Final Confession (25 page)

I
N 1972 OR SO
, Phil had married a woman named Molly, though he still had no formal divorce from Dorothy, back in Lynn, Massachusetts. The new couple bought a house in a Chicago suburb. A house with a white picket fence. Phil commuted to the toy store every day. To their neighbors, the Zitos seemed like the perfect suburban couple: successful, in love, and with a great future. They had no children. Molly didn't know anything about Joey Paul Zito's past. At least not until March 1, 1974.

On that day two dozen federal agents surrounded Toy World. Joey Zito was inside the store, totally oblivious to what was going on outside. A Chicago television station had gotten wind of something transpiring downtown and had sent a TV crew to cover the event.

If Phil was oblivious to what was happening, so too were the members of the Chicago Police Department—who were purposely kept in the dark. The FBI had rightly figured that the Chicago Police were much too fond of the owner of Toy World. As the feds got into position to take Phil down, though, the Chicago cops arrived on the scene too, and a near shootout ensued between members of the two law enforcement agencies.

Phil's wife Molly had turned on the television set expecting to see the nightly news. What she saw drove her to a nervous breakdown. All three Chicago television stations were on the scene reporting the apprehension of one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted fugitives, a man from Boston named Phil Cresta—her husband.

Phil figured out that the game was up before the first federal officer stepped through the door and handcuffed him without a struggle. “I saw the television cameras before I saw the feds, but I knew they had to mean the feds were out there somewhere. I called Augie from the store and told him I was going down. I asked him to make sure a good attorney was at the police station when I arrived.

Augie didn't disappoint him. With TV camera lights blazing, Phil was led into Chicago's U.S. District Court to be arraigned. Waiting for his new client was the famous mob attorney Julius Echeles.

BAIL WAS SET
at $625,000. Phil waived extradition and the paperwork began. On the evening of March 1, 1974, the Boston FBI SAC received the following memo from his Chicago office.

NR 002 CG PLAIN

445PM NITEL MARCH 2[1], 1974

PHILIP JOSEPH CRESTA JR. AKA JOE ZITO IO NUMBER 4347

SUBJECT APPEARED THIS DATE BEFORE UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JAMES T. BALOG AND WAS REPRESENTED BY ATTORNEY JULIUS ECHELES.

MAGISTRATE BALOG SET BOND IN THE AMOUNT OF $625,000 CORPORATE SURETY AND REMANDED CRESTA TO CUSTODY USM, CHICAGO. CRESTA TO REAPPEAR BEFORE MAGISTRATE BALOG, 1:45
P.M
., MARCH 7, 1974.

ARMED AND DANGEROUS

Later that day another memo was dispatched across the country from then-FBI Director Clarence Kelley:

TO ALL SACS

FROM DIRECTOR, FBI

CHANGED [SIC]: PHILIP JOSEPH CRESTA, JR., AKA JOE ZITO—
IO NO. 4347,

SUBJECT ARRESTED MARCH 1, 1974, BY BUREAU AGENTS, CHICAGO, WITHOUT INCIDENT USING ALIAS JOE ZITO.

ARMED & DANGEROUS.

BEFORE THE TRIAL
could start, Phil had to be returned to Boston from Chicago. To say that the wheels of justice move slowly is a major understatement, at least in regard to this case. Cresta was held in a federal lockup in Chicago from March 1 until March 30, when the papers involving Case No. 74
M
177 were sent to the office of the United States Marshal. These directed the marshal to transport Cresta to Boston, where he was to stand trial on armed robbery charges. There was only one problem. The Suffolk County Superior Court could not find the bench warrant that had been issued on June 12, 1969, for Cresta's arrest.

Attorney Julius Echeles went before Judge Balog and asked for the immediate release of Phil Cresta. Echeles presented a petition that stated, “The United States Marshals Service has been unable to produce any kind of warrant which would detain or hold Mr. Cresta. Therefore I request the immediate release of Mr.Cresta pending the $625,000 cash/surety, which will be presented to the Clerk at 9:00
A.M
. tomorrow.” Suddenly the wheels of justice went into overdrive. By the time Attorney Echeles returned to federal court at nine the next morning, the warrant had been found and Cresta was already on his way to Boston. They were not taking any chances.

