Dirtnap for a Corrupt Mafia Cop

This week saw the demise of a man who, in my opinion, is worse than any other mobster I have written about on this blog.  John Gotti, Nicky Scarfo and Gaspipe Casso were all bad guys, no question.  Those men were mafioso and lived their lives accordingly: criminals who would lie, steal, cheat and murder according to the code they lived their lives by.  

Stephen Caracappa, on the other hand, was an NYPD detective who sold his badge to the Lucchese crime family. Why Stephan and his partner in crime fellow detective Louis Eppolito did not receive the death penalty is beyond me.  These two rogue detectives were sworn to uphold the law and they were responsible for good of the public.  Instead, they betrayed everyone in uniform as well as every citizen of this country.  They cost the taxpayers 18.4 million dollars in lawsuit settlements alone, and that is not where the damage they dealt ended. They murdered, or had a hand in the murders of, at least seven people, including one completely innocent man.

On April 8, 2017 Stephen Caracappa died of cancer.  He died in Butner, FCI where they house sick criminals like Carmine Persico and others.  

Caracappa not only sold information to Gaspipe Casso and the Luchese family, he committed murder for him. In 1990 he and his partner pulled over Gambino Edward Lino on the Belt Parkway and they shot him.  They dropped off another man they kidnapped so that he could be tortured.

They also sold bad information to Gaspipe that resulted in the Christmas day murder of Nicholas Guido, an innocent man who was just showing off his new car.

Guido happened to have the same name as one of the men who shot at Gaspipe Casso when they tried to murder him.  The Guido they were seeking had fled the state in fear of being found.  

Diamond dealer Israel Greenwald got into trouble with the mafia in 1985 when he traveled to Great Britain to help a friend purchase some treasury bills.  He thought the deal was an honest one.  When he returned, the FBI questioned him about his business.  Burton Kaplan, a drug dealer connected with Gaspipe Casso, hired Caracappa and Eppolito to find him and murder him so he could not talk to the FBI.

The two law enforcement officers used police databases to find out Greenwald's address and the kind of car he drove.  They pulled over his car, flashed their badges and told them they were taking him in for a hit and run.  They took him to a Brooklyn warehouse where they murdered and buried him.  Greenwald was not found for twenty years and his family had been left to wonder what became of him.

Greenwald's family lost everything because they could not prove he died.  The last they saw him when he left for work.  Caracappa had appealed his case and just recently asked a judge to grant him release because he was dying of cancer.   The judge rightly told him there was nothing he could do for him.

Demolition Mafia

In New York City when a building goes up, they usually have to use a demolition company to take down the old buildings.  One of the keys to controlling the construction business is to control the trucking of materials.  The disposal of demolition and construction waste is a huge business in New York.   If a company wanted to dispose of the material legitimately, they would have to have it hauled very far from from New York City.  

The Mafia families have no problem with this.  They find a large piece of land that they can use as a dump and they start bringing in the trucks.  The more loads, the more they make.  If they had to haul the waste far away, it would cut into their profit.

The Gambinos had one dump site in an old rail yard in the Bronx where they brought in load after load of waste.

The Lucchese family found a landowner who owned land in Pennsylvania just 80 miles from the city who let them dump there.  They told them they were dumping clean waste. What they were doing was filling up a large impression with junk and covering it with dirt.  This dump brought in over $30k a week to the Lucchese family while it was open.

When I was in New York I went with Eddie Garafola to a dump site in New Jersey where he had trucks coming in, dumping, and a bulldozer covering the waste with dirt.  It was in some nice New Jersey swamplands.  I also know that they were paid on other occasions to take concrete to be recycled, and instead they just dumped it.  

They did it at every project including Shea Stadium and the World Trade Center site.

Eddie Garofalo Sr and his brother Manny were experts in this field.  The New York authorities called them the James brothers of the carting industry.  

Eddie G Sr. had demolished four buildings in Times Square before he was gunned down in front of his home by some Gambinos.  The State was looking into his activities just before he was murdered.

The Lucchese Family also had another dump with the Genovese family in Westchester County that was a huge money maker.  They turned it into a toxic waste swamp, the neighborhood started to complain and the State came in and seized trucks.  

They would end up murdering their guy Mike Salerno, but his illegal dumps were Lucchese owned property. That family did not care about anyone’s family. They felt that anything a wiseguy in their family owned or was working was Lucchese family property.

