Michael de Batt - Biography

Biography

DeBatt was born to first generation Calabrian emigrant Mackie DeBatt in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn who grew up in the same neighborhood as future friends and criminal associates Sammy Gravano and Frank DeCicco. He had one sister named Rosanna DeBatt-Massa. He was very close to his sister over the years. Mackie is perceived to have been a "connected guy" with the Gambino crime family but never officially inducted into the organization. He performed various tasks for Sammy Gravano and others throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Mackie was the successful owner of Tali's Restaurant and Lounge located at 6205 18th Avenue in Gravesend, Brooklyn. It is also suggested that his father Mackie suffered from the psychological disorder of being a pathological gambling addict. DeBatt did not inherit his father's gambling addiction. Although he had a steady source of legitimate income from his restaurant, he became indebted to many loansharks and bookmakers around Brooklyn. It is also shown that Mackie was able to afford to pay for his son's tuition and send him off to university. After his death the mobsters started to threaten and muscle his wife to settle his outstanding debts. Although his father did not want his son to become involved in organized crime, DeBatt became a close childhood friend and acquaintance of budding Gambino crime family mob associate Nicholas Mormando, with whom he became involved in joint ventures after returning from his failed studies at Wake Forest University. Close friend, mob wife Lynda Milito, the widow of murdered Gambino crime family mobster Liborio Milito said in her biography, "Michael DeBatt wasn't being allowed to earn with Sammy. So Louis Milito took Mike under his wing and made him a bouncer at The Plaza Suite. He was a lost soul after the death of his father... He told everyone he was taking over the bar out of the kindness in his heart for the family, because of the debts and by taking over he was wiping out the debts." He later worked at a short-lived restaurant called The Golden Gate Restaurant on Knapp Street in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn as a maître d', a restaurant owned by Sammy Gravano and Louis Milito.

DeBatt was a huge and intimidating man. His life remained financially unstable, along with Sammy Gravano's until he took over ownership of his father's restaurant and settled his late father's loanshark and bookmaker debts. Sammy Gravano later said, "For one week he (himself) would be flush with cash, but two weeks later he would be broke. He never saved any money. He shopped for clothes, picked up tabs at restaurants and night clubs, handed out huge tips and dined on champagne and filet mignon at the Copacabana. Sammy later said of himself, Michael and his young aspring mob associates, "Fucking kids, all dressed up like jerk-offs, running around, doing a little gambling, doing a little this and that "and then broke again and it's "macaroni and ricotta at home or spaghetti, past e olio, with the oil and garlic."

In the 1970s, DeBatt married an Italian-American woman after returning from university. They had a daughter in 1983. He moved into a home and lived with his wife and daughter at 1774 58th Street, not far from his restaurant and lounge, which he still operated. In 2001, when Sammy Gravano was brought to trial for being the ringleader of an ecstasy trafficking ring, his sister showed up in Federal District Court and told reporters, "I wanted to give him a little agita" and "I'm happy to see him in jail clothes. Anything he gets is a plus. It's better than the five years he got."

His father Mackie was a close friend of Sammy Gravano and Gambino crime family mob associate who became indebted to loansharks and bookmakers including and Sammy Gravano. Mackie died in December 1981 of natural causes leaving his wife, his son Michael and daughter Rosanna under financial strain and heavily indebted. His son Michael later stood up for his family and confronted the loansharks and bookmakers to protect his elderly mother and took on the sole responsibility of handling his late father's debts. Michael DeBatt's mother approached Sammy Gravano and pleaded with him, "Sammy, please help us." His father's friend and later personal mentor, became involved in the DeBatt family financial affairs at that point. He got rid of the threatening loansharks and bookmakers. He took over Mackie's bar to help settle the debt that DeBatt still had outstanding with himself. Along with working at Tali's Restaurant and Lounge he worked as a bouncer at Sammy Gravano's classy nightclub, the Plaza Suite throughout the 1970s to 1985 when The Plaza Suite closed. Eventually with the help of Sammy Gravano and working on his own criminal endeavours, DeBatt was able to settle his father's outstanding debts to the loansharks and bookmakers.He closed the bar down and remodelled before opening it up as his own with Michael as the "front man" and manager of the lease.

Michael DeBatt later became a habitué of Sammy Gravano's other after-hours club, the Bus Stop also located in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. He became a protégé of Gravano's along with Joseph (Stymie) D'Angelo Sr.'s son, Joseph Jr.