ON APRIL
11, 1974, forty-six-year-old Phil Cresta stood before Judge James C. Roy and asked for bail reduction. Suffolk
County Assistant District Attorney James Sullivan told Judge Roy that if Cresta was allowed to get out on bail, he would never be seen again. Sullivan stated, “Your Honor, this man has just been returned from Chicago where, under the alias Joseph Paul Zito, he knowingly and willingly fled prosecution for the crime he now appears before you on. He is the worst kind of bail risk. Your Honor, this man who appears before you today is no ordinary run-of-the-mill defendant. Just the fact that he disappeared for over five years while the FBI and every other major law enforcement agency in the country was looking for him should tell you something about the man and about the resources he has at his disposal. We fear that if Mr. Cresta is allowed to meet bail, he will again use his resources to flee. We strongly urge you not to decrease his bail but to hold Mr. Cresta without bail.”

Phil Cresta's attorney, Alfred Paul Farese, railed against the DA's plea for no bail. Farese said, “Your Honor, Phil Cresta is an innocent man who fled this state to avoid being persecuted, not prosecuted, by the likes of a career criminal named Red Kelley, who will be the only witness to testify against my client. Mr. Kelley has a personal vendetta against my client, who is totally innocent of the indictment, as set forth. He has no intentions of fleeing. In fact, Mr. Cresta is glad to be back home with his family and friends and is anxious to clear the record and his name. To hold an innocent man without bail is unconscionable and we know that you are a fair and decent man, Your Honor.”

Attorney Farese may have laid it on a little too thick but it worked, at least they thought it worked. Judge Roy reduced Phil's bail from $625,000 cash/surety to $100,000 cash/surety. He set the trial date for June 19, 1974, in Suffolk County Superior Court.

Getting the $100,000 was no problem for Phil. He had what was left of his money in a few safe-deposit boxes in Chicago. He called Augie from the Charles Street Jail, where he was held pending trial. Augie promised to get the cash and bring it to Boston personally.

Phil just wanted to get out of that hellhole. But Suffolk County District Attorney Garrett Byrne had other ideas. Byrne put the word out that Cresta was not to be bailed under any circumstance. He made it clear to any bail bondsman who might think of putting money up for Cresta to think again. Byrne let it be known that any bondsman who helped Cresta would find a call on bond; that is, bonds that any of their clients had forfeited in the past would become immediately due for payment.

Augie carried the money from Chicago as he had told Phil he would. Phil couldn't understand why he was still in jail until he got a visit from his brother Bobby. Bobby explained how no bail bondsman in the state would touch the money. “Have you asked Cosmo Gilberti?” “Phil,” Bobby explained, “I'm telling you: I've tried just about every bondsman in this city, and the word is out. Nobody's going to jeopardize their livelihood for you or anybody else.”

Phil listened to what Bobby had to say and then told him to go call Cosmo Gilberti. An hour later bail bondsman Gilberti appeared in Suffolk Superior with $50,000 in cash and the deed for Phil's younger sister's house. Byrne went ballistic, but he had no choice but to order Phil to be released immediately from jail.

“Gilberti had some balls,” Phil said later. “He and I had done a lot of business and I knew he'd stand up to Byrne if I asked him to.” So, knowing that the feds and the IRS would be snooping around, trying to find where he came up with a hundred large, Phil told Bobby to instruct Gilberti to put up fifty large in cash and the other fifty in surety. Phil's sister Rose was more than willing to put up her house as surety after being guaranteed that her brother would stand for trial.

Phil hit the bricks on the twelfth of April and immediately went to McGrail's. Nothing had changed except that Tony and Angelo were no longer sitting in the last booth, and that was hard for Phil. It was great, however, seeing all the other old faces and reliving some of the old times. They treated Phil like some kind of star that day, even the guys who'd sat in that bar
for ten years and never spoken to him. One guy, after a few beers, came over to Phil and said, “Shit, I always thought you were a car salesman or something. I never knew you were a big-time thief.” Phil didn't know whether to say thanks or what.

The next day Phil boarded a flight to Chicago—after he cleared it with the authorities. He didn't need Byrne to hear he was gone and revoke his bail. So he walked into Byrne's office and told them that he had some business to clear up in Chicago and that he'd be gone for two days. Byrne's assistants didn't like it, but they had no choice: he wasn't leaving the country or anything. Phil gave them Mari's address, got a cab to Logan, and flew out. The toughest part for Phil was his current wife's situation: she had thought she'd married a single man, a toy store owner, not a man who was still married to his first wife and on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list. She was not doing well.

