Opinion ID: 787685
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Events Following the Shootings and the Belated Grand Jury Investigation

Text: 21 Hours after the shootings, Fortunato told several people, including NYPD detectives, that he had left the club before the shootings occurred. But, after learning that D'Urso had survived, Fortunato admitted that he had been at the club when the shootings occurred, but maintained that he had not actually witnessed who fired the shots. He stuck with this story, telling it both to the local police investigating the shootings and, years later, to the FBI when he was arrested in January 2002. 22 All the participants in the shootings decided to lay low out of fear that D'Urso would retaliate against them. Imbrieco, Polito, and Cerasulo drove to Long Island City to meet with Fortunato. They then drove to Manhattan in Fortunato's car to pick up Bruno. The cabal then drove to New Jersey to formulate a plan. On the way to New Jersey, Polito told Bruno that we are all together now. Just calm down. According to Cerasulo, they agreed to stick together and not tell nobody who did nothing. During the drive, Polito and Fortunato discussed traveling to Italy, while the other three men planned to go to Florida. Polito and Fortunato dropped off the others at a train station, where they boarded a train bound for North Carolina. A few days later, however, the three men returned to New York City by bus, intending to hide. Although Polito had no intention of attending Lombardi's wake or funeral, Zito and Aparo ordered Fortunato to attend the services. The three conspirators were interviewed by local police in December 1994. Each of the three denied doing the shootings and claimed not to have seen the shooters — notwithstanding the fact that the three were the only individuals in the locked, private social club with Lombardi and D'Urso that night, and the only ones to emerge unscathed. 23 After the shootings, Fortunato sought protection from Genovese Family capo Tough Tony Federici against any retaliation by D'Urso. Polito once again began hanging out with Malangone's crew. At one point, Gangi attempted to get permission from higher-ups in the Genovese Family for D'Urso to kill Polito, but Malangone successfully intervened on Polito's behalf, and D'Urso was told not to retaliate. After Aparo became acting capo, he was told by his superiors that, if anything happened to Polito, Aparo would be held personally responsible. D'Urso ignored these warnings, however, and hired someone in an unsuccessful attempt to kill Polito. 24 In June 1998 (while Polito was still incarcerated pursuant to his Chemical Bank robbery guilty plea), D'Urso began cooperating with the Government and wearing a wire to record his conversations with several organized crime members, including Aparo. 2 In one of those recorded conversations, Aparo told D'Urso that Malangone had attempted to release Polito to a crew in the Luchese Crime Family, but that Aparo had vetoed this attempt because Polito belonged to Aparo. 25 In January 2001 — more than six years after the shootings — Fortunato's brother, Michael Fortunato (Michael), received a federal grand jury subpoena and was told by the FBI that Fortunato was being investigated for the 1993 Chemical Bank robbery. According to Michael's grand jury testimony, shortly after he was subpoenaed, he told Fortunato that the FBI claimed that Fortunato had been involved in the Chemical Bank robbery and was likely to be arrested. Fortunato responded: [L]et them do whatever they want to do. I have nothing to do with anything. Michael also testified that Fortunato told him that he did not remember anything about the night of Lombardi's murder and that Fortunato had fallen down because maybe somebody had pushed him when the shooting began. Thus, Fortunato denied to Michael having seen who shot Lombardi. 26 In October 2001, Cerasulo's father, Giuseppe Cerasulo (Giuseppe), also was subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury. Cerasulo testified at trial that, in late 1994, he told Giuseppe that he had not seen who did the shootings. Cerasulo was present when the FBI served the grand jury subpoena on Giuseppe, and at that time Ceresulo told the agents that he had not witnessed who shot Lombardi and D'Urso. 27