Roy DeMeo’s Top Protege
Back in 1966, a 16 year old Jewsish kid named Harvey Rosenberg was making a name for himself on the streets of Canarsie. He was a tough as nails weed dealer with a knack for making tons of money for a kid his age. He went by the name “Chris” because he felt Harvey sounded too Jewish. He viewed Jewish people as weak.
Chris looked up to the local Italian mobsters in the neighborhood. He wanted to be Italian, and years later he would take the last name of his wife “Rosalia”. If Chris couldn’t be a full blooded Italian, he’d settle for being the first ever non-Italian made into the mafia. He told this to many people. He was ridiculed about it, but never to his face.
One of the mobsters in the neighborhood was a man named Roy Albert DeMeo, a Gambino Family associate. Roy heard stories about Chris and he was impressed. He was trying to build a crew. Chris would soon become the very first member of the DeMeo Crew, a crew that would soon live in infamy as the most murderous mafia crew since Murder Inc.
Roy was a savvy businessman for a gangster, once swindling a local credit union. He saw a bit of himself in Chris, and started investing money in Chris’ drug dealing. Chris became the premier dealer in town. He and Roy also were heavily involved in car theft, which was a big racket at the time. Cars would be stolen and sold for parts at “chop shops”.
Rosenberg had his own small crew of dealers and car thieves working under him. His two favorites were a pair of best friends, Joey Testa and Anthony Senter. The notorious duo later known as the Gemini Twins started out as gophers for Chris, washing his car, selling weed and stealing cars. Chris would be the one who introduced the twins to Roy.
As the years progressed, the DeMeo Crew would get into more serious crimes and become more violent in the process. Chris, Joey and Anthony were merely teenagers but they were ruthless. They stomped and stabbed anyone who got in their way. Even before their killing spree years later, they were already some of the most feared men in Canarsie.
The Andrei Katz Murder
Although they had left a trail of violence in their path, Chris, Joey and Anthony had never participated in a murder. That was about to change in dramatic fashion. Roy had already murdered a porn dealer in the early 1970s and he bragged to his crew about it. The crew was eager to make their bones, and they were about to get their chance.
A local chop shop owner named Andrei Katz got into a heated dispute with Chris about a stolen car deal gone bad. The dispute turned violent with Chris actually getting shot in the face. The entire DeMeo Crew was hunting Katz but he proved to be not an easy target. The final straw came when it was revealed that Katz was cooperating with the DA against the crew.
Roy DeMeo stepped in and declared Katz had to die. Newer crew member Henry Borelli had a woman lure Katz to her home where the crew grabbed him. He was taken to the Pantry Pride supermarket where Roy awaited. There, Katz was stabbed dozens of times by Chris who was crazy with revenge. Chris’ savagery impressed Roy. Joey and Anthony also were there.
What happened to Katz was like something out of a horror movie. After he was dead, Roy and crew got some knives out and cut his body into pieces. This was a process that would be repeated up to 100 times, but this was the very first victim of “the Gemini Method” as it would later be known. Chris even took Katz’s head and put it in a cardboard compactor.
They took Katz’s body parts and put them in a dumpster behind Pantry Pride. Just a few days later, a leg was found by a man going through the dumpster. The police found the rest of the body parts. Joey and Henry were charged in the murder when the woman cooperated. She later disappeared and the charges were dropped.
After this, they would go on to commit many more killings and dismemberments. The majority would take place in the apartment behind Roy’s bar, the Gemini Lounge. The victim would be lured to the apartment, shot in the head and then stabbed. They then took them to the bathtub and hung upside down to let the blood drain, then they were dismembered and disposed of.
DeMeo Crew Treachery
There was a significant amount of inner turmoil within the DeMeo Crew. Two men that never got along were Chris and Henry Borelli. Henry was bitter at Chris for a variety of reasons. The main issues were him spending time in jail over the Katz murder and Chris not supporting his family. He also resented Chris for being so close to Roy.
Crew associate Dominick Montiglio who was Nino Gaggi’s nephew also hated Chris because he was so cocky. Dominick was the nephew of Gambino captain Nino Gaggi, Roy’s boss. He also disdained the Gemini twins and had once planned to kill Joey Testa’s brother Patty. Chris and the twins for their part would have killed Montiglio if he wasn’t Gaggi’s nephew.
Another crew member having big problems was Edward “Danny” Grillo. The ex-con had been the conduit that connected the DeMeo Crew to the Westies. He quickly fell out of favor after borrowing nearly $100,000 from Nino and Roy and gambling it away. Grillo would become the first crew member to be killed by his own crew. He was likely dismembered.
Montiglio later recalled how Chris and the twins ghoulishly bragged about killing Danny. He wished death upon all of them that day, especially Chris. The murders that the crew were comitting were becoming more heinous by the year. Recently, they had killed a 19 year old girl named Cheri Golden. Her crime was being the girlfriend of one of their murder victims.
Among the rest of the mafia, the crew were seen as psychotic misfits. Gambino boss Paul Castellano did not like Roy or his crew. He did not want Roy made into the family but eventually relented. Roy brought in tens of thousands of dollars every month. He also killed several people for Paul, including Paul’s son in law. Roy was a top notch earner and enforcer.