Phil later said of her, “Molly was a good woman and she didn't deserve that.” She was still hospitalized at the time of Phil's visit to Chicago, because of the nervous breakdown she'd had after seeing her husband arrested on television. He knew enough not to visit her. Phil's first wife divorced him that same year, 1974. Molly followed through with divorce, without ever seeing Phil again, in 1976.

Back in Chicago, Phil made the rounds, thanking friends and taking care of many of his legal and illegal ventures. “It was toughest saying good-bye to Augie and Mari,” Phil recounted. “We'd become very very close and that was very difficult.”

On the plane returning to Boston, Phil Cresta started planning how to wrap up the last piece of his still-unfinished business. It was too late to off Kelley or DeLeary, but there was one other guy who had ratted on Cresta who was still at large. Maybe some kind of atonement could be demanded of him.

P
HIL GOT OFF THE PLANE
at Logan around five o'clock on the afternoon of April 15, 1974. He grabbed a cab and directed the driver to Fenway Park, one place every cab driver knew how to get to, regardless of where he was originally from. Cresta walked down Yawkey Way but did not go into McGrail's. Instead he headed into the Fenway Motor Inn parking lot, got in Bobby's car, which he'd borrowed, and drove to Mattapan.

As he drove, he thought of nothing but how many times Ben Tilley had screwed him or attempted to screw him, especially since Phil had “stolen” his gang and become successful while Tilley had remained small-time. The more Phil thought about it, the more convinced he became that all the bad things that had happened to him had started with Tilley: his betrayal of the Kay Jewelers job … Tony and Angelo in the can … and Phil's likelihood of joining them.

Phil was getting worked up more and more. Now he was thinking of how his own failure to get rid of DeLeary and Kelley wouldn't have mattered if Tilley hadn't talked. Phil's almost-perfect method of hiding from the feds had been ended by this last betrayal. Phil would most likely go back to the last place on
earth he wanted to be—and Tilley would remain free. Was that justice? Tilley didn't deserve freedom.

As Phil drove down Blue Hill Avenue, just as he and Angelo had done years before, it did not enter Phil's mind that he had no proof for or against Tilley's guilt. Like his father, when Phil Cresta Jr. was angry he acted.

He parked his car and headed into the Brown Jug. Phil forced a big smile when he saw the man he had come to see. Ben Tilley was standing at the bar.

Tilley saw Phil about the same time Phil saw him. There was fear in Tilley's eyes as Phil walked over to him.

But when Phil got close to his nemesis, he extended his hand and said, “Ben Tilley, how the hell are ya?”

Tilley was caught off guard by this gesture of friendship and he instinctively extended his own hand, which Phil grabbed and shook.

Phil asked if he could buy Tilley a drink.

“Sure, a Seven and Seven,” Tilley said, now beginning to lighten up.

Phil continued to buy Tilley drinks and Tilley continued to throw them down. As the man got drunker, Phil, who was drinking only beer, became more sober, more focused on the job at hand.

Braggart that he was, Tilley spun story after story of his recent coups, which Phil knew to be false or embellished. Phil continued to laugh and ply Tilley with whiskey. The drunker Tilley got the more obnoxious he got, and the more Phil wanted to strangle him right there in the Brown Jug. Finally Cresta managed to steer the conversation around to cars.

He talked in glowing terms about his gold Bonneville, and he waited for Tilley to take the bait. Slurring his words, Tilley loudly said, “There's only one kind of car for me and that's a Cadillac. That's all I ever drive, yes sir. I'll take a Cadoo any day.” “I'm partial to gold cars,” Phil said, “how about you?” “Green, that's always my color. Yes sir, get a new one every year, but I never change the color or make.”

Ha! Phil thought to himself. He really never
does
change! Still bragging, still drinking, still driving a green Cadillac, like he was when he spoiled our Kay Jewelers job. And still ratting people out!

At about one in the morning Phil told Tilley he had to go to the bathroom and he'd be right back. By that time Tilley thought Phil Cresta was one of his closest friends.

Phil headed in the direction of the bathroom, which was by the front door, but when he got there, he went outside instead. No one saw him leave. He headed to the parking lot and immediately spotted a new-model green Cadillac. He reached into his coat pocket and brought out an object that shone in the moonlight.

Phil dropped his cigarette and rolled under the Cadoo, shined a small flashlight on it, and within thirty seconds he was out from under the car and back on his feet. He brushed himself off, looked around, and headed back into the bar.

When Tilley saw Phil walking toward him, he shouted, “Hey, Phil, did everything come out all right?” and began laughing.

