The Roy DeMeo Secrets Even the Mafia Was Afraid to Admit – HT
Flatlands, Brooklyn. January 20th, 1983. Morning. A Cadillac Coupe Deville sits in the Vera Boat Club parking lot in Sheep’s Head Bay. The car is registered to Roy Albert Deo, 42 years old. Gambino crime family soldier. The trunk is closed. Snow covers the windshield. The temperature is 11°. A tow truck arrives.
NYPD organized crime control bureau detectives follow. They open the trunk. Roy De Mayo is inside. His body is partially frozen. A chandelier rests on top of him. Seven bullet wounds to the head. One bullet wound through his right hand. The hand wound suggests he raised it to shield himself.
He has been dead for 10 days. The detectives photograph the scene. They know who Roy Deo is. The FBI has been building a file on him since the mid 1970s. The file contains over 2,000 pages. It documents a car theft ring, a lone sharking operation, a pornography distribution network, and approximately 200 murders.
The number is an estimate. The actual count is unknown. Many bodies were never found. Others were found in pieces. Still others dissolved into the landscape of Brooklyn through methods so efficient that law enforcement gave him a name. The Gemini Method. The Gemini Lounge sits at 4021 Flatlands Avenue. Corner of Troy Avenue and Flatlands.
The building is two stories. Red brick, a bar on the ground floor, an apartment above. The apartment has a bathroom with a slope floor. The floor drains into a single pipe. Blood flows easily down that pipe. By 1983, that pipe has carried more blood than most hospital operating rooms. Roy De Mayo was born September 7th, 1940, Flatlands, Brooklyn.
His parents were Italian immigrants from Formia in the Lazio region. His father drove a delivery truck for a laundry company. His mother was a housewife. Roy had four siblings. His older brother, Anthony Frank Deo, was a Marine Corpal killed in action in Korea on April 23rd, 1951. Roy was 10 years old when his brother died.
Roy attended James Madison High School. He graduated in 1959. During high school, he loaned money to other students. 20% interest compounded weekly. Students who did not pay face consequences. The consequences escalated. First warnings, then threats, then broken bones. Roy learned early that violence was a business tool.
Between ages 15 and 22, Roy worked at a local grocery store. He trained as a butcher. He learned how to break down animal carcasses, how to separate muscle from bone, how to use a knife with precision, how to minimize waste. These skills would later define his career. In 1960, Roy married Glattis Rosman, Britain.
They had three children, two daughters, and a son. The family lived in a customuilt home in Masipiqua, Long Island. The house had a pool, a boat, multiple cars. The neighbors believed Roy worked in construction or used cars or food retail. They did not know about the Gemini Lounge. In 1966, Anthony Nino Gaggy approached Roy Deo.
Gaggi was a soldier in the Gambino crime family. He controlled operations in Canari in Flatlands. Gaggi saw potential in Deo. Deo was already running a successful lone sharking business. He had connections in the car industry. He had a crew of young men willing to steal cars. Gaggi offered Deo a partnership. Deo accepted.
The first member of the Deo crew was Harvey Chris Rosenberg, 16 years old in 1966. Rosenberg met Deo at Canari gas station. Rosenberg was selling marijuana. Deo loan Rosenberg money to buy larger quantities. The business relationship grew. By 1972, Rosenberg had introduced other friends to Deo. The crew expanded. Joseph Ta, Patrick Ta, Anthony Center, Richard Dome, Frederick Dome, Henry Borelli, Joseph Galmo, later Veto Arena, Carlo Propheta.
Most were in their late teens or early 20s. All grew up in Flatlands or Canari. All attended the same schools, played on the same streets, knew the same people. The crew started with car theft. Four to seven cars stolen per night. Luxury vehicles, Mercedes, BMW, Cadillac. The cars were driven to chop shops in Canari and East Flatbush.
Some were dismantled for parts. Others were shipped whole to Kuwait and Puerto Rico through the port of Newark. By 1979, the operation was the largest autotheft ring in New York City history. Federal agents called it the Empire Boulevard operation. The crew was stealing hundreds of cars per month. De Mayo joined a Brooklyn credit union in 1972.
