Infamous America - PIERRE HOTEL HEIST Ep. 6 | “The Fallout”

Episode Date: February 22, 2023

The eight thieves who robbed the Pierre Hotel don’t know it yet, but they escaped with a record-breaking haul. They divide the cash, and hide the jewels for safe keeping. Most of the robbers lay low, but Sammy Nalo is in a desperate situation. He’s deep in debt and he needs money fast. He convinces Bobby Comfort to help him sell some jewels, and their plan triggers the fallout that affects everyone. Check out Infamous America Executive Producer, Mandi Wimmer as the guest historian/expert commentator on the History Channel's "Greatest Heists" Ep. 2, The Pierre Hotel Robbery, hosted by Pierce Brosnan. See Chris Wimmer, Host of Infamous America, on "Greatest Heists Ep 7, The Dunbar Armored Depot Heist. Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join Apple users join Noiser+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. On YouTube, subscribe to INFAMOUS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons. Hit “JOIN” on the Infamous America YouTube homepage.  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm4V_wVD7N1gEB045t7-V0w/featured For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My relentless sleep problems have always come from an overactive mind. I lay in bed at night with my mind racing from one thing to another, and then, of course, I have a brainstorm about something new. That lights the fire, and then I'm in real trouble. To calm my mind, the only things that have ever worked with any consistency are sleep gummies. Sleepy Time Advanced Gummies from Mood.com come in various combinations of THC, CBD, and CBN, so you can get something that's very low in THC but higher in CBD, which helps turn off the stress, and CBN, which is the thing that makes you sleepy.

The brain shuts up, the racing thoughts stop, and it's off to sleep. Mood is federally compliant. The gummies are legal and delivered right to your door. At Mood.com, get 20% off your first order with our promo code, Infamous. Go to Mood.com and use the code infamous to get 20% off your first order with our promo code Infamous. to get 20% off your first order, and they have a 100-day satisfaction guarantee. Mood.com promo code infamous. The NYPD and the Manhattan District Attorney's Office were deep into the investigation of the Pierre Hotel Heist, but they were struggling to gain anything tangible.

The FBI had not officially jumped in because there was no proof that any of the stolen goods had been taken across state lines. But something was about to happen that would open the door for, the NYPD and the FBI to work together. When that something happened, the investigation moved with lightning speed. After the heist, the eight robbers had divided the stolen cash. One of the robbers estimated it was about $3 million, and 35 percent, more than a million dollars, went to the Lucchese crime family for sanctioning and supporting the heist. The thieves split the rest and agreed to lay low while the heat died down. They hoped to reconvene soon to try to sell the stolen jewels on the

black market. The jewels they had taken from the safe deposit boxes were the real prizes. They would be worth millions. Bobby Comfort, one of the two leaders of the robbery crew, had taken half the jewels up to his home in Rochester for safekeeping. Sammy Nalo, Bobby's partner and co-leader, had stashed the rest in an apartment in the Bronx. Nick Sacco, a man. Maid Man in the Lucchese family was hiding in Florida. The other five robbers had disappeared, at least for a while. Some of their whereabouts would soon become known, but for now they were ghosts. Bobby and Sammy had learned from the Lucchese family that they were the top suspects on the NYPD's list. They could be picked up at any time and questioned. But even with that knowledge and the knowledge that they

needed to lay low after committing one of the largest robberies in American history, they didn't do the best job of doing nothing. Sammy was in a desperate situation. He owed a ton of money to a loan shark, and he was way overdue to pay it back. The lone shark had threatened to kill him. So during the robbery, he had pocketed a diamond necklace that would eventually be valued at $750,000. He should have thrown it in with all the other stolen goods, but he didn't.

He was holding out on his partner Bobby and the other robbers and the Lucchese family, and that was extremely dangerous. Bobby had confronted Sammy about the possible stolen necklace, but Sammy had vigorously denied taking it. Bobby wasn't completely convinced, but he agreed to drop it. The partner split up to lay low like everyone else, but that only lasted a couple days. Sammy Nalo made two phone calls.