“Yeah, Ben, everything came out just fine.”

Phil bought Tilley yet another Seagram's 7 and 7Up, and watched as he downed it. Phil couldn't believe anyone could drink that much and still be standing.

Ten minutes before the tavern's two
A.M
. closing time, Phil told Tilley that he had to be getting home. Tilley slurred, “Phil, let me buy you one drink before you go?” Phil declined, saying it was
his
night to buy. He ordered one more drink for Tilley and a beer for himself, which he never touched. Tilley, who still had three drinks on the bar, turned to Phil and said, “Where'd ya get so much money? What'd you rob, another armored car? Or was it a bank this time?”

The bartender came over and asked Tilley if he was all right. “Sure, I'm fine. Right, Phil?”

“Right, Ben,” Phil said. He turned to the bartender and asked if Tilley really would be all right driving home like that. The bartender, who didn't recognize Phil from the last time he'd been
there, some six years before, said, “Oh sure, God takes care of drunks and Irishmen, and Tilley happens to be both.”

“I was just worried about him,” Phil reiterated.

“Don't worry, pal. He leaves here almost every night like that and he always makes it home.”

Phil tipped the bartender and left.

In his car, Phil waited another half hour until just about everyone had left the bar. Finally, at 2:25
A.M
., Ben Tilley staggered out and just made it to his Cadillac. Phil watched as he fumbled about, trying to get his keys in the ignition. Once he had the car started, Tilley left rubber getting out of the parking lot. He headed right into traffic on Blue Hill Avenue and barely escaped a head-on collision. Phil followed him, hoping that Tilley wouldn't get arrested.

Continuing up Blue Hill Avenue past American Legion Highway, Tilley took a left at Franklin Park. He was traveling at a high rate of speed as he passed the golf course. Phil followed the man's car as it went past Shattuck Hospital and headed onto the bridge that would take its driver into Jamaica Plain. As Tilley was accelerating down the bridge, Phil could tell from the way the car handled that the brake line he'd cut in the parking lot had now let go completely. Tilley continued to pick up speed. At the bottom of the ramp, at the head of the Arborway, he swerved to the right, careened off a parked car, hit a tree, flipped over, and came to rest on the Arborway.

Phil headed back to the Fenway Motor Inn, assuming that Tilley was dead. But the next day he scanned the papers, and there was no report of a car crash on the Arborway.

Phil phoned the Brown Jug and asked the bartender if he had any news on Ben Tilley. “Yeah, but it's not too good,” the bartender said. “Is he dead?” Phil asked. “No, but he's close to it.” “Do you know what hospital he's at?” Phil asked with just the right note of sadness. “Carney,” Phil was told.

Phil had nothing to worry about. The next day Ben Tilley died without ever regaining consciousness. The hospital's death report
listed his death as the result of severe trauma to the head. The police report said that Ben Tilley died as a result of a car accident on the Arborway at 2:35
A.M
. on April 16, 1974. Both reports were true, in a sense. But in Phil's opinion Ben Tilley also died because he had a big mouth—and he opened it when he shouldn't have.

Phil later said, “I feel no remorse for Tilley. I felt sorry for his family, but he tried to take me down on at least ten different occasions. I did what I had to do.” On April 18, 1974, the
Boston Globe
ran a story on page thirty-four in which the reporter wrote, “Benjamin J. Tilley, 64, of Mossdale road, Jamaica Plain, died at the Carney Hospital in Dorchester Tuesday, following an automobile accident in Mattapan. He lived in West Roxbury before moving to Jamaica Plain ten years ago. For several years he was involved in the contracting business in Allston, but retired five years ago.” The article went on to list the Tilley family members and the arrangements for the funeral. Ben Tilley's death is still listed on the books of the Boston Police Department as an accident. But Ben Tilley's death was no accident. It was what the wise guys call a payback.

SOMETIME BEFORE HIS TRIAL
Phil Cresta met several times with a former acquaintance, the infamous James “Whitey” Bulger, who, knowing his day to run would come, listened carefully to all Phil had to say about how he had managed to hide. Their marathon sessions would pay off many years later—for Bulger.

On April 21, 1974, two prisoners at Walpole State Prison each received a letter. Inside each envelope was Ben Tilley's obituary from the
Boston Globe
. Although there was no return address on either letter, both prisoners knew who had sent the clipping and what its significance was. They knew that their friend and mentor Phil Cresta was back in town and thinking of them, though he had never visited either of them in prison. “I just didn't want to see them behind a glass partition,” Phil said. “I
hated everything about Walpole, and I wasn't going to go there until they dragged me.”