He gained a position on the board of directors. He used his position to launder money. He also stole from the credit union reserves. By 1975, the credit union was insolvent. Deo quit before anyone asked questions. June 13th, 1975. Rockaway Beach, Queens. 10:30 a.m. Andre Catz is 22 years old. He owns an auto repair shop.
He is partners with Chris Rosenberg in a stolen car ring. In January 1975, Catz visited the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office. He provided information about Rosenberg’s involvement in car theft. Deo learned about the meeting immediately. He had an NYPD autocrimes detective on his payroll. On June 13th, Catz thinks he has a date.
A woman named Bet Judith Questell invited him to her apartment complex. When Catz arrives, members of the Deo crew are waiting. They force him into a car. They drive him to a Pantry Pride supermarket in Rockaway Beach. They take him to the meat department in the back. Roy De Mayo stabs Cats multiple times in the heart. Then in the back, other crew members hold him down.
When Catz is dead, they decapitate him. They put his head through a machine normally used for compacting cardboard boxes. The machine crushes his skull. They wrap the body parts in plastic bags. They deposit the bags in the supermarket’s dumpster. 2 days later, a man walking his dog finds one of Cats’s legs on a curb near the store.
Police arrive. They search the dumpster. They find the rest of Andre Cats. The medical examiner uses dental records to confirm the identity. The press reports a brutal killing. NYPD opens a homicide investigation. No arrests are made. This is the first known murder where the Deo crew used what would become their signature method, not yet perfected, but the essential elements are there.
Lure the victim, kill quickly, dismember, dispose in a way that makes identification difficult. Over the next eight years, this method will be refined, perfected, used approximately 200 times. The Gemini Lounge becomes operational as a cruise headquarters around 1976. The bar is owned by Nino Gaggi. Roy Deo manages day-to-day operations.
The crew meets there every Friday night. They sit at a table in the back. They drink. They discuss business. They plan robberies. They divide money. They decide who needs to die. The apartment above the bar has a side entrance. Victims are brought in through that door. They enter directly into the apartment.
They do not pass through the bar. This maintains separation. Bar customers do not see what happens upstairs. The method becomes systematic. A crew member lures a victim, usually with a promise of money or a business deal or a meeting to settle a dispute. The victim enters the apartment. Roy Deo is usually waiting. He holds a silenced pistol in one hand, a towel in the other.
He shoots the victim once in the head. Immediately wraps the towel around the wound like a turban. This stops blood flow from the gunshot. Immediately after the shot, another crew member stabs a victim in the heart, usually Chris Rosenberg in the early years. Later, Anthony Center or Joseph Ta. The stab stops the heart from pumping.
This prevents more blood from flowing out of the head wound. The victim is dead within seconds. The crew drags the body into bathroom. They place in the bathtub. They wait for remaining blood to drain or congeal. This takes 30 to 45 minutes. Then they move the body to the main room. They spread plastic sheets on the floor.
They use knives and saws. They remove the arms, then the legs, then the head. They work quickly. efficiently without conversation. The entire dismemberment takes less than an hour. The body parts go into plastic bags. The bags go into cardboard boxes. The boxes go into car trunks. The crew drives to the Fountain Avenue landfill in Brooklyn.
The landfill is in East New York, across from the Starret City apartment complex. Hundreds of tons of garbage are dumped there every day. The body parts disappear into the waste. The crew returns to the Gemini lounge. They clean the apartment. They mop the bathroom. They dispose of the plastic sheets. They continue with their evening.
Sometimes they go back to the bar downstairs. Sometimes they go home. The next day they return to their regular lives. Between 1975 and 1983, this process is repeated approximately 100 to 200 times. The exact number is unknown. Some [snorts] murders happen at other locations. Some bodies are left in cars or on streets as warnings, but the majority happen at the Gemini Lounge, and the majority follow the method.
