Rogues Gallery
Jimmy “JR” Russell: The Mentor
“If you’re gonna do it, you’re gonna do it right.”
The man who started it all. A legend in Lackawanna and Erie, JR was an original “OG” who spent 27 of his 57 years in prison because he refused to rat. He was a chess master in a world of checker players, always five moves ahead. Whether he was hustling pool, cracking a safe, or allegedly masterminding a $3.2 million armored car robbery, JR operated with a code.
He found me at my grandmother’s funeral, put a hand on my shoulder, and told me, “They ain’t got your prints yet kid, and until they do you’re a virgin and you’re with me”. He became my father figure, my partner, and the man who taught me that you don’t have to worry about the loud mouths… you watch the quiet ones.
Peter “The Doctor” Russell: The Partner
“The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.”
JR’s youngest brother and my partner in crime. Our partnership started with a test: stashing a hot police cruiser with me driving inches from his bumper so no cop could read the plate. When we arrived, he told JR, “The kid can fuckin’ drive!” and we were in.
We were tighter than brothers. We lived together, partied together, and survived our own screw-ups together, like the time we robbed a coin-op business only to drop a bag of quarters in the snow. Peter lived life on the edge, famously staging his own suicide in 1984 by leaving a note and his motorcycle at Shade’s Beach. He vanished for over a decade before the law finally caught up.
Mary Ellen DeSantis: The Angel
“He was on our side!”
The love of my life. I met her in the middle of a brawl at the PP Club. I was fighting off a biker when a rock glass flew out of nowhere and knocked our own guy cold. I looked up to see Mary Ellen, a stunning Italian girl in a silver jumpsuit, sitting there with a grin. JR snapped, “He was on our side!” but I was already in love.
She was my counterpart. While I drove the getaway cars, she was a “chip hustler” in Las Vegas, running with the crew from the movie Casino. She was loyal to a fault, even doing time for me rather than snitching. Her overdose on the Ides of March 1985, while I was locked in a cage at Attica unable to save her, broke me. She is the beating heart of this story.
Grandma Murphy: The Matriarch
“The Million Dollar Baby.”
My education didn’t start on the streets; it started in her Cadillac. Grandma Murphy was an Erie legend, a prohibition rum-runner who moved bootleg liquor across Lake Erie. She was untouchable, the kind of woman who could walk into a courtroom with a roll of hundreds and bail my father out without paperwork.
She kept “Silver Certificate” hundred-dollar bills stashed behind picture frames and drove her gold convertible like she owned the city. When she passed in 1979, the torch didn’t just pass to me; it was ignited.
Ray Ferritto: The Assassin
“Kill the Irishman.”
A made man, a hitman, and thanks to the DeSantis sisters, my near brother-in-law. Ray Ferritto is the man who changed Mafia history. Contracted by the Cleveland families, he was the one who planted the bomb that finally killed the unkillable Danny Greene in 1977.
When the Cleveland mob betrayed him and put out a hit on him, Ray flipped the script. He took down the leadership, turned government witness, and then did the unthinkable: he walked out of Witness Protection after a year and came back to Erie. He lived openly, untouched, proving that sometimes the most dangerous man in the room is the one who knows where all the bodies are buried.
Anthony “Cy” Ciotti: The Heavy
“In The 15 Most Wanted.”
Cy Ciotti was the man even JR answered to. A soldier in the Bufalino crime family, Cy was the real deal: high-level, connected, and dangerous. He didn’t just run from the law; he made them chase him around the globe.
In 1983, he jumped a $50,000 bail and landed on the U.S. Marshal’s “15 Most Wanted” list, leading authorities on a chase through South America and Asia before being cornered in Manhattan. Decades later, when the NY State Police tried to squeeze me, it was Cy Ciotti’s face on the 8×10 glossy they slid across the table. He was the link to the big time.
Frank Fimonarri: The High Roller
“I gotta get back to the Fed joint… they have coffee urns.”
I met Frank inside. He was a legend who got busted at the Pittsburgh airport headed for Colombia with two million dollars in cash—half of it real, half of it counterfeit. He was planning to rip off the Pittsburgh mob and the Medellin Cartel in one move. That takes stones.
In the joint, he became my mentor in survival. He taught me how to cook jailhouse coffee on the edge of a toilet seat using a burnt toilet paper “doughnut” and an aluminum pie tin. He was the guy who taught me that even when you’re locked in a cage, you find a way to live.
Julian “Butch” Hallaby: The Fixer
“The Kid’s comin’ up… Take care of him.”
Butch was JR’s lifelong friend and the owner of the Checker Cab company in Lackawanna. When things got too hot in Erie, Butch was the guy who opened the door in Buffalo. He put me and BJ up in his stepdaughter’s apartment in Orchard Park and set us up for scores.
Butch was the connection point, the guy who fenced the jewelry and planned the supermarket heists that we… well, that we famously screwed up. He was the bridge between the Erie crew and the Buffalo “Arm.”
Robert “Bob” Murphy: The Power Attorney
“I thought you were my son.”
When the Lackawanna police finally grabbed me with a hot car and a silenced .25 Browning, JR told me to call one man: Bob Murphy. He was a high-powered Buffalo attorney. I demanded to see him at 2:00 AM.
When he showed up at the jail cell in a suit (minus the tie), he looked at me and started laughing. It turned out he had a son named Timothy Murphy, and he thought he was the one in lockup. That mix-up got me representation from his firm by Bill Bond, the lawyer who almost got me off on a technicality by arguing a gun isn’t a gun without the silencer attached. Only in this life does a mistaken identity save your hide.