The Cuban Crisis
Despite the underlying hatred and jealousy going around, Roy and Chris’s relationship was as strong as ever. Chris was Roy’s top earner and his preferred hitman. Chris idolized Roy and considered him like a father. When he would meet people, he would often introduce himself as “Chris DeMeo”. A far cry from his real name, Harvey Rosenberg.
Chris was dealing and using lots of cocaine, as were the twins. He hooked up with some affiliates of the Cuban cartel and began buying large amounts of high quality coke from them. In 1979, Chris and Anthony decided to pull a bold move. They ordered two kilos from the Cubans and instead of paying them, they killed the three Cubans and likely dismembered the bodies.
What seemed like a big score would turn into a nightmare that would come back to haunt Chris and the entire Gambino Family. It turns out that he had introduced himself as Chris DeMeo with the Cubans, who began asking around New York. They found out Chris’s real identity and threatened to start an all out war with the Gambinos.
Paul Castellano and Nino Gaggi were alerted to the problem and were furious. They ordered Roy to kill Chris, as the Cubans only demanded that Rosenberg be murdered, and that it makes the newspapers. The hardened killer Roy for the first time was sick about having to kill someone, but he knew the rules and agreed to do the job. But he then attempted to stall.
After a couple weeks, the Cubans became impatient and made it known that they were sending their people in for war. Nino continued to press Roy who claimed he was having trouble finding the right opportunity. The situation was volatile and exploded when an innocent vacuum cleaner salesman got in the sights of a very paranoid Roy DeMeo.
Dominick Ragucci was sitting in his car outside DeMeo’s home when he saw two men with guns approaching him. He sped off quickly but Roy and his cousin “Dracula” the man who lived in the Gemini apartment were in hot pursuit. They shot at Ragucci’s car several times before flattening his tires. Roy then rushed up to the car and blew the horrified Ragucci away.
Chris Makes the News
The senseless and high profile Ragucci murder infuriated Castellano and Nino Gaggi. They called Roy in and demanded that Chris be killed immediately. Roy enlisted Chris’ childhood friends Joey and Anthony to assist on the hit. Henry Borelli was not asked to do the job but he would have been more than happy to. He did get to participate in the aftermath.
On May 11, 1979, Chris entered the Gemini clubhouse for the crew’s weekly meeting. He was totally unaware of the shitstorm his actions had caused, even the Ragucci killing. Roy pulled a pistol out of a paper bag and shot Chris in the head. Chris didn’t die, instead he struggled, flailing around trying to get up. Roy couldn’t bring himself to finish the job.
That was when Chris’ friend Anthony Senter walked up and put another four shots in his head. That would be the end for Harvey “Chris” Rosenberg. Silence fell over the room as the crew somberly prepared the body for disposal. The Cubans demanded that the murder make the newspapers, so something drastic must be done.
They took Rosenberg’s body to his BMW and drove it out to a busy street in Queens. They left the car with the dead body right on the side of the road. Before leaving, Henry Borelli sprayed the car with a machine gun. It was a small bit of revenge for Henry. In his and many others’ opinions, Chris had gotten what he deserved.
Chris’ body had 12 bullets in it when he was found. He had a 9 millimeter pistol in his possession that he never got the chance to use in his defense. Immediately, the cops knew that Chris had not been killed on the scene. There was little blood. The rest of the DeMeo Crew were suspects, but the case never went anywhere. Chris was only 28 years old.
DeMeo Crew After Chris Died
As they promised, the Cubans backed off after the Rosenberg killing made the news. Roy was relieved about that, but also crushed emotionally for having to kill his beloved friend. DeMeo loved very few people in the world but Chris was one of them. Dominick Montiglio and Henry had no sympathy, they had waited years for this moment.
Paul Castellano and Nino Gaggi were glad to put an end to the Cuban crisis but were now wondering if the DeMeo Crew were more trouble than they were worth. But Paul and Nino would be blinded by greed and power. Roy had a massive international stolen car ring going that was bringing in tons of money. They decided not to kill Roy and break up his crew.
Roy’s world would start to unravel quickly in 1982 when his car operation got busted. Suddenly he was bringing in less money and Paul started wondering if the paranoid DeMeo would cooperate to save his own ass. Worse for Roy, one of his crew members, Vito Arena disappeared and was said to be cooperating with the feds.
Paul had been hesitant to have Roy killed before, but not anymore. He reached out to John Gotti, who turned down the hit. He then went to Frank DeCicco, who got a hold of the Gemini twins. Testa and Senter were told that there was a contract out on the entire crew but their lives would be spared if they helped to kill Roy.
The twins agreed and DeMeo’s bullet riddled body was found on January 10, 1983. He was stuffed in the trunk of his car underneath a chandelier. A single bullet behind each ear. Very few people mourned the loss of this human monster. The twins would move on to work under another psychopath, Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso of the Lucchese Family.
For the Gemini twins, killing their childhood friend and their longtime boss was merely a price of doing business. Henry, Joey and Anthony would eventually all go to prison for murders and racketeering in the stolen car case. All three are alive today and still sit in federal prisons. None of them have ever spoken publicly about their time in the crew.
UPDATE: In a shocking twist, both of the Gemini twins have been paroled in 2024! Henry Borelli still sits in prison with no release date.