The neighborhood knows, not officially, not with evidence, but everyone knows. In Flatlands and Canary in the late 1970s and early 1980s, children grow up learning names. Roy De Mayo, Nino Gaggy, Chris Rosenberg, Anthony Center, Joseph Ta, Henry Borelli. These names are spoken in whispers on street corners, in schoolyards, in corner stores.
Parents do not tell their children about the Gemini lounge. But children learn anyway. They see the cars. Black Cadillacs, Lincoln Town Cars, Mercedes sedans, always clean, always new, parked outside 4021 Flatlands Avenue. They see men entering the side door of the building. They see the men leaving hours later.
They notice certain people who used to be around are no longer around. In 1977, the crew kills Mickey Spelain. Spalain is the leader of an Irish gang in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan. He is causing problems for a construction project. The Gambino family has financial interest in the project. On May 13th, 1977, Spellain is shot five times outside his apartment building in Woodside, Queens.
Roy Deo and crew member Danny Gillow pull the triggers. In July 1977, the crew kills John Quinn and his girlfriend Sher Golden. Quinn is a car thief. He testified before a grand jury. Deo considers his cooperation with law enforcement. Quinn is shot once in the back of the head with a.32 caliber handgun.
Golden is shot three times in the head with a 38 caliber handgun. Their bodies are dumped in separate locations. Quinn’s body is found the same night in Dongan Hills, Staten Island. Golden’s body is found 4 days later in a car in Garrison Beach, Brooklyn. These murders make the newspapers. NYPD investigates. No arrests are made.
In November 1977, by 1979, the Deo crews reputation has spread throughout Brooklyn’s criminal underworld. Other mobsters fear them. Even made members of other families give them wide birth. The crew is known for three things. Efficiency in murder, brutality and method, and absolute loyalty to Roy Deo. The crew operates with a specific hierarchy.
Roy Deo is at the top. He makes all final decisions. Below him are the core members. Chris Rosenberg, Anthony Center, Joseph Ta, Henry Belli, the Dnome brothers. These men execute the murders. Below them are associates who steal cars, run errands, scout targets. The crew make substantial money.
The car theft operation generates approximately $30,000 per week per active partner by 1979. Deo has five active partners in the Empire Boulevard operation. That is $150,000 per week. $7,800,000 per year. Deo kicks up percentage to Nino Gaggy. Gaggy kicks a percentage to Paul Castellano who became boss of the Gambino family in 1976 after Carlo Gambino’s death.
But in 1979, problems begin. April 19th, 1979. Masipiqua Park, Long Island. Evening. Roy Deo is at his home. He looks out the window. A car is parked outside. A young man sits in the driver’s seat. Deo has recently murdered several Cubans in a drug deal gone wrong. Chris Rosenberg executed the Cubans without permission.
Now Deo fears retaliation. He assumes a young man in the car is a Cuban assassin sent to kill him. Deo gets in his car. He calls crew members Joseph Galmo and Frederick Dome. They pursue the young man. A 7mi car chase follows on Route 110 through Amityville and Farmingdale. The young man’s car crashes.
De Mayo shoots him seven times. The young man dies on the scene. His name is Dominic Raguchi, 18 years old, college student, door-to-door salesman, paying for his tuition. He was parked outside to Mayo’s house because he was selling products in the neighborhood. He was not Cuban. He was not an assassin.
He was an innocent civilian. This murder affects Roy Deo. His son Albert later writes that his father cried when he learned the truth. Deo did not eat for several days, but he does not turn himself in. He does not confess. He gathers his family and takes him to a hotel in upstate New York for 2 weeks. Then he returns to Brooklyn.
The murder also puts strain on Deo’s relationship with Nino Gaggy. Gaggy is furious. Killing a civilian in broad daylight on Long Island draws attention. NYPD opens an investigation. The investigation makes everyone nervous. Gaggi tells Deo to handle the Cuban situation immediately. The Cuban drug cartel wants revenge for the murder dealers.
The cartel knows Chris Rosenberg executed their people. The cartel demands Rosenberg’s death. May 11th, 1979. Gemini Lounge. Friday night. Chris Rosenberg arrives for the crew’s regular meeting. Rosenberg is 28 years old. He has been with Deo since 1966. 13 years. He is considered one of Deo’s most trusted men. He enters the apartment through the side door.