When Paulie Vario of Goodfellas fame died the new bosses Vic Amuso and Gaspipe Casso wanted to take his property for their own.  Never mind that Paulie had been earning his whole life, even before these men were inducted into the family.  

It is a good thing that Gaspipe’s front man took his home in Mill Basin after he went away.

Dumping waste is a huge business with a lot of cash at stake. The Mafia will always be in it, as long as there are corners to cut and cash to be made.

Local 580 & Murder

John  Morrissey was the business agent for Local 580 of the Architectural and Ornamental Ironworkers Union. He helped the Lucchese Family and three other New York families steal millions of dollars in kickbacks from replacing windows for the Housing Authority.  They would rig the bids so they controlled the millions of windows that required replacing every year.  The Mafia would get 1-2 dollars per window replaced by the companies they controlled.  If an outside company replaced windows they would break them or send unproductive Union workers to do the work.   The Mafia families all profited off this scam for over a decade until a Genovese associate named Peter Savino who handled the scam started working for the FBI.

John, also known as Sonny or Sonny Blue, was a tough Irish Union man.  He was a longtime Lucchese associate and helped his friend Vic Amuso, the new boss of Lucchese family, get up to speed with the scam.  The problem was that Sonny Blue worked closely with Peter Savino for years.

Savino had done more than a dozen hand-to-hand payoffs, all observed by the FBI, with Sonny Blue.  When I was working with the FBI and we had to exchange cash or payoff someone we would pick the place if possible.  If the target picked it, I would relay that to the FBI and they would thumbs up or thumbs down.  I would say can we meet someplace closer blah blah.  The FBI would ring the area with surveillance vehicles and agents.  Then they would get it all on tape.  If the area was too crowded they would use vehicles with remote cameras.  I would try to do the hand off in the open or in a place where they could get confirmation.  This would seal guys (like Uncle Manny Garafolo) fate.   Then again, he was only given a very light sentence.

Back to the Lucchese Family.  Under Vic Amuso and the crack head Gaspipe Casso, they operated the family through fear.  That is no way to run any business.  Nobody felt they were on solid ground. So when Vic and Gas got confirmation from the other families that Savino was an informant, they had to take action.  They could not get Savino because he was in WITSEC, so they started murdering people who they felt were weak and would lead to them.

This put the tough Irishman Sonny Blue in their sights, even though he was never close to flipping.   They gave the contract to Capo Fat Peter Chiodo, a man who could weigh between 450-550 lbs and was 6’5”.  They told him: Sonny is talking, make him disappear.

Fat Pete grabbed his associate Tommy Irish to drive Sonny Blue and himself way out to Morris County, NJ, where they were building a housing development to meet with Vic Amuso.  Sonny Blue was happy to see his friend, so he was very relaxed.  Once they arrived at the site they all walked into a model home they were using as an office. Once inside, Fat Pete left to find Vic and then another associate walked up behind Sonny Blue with a silenced pistol.  Sonny Blue turned and saw what was happening and he yelled, “I Am not a rat!”  The man fired and then the pistol jammed. Sonny Blue lay on the ground in pain saying it hurts, hit me again.  The backup shooter removed a snub nose pistol and fired 4 times but it did not kill Sonny Blue.  He was still in pain until the man cleared the silenced pistol and finally killed him.  They used a backhoe to dig a hole out behind the home and they dropped Sonny Blue in it.  He would not be found until Fat Pete flipped.  He missed the windows case.  

This is another example of the poor leadership of Vic and Gas.  The decline of the Mafia starts in the leadership and then trickles down.

Sports Betting Fuels the Mafia

Sports betting is the lifeblood of the Mafia.  Just last week, the state of NJ arrested a group of Genovese men for gambling.  The Genovese crew brought in 12 million dollars in sports betting revenue and they cashed millions more in checks.   They take down one gambling group and the next day it is business as usual because people love to bet.  This is another example of wasting our tax dollars, stopping people from providing a service the public wants. The families then use this cash to fund their other enterprises.

One Genovese soldier that was well known around Bay Ridge, Brooklyn was Andy Wilson aka Andrew Gargiulo.  Andy was a bookmaker who ran a huge online book but could be found most days at a real estate office in Bay Ridge.  

Andy was close to Fat Gigi Inglese and I had dinner with the two of them when I lived in Brooklyn.

Andy was a nice soft spoken man who dressed well, so I was surprised to see a few years ago that he was arrested for murder.  