One was to Bobby to ask him to return to New York. Sammy claimed his situation forced him to sell some of the store, stolen jewels earlier than they should, and he needed Bobby's help. The other phone call was to Sammy's friend in Detroit. At the same time, Sammy wanted Bobby's help to sell stolen jewels, he was trying to sell the diamond necklace that he had pocketed during the robbery. Those two phone calls set in motion the final act of the story of the Pierre Hotel Heist. From Black Barrel Media, this is infamous America. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season we're telling the story of one of the boldest robberies in American

history and the crazy cast of characters who brought it to life. This is episode six, The Fallout. In Rochester, Bobby passed his half of the stolen jewels to a man who worked for the organized crime group known as the Rochester family. Bobby was still a member in good standing with the family, and he trusted his contact to keep the jewels safe. Bobby was ready to hunker down and stay out of sight, but he was about to get pulled back into the heist saga. Sammy thought he had kept his apartment in the Bronx a secret from everyone, but the lone shark's goons had found him and given him 72 hours to pay back his debt, or else. He called Bobby in Rochester and asked him to come back to New York. Sammy needed help selling some of the jewels that he and Bobby

had stolen in previous robberies. Bobby agreed to do it, but not because he was a great guy who wanted to help a friend. He was concerned that if Sammy grew any more desperate, he would start making stupid mistakes. Those mistakes could lead the police right to his door, and if that happened, Bobby would be next. Bobby recruited an old friend from Rochester named Dominic Paulino. Paulino worked for the Rochester family and was well connected in Manhattan's Diamond District. Paulino had successfully helped Bobby move gems in the past, and Paulino agreed to do it again. Bobby booked two round-trip flights to New York. Sammy picked up Bobby and Dominic at the airport and drove them to a hotel called the Royal Manhattan.

The Royal Manhattan, despite its regal name, had seen better days. But it was a good place for a meeting like this. In the hotel room, Sammy came clean with Bobby about the actual amount he owed to the loan shark. It wasn't $100,000, like Sammy had previously said. It was more than $200,000. No wonder Sammy needed to sell some jewels, his cut of the stolen cash. from the Pierre Hotel heist wasn't enough to cover his debt. Sammy told Bobby and Dominic that he had already done some research about the best way to recut the gems to make them easier to sell.

Sammy and Bobby had done business in the past with a guy named Bert Stern, who worked in the Diamond District. Sammy had already called Bert, and Bert had agreed to introduce him to a gem cutter named Harry Towson. None of the three guys had heard of Harry Towson, and that made Bob. Bobby and Dominic uneasy. But Sammy assured them that Bert Stern had vouched for Towson. Sammy had arranged for everyone to have dinner that night at a steakhouse. Despite their worry, Bobby and Dominic agreed to go to the dinner meeting. At the restaurant, after they had finished dinner and become a little more acquainted,

Bert Stern said Harry could recut the merchandise and then help sell it. Harry had apparently been doing business with a wealthy banker who had been buying precious gems. For a cut of the sale, Harry would be willing to make the introduction and see if they could make a deal with the banker. But the only information Harry would reveal about the banker was his first name, Roland. Bobby's skepticism grew. He thought Harry Towson seemed like a good guy, and he had known Bert Stern for a while. But the banker, Roland, was a new wild card. How could they be sure this Roland character wasn't an undercover cop?

Bobby took some convincing, but eventually he and Sammy and Dominic agreed to a big meeting the next day with everyone. Bobby remained uneasy, but Sammy was all for it. If the banker was ready to pony up the cash, Sammy was ready to do business. Sammy only had 72 hours to come up with some serious money, or something unpleasant would happen to him. He needed this to work, but he also wasn't putting all his eggs in one basket. Nobody else at the table that night knew that Sammy had already tried to cut a deal with an old friend from Detroit. That deal was going to be like rolling out the red carpet for the FBI to enter the party. Harry Towson, the gem cutter, set up a lunch meeting with Roland the banker and the rest of the crew at a nondescript diner on 11th Avenue.

Bert Stern, Harry Towson, and Roland were sitting in a booth when Bobby, Sammy, and Dominic walked in. After they were introduced, the banker was ready to talk business. Roland asked Sammy how much money he wanted for the diamonds. Sammy said he needed $250,000. The banker was unfazed, but made it clear that the diamonds needed to be examined by an expert appraiser. If the appraisal showed the diamonds were worth double the amount that Sammy wanted, they could do the deal. Sammy assured Roland that the diamonds were worth at least $500,000 at resale. They shook hands and arranged to meet the next day at the Summit Hotel near Grand Central Station.

Dominic would bring the gems. Bert, Harry, and Roland would bring an appraiser from the Diamond District. If it all checked out, Roland would take the diamonds and hand over a quarter of a million dollars in cash. Bobby was still not convinced this was a good idea, so he would be. He wanted to put an insurance plan in place. Half the jewels from the Pierre heist were with Bobby's friend in Rochester, but the rest of the jewels were stashed in Sammy's apartment in the Bronx. If the deal went south, Bobby didn't want the cops or the feds to search Sammy's apartment

and find the stash. Sammy agreed. They drove up to Harlem and asked Al Green, the getaway driver, if he would hold on to the gems for a couple days. Bobby and Sammy trusted Al to keep them safe until the... this deal was done. Once they knew they were in the clear, they would come back for the stones. They caught Al just in time. He was about to head out of town, but he agreed to help for a fee, and he took the bag of gems. Now it was time to do the deal with Roland of the banker.

