For employees at the United California Bank in Laguna Niguel, one of Orange County’s tony bedroom communities, the morning of Monday, March 27th, 1972 begins like any other—until they discover they are unable to open the vault. After several hours of futile efforts, a locksmith climbs onto the roof to cut an access hole, but it appears that someone has already done the job for him.
That someone was Phil Christopher. While Laguna Niguel slept, Phil disabled the security system and led a crew of mobbed-up thieves to pull off the biggest bank burglary in U.S. history. Their notorious withdrawal from the safe-deposit boxes of hundreds of wealthy Orange County, California residents grossed $30 million. The daring and magnitude of the United California Bank heist instantly captured the attention of the media, which dubbed Phil “Superthief.” Decades later, that fascination hasn’t wavered, with recent documentaries featuring Phil’s infamous burglary on Court TV and Discovery Channel.
In the style of Nicholas Pileggi’s Wiseguy and its blockbuster movie adaptation Goodfellas, Superthief is the compelling story of a master thief and mob associate’s roller coaster ride through a life of crime and imprisonment, and the inside account of a daring crime that made history.
Rick Porrello is a veteran police lieutenant whose first book grew out of his research into the murder of his grandfather and several uncles, who were Prohibition-era mob leaders. The result became The Rise and Fall of the Cleveland Mafia - Corn Sugar and Blood (Barricade Books, 1995). Rick followed that book with his second book, To Kill the Irishman - the War that Crippled the Mafia (Next Hat Press, 1998), which is the story of notorious mob foe Danny Greene. To Kill the Irishman has been optioned for a motion picture. An accomplished jazz drummer, Rick spend almost three years traveling internationally with the legendary entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr. He continues to perform in Ohio, where he lives with his wife and two children