The man he killed, Preston Geritano, was his wife’s brother and at one time was a Gambino associate.  Geritano had an ongoing feud with Bartholomew “Bobby” Boriello and Bobby had even taken shots at him on the streets of Brooklyn but had failed to kill him.

Bobby was very close to John Gotti, in fact he was a favorite driver of the boss of the Gambinos. He would later be assigned to Junior Gotti’s crew and eventually the Capo.

This is where we come full circle because Bobby is another victim of the Mafia Cops.  Vic Amuso and Gaspipe Casso wanted to send a message to John Gotti Sr. So they put Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa on his tail.  They supplied information to Gaspipe who gave the contract to Frank Lasterino.  Lasterino ambushed Bobby in front of his Brooklyn home, shooting him two times in the head and five times in his torso.  The Gambino family immediately blamed Geritano who they had wanted dead.  After Bobby took his shot at Geritano, he went to his friends in the Genovese Family.  There was a sit down between the Gambinos and the Genovese family because Geritano was a Gambino associate.  The Genovese went to bat for him and a deal was struck.  The deal was that Geritano would be released to the Genovese Family and that he would drop the feud with Bobby. If Geritano ever took up the feud again, the Genovese were sworn to kill him themselves.   So when Bobby was killed everyone blamed Geritano.  John Gotti sent Junior Gotti to a sitdown with the Genovese Family.  Junior Gotti met with Barney Bellomo, the Genovese street boss, and demanded that they keep their word.

This is where Andy Garguilo comes into the picture.  Andy owned Amici’s restaurant in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and Geritano came into the restaurant with a stickball bat and hit Andy with it.  The fight spilled out onto the sidewalk where they were rolling around on the sidewalk.  Geritano was stabbed five time with a hunting knife that Andy carried and was killed.  After his death it would come out that he didn't kill Bobby after all.  Andy would get 20 years for the self defense killing, I guess his luck had ran out.  He had forfeited 1.5 million when he was busted for bookmaking but this time he was really going away.  A side note: Amici’s had been owned by Sammy the Bull at one time.

The Mafia and bookmaking will continue to go on no matter how many men are busted and sent away.

Mafia Cops

Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa are referred to as the Mafia Cops.  Louis Eppolito wrote a book named “Mafia Cop: The Story of an Honest Cop Whose Family Was the Mob in 1992.”

That was very far from the truth because Louis Eppolito was worse than any made member of any family.  Street guys, knockaround guys, never pretend to be anything but what they are in life: criminals.  Most of them take the same route to becoming made members of a crime family.

Louis Eppolito came from a mafia family, his father was a Gambino soldier and his uncle and cousin were also Gambino men until they were murdered by Nino Gaggi and Roy Demeo.

Eppolito went to great lengths in his book to proclaim his innocence. Unfortunately it was all a lie and it was worse than the Internal Affairs of the NYPD could have imagined.

The March 9, 2005 indictment of Eppolito and Caracappa says it all.  At all times relevant Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito were associates of the LCN.  It seems for years the two NYPD officers passed information to the Lucchese Family and they in turn passed it on to the other families.  They passed on information to the underboss of the Lucchese family Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso.  He would refer to them as his crystal ball and they would give him that edge.

The two NYPD officers then took part in 8 murders for the Lucchese family including the murder of Nicholas Guido.  Nicholas Guido was a hard working 26 year old telephone installer who was very proud of his new car on Christmas day 1986.  He was showing it off to his uncle when a three man hit team gunned him down on his Brooklyn street.  The problem was, it was the wrong Nicholas Guido!  The two Mafia Cops had kidnapped a Gambino associate named James Hydell because he had taken part in a failed hit on Gaspipe Casso. Gaspipe tortured Hydell until he gave up the name of those who had taken part in his shooting. Once Gaspipe learned Nicky Guido took part in his shooting he contacted his man Burton Kaplan a huge weed dealer and go between to the Mafia Cops.  Eppolito and Caracappa gave him a picture of Nicky Guido and a Brooklyn address near Court Street.  The three man hit team Frank Listerino, Georgie Zappola and Joseph Testa drove by and saw a man in a red car they thought was Nicky Guido.  They wrote down the plate number and again the Mafia Cops ran it and this time the name matched.  They were waiting outside on Christmas day when he came outside and they ambushed him. He was an innocent man and those two degenerate cops who were sworn to protect the public caused his death.  

