Our Sunday Visitor

The case of the vivid imagination

A new book alleges that Catholic school kids got away with a murder and their priest covered it up. But is it true?

By Dennis Poust

The old adage that "truth is stranger than fiction" would seem to be author Lorenzo Carcaterra's strongest defense of his best-seller, "Sleepers," which he claims is the true story of his life.

Unfortunately for Carcaterra, few people have heard of truth this strange, and many -- including two New York priests and a lawyer who was the basis for a central character -- are calling the story the product of a vivid imagination.

"He's just a slimeball who has no qualms about using people who have actually been murdered, or their families, to make money," according to Father Kevin J. Nelan. "That's what he's doing here. He's not helping a single person by this nonsense."

Father Nelan, pastor of Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in the famed Hell's Kitchen section of Manhattan, has reason to be angry. Central to Carcaterra's shocking tale of abuse, murder and revenge is a priest from Sacred Heart who perjures himself on the witness stand to allow two killers to walk free.

Father Nelan and others claim the priest never existed. The entire story has come under scrutiny from sources as varied as The New York Times, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and a group of crime authors.

Meanwhile, Carcaterra sold the film rights for $2 million, and the movie version is currently filming in New York.

William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, and Sacred Heart's legal team have met with an aide to New York Attorney General Dennis Vacco to discuss whether any fraud laws have been violated by Carcaterra or his publisher. They already have convinced the film's producer, Barry Levinson, to change the name of the church in the screenplay.

Carcaterra steadfastly maintains the story's validity, though he said he changed most of the names, dates, locations and descriptions. The publisher, Balantine Books, and Carcaterra's editor, Peter Gethers, stand by the book.

Through a Balantine spokeswoman, the publisher, editor and author all refused requests to be interviewed for this story.

"Sleepers" tells the story of Carcaterra and three of his friends growing up on the mean streets of Hell's Kitchen in the 1960s. All four attended Sacred Heart School.

In the book, the boys pull a prank that ends up leaving an old man seriously injured. For their crime, they are sentenced to a year in reform school in upstate New York, where they are sexually and physically abused by four sadistic guards.

The story then fast forwards 11 years to 1979. By then, Carcaterra had become a copy boy at the New York Daily News, one of the friends was an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, and the two others had become murderous members of a notorious Irish street gang, clearly based on the real-life gang The Westies.

One night, the two gangsters run into one of their former guards in a Hell's Kitchen bar and kill him on the spot. After they are arrested, their prosecutor friend hatches a scheme -- with Carcaterra's help -- to get them off, while exposing the corrupt juvenile-justice system and bringing about the downfall of the remaining three guards at the same time.

The lawyer arranges to personally prosecute the case in order to fix the trial. To assure the acquittal, Carcaterra convinces Father Bobby Carillo, a priest-friend from Sacred Heart, to testify that he was with the accused killers at the time of the murder.

"It's preposterous," said Father Nelan. "This idiot [Carcaterra] thinks this is a good thing. He knows nothing about what priests are."

Father John P. Duffell, who was assigned to Sacred Heart from 1969 to 1977, believes Father Bobby is partially based on him.

Now the pastor of Ascension Parish in Manhattan, Father Duffell is the only priest from the parish ever to testify in a criminal case, according to William Callahan, a private investigator working with Sacred Heart attorney Thomas Harvey.

"I was angry when I read the book, but it's well-written, I must admit," said Father Duffell, who never met Carcaterra. "It's a good book, a great story. But it's a story."

Father Duffell said he believes "Father Bobby" is a composite of himself and two deceased priests, Father Joseph Traub and Msgr. Robert Gallagher.

Like the priest in the book, Father Traub was a native of Hell's Kitchen, though he served at Sacred Heart long before the action in the story.

Msgr. Gallagher was at the parish in the 1960s, and likely would have known the young Carcaterra.

However, he died in 1968, long before the supposed murders and trial could have taken place.

"The incident that he described, if it ever happened, would have been talked about in that neighborhood," Father Duffell said. "This is a neighborhood where everything was talked about. Nobody ever talked about this. The story that he's created, he's built up some things, he used some characters that were real characters, and I think he based it on some of us -- the priests who were there and the people that he knew."

Referring to "Father Bobby's" perjured testimony, he added, "I know I never did that and I'm certain Father Traub and Msgr. Gallagher never did that."

Father Duffell did testify in a Westies case, but it was before a grand jury, not in a trial. He said his testimony was minor, involving the signing of a wedding license.