That was exactly what the state intended to do.

PROCEEDINGS AGAINST
Philip J. Cresta Jr. were set to begin on June 19, 1974, in Suffolk County Superior Court. Before the trial got started, however, Assistant District Attorney James Sullivan telephoned Phil's attorney, Al Farese, and asked if they could meet in Sullivan's office at Pemberton Square. Farese, who called Phil, was baffled by Sullivan's request for a meeting.

When they met, Sullivan got right to the point and offered to plea-bargain the case. If Phil would plead guilty to the charge of armed robbery, Sullivan told Farese, the state would recommend a term of not more than seven years and not less than five.

Farese was so pleased with the offer, he called Phil from a pay phone nearby, the one in front of the Steaming Kettle on the corner of Cambridge and Court streets.

Phil listened to the offer and said to Farese, “Tell Sullivan to stick it up his ass.”

Farese was shocked. He reminded his client that he could be facing up to forty years in prison if convicted.

“Why are they offering this kind of deal?” Phil asked.

Farese told him that the only thing he could figure was that it had to do with Red Kelley. By that time Kelley had become the poster child for the state. He had testified in a number of high-profile cases in which he'd rolled on former associates. And he was seen by some lawyers as having about as much credibility as a boatload of used-car salesmen. Farese speculated that the state was leery of trotting him out once again in what was sure to be another high-profile case.

“That rat bastard,” Phil said angrily. “I want him to look me in the eye when he's on that stand. I want to see what he has to say.”

Farese advised Phil to think it over. “Listen, Kelley had no problem taking the stand and turning on Patriarca,” he said.
“He's certainly not going to have any problem sending you away for forty years either. Please think about this and call me back.”

“No deal. Tell Sullivan we go to trial as planned.”

“Are you positive, Phil?” Farese asked.

“Absofuckinglutely,” Phil replied.

His family and friends pleaded with him to take the seven years and not look back. But Cresta had accepted his mistake of thinking he could control Kelley, and the result of that mistake: his partners being sent to prison and his own eventual capture. He was adamant about going to trial.

“Nobody around me could understand why I didn't take the plea,” Cresta recounted. “But I just couldn't. Angelo and Tony were doing twenty-five to forty, and they wanted me to do a seven-year bit? If I went to trial and beat it, that was one thing, but I couldn't take a plea and do seven while they were doing twenty-five–to–forty bits … I never told Farese or anyone else why, but I just couldn't do that. Being a man of honor, which was something Red Kelley had no idea about, was a lot more important to me than anything else. So I told Sullivan to get it on and let the chips fall where they may.”

Phil knew there was a chance he'd win. None of those now in prison—Angelo, Tony, Diaferio, Merlino, and Roukous—would testify against Phil. DeLeary didn't know him from Adam. Kelley, and Kelley alone, was the state's only chance to put Cresta anywhere near the Brink's job that had led to sentences for all the other participants.

Phil had read the transcript of Angelo and Tony's Brink's robbery trial and knew every word Kelley had said against them. Cresta prepared his lawyer for what to expect. He'd take his chances.

The high-profile trial of Phil Cresta, the last Brink's robber to be tried, got under way in Suffolk County Superior Court on June 19. Attorney Al Farese and Assistant District Attorney James Sullivan settled on a jury made up of three women and thirteen men, all of whom would be sequestered for the length
of the trial and for deliberation and disposition. James C. Roy was the presiding judge.

In his opening arguments Sullivan outlined for the jury the same case that the state had presented five years earlier against Angelo and Tony, again denoting Kelley and DeLeary as the prosecution's star witnesses.

Farese, in his opening, told the jury that Andrew DeLeary would testify that he'd never met or seen Phil Cresta. Farese argued that Red Kelley was a professional witness who would say whatever he was instructed to say by his handlers. “Red Kelley is a coward and a liar. He will be the only witness who'll tell you that Phil Cresta was involved with the December 28, 1968, Brink's robbery. Neither the Boston Police nor the FBI can stand here, in this court, and tell you that Phil Cresta was involved in the Brink's robbery. Not one prosecution witness other than Red Kelley will stand before you and tell you that Phil Cresta was in any way involved in the Brink's robbery. You will hear a mountain of information about a robbery that was committed on December 28, 1968. None of that information has anything to do with Phil Cresta.”