They would retire from the NYPD but that never stopped them.  They gave up information about Sammy The Bull Gravano so the Gambinos could kill him.  

The good thing is just last week a Federal Judge ruled that the City of New York can be sued for the two criminals actions.  The NYPD had a chance in 1984 when they caught Louis Eppolito passing information to Rosario “Sal” Gambino.  Sal Gambino was deeply involved in the Pizza Connection Heroin ring.  The FBI had found copies of sensitive documents in Sal’s dresser when they raided his home. They were NYPD Intelligence files and it was determined that they were copied at the 62nd Precinct in Brooklyn and they had Louis Eppolitos fingerprints on them. The NYPD cleared him of charges despite compelling evidence that he was guilty.  It was then that Eppolito started working for the Lucchese Family and over the years he and his partner would be paid over $375,000 in cash.  They sold their souls.

Lucchese Family

Back to the Lucchese Family this week.  Carmine Avellino, the younger brother of Sal Avellino (who used to be then-boss Tony "Ducks" Corallo’s driver and confidant).  It was in Sal’s Jaguar that they used to talk Mafia business which was valuable in taking down Tony Ducks in the Commission case.  Carmine followed the rest of his family into the Lucchese Family and into the Carting Rackets.  They sought to control all the carting (garbage hauling) on Long Island, and they came close to succeeding.  

When Tony Ducks went away for life in the Commission case, he first appointed Buddy Luongo as boss.  Buddy soon disappeared and that put Vic Amuso in the top spot.  Vic upped his long time partner Gaspipe Casso as the underboss.  

They soon decided that something in the Garment rackets had to change.  That something was a long time family member named Michael Pappadio.  Michael was a oldtimer who knew the “rag trade” inside and out.  He had virtually run the Lucchese's garment center racket for 30 years until Vic and Gas took over.  Soon some associate started telling them that Michael was holding back cash from the family.  They knew next to nothing about the rag trade, but what they did know is that it brought in a huge amount of cash.  They were basically drug dealers who made big money and had survived the commission case unscathed, so they were able to take over the family.

Carmine Avellino and his brother Sal were very close to Pappadio, so they were tapped to set him up for murder.  The place they chose was a Bagel Bakery in South Ozone Park Queens that Carmine had some ownership in.  On May 13, 1989, the day before Pappadio's birthday, Carmine led him into the bakery.  As soon as he entered, he yelled, “Surprise look who's here!”  Al D'Arco rushed forward with a heavy copper cable covered in rubber and smashed him on the head.  He didn't die easy, but he did die after George Zappola shot him with a 357.  Carmine went through his pockets and handed Zappola a small book and other things to be given to Gaspipe.

Today Carmine is back to his old tricks and he has been arrested for having two associates rough up two elderly shylock customers.  I always find it funny when the government uses the elderly card because Carmine is 70 years old.  They used that in California on Jimmy Caci: they claimed he deserved a longer sentence because he went after elderly people for something.  Jimmy was close to 80 when this happened so it was a waste of paper.  

Carmine had Daniel Capra and his brother Michael deal with the debtors who had started to cooperate with the FBI.  The FBI took them down and they held Carmine without bail until his daughter put up her house as a million dollar bond.  Now he is free with restrictions, but free.  

There are a lot of senior Lucchese Family members free now, so we should be seeing some big FBI operations coming down soon!

Bowat

Bowat

Anthony Baratta was a Capo in the Gambino family in the golden years of the Mafia.  His son Anthony “Bowat” Baratta Jr followed him into the life.  Bowat was always an earner in the Harlem crew of the Lucchese Family (the neighborhood he grew up in was no longer a Gambino territory).  Most of his money came from the Heroin business.

He would work with the guys on Pleasant Avenue, aka The Pleasant Ave Connection.  So many guys came out of that group, but they all paid with long periods behind bars.  Bowat took a Heroin pinch way back when one of his guys was dealing with an undercover cop.  They saw Bowat picking up the Heroin and then placing it in a car to be picked up after the cash was exchanged.  He tried for an appeal but that didn't go any place, so he did his time.  

Bowat was close to guys in the LA Family, so his power stretched across the country.  He rubbed some guys wrong because they felt he had "Airs" about him, like he thought he was royalty. He became a Made guy in Lucchese Family's Bronx Faction in 1978, after being sponsored into the family by the powerful underboss Salvatore "Tom Mix" Santoro.  It should come as no surprise, because Tom Mix was a huge heroin dealer until later in life when he took over control of the construction rackets for the Lucchese Family.

