The Pierre Hotel Affair Read online

  THE PIERRE

  HOTEL AFFAIR

  How Eight Gentleman Thieves Orchestrated

  the Largest Jewel Heist in History

  DANIEL SIMONE

  WITH NICK SACCO

  This is dedicated in part to Frank and Antoinette, who have been in my heart throughout the arduous effort of producing this book. You know who you are. My soulmate, BJ, also deserves a dedication for her unconditional support, as does my dearest son.

  —Daniel Simone

  To my mother, stepfather, and grandmother:

  I only pass this way one time, and if I am to be remembered, I must leave my mark upon this earth.

  —Nick Sacco

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  BOBBY COMFORT. He was charming, well-spoken, and polite, and had the appearance and demeanor of a white-collar professional; perhaps an accountant, or a lawyer, or a doctor, or a Wall Street type. And as a jewel thief, when the need arose he’d comfortably assume those roles. He was fair-minded, even-handed, intelligent, and sensible, though he had been a juvenile delinquent and a burglar since his preadolescent years. Bobby Comfort was crafty, and irrespective of the dangers or difficulties he faced, his temperament and coolness seldom faltered, and never resorted to violence. He strived to gain financial security for his dear wife and children, and above all that was his priority.

  MILLIE COMFORT. She was Bobby’s unconditionally devoted wife, though her husband’s unconventional ways to earn a living caused her stress and despair. Millie was the ideal loving wife, mother, and homemaker. But how could she continue to live with the constant fear that the authorities might one day knock down her door and arrest Bobby for a burglary, or who knew what? This wasn’t fair to her and their child. To what extent should she suffer while mired in her steadfast loyalty to him?

  NICK “THE CAT” SACCO. He is the co-author of this book. In his childhood, his father abandoned the family, leaving a cold void in the household. And seeing his mom grovel to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, little Nick felt a compunction to lighten her burdens. That prompted him to delve into thieveries at the age of nine, and in no time he became proficient at it, though, like Bobby Comfort, he was dedicated to averting violence. Dodging the authorities, he stole here and robbed there until he accumulated enough cash to relocate his mother to a respectable home. Sacco grew into adulthood, and because of his wit and physical limberness was known as “the Cat.” But what also grew was his penchant for a fast-track life of womanizing and luxuries. And gambling.

  SAMMY “THE ARAB” NALO. Nalo’s trademarks were his long bushy sideburns, and the dense curly wigs he wore during a robbery—and when he would court women, who were mainly topless dancers and part-time prostitutes. He was a genius at planning armed robberies and applied his meticulousness to carry out those bold ventures. His wardrobe was fashionable and of high quality. Nalo was always bedecked in jewelry and exotic watches, as though a formal soiree awaited him. But he was apathetic and antisocial, save for his lady friends. Perhaps his mind was too preoccupied by his insurmountable gambling debts.

  CHRISTIE “THE TICK” FURNARI. He held the distinction as the Lucchese Family consigliere, a coveted rank in the Mafia organization. Typically, this position was reserved for astute, steady-tempered members who were not prone to reacting on impulse and reaching premature unmeasured decisions. And Furnari fit that mold in an exemplary fashion. He also had a keen intuition to foresee undetectable developments with potential liabilities for him and the family. A true statesman.

  AL VISCONTI. He, too, held a distinction, though not as prestigious as Furnari’s. Al Visconti was known to be gay, the reason the Lucchese bosses did not elevate him to “a made man,” despite his ingenious means as an “earner.” He had an uncanny resemblance to Rocky Marciano. And coincidentally, Visconti had a brief stint as a professional heavyweight boxer. His bid as a ranked contender, though, was lackluster, and he wisely retired his boxing gloves, thus resuming his criminal career.

  BOBBIE GERMAINE. He was a cordial, smooth-talking burglar and veteran stickup artist who treated his victims with the utmost care and civility. But another form of art was Germaine’s foremost desire: his ambition to become a crime writer, preferably an author who would chronicle his own litany of felonies.

  AL GREEN. This chap, an African American, was a numbers runner who operated in the Harlem section of New York City. Green would roam about, flanked by a bevy of “sistahs,” dabbling as a pimp. Characteristic of “big time” black bookies, as a diversion he owned a raunchy bar, the Black Pussycat, where streetwalkers, lowly drug dealers, social welfare fraudsters, drunkards, and numbers runners lounged, frittering away time after a day of hard work.

