My untold relationship with the FBI in the Jimmy Hoffa murder case (Part 2)
Frank Cappola enters the fray
Photo: Frank Cappola in the alcove under the Pulaski Skyway, near the PJP Landfill, aka “Brother Moscato’s Dump,” September 29, 2019
A quick recap of Part One. . . .
* On November 4, 1975, the late Ralph Picardo—an associate of Anthony Provenzano, a capo in the Vito Genovese Mafia family who had allegedly engineered the July 30, 1975, killing of Jimmy Hoffa—told FBI Special Agent Robert Garrity of Detroit that, among other things, Hoffa was 1) murdered in Detroit, probably by Salvatore Briguglio, one of Provenzano’s top lieutenants, 2) placed in a 55-gallon oil drum, 3) loaded onto a Gateway Transportation truck, and 4) shipped to New Jersey. At the time, Picardo was serving twenty years in a New Jersey state prison for manslaughter.
* These allegations were revealed during a federal grand jury hearing on December 5, 1975, featuring alleged co-conspirators in the Hoffa killing: Salvatore Briguglio, his brother, Gabriel, and another set of brothers, Steve and Tom Andretta. Picardo had allegedly learned what he knew about Hoffa’s murder from Steve Andretta during a prison visitation a few days after the killing.
Also subpoenaed to testify—and taking The Fifth—was Rolland McMaster, whose brother-in-law was the head of the steel division of Gateway Transportation in Detroit. I had targeted McMaster from Day One for his alleged role in the murder, as well as for orchestrating a series of acts of violence in Hoffa’s home Local 299 before the killing.
Six weeks after Hoffa’s death, I gave the FBI my fifteen-page theory about what had happened—with McMaster at the epicenter of the murder conspiracy. FBI special agents wrote several official reports based on their subsequent interviews with me.
* Picardo added that the Provenzano crew often buried their victims at the PJP Landfill in Jersey City, aka “Brother Moscato’s Dump.” He suggested that Hoffa was likely buried there, too.
* Beginning on April 28, 2007, I had a seven-year series of exclusive interviews with the late Phillip “Brother” Moscato—a soldier in the Genovese crime family and the co-owner of the Jersey City dump with his partner, the late Paul Cappola.
Moscato revealed to me that “Picardo basically had it right,” essentially confirming that, among other revelations, 1) Hoffa had been murdered in Detroit by Salvatore Briguglio, 2) shipped in an oil drum via Gateway Transportation to New Jersey, and 3) taken to his landfill where he was buried.
Moscato spoke to me, in part, because I am the only reporter, living or dead, who had interviewed Sal Briguglio, live and in person, on October 25, 1976, at Teamsters Local 560 in Union City. (Briguglio was murdered on March 21, 1978—a month after my fourth and final interview with him.)
* Enter, Frank Cappola.
“Motherfucker, you are taking me with you”
On February 3, 2019—after watching me on a Fox News program claiming that Jimmy Hoffa’s body was at “Brother Moscato’s Dump,” based on my interviews with the late Phillip Moscato—Paul Cappola Jr, a Florida businessman and the youngest son of the late Paul Cappola, Sr., Moscato’s partner at the dump, called me. He said that he believed that his older brother, Frank Cappola, might have specific information about the location of Hoffa’s remains at the landfill.
I asked for an introduction to Frank, but, for whatever reason, I did not receive it then. While waiting, I did a comprehensive background check on him. Through my research, I learned that Frank Cappola, who had a criminal record and had done time in prison, worked for many years as a top lieutenant for a notorious and widely feared New Jersey gangster, Vincent Ravo, whom I had earlier investigated in connection with the Hoffa case.
Finally, on September 7, 2019, I received a call from Cappola from his home in Florida. During this first interview, he told me that Hoffa was, indeed, buried at the PJP Landfill, adding that he knew the exact location of Hoffa’s unmarked grave.
After that conversation, we had six additional interviews that month, all by phone. His story remained consistent throughout, and he was not asking for anything in return. Under the circumstances, I just had to talk to this guy in person.
I personally paid for Cappola’s round-trip plane ticket. He arrived in New Jersey on Friday, September 27, the same day The Irishman premiered at the New York Film Festival.
During our dinner the following night, September 28, Cappola told me he planned to drive to PJP the next day.
I replied, smiling, “Motherfucker, you are taking me with you.”
On Sunday morning, September 29, Cappola picked me up at my hotel in Secaucus, and we drove to the remnants of the former “Brother Moscato’s Dump” in Jersey City.
When we arrived, Cappola gave me a tour of the area, which he had not visited in nearly twenty years. But his memories seemed to sharpen with his return, and he repeated what he had told me in our phone interviews during the past three weeks.
The tour culminated with him identifying the exact spot where, according to Cappola, Hoffa was buried in the unmarked grave dug by his father, Paul Cappola. But, according to Frank, in a new twist, he wasn’t buried in the actual landfill.
Instead, he led me to an alcove under the Pulaski Skyway about a hundred yards from the former PJP landfill.
“This is it,” Cappola told me. “This is where my dad buried Jimmy Hoffa.”
