Tuesday, March 8, 2005
In Today’s column: WHY MOB ENFORCERS AND EXECUTIONERS ARE SERIAL KILLERS, PART II, HY LARNER: MORE MOB MYTH MAKING OR WHAT?, THE ABOLITION OF THE DEATH PENALTY FOR JUVENILE CRIMINALS - A SIDE EFFECT, IS ANTHONY "ACE" AIELLO SLEEPING WITH THE FISHES?, THE MASSINO/BONANNO COSA NOSTRA FAMILY REUNION CHOIR
A Mob Bane: Publicity and Attention
As one avoids a plague, mob bosses avoid unnecessary association with EXAGGERATED VIOLENCE and/or the HIGH MEDIA PROFILE.
According to Donnie Brasco/Joseph D. Pistone (March 2, 2004), in The Way of the Wiseguy, Running Press Book Publishers; Book & CD edition,
"The fact is that most mob bosses keep extremely low profiles and lead fairly modest lifestyles....Most bosses hate publicity and attention..." (pp. 85-86).
Joseph Columbo Sr. was the mob boss for whom the generation of publicity seemed to be a compulsion. This apparent compulsion gave Joseph Columbo Sr. a HIGH MEDIA PROFILE. It made Columbo Sr. one of "the worst bosses of all time."
The Profaci/Columbo Crime Family's reputation as a perpetrator of EXAGGERATED VIOLENCE predates the time Joseph Columbo Sr. ascended to the pinnacle of Profaci/Columbo power.
The fact that the Profaci/Columbo Crime Family is the only crime family in American history to suffer three internal wars contributes to its reputation as a perpetrator of EXAGGERATED VIOLENCE. Joseph Columbo's tenure as Columbo Crime Family boss occurred in the days between the Profaci/Columbo Crime Family's first and its second internal wars.
Mob Publicity Hound
Salvatore Maranzano, the self-proclaimed "Capo di Tutti Capi" of the emerging Sicilian Mafia-in-America, reorganized New York's Italian American underworld into its "Five Families of New York" form. Soon after September 10, 1931, the date Maranzano was murdered, most of the men who had been Maranzano Crime Family soldiers found themselves under the leadership of a new "Father," Joseph Bonanno. The remaining Maranzano Crime Family soldiers were transferred to positions under the leadership of Joseph Profaci, the patriarch of the Profaci Crime Family. That organization bore the name "Joseph Profaci" for over three decades. Soon after becoming boss, Joseph Profaci appointed Giuseppe Magliocco, his brother-in-law, as his assistant.
On June 6, 1962, Joseph Profaci died of cancer in the South Side Hospital, Long Island. It has been estimated that during his reign Joseph Profaci's illegal earnings soared as high as $200 million. Profaci left no incriminating paper trail, i.e. no will, no estate. His holdings had been parcelled out and they seemed to have simply vanished. Upon Joseph Profaci's death, Giuseppe Magliocco assumed control of the Profaci Crime Family.
Joseph Bonanno, a close friend and ally of Joseph Profaci, was scheming. He planned to become the most powerful Cosa Nostra boss in the United States. The plan necessitated that Joseph Bonanno arrange to have three of his mob rivals whacked: Carlo Gambino, Thomas Lucchese of New York, and Stefano Maggaddino of Buffalo, New York, his cousin. Joseph Bonanno sought the assistance of Giuseppe Maggliocco in the instrumentation of his plan. Maggliocco, in turn, brought in one of his top capos, Joseph Colombo Sr.
Joseph Columbo Sr. had served Joseph Profaci and served him well. But, Columbo Sr. owed loyalty to neither Magliocco nor Bonanno. Joseph Columbo Sr. soon approached Carlo Gambino and let the cat out of the bag. Gambino immediately called a meeting of the National Mafia Commission. The Commission decided that Joseph Bonanno and Giuseppe Magliocco had to appear before its ruling hierarchy for a hearing.
Joseph Bonanno took it on the lam, going into hiding. Magliocco came to the hearing, pleaded guilty, accepted a $50,000 fine and retired from The Life. Several months later, on December 28, 1963, he died at home of a heart attack.
At the time, Carlo Gambino was the most powerful boss of the Five Families of New York. He threw his considerable prestige behind his nomination of Joseph Columbo Sr. as Giuseppe Magliocco's successor as the boss of the Profaci Crime Family. Carlo Gambino thought the inexperienced and impressionable young Joseph Columbo Sr., as the boss of the Profaci Crime Family, would serve his tenure as a good boy. Carlo Gambino, however, was soon to discover that he was mistaken. Young Joseph Columbo Sr. was capable of disobedience to his elders. Columbo Sr. loved the limelight for its own sake. Even if his being shrouded in the limelight was a privilege at the expense of La Cosa Nostra, Columbo Sr. relished the privilege.
Joseph Columbo Sr. became the head of one of the Five Families of New York at a younger age than any other man since 1931, the age of forty. Joseph Columbo Sr. was also destined to be one of the youngest mob bosses to suffer a fatal wound on the job.
Sowing Seeds
In the words of Donnie Brasco/Joseph D. Pistone (March 2, 2004),
"How a boss lives depends on the boss. Like I said, low-key is the norm. All the old-time bosses---Joe Bonanno, Carlo Gambino, Vito Genovese, Vincent "Chin" Gigante---stayed way under the radar and out of the limelight. They did not spend lavishly or party late into the night. They certainly did not enjoy the spoils and perks of your typical corporate CEO. Basically, their lifestyles were not all that different from those of the wiseguys beneath them---scams, card games, good food, girlfriends, families, maybe even church on Sunday. These bosses wielded their power quietly and without fanfare---they were the opposite of media stars. I mean, can you imagine a less glamorous and dashing figure than Chin Gigante, slouching around the village in his bathrobe and slippers" (p. 86).