Once Bowat was released for his heroin dealing, he became the Capo who ran the Bronx Faction and he would be on the ruling panel after Vic Amuso went away.  He would take part in the September 1991 planned killing of Al D'Arco at the Kimberly Hotel with Frank Lastorino and soldier Mike Desantis.  That turned out bad and Al D'Arco was able to escape and would later flip after they threatened his family.  

Bowat must not have learned a thing because he took part in an induction ceremony in October of 1991 that would become known as the Mafia Class of 1991, Bowat along with 6 members of the family ruling panel and 3 soldiers inducted 5 men into the family.  One man he sponsored, Thomas D'Ambrosia, because he was a big part of his Bronx Heroin crew.  Another man inducted that night was Frankie Gioia who would flip because Lucchese Mobsters were going to kill his father while Frankie was locked up.  Everyone else that took part in the Class of 1991 would be locked up in less than 3 years with one dying behind bars.  

Bowat would take a plea deal for 15 years in 1993 and then in 1995 he would be indicted for taking part in the murder of two men over garbage hauling.  In 1996 Bowat was in Otisville FCI where he became friendly with Andrew Higgins who was the son of well respected Tony Higgins.  They got involved in a Heroin deal and bunch of guys ended up going down for it.

Maybe Bowat liked being locked up, who can say.  He had to give up cigars while locked up so he started to smoke a pipe.  He liked to cook while locked up, he would get kosher baked beans from the Jews and then put a ton of hot peppers in them. They would be so hot there would be sweat on his bald head.

In 1992 the Lucchese Family and the Mafia hit an all time low (even for them) when they targeted turncoat Peter Chiodo's sister, Patricia Capozzalo for murder.  The rule used to be that families were off limits, but in a family that was run by the crackhead "Gaspipe," there were no rules.  So Michael "Baldy" Spinelli and Dino Basciano ambushed Patricia just after she dropped off her two children at school.  They wounded her but failed to kill her before they got away.  Baldy had enlisted his mentally challenged brother Robert Spinelli to drive the switch car after they dumped the van used in the hit.  Baldy would soon be locked up for the attempted hit but that did not stop him from wanting to be a made man in the Lucchese Family.  He felt that he was not getting credit for his part in the hit so he lobbied for his induction.  Soon the crackhead Gaspipe was locked up with him.  So Gaspipe and Bowat decided that since Dino Basiano had flipped they would induct him into the family.

So in 1993 Bowat took part in what must have been the worst induction ceremony ever in the bathroom of MMC Manhattan.  There would be no chanting, no pistol or knife and no Saint Card, what Baldy would get was burning toilet paper in his hand while he took the oath.

Today Bowat is free along with a number of the Class of 1991.  He is now free to use his table at Rao's 3 times a month as long as he keeps away from other guys on his list.  Maybe when he gets off parole he will step up and start making moves.

George Conte

There is a man in a halfway house in Phoenix that has a lot of people worried. There are guys worrying in the Bronx and Brooklyn because this guy is the real deal. Who is he? He is George Conte 45096-053 and he is 53 years old and he will be free on March 10, 2014. George or "Goggles" as he is known because of his thick glasses -  but don't let that fool you.  George Conte and his partner in crime George Zappola were in Whitestone, Queens when Democratic District leader James D. Bishop was backing his car into a space at the apartment building of a friend. They fired a barrage of 8 bullets through the drivers side window.  The 380.cal bullets smashed into James D. Bishop's body killing him instantly.

George Zappola

Why did these two Lucchese family members murder James D. Bishop? He was the Secretary Treasurer of the International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 9. This Union has 6,000 members and it was virtually controlled by the Lucchese family for decades. They were the ones who decided who did what in the Union and they looted it, rigged paint bids and everything else they could do to steal money. 

Gaspipe

James D. Bishop decided to help investigators looking into the Lucchese family's control of the Union and with that he signed his death warrant. Gaspipe Casso did not trust him, so that means he was was not long for this world.  George Conte has told people in the past that Gas (Gaspipe) had him killing guys once a week and he couldn't make any money.  He was a busy man because when he took the global plea with the rest of Lucchese administration he was looking at being charged with 4 murders and a couple of attempted murders on his own guys in the Lucchese family.  They had a defendant's meeting when they were talking about the plea and one of the Avellinos didn't want to take the plea (in a global plea all the defendants have to take the deal or it is off the table) George grabbed him and told him if he didn't take the plea he would kill him right there.