Roy Deo shoots him once in the head. Rosenberg does not die immediately. He rises to one knee. Anthony center steps forward. He shoots Rosenberg four more times in the head. Rosenberg falls. He dies. The crew does not dismember Rosenberg’s body. The Cubans demanded proof of death. The newspapers must report the murder.
The crew places Rosenberg’s body in his car. They drive to Crossbay Boulevard in Broad Channel, Queens. They leave the car near the Gateway National Wildlife Refuge. Police find the body the next morning. The newspaper reports identify Chris Rosenberg as a known associate of organized crime. The Cuban cartel is satisfied. No further retaliation occurs.
But something changes in Roy Deo after Rosenberg’s murder. His son Albert later states that Deo went into a study for 2 days after killing Rosenberg. He did not speak to anyone. When he emerged, he was different, more paranoid, more violent. The crew continues operating. The car theft ring expands. By late 1979 and early 1980, the Empire Boulevard operation is at its peak.
Hundreds of stolen cars move through Brooklyn every month. The crew operates multiple chop shops in Canari and East Flatbush. They have connections at the port of Newark. They have buyers in Kuwait and Puerto Rico. But law enforcement is closing in. The FBI has been investigating the crew since the mid 1970s.
The NYPD has multiple open homicide investigations. Bodies keep appearing. Car theft victims keep filing reports. Informants keep talking. October 1st, 1979. Coney Island, Brooklyn. Evening. James Epileto Senior and James Epito Jr. are sitting in a car. Epilo Senior is 62 years old. He is a May member of the Gambino family. A soldier in Nino Gaggi’s crew.
Epilo Jr. is a son, 33 years old, also a maid member. The Epiletos have accused Roy Deo and Nino Gagi of drug dealing. In the Gambino family, drug dealing carries a death sentence. The accusation is brought to Paul Castalano, the family boss. Castellano is a close ally of Nino Gaggy. He sides with Gaggy.
Nino Gaggy and Roy Deo approach the Epilito’s car. They shoot both men multiple times in the back of the head. A witness in a passing car sees a shooting. The witness alerts a nearby police officer. The officer pursues Gaggy’s car. A shootout follows. Gaggi is wounded in the neck. He is arrested. Roy De Mayo left the scene separately. He is not arrested.
The witness did not see him clearly enough to identify him. Nino Gaggi is charged with two counts of murder and attempted murder of a police officer. The trial begins in 1980 through jury tampering. Gaggi is convicted only of assault. He is sentenced to 5 to 15 years in federal prison. Before Gagi is sentenced, the witness who saw the Epilo murders disappears.
In March 1980, his body is found. He has been murdered. The method matches Deo crew executions. With Gaggy in prison, Roy Deo operates with more independence. This is simultaneously beneficial and dangerous. He has more control, but he also has less supervision, less protection, less guidance. The crew continues killing. Patrick Penny, 21 years old.
He testified against Nino Gaggy. Penny is shot nine times in the head in May 1980. Charles Mongore and Danielqarro. June 1980. Mongore refused to drop an assault charge against the son of a Gambino soldier. Skitaro was his friend. Both are shot and killed. Their bodies are found in a car trunk near Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn. September 1980.
Frank Amato is killed. Amato is Paul Castellano’s son-in-law. He hit Castellano’s pregnant daughter. Castellano orders his death. Roy Deo executes the contract. Amato’s body is dismembered. It is never found. By early 1982, Roy Deo’s world is collapsing. The FBI investigation has intensified. Multiple crew members are under surveillance. Phone taps are in place.
Federal agents have built a massive case file connecting the crew to car theft, lone sharking, drug trafficking, and murder. June 4th, 1982. Veto Arena is arrested. Arena is a Deo crew associate. He has been with the crew since 1978. He participated in multiple murders. He knows details, locations, methods, names. Arena faces decade in prison.
