Ricciardi was a ruthless young man who was eager to make his mark in the world of organized crime. He was often known to negotiate deals with golf clubs and bats and was not afraid to bring a gun to the meeting. Lytwyn was resting in the bedroom of his second floor home when he heard a loud banging noise echoing throughout the neighborhood. He ran to his window to search for the source and saw Tommy Ricciardi, his brother Daniel “Bobo” Ricciardi and two more associates bashing what they thought was Lytwyn’s car with baseball bats. It was actually Lytwyn’s brother-in-law’s car. Lytwyn was furious. Harassing him with veiled death threats was crossing the line; actually bringing violence to his home was leaping over the line. Lytwyn grabbed his gun and raced from his bedroom, ready to end the threat right then and there, but by the time he got outside the gangsters were already squealing their tires and kicking up dirt. He jumped his car, with his brother-in-law joining him for back-up, and they pursued the perpetrator’s car. The two cars sped through Newark in an old-fashioned movie quality high speed chase. When they hit South Orange Avenue, Lytwyn forced the gangsters’ car to the side of the road, leapt from his car and rushed to the gangsters’ car. Drawing his gun, he grabbed the driver–Tommy Ricciardi–and shoved his gun into his mouth before any of the gangsters could react. “You don’t fuck with my family!” he yelled, rage in the form of spit dousing Ricciardi’s face. “You’re a dead man! A fucking dead man!” Lytwyn’s finger trembled on the trigger as he prepared to end the life of one of Newark’s worst. Before he could, however, his brother-in-law calmly approached and began talking sense into him. You’re a good cop, he reminded Lytwyn. You’re an honest cop, he said. You know this isn’t right and it isn’t you, he stated. He was right. Lytwyn was known as an aggressive cop, but an honest one. That was why he was handpicked to join the organized crime taskforce. He was known as a man who could not be bought or owned by organized crime. He was once nothing more than a lower class child who was abandoned by his mother and raised above a bar in Newark by his grandmother. He was once nothing more than a petty street punk who stole cars for kicks. Yet, he had been able to turn his life around and rise to one of the most respected men in Newark’s law enforcement community and, along with his partners, was making a major difference in the city by putting away the criminals who were trying to turn Newark into a 1970s-version of the Wild West. If he pulled that trigger, everything he worked so hard to become would be thrown away. If he pulled that trigger, it would mean that the bad guys won. If he pulled that trigger, he would be letting down every member of his unit who had worked so hard to disrupt the flow of gambling in Newark. If he pulled that trigger, he would be no better than the gangsters he fought to put behind bars. As those thoughts passed through his head, he pulled the gun out of Ricciardi’s mouth and holstered it. “Don’t you ever come to my house again,” he muttered, suffering through adrenaline shock. He and his brother-in-law then casually strolled to his car and left the gangsters trembling in fear and counting 24
CigAr City MAgAzine
their blessings that Lytwyn had a conscience. The next day, Lytwyn was told through a third party that Timmy Murphy wanted to meet him at one of the local union halls. Timmy Murphy’s real name was Thomas Pecora and he was a top dog in the gambling ring that Lytwyn was trying to shutdown. The third party assured Lytwyn that it was going to be a friendly meeting. Murphy may have been a criminal, but he was also honorable in his own way. If he said it was going to be a friendly meeting, it would assuredly stay civil. “Tommy was like a consigliere,” explained Lytwyn. “He was the guy that they sent in to smooth situations over.” Pecora actually apologized for Ricciardi’s action and promised that it would never happen again. Pecora explained to Lytwyn that the attack on his home was not an authorized job and that Ricciardi was hired by a group of young men who were tired of Lytwyn arresting them because he was keeping them from moving up in “the system,” aka organized crime’s ladder. It was at that point Lytwyn put two and two together and realized it was probably DeLuca. Pecora even gave Lytwyn the name and address of a good body shop and told him that the place would fix his brother-in-law’s car up as good as new. “Pecora didn’t so much say they would ‘do’ the guys who came to my home if they ever bothered me again, but he implied it,” laughed Lytwyn. Pecora was true to his word. Lytwyn dropped off the car at the agreed upon auto body shop and when he picked it up it was in better shape than it was before the attack. Why would a member of Newark’s organized crime network apologize to and help a man paid to put him behind bars? “He knew I was just doing my job,” said Lytwyn. “Plus, I was helping him with his I guess.” Lytwyn went on to explain that the bosses figured that if one of their “employees” was not smart enough to avoid being arrested on a regular basis, then they were not worth promoting. In a way, Lytwyn was conducting the mafia’s job interviews for them. Lytwyn served for the organized crime commission from 1972–1976 during which time he was heavily involved in investigating the infamous Campisi family. When the federal government pulled the commission’s funding in 1976, he went on to fight narcotics in Newark. “My job never got safer,” he laughed. As for Ricciardi, he went on to fame and infamy of his own. He became a big shot in the New Jersey mafia as a top aide to Newark’s feared Lucchese crime family and is considered to be the inspiration behind The Soprano’s character of Silvio. He also became a mafia rat, turning state’s evidence in the 1990s. Lytwyn said Ricciardi’s testimony helped to put a number of mafiosos behind bars. “Looking back, they probably wish I did kill him,” laughed Lytwyn. “And it worked out for everyone else that I did not.”