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Saturday, June 6, 2015

Edward "Cousin Eddie" Garafola

Cousin Eddie Garafola is a Gambino Soldier who is doing 30 years of hard time.  The brother-in-law of Sammy the Bull, he enjoyed the life of a Mafia Czar.  How could he lose with Sammy rising to be the number two man under John Gotti.  Then Sammy flipped and Eddie was just another soldier, and worse yet, the relative of the biggest rat in Mafia history.

Cousin Eddie pleaded guilty on September 7, 2007, and at 66 years old with a 7th grade education, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

He pleaded guilty to a number of crimes.  One of them was conspiring to murder Sammy Gravano in Arizona with Peter Gotti.  Peter Gotti was visiting his brother in prison when John Gotti Sr told him on September 1996,  “that’s a bill that’s gotta be paid some day, just like every other bill, ya know what I mean, just like this Gravano and the rest of them, then that bills gonna be, thats gotta be cashed, . . . cause I gotta be able to sleep, ya know what I am saying.”

He was ordering him to kill Sammy the Bull. So in 1999 Peter Gotti gave the contract to Cousin Eddie and Thomas “Huck” Carbonaro to murder him in Arizona. Huck enlisted Salvatore Mangiavillano, a Gambino associate, to help him find Sammy the Bull in Arizona.  They obtained fake IDs and headed to Arizona. The New Jersey IDs used were in the names Henry Payne and Paul Milano.  They would make two trips out, one of which included buying firearms at a roadside flea market.  Sammy the Bull would be arrested for drugs before their last trip out.

Cousin Eddie took part in the planning in a Staten Island hotel where one of the guys dropped off pictures of Sammy the Bull’s places.   Cousin Eddie still wanted to murder Sammy the Bull after he was arrested. A number of plans were discussed including sending a letter bomb, but one of the smarter participants pointed out that it would not work because the marshals would x ray the mail.

Cousin Eddie not only conspired to murder his former brother-in-law, but he also helped murder his cousin Eddie “The Chink” Garafolo in August of 1990.  

Eddie the Chink is the father of my former friend Eddie “The Tall Guy” Garofalo who had his wife Alicia on the show Mob Wives.  

The truck lot in Staten Island where Eddie and Teddy Persico Jr ran their trucking business out of was owned by Cousin Eddie.  

That is all in the past.  Today, Cousin Eddie is unable to speak from a stroke and is wheelchair bound after an amputation.  He was just denied a release on compassionate grounds by the Feds.

Its ironic that on the other hand, Sammy the Bull is coming up for release again.  He took part in 19 murders, was locked up for that, then released.  After he was freed for the murders, he sold massive amounts of Ecstasy and was arrested again.  

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