Coletta had an uncle on his mother’s side who owned two auto junk and dismantling yards on the outskirts of New Orleans. Today these yards would be called, “auto recycling centers.” The two yards were owned for many years by his uncle and were run as clean operations. His uncle was on good terms with all state and local authorities involved in the vehicle dismantling and bulk metal sales.
Coletta’s uncle saw T.J.’s problems as a youth and genuinely wanted to help. He knew his nephew had experienced a rough time growing up and was interested in cars. He thought it might do T.J. Coletta some good to be around a legitimate business, and he offered him a job.
T.J. liked the idea and accepted his uncle’s job offer. His uncle’s business seemed to be doing well and growing, and Coletta applied himself to his work, learning all phases of the business. His uncle came to rely on Coletta more and more, and actually thought he had helped straighten Coletta’s life out.
Behind his uncle’s back, Coletta had other ideas.
Coletta kept all of his dirty deeds away from his uncle, always presenting a clean side of himself. He showed aptitude for learning the business and applying himself to hard work.
Coletta saw the fortuitous discovery of his uncle’s yards as a real gold mine. He learned how pink slips and white slips were issued and tracked by the Department of Motor Vehicles. He learned how the records in the business were kept as well as how the different phases of dismantling a car and selling the parts from the yard ran. He watched in detail the way cars were dismantled and saw how parts were inventoried, stored and sold to auto parts stores. He also learned how complete bodies of cars were crushed and sold for scrap metal. He tracked scrap metal pricing locally and nationally. Coletta’s criminal mind never stopped. He had clever ideas of how pink slips could be forged or modified and how white slips could be created from pink slip cars. When a car came in with a problem registration, Coletta took the lead at the yard for getting the problem resolved with Motor Vehicles department personnel. In this way, he learned what the authorities wanted to see and how the paperwork flowed. He even tested the system by making a few intentional typos on registration slips to see which ones would be picked up and which would get through. He was very good on the phone with regulators, vehicle authorities, insurance companies, and even the police department, if there was an issue about a vehicle’s ownership or theft record. T.J. also continued his racketeering efforts out of sight of his uncle.
Coletta had a flare for flashy cars. He loved Cadillacs and had owned one since he started driving. His flashy cars drew attention to him. Despite being rejected for membership in the real mob, Coletta was determined to look and act like a mob boss.
He would ultimately achieve his goal, with the big houses, multiple Cadillac’s, custom-made suits, and other trappings of a mob boss. He would do so, like his mob counterparts, over the bodies of many of his victims. However, this wouldn’t happen for a number of years after he started working for his uncle. That job ended when Coletta went back to prison, this time for six years on manslaughter and accessory to murder charges. His time on the farm hardened and educated him further.
When Coletta got out of prison this time, he had a real plan and people set up to carry it out. His first task was to buy out his uncle’s two dismantling yards. Since junk yard ownership was regulated and approved by state authorities, Coletta knew that with his criminal record, he would never be approved. Coletta provided the money to a loyal front man with a clean record to own the yards on paper.
With the yards secured and under his control, he began putting the rest of his plan in place. Over the next several years, Coletta would bring together one of the largest car and parts theft rings in the country. This put T.J. Coletta as head of operations on rival footing in size and brutality as his organized crime mob counterparts. As his crime empire grew, Coletta loved living the part of mob boss he had aspired to, and he wasn’t shy about his flashy lifestyle. By now Coletta had backed off doing his own dirty work, leaving those details to loyal lieutenants and under bosses. Coletta didn’t know the name of Detective Jake Pisano.
But Pisano knew him.
13
Hanna and Langer arrived at the Ole Grille and took seats at a table just before Pisano arrived. Pisano came in and pointed his finger to another table at the back of the restaurant. The two waiting men quickly moved to the new table. The grille was quiet this time of day, with only one other customer drinking coffee at the counter.
Jake Pisano was a street-smart detective who grew up in one of the toughest Italian-Irish neighborhoods of New Orleans. From middle school through high school, he had to fight his way to or from school at least once a week. As a youngster, Jake always managed to stay away from several rival gangs who wanted him to become a member. To keep himself off the streets, he found Curley’s Boxing Gym in the neighborhood, not far from his house.
Pisano’s father had died in an industrial accident when he was three. Jake was raised by his Italian mother and grandmother. His mother worked three jobs, cleaning and cooking, to keep Jake and his two brothers fed and clothed. In order to use the gym facilities, Pisano would clean up and be available to spar with whoever needed a sparing partner. His sparing partners were often older and stronger than Jake. A police officer by the name of Jimmy Damond from the neighborhood also worked out at the gym and took a liking to the young Pisano. Jimmy coached Jake on technique and even organized a few amateur fights for him. Jimmy eventually met Pisano’s mother, and he became a close friend of the Pisano family. The kids called him Uncle Jimmy. Jimmy would sometimes take Jake to other gyms for boxing matches.
By the time he was in high school, Jake was a good enough boxer that he was noticed by one of the professional fight promoters around the gym. The fight promoter took Jake under his wing and arranged several fights. He would tell Jake he was on the road to becoming a successful professional fighter. To the promoter, Jake was really considered a “club fighter,” which meant that although he was good, he was generally outmatched in most fights. The fight promoter would tell Jake he was better than he really was just to get him to the next match.
Uncle Jimmy didn’t feel Jake was being treated right by the fight promoter. He didn’t say anything because he didn’t want to hurt Jake’s feelings.
Uncle Jimmy kept in touch with the family and continued to advise Jake when they were both in the gym. One day he asked Jake, “What are you going to do with your life?”
“Become a professional fighter,” was the quick answer.
Over months of conversation, Jimmy convinced Jake that the fighting game offered little hope for his future and warned that if he continued, Jake would probably get his brains beat out by the time he was twenty. One day Jimmy suggested the Police Academy to Jake and said he may be able to help him get in if Jake was interested. Jake thought about it and finally took Jimmy up on his offer. Jake Pisano knew the streets and how to take care of himself. His vigorous training in the gym had taught him discipline and to diligently apply himself to the task at hand; Jake was in the gym before anyone got there in the morning, and he was still training after everyone else had disappeared in the evening.
When Pisano’s application to the Academy was accepted, he applied himself as diligently to his Police Academy schooling as he had to his fight training. Pisano graduated from the Academy with honors and immediately started working “Vice.”