George's Mr. Nice Guy act did not end there. He and the other Brooklyn Capos did not like the fact that after Gaspipe went away the power of the family shifted back to the Bronx with Steve Crea and his faction running the family. Steve Crea is more what Tommy Lucchese had in mind for the future of his family.  Steve is in construction and that is where the big money comes from for the family. So George and the others decided to kill Steve Crea but it never went down.

Steve Crea "Wonderboy"

George was in on another almost killing. Patrick "Patty" Testa was a former Gambino associate who transferred to the Lucchese family. He was a courier for Vic Amuso when he was on the lam, but Vic went down. Patty was killed in his Brooklyn car lot by a gunman who shot him 9 times. Gaspipe put out the word that it was the Gambinos who killed him in retaliation for a killing.   Frank Lasterino the Consigulare of the Lucchese family put out the word that a guy in Nicky Corrozo's crew car was seen by Patty's lot before the killings. They then planned to kill Nicky Corrozo and Junior Gotti. This plan also fizzled because Gaspipe had Patty killed and probably gave up Vic.

George was again indicted while in custody for being the Capo in charge of a Brooklyn Crack Cocaine crew led by Lucchese Soldier Jimmy "Frogs" Galione. The crew flooded the streets of Brooklyn with crack and they extorted all the dealers they could find. They brought in about 100,000 dollars a week but at what price? These are men of honor? Soon this prince of a man will be free but I am sure that some of his own "friends" are planning to send him back as soon as possible.

One final well known story around Brooklyn is when Sal Cutia was asked to kill someone but did not have what it takes to do the work. So he approached George and offered him 50,000 dollars to do the work.  George laughed and told others about him because he saw him as weak.

Anthony Dilapi

Anthony Dilapi

Most people in Los Angeles have never heard of Anthony Dilapi.  When he was killed nobody had any idea why he was killed.

Dilapi was 53 years old and worked as a used car salesman while living just off Sunset Blvd in Hollywood.  Anthony had moved to Los Angeles from New York to start over just like so many others before him.  Anthony had a secret that not many knew, he was a soldier in the Lucchese Family.  Anthony had been a well respected earner in the New York Garment Center for the Lucchese Family.  

The old Lucchese Family under Tommy Lucchese specialized in Unions and labor racketeering.  The next crop of leaders learned their job well under Tommy and they controlled a vast empire in the Garment Center.  Anthony Corallo aka Tony Ducks knew what a man like Anthony Dilapi was worth.  Anthony was the kind of guy he wanted in his family.   Times changed in the world of the Mafia in the 1980's when the FBI stepped up their war and the US Attorneys learned how to use the RICO Act to crush the families.  Tony Ducks was caught up in the Commission case thanks to an FBI bug in Salvatore Avellino's Jaguar, which he used to chauffeur Tony Ducks around a couple of times a week.  

Gaspipe

Tony Ducks knew he would be convicted in the case so in order to keep the family going he appointed a new boss before he was locked up.  In 1986 he appointed Anthony Luongo as acting boss, but he soon disappeared and most think the powerful Capo Victor Amuso was behind it.  

Victor Amuso, known as Vic, was a heroin dealer who back in 1977 had been caught with 3 pounds of the drugs alongside his best friend Anthony Casso, who was also known as Gaspipe, or Gas.  He was known as Gaspipe because his father used to install gaspipes in homes so people could get free natural gas from the city that wasn’t metered.  His, son, who helped him, became known as Gaspipe, a name which he hated.  In reality, he should have just been known as “pipe” because for years, the word on the street was that he was smoking crack.  To demonstrate how crazy Gaspipe was, while locked up he tried to bribe a guard to help him escape, and when that failed, he then put together a team that was going to attack the transport van taking him to court and his idea was for his guys to murder all the guards in the van with him.  When the other families caught wind of his plan, they put a stop to it immediately, they could not accept the amount of heat this would draw to all the crime families.  

This type of character was not the kind of soldier that Tommy Lucchese had in mind to lead the family into the new century, but this was what they had to work with after the FBI took down the leadership.  These two cavemen did not respect or understand the Union racketeers, they wanted to work the street rackets and bring the family power base to Brooklyn.  

