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Automobile theft in the '50s and '60s was as a serious crime as it is today, but it was rare to find theft rings organized on any large scale. As in most large cities, then, as now, organized crime tended to focus on extortion, drugs, bookmaking, loan-sharking, gambling, racketeering, murder, and fencing stolen property. Since the turn of the century, New Orleans has had several mob bosses with ties to the Mafia and crime families in Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Florida. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, mob activity was concentrated in several of these more typical crime activities. There were also small gangs of varying sizes throughout the city with different commercial interests.
With the election of President John F. Kennedy and his appointment of Bobby Kennedy as U.S. Attorney General, the elimination of major organized crime got new attention. New Orleans was one of Bobby Kennedy’s hot spots, and increased federal pressure was being placed on organized crime figures and their operations. At the time of the Kennedy election, most mob bosses in New Orleans were primarily focused on illegal gambling.
Fifteen years prior to Kennedy’s election, a young street hood by the name of T.J. Coletta was emerging as a tough guy on the streets of New Orleans. Among other small crimes, he was involved in steeling cars, dismantling them, and selling parts.
Before Coletta, car theft was not an activity that organized crime was interested in. To the mob, large scale auto theft and parts distribution was a messy and complicated business. As one crime boss indicated, the business “had too many moving parts.” Too many parts were marked and traceable. There was the vehicle’s VIN number; then there were engine parts and chassis numbers that could all be used to trace stolen vehicles. Numbers were stamped or molded onto the various parts. Removing of individual parts numbers was a time consuming job. And parts could be bulky, heavy, and difficult to handle. Large parts had to be broken down into smaller parts; it was very difficult to sell an entire drive train. It was much easier to sell the individual parts: generators, radiators, transmissions, starters, rear ends, wheels and other engine parts.
There was not only the oily, greasy work involved in taking the cars apart, but a lot of paperwork was necessary in order to track the dismantled parts. Time and labor were also involved in handling large, heavy, or bulky parts like engines, real axle assemblies, bumpers, and fenders. So, stealing cars was relatively easy. Disposing of entire cars without a trace was extremely difficult.
Mob bosses didn’t want anything to do with it. Most of them had no automotive knowledge or skills, which take time to learn. And they were not knowledgeable of prices for parts of various cars — information that would be necessary in order to sell them. Distribution was also an issue. Most parts were sold on an individual transaction basis.
Stealing cars and distributing stolen parts became the work of skilled individuals or small theft rings. Big crime bosses were content to leave these small players alone.
Thomas James (T.J.) Coletta grew up in the same rough neighborhood as his nemesis, Detective Jake Pisano, although Coletta was ten years older. Unlike Pisano, Coletta took the path of criminal activity starting at a very young age. Coletta was always large for his age, and he took full advantage of that fact in fights and petty theft crimes. He was a bully in every sense of the word. He started his crime life in the fourth grade, taking lunch money from kids coming to school. By the age of eleven, Coletta had formed a small gang of kids who followed his instructions taking, and reselling everything from school supplies to items they had stolen from stores.
At eleven, Coletta had the first of many run-ins with juvenile authorities. If he thought another kid had turned him in, that kid would be severely beaten. Coletta served several short sentences in juvenile detention facilities before he was thirteen. His detention experiences only served to hardened his resolve and teach him better skills at being a criminal. Some of the contacts he made in detention schools and later in prison would become longstanding friends and eventually lieutenants in his crime organization many years later.
At fourteen, T.J. committed his first murder — the brutal killing of another rival gang member. Although suspected of involvement, T.J. was never arrested or even questioned for this crime because of lack of evidence. As he grew older and physically larger, his crimes became more serious and more brutal. By the time he was eighteen, Coletta was imposing a hulk of a man — about 6'4" and weighing 325 pounds. Proceeds from the sale of stolen goods provided weapons, and the Coletta’s gang was not opposed to using those weapons. Coletta managed to attend three years of high school, which was interrupted multiple times by court ordered terms in detention facilities for assorted theft crimes and violent acts against other gang members.
Growing up, there was another side of Coletta that generally went unnoticed. At a very young age, he was particularly astute at understanding auto mechanics and how cars operated and could be repaired. Before and during high school he had part-time jobs helping out at various garages, tuning and repairing cars, and he became quite good at it. The senior mechanic at one of the garages Coletta worked once said to the owner, “This kid is amazing. Once he hears the engine running, he can tell you what’s wrong and the parts needed to fix it. He’s right 95 % of the time. He knew what the car needed before I put any testing instruments on the car.”
Coletta’s mechanical interests ultimately lead him to building racing engines for customers when he was not involved in crime activities. His knowledge of cars also led him to his ultimate crime game; establishing and running what became the largest auto theft ring in the South.
By the time Coletta reached high school age, his real ambition in life was to become an organized crime boss. During one of his detention terms, he was introduced to an older prison detainee. This person seemed to have some connections with the mob. Coletta, when he wanted to, could be friendly and affable, and he cultivated a relationship with this other inmate.
Eventually that relationship set him up with a meeting with one of the lower level organized crime bosses in the city. The meeting with the crime boss went well and within a few weeks Coletta became a contract enforcer for the mob. His reputation as a brutal and loyal enforcer grew within the crime family. Most of his assignments were enforcement of loan sharking debt obligations to the mob when a customer hadn’t paid or couldn’t pay. Coletta didn’t care if he had to break the legs of a senior citizen, female, or child to get the job done. On some enforcement jobs, he would also destroy the interiors of a retail store to make a point. Coletta was paid for his work by the mob as an independent contractor. Because of his large size and flamboyant style, he was easy to identify, and several arrests were made following his enforcement activities which carried short prison terms.
His dirty enforcement activities as a contractor paid well, but Coletta wanted more. When he got out of prison after serving a six-month sentence, he made several strong pleas to the mob to become a permanent, anointed member of the crime family and share in their overall proceeds. The mob politely declined. Their issue wasn’t that he didn’t do a good job, but rather his large physical stature and flamboyant style attracted a lot of attention. Attention was not something organized crime wanted. The mob wanted people who would do the dirty work, appear respectable, and blend in or disappear into the woodwork. After being rejected in his attempts to become a made man, Coletta decided he was no longer going to do the mob’s dirty work on a contract basis.