A former undercover Tampa detective believes the claim.
When Angelo Bedami returned from hiding in Sicily in 1983 to turn himself in for smuggling millions of dollars of drugs into Florida from Colombia, federal law enforcement's initial question had nothing to do with his operation.
"I spent time with him there when I was in Sicily," said Angelo Bedami, about his time in Italy in the 1980s. Ken Larsen, who once investigated the Bedami family as an undercover Tampa detective and later as a federal agent, said he believes the claim. He was told that in the 1970s that the elder Bedami was alive and had been in Costa Rica, but federal law enforcement lacked enough evidence to begin an international pursuit.
He was also tied to the murders of men whom Trafficante Jr. considered enemies - gangsters Charlie Wall and Joe"Pelusa" Diaz and Bennie Lazzara, who refused to allow the mafia to use his legitimate produce business as a mob front. Joe Bedami Sr. was never charged for those murders, and each remains unsolved.In 1967, Joe Bedami Sr. was among those charged with burning down a Lakeland department store so the owner could collect the insurance. Soon after, he disappeared.
But now Deitche wonders, if Angelo Bedami is telling the truth, whether that rumor was spread by friends to protect Joe Bedami Sr. In 1975, his brother was arrested for selling a kilo of cocaine and counterfeit bills to Larsen, the detective. A key witness would be Dick Cloud, a former Tampa police detective sergeant who was assisting federal prosecutors with their investigation. But Cloud was killed in his home before the trial.
Angelo Bedami claims he was unaware that Trafficante Jr. was ever mad at him and said that the Tampa don later provided him names of government officials who could be bribed to fix problems.By 1982, Angelo Bedami's smuggling operation was having planeloads of drugs confiscated by law enforcement. He suspected that at least one of his underlings may have been cooperating with law enforcement.
He told the Times that he was in Sicily for six months - three months longer than he had testified in 1985, according to news archives. In April 1983, while Angelo Bedami was still in Sicily, he was indicted by a grand jury for his drug smuggling operation. News archives report that investigators identified 14 separate ventures involving 13,000 pounds of marijuana, 170 pounds of cocaine and 100,000 pills.
Joe Bedami Jr. believed that his brother could cut a deal for a lesser sentence in exchange for testifying that he'd bribed attorneys, Angelo Bedami said. It was a risk that could have ended with him in prison for decades, he now claims, but his father convinced him it was worth taking."That life was fine for my dad. He was happy. But I don't think I could have lived there forever.
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