Anthony Dilapi was a power in the Garment Center who worked with Tommy Gambino who had married Tommy Lucchese's daughter and took over the Garment Center with his trucking and Union activities.  Dilapi made cash but in 1980 he received two 5 years sentences for labor racketeering and by the time he was released things had changed.  Dilapi was from the powerful Bronx based Lucchese Crew and Vic and Gaspipe did not like or trust them.  Dilapi was summoned to a meeting with with Vic and Gas but he knew that they were on a killing spree so he never went.  Anthony then picked up and left for Los Angeles where he intended to start a new life free of crime.  He just left and he was good at being secretive but that would not be enough.

Vic and Gas were petty vindictive guys who would go to extraordinary lengths to make a point and teach a lesson.  They also had a secret weapon, two NYPD Detectives on their payroll Louie Eppolito and Stephan Caracappa.  These two were tasked with the search for Anthony Dilapi and they searched all over for him.  They called other departments and did computer searches using their positions as Detectives.  You have to wonder why was it so important to Vic And Gas to get him. They were really into showing the others in the family they were in charge and had zero tolerance for subversion.  The two Detectives soon found out that Anthony Dilapi was living in an apartment off Sunset Blvd in Hollywood. 

They summoned Little Al D'Arco who gave the contract to his son.  They went out to Los Angeles and stayed with a porn producer that was close to the family.  This guy was the son of a well respected Lucchese soldier who had been shot and left for dead in New York.  He survived and was sent to live in Los Angeles where he had a duplication lab for porno.  The hit team stayed at his house and the pistol was sent to him via UPS.

They stalked Anthony Dilapi and on the afternoon of February 4th with the backdrop of a little rainfall in Los Angeles, Anthony walked into the darkness of his underground garage.  A masked gunman who was waiting jumped out and shot him in the face 4 times and then the body four more times.  He left the pistol and took off back to the porn guys home. LAPD had the pistol but they never charged anyone with the murder even though everyone knew who did it.  When Little Al D'Arco flipped he made the deal for his son so the FBI never went after him for murder.  They could have gone after the porn guy.  Now that the Mafia Cops story is known why haven't they gone after the porn guy?  Oh I hear they lost the pistol.

Today, both Vic and Gas are locked up for life for racketeering.  One last note: Gas became what he most despised: a rat.  Unlike the rest of the guys who flipped, he could not ever tell the truth so he was never given any consideration or a reduced sentence.

John & Craig

John Baudanza and Craig Marino are two badged guys in the Mafia.  John Baudanza is a Lucchese Soldier and Craig Marino is a Colombo Solider.

They started out hanging around Bruno Facciolo and Joe Scopo at Bruno's horse stable.   Bruno had some horses and he would meet guys down at his stables.  John and Craig were just kids but they were already trouble.  John had been in a tagger crew called BPB or Bay Parkway Boys. Craig was from Mill Basin so he was with the Mill Basin Boys.  They were both close to future Gambino Family murder victim Robert Arena.

John Baudanza (locked up)

Bruno Facciolo was a badged member of the Lucchese Family in a crew headed by Paul Vario of Goodfella's fame.  It has been said that he was one of the guys who did away with Tommy DeSimone on the day he was told he would be inducted into the family.  Bruno was one of Paul Vario's heavy guys who put in a lot of work for the family.  Bruno would later be murdered by some fellow Lucchese Family Mobsters after the corrupt so-called “Mafia Cops” told the family he was an informant.  He was lured to a garage in Brooklyn and stabbed to death.  He was then stuffed into the trunk of his car with a canary in his mouth.  It would come out later that the Mafia Cops lied and he was never an informant.

Bruno Facciolo

Joe Scopo was a rising star in the Colombo Family because he knew how to make money.  He learned how to work the Unions from his father Ralph Scopo, a made guy in the family, and the guy who took care of the bosses in the Concrete Club.  The Concrete Club was really just members of the Commission who took 2% from any concrete job in New York that paid over 2 Million Dollars.  This was also part of the Commission Trial (the trial in the late 80s when all of the NY bosses were convicted of being part of a commission that oversaw mafia corruption across the country).  Ralph was hit with a 100 year sentence and he would die in prison.  Joe Scopo followed in his fathers footsteps and handled the Unions for the family.  When the Colombo war started he was a Capo on the rebel side.