Dominic was chosen as the delivery man because he wasn't a suspected jewel thief, and if the deal was a setup, they all hoped Dominic wouldn't be arrested. The gems were untraceable, and Dominic could claim he got them anywhere, and hopefully it would keep Bobby and Sammy one step removed from the deal. As Dominic walked through the lobby of the Royal Manhattan Hotel on his way to the big meeting, he saw that the front desk clerk wasn't busy. Dominic decided to pay for the room that they had been using so they could make a faster exit after the deal was done. It seemed like a smart, efficient idea at the time, but it came back to haunt them.

In the lobby of the Summit Hotel, Dominic met Bert Stern, Harry Towson, and the appraiser. The appraiser was a short, bald-headed man named Benjamin Fradkin. After they were introduced, Bert and Harry said Roland the banker was waiting upstairs. Dominic and Fradkin should go up, but Bert and Harry were going to wait in the lobby. At the time, that didn't register as strange. The transaction only needed three people. Dominic with the diamonds, Fradkin to appraise them, and Roland with the money. Dominic and Fradkin took the elevator to the 10th floor.

They knocked on the door and a man in a brown suit whom Dominic had never met ushered them inside. The man smiled and said Roland was in the bathroom. Dominic didn't like this at all, but the harmless-looking stranger said to sit down and get settled. Roland would be right out. Back at the Royal Manhattan, Bobby's anxiety was growing. With every passing minute, he questioned the scenario more and more. It had happened so fast, and there were so many new people involved. He just couldn't shake the bad feeling that was growing in the pit of his stomach.

In the lobby of the Summit Hotel, Harry Towson and Bert Stern made small talk while they waited for the guys upstairs to do the deal. Then Harry said he wanted to step outside and get some fresh air. and he asked Bert to come along. Bert shrugged and they headed for the revolving doors. They hadn't taken more than a few steps outside when four NYPD officers appeared. Within seconds, Bert Stern was handcuffed

and thrown into the back of a police car. He watched as Harry Towson continued strolling down the sidewalk. Towson had clearly set him up, and there was no way he could warn the others. Upstairs, Roland still had not come out of the bathroom. Dominic's suspicion was rising. He was getting ready to leave when the phone rang. The man in the brown suit answered. He listened for a moment, said thank you, and hung up. And then four men with guns charged into the room and ordered Dominic and Fradkin to put their hands up.

At that point, Roland finally came out of the bathroom and introduced himself as FBI Special Agent Jack Goodwin. The harmless-looking man in the brown suit turned out to be NYPD's. Lieutenant Don O'Neill. Dominic Paulino and Benjamin Fradkin had walked straight into a joint sting operation, and they were placed under arrest. At the Royal Manhattan Hotel, Bobby paced around his room, anxiously waiting for Dominic to get back with the money. In the Bronx, Sammy paced around his apartment, anxiously waiting for Bobby and Dominic to bring him a briefcase full of $250,000. Obviously, neither of those things was going to happen. After Dominic was handcuffed, Special Agent Goodwin gave him a quick pat down to make sure he wasn't armed.

Goodwin didn't find a weapon, but he did find a receipt for a room at the Royal Manhattan Hotel. Goodwin handed the receipt to Lieutenant O'Neill, who looked at it and smiled. He walked away to make a phone call. When he was done, he and Goodwin spoke briefly in low voices. Then the lieutenant excused himself and left the room. 20 minutes later, Lieutenant O'Neill arrested Bobby Comfort. O'Neill told Bobby they had evidence that he and Sammy Nalo were involved in the Pierre Hotel heist and many more hotel robberies.

