Murder Inc Veteran Whitey Tropiano Hustled To The Bitter End
Aging, physically ill, embittered, and alone, Ralph (Whitey) Tropiano finally reached the end of his rope at Leavenworth, then one of the toughest prisons in the country, and he played his final card: He sent a message to the FBI that he was, at long last, ready to talk... Not too many years earlier, in 1964, Whitey Tropiano had been at his pinnacle when he hit upon what he believed was the grand solution to all his pressing legal problems. He’d simply give the cops in New Haven, Connecticut, piles of cash and they'd leave him the hell alone. To protect his gambling operations in New Haven, Whitey offered to send payments of $150-$500 a week, in addition to a one-time upfront good faith payment of $2,000 each, to New Haven Detective Stephen Ahern and a West Hartford police official. Ahern and the West Hartford cop graciously accepted Whitey’s largess, thanked him profusely, and then went straight to their superiors to tell them all the details of what had transpired. In Feb...
