a ten-month investigation, the NYC police, Brooklyn Strike Force headed by Denis Dillon, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District, and the FBI staged a midnight raid against a huge pornographic film processing lab Zaffarano was said to operate in Queens, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation seizing over $500,000 in expensive equipment which included machinery, master reels, high-speed film processing devices, and duplicating machines.
The film manufacturing plant was located in a warehouse at 130-40 180th Street in the Springfield Gardens section. Authorities reported that this was a very large operation said to gross more than $12,500,000 a year.
Several days later, they staged a second raid with a search warrant on the basement office of a private home located at 84-22 101 Avenue in Ozone Park.
Authorities seized boxes of business records, and the Strike Force Attorney heading the probe stated that these raids had targeted the largest pornographic motion picture operation in the nation. He said that color films produced by this operation were being shipped throughout the country to different distribution centers.
The 8 mm silent movies, which cost about a dollar apiece to process, were shipped by air to Chicago, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Charlotte, N. C., and Montreal, he reported. Retailers would sell each 200‐foot reel with 8 to 10 minutes of screening time for $25 to $100.
The investigators garnered evidence that Zaffarano’s companies also exported these smut films internationally to such countries as Japan. The Queens plant was operated in the name of “Gage Enterprises,” according to authorities.
An affidavit in support of these search warrants for “suspicion of interstate transportation of obscene material” said that principal Robert Gage was the film technician and a close associate of Zaffarano.
The warrants were issued by Federal Judge Leo F. Rayfiel. The affidavit said that the seized films and still photographs depicted natural and unnatural sexual acts, including “fellatio, cunnilingus, sodomy, buggery, and bestiality.”
FBI agents discovered that a telephone listed to Michael Zaffarano was situated in the basement at the Ozone Park address.
This operation supplied both independent pornographers as well as mafia-connected hoods.
As an example, federal agents tied many purchases of film over several years to Cosmo (Gus) Caggiano, who according to the FBI was a reputed associate of the Colombo Mafia family.
Caggiano had opened his own laboratory on Staten Island back in 1968 to mass-produce hard‐core pornographic films.
A Carmine Galante Favorite
By the mid-1970s, Mickey Zaffarano was bringing in untold wealth for both himself and his Mafia brothers and benefactors.
His old friend and direct superior Carmine Galante, who had been released from the federal penitentiary lockup at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania in 1974 loved Zaffarano. Every time Mickey saw Lilo he’d hand ’em a fat envelope of cash.
It quickly made the porn king also the fair-haired boy in the boss’s eyes.
They were so close and seemingly simpatico that when the FBI later closed in on Galante in 1978 to violate his parole on technical violations of “associating with known criminals”, one of those known criminals they listed was mob figure Michael Zaffarano.
As the mob’s involvement in the pornography industry continued to mushroom and skyrocket, and the mob’s resultant profits soared to levels few other racket operations could match, the FBI decided to launch another deep cover investigation, this became the largest undercover operation in its history.
Known as MiPorn (Miami Pornography), in 1977, two FBI agents posing as porno merchants set up shop in Miami, Florida, as distributors of “adult entertainment.” What was initially targeted as a six-month probe with a $25,000 budget, developed into a dangerous two-and-a-half-year probe of the underworld’s obscenity racket costing taxpayers over $500,000. They operated out of a warehouse called Golde Coast Distributors near Miami Airport.
The investigation ended in late January of 1980. Several weeks later on February 14, multiple search and arrest warrants had been drawn up, and 400 FBI agents quickly fanned out across 16 U.S. cities to arrest 53 defendants including Zaffarano and DiBernardo. By the time all the dust had settled, 45 defendants had been convicted in the MiPorn case and most went to prison.
But one of the FBI’s primary targets of the case, Michael Zaffarano was never convicted or jailed.
That’s because during those military-like, lightning-fast FBI raids that fateful day back in February, as the agents stormed The PussyCat Theatre in search of their target, Zaffarano attempted to thwart his arrest by evading arresting officers.
He quickly slipped through a secret paneled wall and was running for his freedom down the secret corridor of an underground tunnel to another exit under the street when he was felled by a massive heart attack. By the time the agents found him he was gone…Mickey had dropped dead of a faulty ticker!
Zaffarano had had a previous history of heart trouble. It was a tough way to beat a criminal case for sure…Maybe the toughest!
Michael (Mickey Z) Zaffarano died at the young age of only 57 years old.
The Legacy
His pornography empire would be taken over by his son John for a short while but soon fell apart without Mickey at the helm. Other crews quickly ate up his end of that racket market and that was that as they say.
His blood family (his wife Rosalie and son) shuttered the businesses and sold off all his Times Square holdings to real estate developers in 1985 as part of the city’s Times Square Redevelopment Project. His vast real estate and properties brought $18,500,000. It’s not an exaggeration to say that future generations of his family won’t ever have to work a day in their lives.
As an interesting aside, back in 1979, Zaffarano had been sued in federal court by lawyers for the Dallas Cowboys Football cheerleaders because his movie theatre had premiered “Debbie Does Dallas”, a notorious pornographic movie. The cheerleaders alleged he was infringing on the copyright by showing it. Eventually, the lawsuit was settled out of court by cutting some of the scenes.
The very week before Zaffarano died he was sued again, this time over “Fantasy Island”, another porn movie. At the time it was also a popular ABC weekly program series and the producers sued because they did not want their title or show associated with the porn movie or the two midgets who promoted it nightly outside The Pussycat and another porn palace named the Lido East which operated on the Eastside of Manhattan.
Postscript: After the buildings were sold, Zaffarano’s son John was forced to pay Genovese Capo Matty Ianniello $1,000,000 for the loss of a peep show business he formally operated from one of Zaffarano’s sold buildings.
Vinny Asaro also shook the kid down, his own cousin no less, for an additional 400,000 by putting the fear of God in the kid. It was under the guise of being the mediator between the Zaffarano family and Matty the Horse.
This is just another mob tale.
Until next time… “The Other Guy”