But Bobby knew a bluff when he saw one. This was a tired old ploy, and Bobby was too smart to fall for it. O'Neill gave Bobby a quick pat down and found his gun. O'Neill also found four pristine, multi-carat emeralds, worth thousands of dollars. O'Neill smiled, but Bobby didn't seem too concerned. The emeralds were from the Pierre Heist, but Bobby knew they were untraceable because he had removed them from their settings. When O'Neill told Bobby they were charging him with possession of stolen goods, Bobby just shrugged. He believed that as long as he stayed quiet, the cops probably wouldn't be

able to make the charges stick. In the Bronx, Sammy Nala was freaking out. Hours had been passed since Bobby and Dominic should have been there with the money. That could only mean one thing. It was a setup after all. He had to get out of his apartment. Not only could the cops be at his door any second, but his 72 hours were up and he had no money to give to the loan shark. Sammy's best shot at staying alive and out of jail was to high-tail it out of town while he still had the chance. He ran outside, jumped in a taxi, and headed to his other apartment in Hell's kitchen, but Sammy was just prolonging the inevitable. Bobby Comfort wasn't naming any names, but Burt Stern wasn't shy. When Burt had been arrested outside the summit hotel, at about the

same time Dominic and Mr. Fradkin were arrested upstairs, he told the police that the whole thing had started with Sammy. The NYPD knew Sammy Nalo had an apartment in Hell's Kitchen. They just didn't know exactly where it was. But as luck would have it, two officers. were cruising the neighborhood, hoping they might see him. They spotted a man walking briskly along the sidewalk, wearing a bad wig, and looking like he was doing his best not to be seen. The officers hit their lights, pulled over to the curb, and arrested Sammy Nalo without incident. Bobby Comfort was in the NYPD's central booking facility known as the Tumes. It was a notoriously difficult environment. There was no daylight or fresh air.

It was rough, and Bobby did his best to put up a brave front. He had yet to be formally charged when he heard about Sammy's arrest. But he was confident that Sammy would hold up to whatever the NYPD or the FBI had in store for him. They had both been in the game long enough to know that keeping quiet would ultimately serve their best interests. While Bobby sat in his cell in the tombs, he had time to reflect on the speed at which everything had happened. It was January 7th, just five days after the robbery. How had the FBI and the NYPD been able to orchestrate a successful sting operation so quickly? Bobby didn't know the answer, so he tried to focus on what he hoped was the bright side.

If the cops hadn't tracked down Al Green or Bobby's friend in Rochester, then the stolen jewels were still safe. Although the NYPD and the FBI did their best to dig up enough evidence to indict Bob, Bobby and Sammy for the Pierre Hotel heist, they couldn't get there. None of the hostages were able to identify Bobby and Sammy, and there was no physical evidence that tied either of them to the scene. The robbers had worn gloves during the heist, so there were no fingerprints. DNA evidence was a fantasy in 1972. It would be another 20 years before it even started to become a real investigative tool.

Security cameras were almost non-existent, mostly because they would have to record on film. Video cassettes and video cassette recorders were just starting to get introduced in the 1970s. They wouldn't be in widespread use until the 1980s, so there was no footage of any kind of the robbery. The only thing the cops could do was charge Bobby and Sammy with possession of stolen property, based on the emeralds that were in Bobby's pocket when he was arrested, and a few diamonds that were found in Sammy's apartment. Dominic Paolino faced the same charge, but it was later dropped.

The cops determined that Bert Stern and Benjamin Fradkin, the appraiser, were not part of Bobby and Sammy's gang of crooks. Stern and Fradkin were initially charged with possession of stolen property, but their charges were dropped as well. The FBI was now down to one last card it could play against Bobby and Sammy. The answer to Bobby's question about how the NYPD and the FBI were, able to put together a sting so quickly was this. The second phone call Sammy made a day or two after the heist. The first had been to Bobby, which ultimately led to the mess they were in now. The second was to Sammy's friend in his hometown of Detroit. Sammy didn't know that his friend had been working as an FBI informant long before the Pierre Heist ever happened. Sammy told

his buddy that he was coming to town for business and he wanted to meet. The friend initially said yes, but when Sammy tried to convince his friend to help him sell the diamond necklace, his friend backpedaled. The friend said he wasn't interested, but the FBI was very interested. They were listening to all of the friend's phone calls, and then they knew Sammy was trying to sell stolen jewels. But even though the phone calls were enough to organize the sting, the FBI hit a roadblock when it came to an indictment.

Sammy's friend in Detroit refused to testify. It's not clear why the FBI didn't just force him, but more than likely, they thought the friend was too valuable as an informant within the Detroit mob, and they didn't want to burn him to convict Sammy Nalo. When the FBI backed away, that only left the Manhattan District Attorney and his relatively measly charges of possession of stolen property. As the wheels of justice started to spin, the involvement of the Lucchese family became an asset to Bobby and Sammy.

