Mr. Untouchable

From inside the Federal Witness Protection Program the "Black Godfather" chronicles the 1970s New York City underworld and the most devastating urban crime wave in history. 1962 LEROY "NICKY" BARNES walks out of Green Haven State Prison. There are an estimated 153 000 heroin abusers in the United States. 1977 Two million junkies score $100 million worth of Barness smack a year. Sporting flashy suits riding in a Citron with a Maserati engine and satisfying a wife while pleasuring a harem of mistresses Barnes presides over a staggering multinational dealership that pushes dope and launders money with the efficiency of a Fortune 500 company. Despite President Nixons creation of the Drug Enforcement Administration and New York States adoption of the no tolerance Rockefeller drug laws Barness operation seems impregnable. How does a small-time hustler and heroin addict end up on the cover of the New York Times Magazine as MR. UNTOUCHABLE the one gangster the Feds cant touch? And how is the future Mayor of New York City Rudolf Giuliani involved? With Machiavellian pragmatism matched with biblical fury Barnes lays bare his lifes remarkable trajectory--a rise fall and resurrection defined by brutality brotherhood and betrayal.