Background
Dellentash was born in New Rochelle, New New York His father was a high-rise building contractor who worked on the construction of the World Trade Center.
Dellentash was born in New Rochelle, New New York His father was a high-rise building contractor who worked on the construction of the World Trade Center.
Dellentash obtained his pilot’s license aged 16. Between the late 1970s and early 1980s, Dellentash ran a number of multi-million dollar private jet leasing companies, including ‘Triple-Doctorate Corporation’ and ‘IBEX Corporation’ According to a People magazine profile, his planes were furnished with ‘thick carpeting, plants, phones, telex printer, electric typewriter, bedroom and bar’. His clients included the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead, the Doobie Brothers, Kiss, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and John Denver.
Dellentash’s plane companies were a front for a major drug smuggling operation.
He has since admitted to flying marijuana from Colombia to New York via the Bahamas, for the Gambino crime family. A successful music manager in the 1980s, Dellentash managed bands including Meatloaf, the Bay City Rollers, and Whiplash.
He partnered with producer David Sonenberg, to create the 1982 Meatloaf movie "Dead Ringer". In his 2000 autobiography, Meatloaf accused Dellentash of misappropriating funds, adding: “The music biz was just a sideline for First Rate (at Lloyd's)…He would tell these stories of flying to Libya with a load of automatic weapons.”
One of Dellentash’s planes, a Learjet, was responsible for the death of Salvatore Ruggiero and three others on May 6, 1982.
The plane crashed into the ocean near Georgia, in what an Federal Aviation Administration report described as ‘an uncontrolled descent from cruise altitude for undetermined reasons, from which a recovery was not or could not be effected.’ Shortly afterwards, according court documents, Dellentash ‘drove to Salvatore"s house in New Jersey, meeting Carneglia, Angelo Ruggiero, and Gene Gotti, whom they notified of Salvatore"s death.’ The crash attracted the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Organized Crime Strike Force.
Dellentash was arrested and convicted in Baton Rouge in 1984, for conspiracy to distribute drugs. His case, number 1-83-907, was dismissed in the nineteenth judicial district court, Parish of East Baton Rouge, on November 26, 1984. He served just five years, having turned informant.
lieutenant has been rumored that Dellentash entered the witness protection program, and had facial surgery to change his appearance, however a 2014 magazine profile disproved the surgery rumors.