The robbers had been forced to give up more than a third of their loot to the Lucasies, but this was one of the things that made it worth it. Christy Fernari, the man who had supervised the robbery for the Lucchese family, rewarded Bobby and Sammy for their silence. He sent one of the Lucchese family attorneys to talk about a deal with the DA's office, but the DA was not interested in a deal. Bobby and Sammy were finally released on bail after Fernari put up $90,000 for each one of of them. Trial dates were set, and as luck would have it, or more likely thanks to corruption,

Bobby and Sammy's cases were heard by Judge Andrew Tyler. It was later learned that Judge Tyler had never met a bribe he didn't take. Christy Fernari allegedly offered Judge Tyler $200,000 to go easy on Bobby and Sammy if they were convicted. A jury found Bobby and Sammy guilty of possession of stolen property. The prosecutor asked for seven and a half year, in prison for each man. Their defense attorney wanted four years. Judge Tyler pulled a clever trick. He gave both of them seven and a half years. That made him look honorable to the general public. But at the same time, the judge ensured that the case would be wide open for an appeal. When Bobby and Sammy appealed their sentences, their prison time was reduced to what they

originally asked for, four years. They ended up serving just over two years, and then they were free. And while Bobby and Sammy went through all of that, the rest of the robbery crew lived well for a while, and then their stories ended like so many others. Al Green, the limo driver, and Ali Ben, one of the men who guarded the hostages during the heist, went to Europe. When they eventually returned to New York, they discovered that one of the other members of the crew was not happy. Don the Greek Francos felt he had been shortchanged on his cut of the stolen goods. He was a hitman by trade and only dabbled in robbery when the opportunity was right. Of the eight men who participated in the robbery,

Francoz was the last one they wanted to piss off. He tracked Ali Ben down and shot him dead, along with Ali Ben's new girlfriend. Francoz found Al Green and forced him to give up the remaining jewels that he had been holding and then shot him dead. When Sammy got out of prison, Francoe tracked him down too. Franco's demanded more money. Sammy refused and Franco shot him. Miraculously, Sammy survived.

For whatever reason, Frankos didn't go after Bobby Comfort during his rampage. And probably because Frankos was crazy but not stupid, he didn't target any of the members of the Lucchese family who had been part of the heist. Nick Sacco, who was a made man in the family, went to Florida. Before he left, he assured the Lucchese family that Bobby and Sammy would never rat them out to the cops. Ironically, Nick Sacco became the rat. He was eventually arrested and he worked with the FBI. Much of this story comes from Sacco's remembrances, which admittedly are not always reliable, but they're certainly entertaining.

He made a deal that allowed him to keep a lot of his stolen goods and to receive a new life in the Witness Protection Program. After that, he spilled his guts about the Lucchese family. Christy Fernari and the final two robbers, Al Visconti and Bobby Germain, were arrested along with several others. Bobby Comfort, the ring leader, returned to his family in Rochester after prison. He allegedly gave up his career as a thief and lived quietly with his wife and daughter until his death of a heart attack at age 53.

In 1988, Sammy Nalo, who remained a committed criminal, was shot dead while sitting at his desk in a travel agency that he owned. The agency served as a front for his many criminal activities. It was rumored that the Greek was the trigger man and had finished his revenge. Ironically, Don Franco's one of the mob's most prolific hitmen, eventually died of natural causes at the age of 73. And on one final, more positive note, little old Jordan Graff, the elderly man who had suffered a heart attack during the robbery, survived his bypass surgery and went home to the Pierre Hotel. He lived to tell the tale of the biggest hotel robbery in history.

It's been more than 50 years since the Pierre Hotel heist, and most of the cash and jewels were never seen again. One of the exceptions was Baroness von Langendorf's 750,000. thousand dollar diamond necklace. The rest was probably spread out all over Europe and the American East Coast and places unknown. Or maybe some of it is stashed away somewhere, just waiting to be stolen by someone else. Next time on infamous America, we're going to the American Heartland for a story that has inspired books, movies, and songs. If you're a fan of the Quentin Tarantino Oliver Stone movie Natural Born Killers, the classic film Badlands that introduced Martin

and Sissy Spaceic, or Bruce Springsteen's haunting album, Nebraska, you'll want to hear this. It's the story of Spree Killer, Charles Starkweather, who terrorized Nebraska and Wyoming in the late 1950s. That's next on Infamous America. Members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week for new episodes. They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials, and they also receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships begin at just $5 per month. This series was researched and written by Michael Byrne, original music by Rob Valier.

I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer. Find us at our website, blackbarrelmedia.com or on our social media channels. We're Black Barrel Media on Facebook and Instagram and B-Barrell Media on Twitter. And you can stream all our episodes on YouTube. Just search for Infamous America Podcast. Thanks for listening.