  ALI-BEN. He was a native of Turkey ingrained with the archaic close-minded mentality of a desert nomad. Ali-Ben tended toward viciousness and bore no respect for human life. The well-being of a goat or a camel meant more to him than that of a person. But when he partook in heists sanctioned by Christie Furnari and his gunmen, he knew that weapons were just for show, and violence was off-limits.

  DONALD “THE GREEK” FRANKOS. His primary occupation was defined as freelance contract killing. Frankos was associated with “Mad Dog” Sullivan, the head of the Westies, a murderous gang founded by Irish immigrants. The Greek also killed for Genovese underboss “Fat Tony” Salerno. However, on the few occasions when he collaborated with Nick Sacco in performing jewel heists, Frankos left his cold-blooded contract killer hat behind and switched to a nonaggressive posture.

  JOANNE RINALDI. The woman’s beauty and promiscuity were the qualities with which she bartered for anything that fancied her. Adventure and men of power, who tap danced in mine fields, inebriated and electrified her. Unlike Millie Comfort, Joanne would not have been content to be a homemaker; she loved men, the masculine types, and would rather have fun than to have a baby. Indeed, the Manhattan nightlife inspired her, and she lived for it.

  DETECTIVE GEORGE BERMUDEZ. He personified the NYPD’s police officers of the ’60s and ’70s when corruption within the New York City Police Department was as corrosive as acid. Detective Bermudez was always in search for a “score,” an illegal path to riches, and he found it—thanks to one of the Pierre Hotel robbers. But because of that sudden boon Bermudez learned that one’s most priceless assets were honor and integrity, and not material wealth.

  FBI AGENT MATT HAMMER. Weighing in on the opposite end of the scale from George Bermudez’s deceitful and dishonorable inclinations, Agent Hammer was a law enforcer who subscribed to the highest standards of morals, and adhered to the FBI’s strictest rules and regulations. But at times, someone who is too honest, too ethical, and too conservative sacrifices productivity and results.

  ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY DOUG POPE. Mr. Pope, an African American, was reared in a ghetto by a single mother. Against all odds, he repelled the temptation to emulate the dominant forces of his neighborhood. Driven by irrepressible motivations, he climbed above the 1950s stereotypical expectations of his race, and attained his goal: to be a prosecutor and invoke his people’s civil rights and protect them from racial injustice. In the 1970s, though, to ADA Pope’s dismay, combating racial injustice was no less a feat than fighting Goliath. And just when he felt totally defeated, he was given charge of the Pierre Hotel robbery investigation, a nationally famous case that, if. . .if he could only nab the perpetrators, it would surely propel him to stardom—or so he wished.

  LAUREN BAKER. Since her adolescence, her dad had not bestowed to her love and affection, and she sought a father figure. For that reason, she married a much older man who happened to be of means. But Lauren came with a generous trust fund and didn’t need anyone’s financial support; though after h
er husband’s passing, she being so young and vibrant, wealth alone could not allay her loneliness. And it is the desperate longing for companionship that often goads a man or a woman into an irreversible commitment to a mate who may not be suitable.

  JUDGE ANDREW TYLER. The Honorable Judge Tyler, another African American component of this story, wasn’t so honorable. He had been the focus of a succession of improprieties, which led to disciplinary consequences. The consensus of the investigators who reviewed his string of infractions was that he had no reservations in tapping into the authority of his judgeship for self-serving gains. Moreover, His Honor had tendencies to disregard the importance of his responsibilities on the bench. Judge Tyler’s professional derelictions, it could be said, were a scar on the judicial system; on the other hand, his indiscretions might’ve been to the advantage of the defendants who appeared before him.

  CHAPTER 1

  NICK SACCO

  I wasn’t born a thief, but at thirteen years of age I was already a pro. I was running with the big dogs, stealing rolls of cables from the phone company and selling the copper to scrap yards. I had to; my father skipped town, and I was helping my mother make ends meet. I had a knack for getting in and out of tight spots as if I were double-jointed, even though I was quite tall for my age, eventually growing to six foot two. Because of my agility, my mother, may she rest in peace, nicknamed me “the Cat.” And it kind of fit nicely with the rest of my name: Nick “the Cat” Sacco.