John Baudanza and Craig Marino were his drivers and bodyguards. They were over at Wild Bill’s house during the war with Joe. So they were in the mix with the Colombo's. They were not with Joe when he was gunned down in front of his home October 22, 1993.

Joe Scopo's murder was again part of Mafia take down day.  A couple of Persicos were charged with conspiracy to murder Joe.

John and Craig were also very close to Anthony Casso Jr, the son of Lucchese boss Gaspipe Casso who would himself flip and become an informant. There are rumors of a fight in a diner where a guy confronted Casso Jr and when he went outside John or Craig blasted the guy 9 or so times.  The guy lived and Gaspipe was pissed about the whole thing, that they would shoot someone over nothing serious.  They had another friend named Freddy D who asleep on his couch after a long night and was shot dead.  Robert Arena their friend was killed and they did nothing.  

Things would change for John after Joe Scopo was killed.  He was locked in with the Colombo's because of his Uncle and his father Carmine who was a long time Colombo Associate who I hear was badged.  John fell in love with Danny Cutia’s daughter (Cutia is a Capo in the Lucchese family) and soon they were married.  Cutia, who was on the panel that ran the family, had John placed in his crew.  John had things going for him for awhile.  He had an auto body shop and then he moved on to stuff on Wall St.

Craig had gone with the Colombos and he was close to Joe “Waverly” aka Cacace who would be underboss for a minute.  

Craig Marino

Craig Marino's name was placed on a list that was handed out to other famlies to see if there were any objections to getting their badge. One problem: Craig was written down as “Graig” Marino.  The other problem was that the FBI got a hold of the list after a drunken Persico left it laying around.  Craig was inducted into the family, but some people still had bad feelings for him because of the war.  Craig was soon in control of a number of brokerage firms around the city, Brooklyn and Staten Island.  One of the guys who ran them for him was his younger brother Lance who ran Barron Chase on Maiden Lane.  Lance would prove how stupid he was by climbing on top of a drunk friend’s Range Rover and then letting him drive off “car surfing.”  The ride was short for Lance, and that was end of him.  

Craig would get involved with a golf course and that all went bad after the FBI started looking into the deal.  

When I was in Brooklyn, he was involved in Zone Chefs a company that delivers healthy food to customer’s doors.  They did well, but Mafia business never takes a back seat and he soon turned back to criminal enterprise.

John Baudanza made some money with stocks and he soon got involved with the same telephone business that I was part of on Maiden Lane.  John also became an acting Capo around this time.  He then decided that he could do better than the company and he and some of his guys took some equipment and the account for St Marten.  He ended up blowing it and the whole deal went bad.  

John Baudanza

Things had gotten so bad that John asked his friend Georgie to hide his truck at his grandmothers house.  Georgie had the truck hidden but the repoman still found it. So an acting Capo had no car for sometime.  He then had a party store and was doing driveways in Staten Island.

John even tried to get into the Mortgage Business with his friend Jerry Degerolamo but that failed.  Jerry D was another long time Lucchese associate whose father is also a long time associate.  They robbed an armoured car for 3.7 million dollars in 1989 and after Gerard Degerolamo was sent to a Federal Prison where he walked away with help from his son Jerry.  They then planned to rob a cash filled depot by shipping a small associate in a box to the depot.  It seemed to go well but the guy in the box had recently been busted for a small crime and had already flipped.  The FBI took them all down.

Jerry, along with John Baudanza, started a fake hedge fund that was called America's Hedge Fund, L.P. in Eltingville. It was a nothing but a fake fund where they just stole people’s money.

When I was with Teddy Persico Jr and Eddie Garafolo in the truck headed to 4th ave to get Craig Marino, Teddy was talking and my wire was on.  He told me that Craig had done some bad things in the Colombo war and that he was on the wrong side, but now he was with good people.  He also said Craig was all good now meaning he was an inducted member.  We were going to deal with Craig (who I liked - but when asked by a Persico to do something you have to do it).  Eddie and Teddy both pled out to this charge earlier this year.

John Baudanza took a plea for the pump and dump and other charges he received 7 years. He is now in Allenwood Medical Facility where he is sick and will be released in 2015.  A lot of guys in the family do not like him and if his father-in-law dies, who knows what he will do.

Craig Marino took a plea for everything, including the pump and dump that got him 10 years. He is in Fort Dix until 2016.  Craig had moved to Florida before his case so who knows where he will go when he is released.