Carcaterra has not produced any evidence to support his contention that the story is true, other than his own word. In an epilogue, Carcaterra says the priest is now a pastor in upstate New York, the two killers are dead and the lawyer lives in England. However, a Bronx lawyer and former classmate of Carcaterra's told Our Sunday Visitor he believes he was the basis for the prosecutor character. "I don't know of anyone else who fits the bill," he said.

The lawyer, who's first name is Raymond, did not wish to be identified because he recently was made a partner in his firm and wants to avoid undue publicity.

"I did know Lorenzo," he said. "I'm the only one who I'm aware of [from Sacred Heart] who went on to law school and to the D.A.'s office."

Raymond was a classmate of Carcaterra's for eight years, and was friends with the real-life boys on whom the killers are based.

Both of those young men -- Richie Ryan and Tommy "Butter" Moresco -- are now deceased. Their identities as the basis for the "Sleepers" characters was confirmed by several sources.

As adults, the characters' experiences also resemble Westies members James Coonan and Mickey Featherstone, whose exploits are chronicled in the book, "The Westies," by T.J. English.

Raymond, a former member of the homicide unit of the Bronx District Attorney's Office, said he was never involved in fixing a trial or in any of the incidents described in the book.

"Obviously, it's one of those things where even if I did it I wouldn't tell you about it," he said. "But the advantage of working in a public agency is everything you do is documented. If I tried a case that I lost, that's on record. . . . And it would be very easy to find the case and find out if there's any connections between the defendants and myself."

Father Duffell personally vouched for Raymond's character, saying the lawyer "is someone for whom I have the highest respect."

A major blow to Carcaterra's credibility came in July, when the Manhattan District Attorney's office challenged his claims, stating that no such trial ever took place in New York County (Manhattan). After that announcement, the author explained that he changed the location of the trial. That disclaimer was later added to the book's preface.

This raises one of the most basic questions about "Sleepers." The Hell's Kitchen locale is imperative to the story, yet if the trial did not take place in New York County, how could the murders have been committed there?

The questions don't end there, however. Indeed, that is only the beginning.

Officials at the New York State Department of Social Services and Division of Youth have said there is nothing in their records supporting the charges against the unidentified reform school, and no one remembers any such scandal.

Furthermore, Father Nelan said school records show that Carcaterra attended Sacred Heart for eight years, missing only 19 days of school during that time, meaning he couldn't have been in reform school.

In the book, the author explains that the Sacred Heart records of the four boys were falsified in order to destroy any link between the lawyer, the killers and the reform school.

Callahan, the private investigator and former federal prosecutor, called the claim nonsense. "I have personally looked at the school records and they have not been altered," said Callahan, who has investigated the claims in the book.

Raymond, Carcaterra's former classmate, told Our Sunday Visitor that Carcaterra was at Sacred Heart for the entire eight years. "He never disappeared," the lawyer said.

Even if read as pure fiction, "Sleepers" is so far-fetched with such convenient plot twists as to require complete suspension of disbelief for the sake of the plot. But if the reader is to believe the tale is essentially true, the questions and conclusions go beyond serving as a mere distraction and become downright disturbing.

If what Carcaterra wrote is the truth, he is confessing to helping to fix a trial of two murderers whom he knew were guilty. Even more troubling is that the priest, who is depicted throughout the book as a hero and Christian model, participates in the scheme simply to allow four young men a chance at revenge -- the antithesis of Christian principles. Worse still, the priest concedes that he knows the young men will kill again if freed.

The authenticity of "Sleepers" has been questioned from a variety of sources.

Reviewing the book for the Aug. 4 edition of The New York Times Book Review, writer Christopher Lehmann-Haupt said it "has an inauthentic sound to it," and noted that "events are disturbingly inconsistent."

Several other publications, such as Time and New York, have raised doubts about "Sleepers," and it has been a hot topic of debate in on-line journalism forums.

But perhaps the most stinging criticism comes from Carcaterra' peers -- seven crime authors who, among them, have published more than 50 books.

In a press release, the authors -- Jack Olsen, Harry N. MacLean, Ken Englade, Dennis McDougal, Lowell Cauffiel, Gera-Lind Kolarik and Joseph Bosco -- urged that the book be recalled, with full credit to booksellers and refunds issued to customers who were "misled by ads and the jacket copy and other hype."

"If the names, dates, places and people have been changed, as well as the what, where and when, and if all the details are fictitious, what is the basis for publishing this work as a true story?" they wrote. "What is true about it? For centuries, authors have written imaginative books based on life experiences. They are called novels." q

Poust writes from Austin, Texas..Get 26 weeks of Our Sunday Visitor for only $14.97. Call 1-800-348-2440.

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