  As I got older, I specialized in stealing jewels. I didn’t get rich from this kind of work, but it was a living that let me afford to move my mother into a decent little house. In 1972, though, it all changed for me when I was pulled into the score of scores, the robbery that has never been topped. I was asked to work with the two slickest and smartest jewel thieves I’ve ever known, Bobby Comfort and Sammy “the Arab” Nalo.

  But when these two guys first told me about the plan to break into the Pierre Hotel’s safe deposit boxes, I thought they had lost their senses. I was afraid we’d all get arrested and wind up in a federal joint for thirty years.

  The Pierre, on Fifth Avenue and 61st Street in Manhattan, is one of the ritziest hotels in the world. It has hosted presidents, kings, and queens, literally. Some of the permanent residents there are princesses, wealthy socialites, celebrities, and reclusive moguls.

  Bobby Comfort and Sammy Nalo were so sure they’d figured out a way to break into the vault room, where hundreds of safe deposit boxes were encased in the walls. But I wasn’t persuaded. They figured that on certain nights those damn boxes, all combined, might net us twenty to thirty million dollars in jewels, bearer bonds, and cash. (In today’s value that would equate to a quarter of a billion dollars.) I’m now paying attention with an open mind. Soon, Comfort and Nalo’s scheme made sense. It was well thought out, and it had to do with taking over the entire hotel at four in the morning for two and a half hours, holding hostage the night shift staff and anybody else who might’ve been awake. Two and a half hours! It sounded like something out of a movie. How can you take over a forty-story hotel with four hundred guests without a hint that a bunch of armed robbers were smashing into deposit boxes in the vault room?

  Well, it wasn’t easy or simple. Not to get caught, a thousand things had to go right, and just one had to go wrong to get pinched.

  It’s been forty-four years since Comfort, Nalo, five other thieves, and myself, all armed, barged into the Pierre hell-bent on cleaning out the deposit boxes. Of course, nothing goes as you wanted to. And although we had rehearsed every step, and thought we’d nailed it better than a stage dance, hair-raising incidents cropped left and right, and the unexpected took us by surprise. More unforgettably, many of the Pierre’s guests, rich and influential, were eccentric, bizarre characters whose lives were as weird as a vegetarian wolf.

  When it was over, whatever happened became history, and I buried those memories deep in my mind, never thinking about the Pierre. But today, a gray, snowy afternoon, I was walking through Central Park nearing 61st Street, and the peak of that famed hotel came into view high above the trees; and the daring adventure of 1972 re-lighted in my head as if it was going on at that very moment.

  1971

  Bobby Comfort and Sammy “the Arab” Nalo, a black brief case swinging at his side, were walking briskly on Canal Street in the Diamond District of lower Manhattan, weaving through the crowded sidewalk of inattentive pedestrians. The air was fouled with the exhaust of diesel fuel from the caravan of delivery trucks inching through the narrow streets. “Let’s first give it a go with Hyman,” Comfort said. “He’s pretty quick at making up his mind.”

  Nalo side-glanced him and snickered. “Most of the times. Any way you look at it, he’s a cheap old shyster.”

  Comfort nodded ahead. “We got another block to go. And there’s his place. If we don’t make a deal with Hyman, we’ll go back to Delancey Street, and see if we can do business with Abe Saperstein.”

  Nalo sucked on his teeth and side-glanced Comfort. “Abe! Another swindler.”

  Comfort and Nalo strutted into H&M Jewelers, a long, narrow store, a glass showcase spreading the entire length of it. A dozen shoppers were hunched over the display cabinets intently gazing at the jewelry. Hyman Bloom, the proprietor, saw Comfort and Nalo and fast-stepped to the end of the showcase, where Nalo had placed his briefcase. Hyman, an Orthodox Jew, flashed a smile of brownish, crooked teeth. “Eet’s nice to see you boyz.” He put out his hand, fingers thin and bony, and Comfort shook it hardily, Hyman’s curls, the peyess, bouncing on the sides of his head, resembling two slinkies. “So how’s business?” he asked in his Yiddish accent.

