Justice Knocks for Slain Hero

Justice Knocks for Slain Hero

Movies and TV shows that seek to realistically depict life inside organized-crime families generally shy away from real-life cases like Albert Gelb's.

There is good reason for this: even the "Godfather" films and "The Sopranos" want the mobsters they depict to be seen in a somewhat sympathetic light, so as not to revulse audiences and cut into their profits.

And so they rarely depict the mechanics of taking over labor unions and punishing dissidents, extorting business owners, forcing women into prostitution or the toll their heroin- and cocaine-trafficking takes on both customers and neighborhoods. They also tend to adhere to the organized-crime ethos that those who are being killed or exploited did something to deserve it or are bad people themselves.

Mr. Gelb did not fit into either of those categories. He was a decorated Court Officer who decided to intervene 32 years ago when a Gambino Crime Family thug named Charles Carneglia was being abusive toward a waitress in a diner, and after Mr. Carneglia pulled a gun, faced him down and placed him under arrest.

Mr. Gelb subsequently received numerous telephone threats meant to dissuade him from testifying at Mr. Carneglia's trial, but was not intimidated. Four days before he was supposed to take the witness stand, he was shot to death near his home in Queens.

A case was brought against Mr. Carneglia a decade later, as one of the defendants in John Gotti's first racketeering trial, but it ended in acquittals for all. It was subsequently revealed that one of the jurors had been bribed.

More than two decades later, Mr. Carneglia has been charged again in a massive sweep of the Gambinos and other organized-crime family members by both state and Federal prosecutors. He is accused of committing five different murders over the course of two decades.

"It took a long time, but now we got him," declared Court Officers Association President Dennis Quirk, whose union years ago named its highest award in Mr. Gelb's memory.

We hope this trial produces a more-just result than the earlier one 22 years ago. The case is a sober reminder that the colorful language, expensive suits and flashy lifestyles of gangsters cannot conceal that their power stems from viciousness and the willingness to use deadly force to eliminate or frighten those who stand up to them.