Federal prosecutors offer a deal. Cooperation in exchange for a reduced sentence. Arena accepts. He begins talking to the FBI. He provides information about the car theft operation, about chop shop locations, about murder sites, about the Fountain Avenue landfill. When Roy Deo learns that Arena is cooperating, he goes into hiding. So do other core crew members.
They know that Arena’s testimony can destroy them all. They know that federal indictments are coming. They stay off the streets. They avoid their usual locations. They communicate through intermediaries. But hiding creates a different problem. Paul Castellano, the Gambino family boss, become concerned. Castellano has always been wary of Roy Deo.
He sees Deo as uncontrollable, too violent, too visible, too much of a liability. Castellano’s concerns are practical. The Deo crew has made substantial money for the family, but they have also drawn massive law enforcement attention. Every murder creates risk. Every body that surfaces creates media coverage. Every witness who might talk creates exposure.
And now there is a witness who is talking. Veto Arena knows about the chain of command. He knows that Roy Deo reported to Nino Gaggy. He knows that Gaggy reported to Paul Castellano. Arena’s testimony could connect Castellano directly to the crew’s activities. This is unacceptable. Sometime [snorts] in late 1982, Paul Castalano makes a decision.
Roy Deo must be killed. The problem is execution. Roy Deo is not an easy target. He has an army of killers around him. He is paranoid. He is armed. He rarely travels alone. Multiple previous contracts on Deo have failed because no one could get close to him. FBI surveillance tapes from this period pick up conversations between Gambino family members discussing the Deo problem.
In one conversation, Angelo Riierro and Gan Gotti talk about the hit. Riierro states that Paul Castellano wants Deo dead but cannot find anyone willing to do the job. Gan Gotti mentions that his brother Jon is wary of taking a contract because Deo has an army of killers around him. Gotti adds that Jon has killed fewer than 10 people at that point.
While Deo has killed approximately 37 that the family knows about, the actual number is much higher. But even a lower estimate makes Deo one of the most prolific killers in mob history, and it makes him terrifying even to other professional killers. According to later testimony from Lucesy family under boss Anthony gaspiped Casso, the contract eventually goes to Deo’s own crew.
The logic is simple. Only people close to Deo can get close enough to kill him. Castellano reaches out through intermediaries. The message is delivered to Anthony Center and Joseph Ta. Kill Roy Deo. There will be no retaliation. After is done. Center and Ta will be moved to Liuazi family under Castle’s protection.
Center and Ta agree. They have no choice. Refusing a direct order from a family boss is itself a death sentence. And they know that if they do not kill Deo, someone else will. And when Deo dies, anyone still loyal to him will likely die, too. Winter 1982 to 1983. Roy Deo rarely leaves his mansion in Masipiqua. He knows a contract is out.
He knows his time is limited. He wears a leather jacket with a sawed off shotgun hidden underneath. He trusts almost no one. He considers faking his own death. He discusses it with his son Albert. The plan would involve Albert shooting him in a non-lethal area and Roy disappearing, but the plan never happens. January 10th, 1983. Afternoon.
Roy Deo goes to the home of Patrick Ta. Patty Ta is the brother of Joseph Ta. He is a Deo crew member. Deo goes there for a meeting. He believes he is meeting with trusted associates. He brings no backup. This is a fatal error. When Deo arrives, Joseph Tesa and Anthony Center are waiting.
What happens next is not entirely clear. Different accounts provide different details, but the essential facts are agreed upon. Deo is shot multiple times in the head. One bullet passes through his right hand, suggesting he raised it defensively. He dies quickly. The crew wraps his body in a chandelier. They place him in the trunk of his Cadillac.
They drive the car to the Verina Boat Club in Sheep’s Head Bay. They park it in the lot. They walk away. The body sits there for 10 days before it is discovered. When Roy Deo’s body is found on January 20th, 1983, it makes front page news. The New York Post, the Daily News, the New York Times, mobster found dead in car trunk, Gambino enforcer murdered, Deo crew leader slain.
The newspapers describe Deo as a Gambino family soldier. They mention the car theft operation. They reference the ongoing FBI investigation. They quote law enforcement sources stating that Deo was suspected in dozens of murders.