  Nalo swept his hand across the store. “Your business looks pretty damn good. Maybe you’ll loosen up with your money.”

  Hyman petted his pewter-gray beard, the elderly man’s cloudy eyes dimming. “Eh! You should know. Nothing is the way it looks.” He bent over the counter and whispered, “Aha! The overhead. It’s a killer. A killer!” But he quickly perked up. “So tell me, what do you have for me today?”

  Nalo unclasped the briefcase and turned it to face Hyman. The scrawny gent, short and stoop-shouldered, peered through his thick bifocals, eyes twinkling and fleeting furtively. Twenty feet down behind the glass counter, three or four salesmen with yarmulkes and unruly black beards, oily curls of hair, the peyess winding below the ears, were busy tending to the shoppers.

  Hyman nodded toward them. “Eh, let’s move down a little, know what I mean?” Hand trembling, he took the loupe that hung on his chest and wedged it under his right eyebrow. Hyman began inspecting the valued stones inside the briefcase one by one. The goods were a range of loose diamonds, rubies, opals, and emeralds. Fifteen minutes into his examination, the jeweler let the loupe drop to his chest, and looked upward at the taller Comfort. “Tell me, how much you boys want for all this?”

  Nalo, edgy and wiry, shifted from one foot to the other. And beating his partner to the answer, he said with firmness, “Six hundred and fifty grand.”

  Hyman grunted. “Follow me to my office. I have to take a closer look at what you have here. I don’t know how many of these stones are numbered. As you boys know, whenever you shave off the numbers you lose a half to a karat.”

  “It don’t matter, Hyman. Six hundred and fifty gives you plenty of wiggling room,” Comfort countered. “First of all, most of the diamonds, as you see, are at least eight carats and up. And look at the brilliance. We’re talking about FVVS2 clarity rating. Also, notice the shapes, Marquise, Princess, Emerald. And they’re perfect cuts. These are top quality. You know that.”

  The jeweler sing-sang: “Clarity clackity, shapes apes, cuts buts already; it all means nothing unless a customer steps up to the plate and shows the color of his money. And now, the way the economy is, everybody squeezes the nickel until the bull shits.”

  “I’ll tell you right up front, we ain’t takin’ less than six hundred,” Nalo snipped.

  Comfort raised an
open palm at his partner. “Take it easy, Sammy. We can work things out with our friend Hyman.”

  Comfort, Nalo, and Hyman huddled in his office, a tiny space hardly spacious for three men. A small jeweler’s scale, a primitive brass contraption mounted on a wooden case, stood amid a cluttered desk. Hyman, slowly and deliberately, one by one weighed the stones, jotting on a scrap pad the weight of each one. Twenty more minutes of Hyman’s assessment of the gems and another fifteen of hondling with the sellers funneled down to an agreed price of $567,000.

  The jeweler, bald and frail, dabbed his forehead with a napkin, saliva bubbling in the corners of his dry lips. “I need a couple of hours to get you boys the gelt. Okay?” (Gelt, a Yiddish term for money, is pronounced ghelt.)

  “As long as the gelt is in US dollars,” Nalo quipped smirking, his deep, black eyes that told of dark deeds skipping from Comfort to Hyman.

  “My gelt is nothing but US dollars. What do you think I’m gonna pay you with kosher chickens?”

  The transaction was consummated, and Comfort and Nalo took a deep breath. They had just liquidated the majority of the gems plucked when they had forayed into Sophia Loren’s suite at the Hampshire House hotel on Central Park South in New York City. Six months ago, in October of 1970, Comfort and two gunmen had taken over the hotel lobby. Nalo, posing as a service technician, encroached into Ms. Loren’s apartment, held the Italian actress at gunpoint, and stripped the distressed woman of her jewelry. He then cut the phone lines and ran off without harming Ms. Loren and her two-year-old son. Nalo fled by means of the stairway rather than the elevator, vanishing in seconds.

  Hyman well understood the stones were swag. Fifty percent of the jewelers in the Diamond District buy and sell hot products. This is an unknown commonality, but not to FBI Agent Matt Hammer, who was the lead investigator of the Loren case, and had been fast creeping at Comfort and Nalo’s heels.