The site was the approximate size of a Little League baseball diamond, sixty feet times four.
I filmed the entire tour and then recorded our formal interview that afternoon at his girlfriend’s home.
The details
Getting specific, Frank Cappola, who was seventeen and working part-time at the dump when Hoffa disappeared during the summer of 1975, recalled: “While I was talking to my dad, a black limousine drove onto our lot in the mud. My dad said to Moscato something like, ‘They’re here.’
“Moscato went to the limousine and spoke with its occupants, none of whom were known to me. During their conversation, Moscato turned and pointed to a specific area in the northeast section of the landfill. At the time, I didn’t know why.
“After Moscato made this hand gesture, my father threw his hands up in the air and exclaimed, ‘Now, the whole fucking world will know!’ I didn’t know what my dad was talking about then.
“When the limousine left, Moscato told my father that he had to be somewhere that night, adding, ‘You have to handle it, Paul.’ They walked into the PJP office for a closed-door meeting. At that time, I didn’t know what they discussed.
“Shortly before I left work that day, I saw that a large hole had been dug with an excavator. At the time, I had no idea why.”
In 1989, Frank Cappola worked on a waste site adjacent to the long-defunct PJP Landfill. During a visit from his father, the two men walked onto what was once PJP. When they came to the location of the hole that Frank saw that night in 1975, Paul Cappola told his son, “This is where Jimmy Hoffa is buried.”
Frank recalled, “This was the first time that my dad admitted that Hoffa was buried at PJP, although he had referred to Hoffa in unspecific terms in our previous conversations.”
Frank continued to identify the location as PJP because the landfill’s trailer-office was parked in the alcove under the skyway.
In or about March 2008, while Paul Cappola was dying, he provided his son with the specific details about what had happened to Hoffa’s body and his role in the disposal, adding that he wanted his son “to help Hoffa return home to his family.”
“The best lead I had ever seen or heard”
Since Hoffa disappeared on July 30, 1975, I had been involved in no fewer than a half-dozen previous searches — all of which wound up as intriguing adventures but cruel disappointments.
But after closely scrutinizing Cappola’s story, I recognized that his version of events was special and unique. His information fit nicely into the existing timeline and cast of characters that the FBI and I, among others, had established since 1975. And, specifically, it was consistent with the information that Ralph Picardo provided to the FBI and that Phil Moscato gave me.
In fact, during my many years of investigating Hoffa’s fate since July 1975, Cappola’s story provided me with the best lead I had ever seen or heard regarding a possible site of the unmarked grave of the ex-Teamsters boss.
Based on the information I collected from the tour and our recorded interviews, I drafted a proposed sworn declaration for Cappola to sign. He corrected, amended, and executed the notarized document under the penalty of perjury on October 7.
He also volunteered to cooperate fully with the FBI and the law-enforcement community. And, at my request, he agreed to take an FBI-administered polygraph test.
Working for free and without a contract with Fox News
Meantime, as a favor to me, I asked Cappola to agree to a filmed interview with Eric Shawn of Fox News on October 11—four days after he had executed his affidavit—adding that I would be sitting at the table with them and protecting his information. Cappola agreed, and the interview went well. Frank never revealed the exact location to Fox.
To be clear, with neither a signed agreement nor an exchange of money with Fox, I had asked Eric, who had kept the Hoffa case alive since 2001 with his dogged reporting, to assist me in my early research on Frank.
On or about November 21, 2019, I published my article about Cappola’s breathtaking revelations at FoxNews.com, writing:
The location — widely thought to be operated by mobsters — was a familiar one to the FBI and those who had studied the Hoffa-murder case: “Brother Moscato’s Dump” in Jersey City, New Jersey — once a sprawling . . . toxic waste site bordered by the Hackensack River and directly beneath the Pulaski Skyway which stretched between Jersey City and Newark. The dumpsite was targeted for cleanup by the EPA during the late 1970s and 1980s. Most of the land was now a public park and a wildlife refuge.
“Brother Moscato’s Dump” was also known as the PJP Landfill: “P” for Phillip “Brother” Moscato; “J” for local political figure John Hanley; and “P” for Paul Cappola, Frank Cappola’s father. Moscato, according to federal and state law enforcement officials, was a reputed soldier in the Vito Genovese crime family. He worked under Anthony Provenzano of New Jersey, one of two mobsters Hoffa expected to meet on the day he disappeared. Moscato died in 2014.
The late Paul Cappola was a respected businessman who owned a waste-management company in Jersey City and was Moscato’s partner at the PJP Landfill. Cappola was certainly connected to the underworld but, unlike Brother Moscato, was not a “made” member of the Mafia. Still, like Moscato, he was obedient to the powers that controlled the waste-management industry in New Jersey and New York during the 1970s.
In short, the only person who knew the exact location of Jimmy Hoffa’s unmarked grave was the man who buried him: Paul Cappola. . . . The only person Paul told was his oldest son, Frank. . . . And the only person Frank told was me.
It was incumbent on me to get this information to the FBI and to preserve my exclusivity on this story.
NEXT: My untold relationship with the FBI in the Jimmy Hoffa murder case (Part 3)