Joseph Columbo Sr. owned a luxurious country estate at Bloomington Grove, in close proximity to Tomahawk Lake, Orange County, New York State. A brick ranch style home set on 5 acres of land, it included tennis and handball courts, stables and a swimming pool. Its assessed value in 1966 dollars was $86,200.
Joe Columbo Sr. had a disposition towards shoulder pads, pinky rings, gold cufflinks and color-coordinated shirt, socks and tie. His expensive wardrobe contributed to the HIGH MEDIA PROFILE he took. Columbo Sr. "wore $1000 suits and $500 shoes decades before John Gotti burst on the scene as the Dapper Don" See:
www.ganglandnews.com/column377.htm
Joe Columbo Sr. bought a new Cadillac each year. "Taking over the Profaci family Joseph Columbo, Sr. had adapted the trappings of a very successful man. Each year, he had a new Cadillac. He maintained an apartment on New Utrecht Avenue, which essentially was just a massive clothes closet stocked with suits, shirts, and shoes. He was known to go there two to three times a day and change his entire wardrobe. Columbo lived with his family in a split-level house at 83rd Street and 11 Avenue in Bensonhurst, just up from the Dyker Beach Golf Course.
As a legitimate front to the world, he worked as a salesman on an annual salary of $35,000 for Cantalupo Realty located at 1434 86th Street in Bensonhurst. He also had interests in a funeral home. See: www.courttv.com/onair/sho...n.html#mob
The Mob's Martin Luther King Jr.
In order to qualify as a real estate salesman and obtain a certificate, Joseph Columbo Sr. had to pass an examination. He arranged for someone else to take his exam and sign his name. He also had to testify under oath about his activites and criminal connections. Once it was established that he had lied to New York State, and that someone else had taken the examination and forged Colombo's signature, Joseph Columbo Sr. was indicted and found guilty of perjury.
But when on April 30, 1970 Joseph Columbo Jr., the bosses son, was arrested by an FBI Strike Force, Joseph Columbo Sr. became inspired. The FBI Strike Force charged Joe Jr. with melting down $500,000 worth of U.S. coins illegally for their silver content. Columbo Sr. decided to form a group to picket the FBI Offices at 69th Street in Manhattan in protest against the harassment of Italian-Americans. From the protest the Italian-American Anti-Defamation League emerged growing eventually into the Italian-American Civil Rights League. Columbo Sr. became the self-appointed Martin Luther King of the mob.
It was at this time that law officials and the media began to refer to Joseph Columbo Sr.'s criminal organization as "The Columbo Crime Family" rather than "The Profaci Crime Family."
On June 29, three months thereafter, the first rally of the group was called to celebrate Italian Unity Day, at Columbus Circle in mid-town Manhattan. Over 50,000 people turned up.
Bringing On The Clowns
Five U.S. Congressmen attended the first rally and gave speeches. Godfrey Cambridge, the noted black comedian, made an appearance to add the support of another minority. When Joseph Columbo Sr. addressed the crowd, he said, "if the FBI and Justice Department want to make me boss of a Mafia family, so that's what I'll be. And I'll use my position to help people of Italian-American heritage." Nicholas Pileggi (January 1, 1986), who went on to author of Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family, Simon & Schuster, ISBN: 0671447343, covered the event for The New York Magazine. Later on, Pileggi wrote, "He made allies of his own victims."
The immediate impact of the first rally was to make it politically incorrect to use the terms "Mafia" and "Cosa Nostra" in polite society in America. Attorney General John Mitchell ordered the FBI to stop using the words "Mafia" and "Cosa Nostra" in their reports. The producers of The Godfather had to delete all reference to the word "Mafia" in the film's text. The New York Times banned the use of the words. They were deleted from any TV production. The League grew and prospered. Frank Sinatra and other top stars performed at a Madison Square Garden benefit and raised $500,000 in November 1970. Most of that money went straight into the Mob's bank.
By the end of 1970, the League had grown to 150,000 members, with over 50 chapters across the country. The League had raised more than $1 million, most of which went straight to the founder. Columbo Sr. had perpetrated the ultimate rip-off: a multi-million-dollar racket that was all above board.
In March 1971, At a ritzy Long Island restaurant, the League proclaimed Joseph Columbo Sr. the "Man of the Year." Columbo Sr. said, in his acceptance speech, "The League is under God's eyes and those who try to stop it will feel his sting." At the second and final League rally, three months later, Columbo Sr. found out just how strong that sting would be.
Crazy Joe Gallo (1929-1972), Machiavellian
Around the time of the second League rally, Crazy Joe Gallo was released from federal prison after serving almost ten years. The Gallo brothers became trusted associates of the Profaci Cosa Nostra Family. Some organized crime historians argue that the Gallo brothers were contracted with the murder of Albert "The Lord High Executioner" Anastasia in 1957. Supposedly, after they successfully completed the hit, the Gallos were "made"--inducted--into the Profaci Crime Family.
In the summer of 1961, the Gallos murdered five Profaci soldiers, and in retaliation, the Profacis beat Larry Gallo nearly to death.
Joey Gallo was convicted of extortion later that year, and served a ten-year prison term. Not long after Joey's conviction, Joe Profaci died, and the struggle for control of the Profaci Crime Family began.
Larry Gallo, Crazy Joe's older brother, had been the leader of the Gallo faction. Larry Gallo had died of cancer and by now, Crazy Joe was the Gallo faction's heir apparent. By this time the Colombo Cosa Nostra Family was about 500 strong, and the Gallo gang had perhaps 20 members.
Crazy Joey got his nickname from both his ruthless style and the testimony that a psychiatrist had given in court during one of his criminal trials. "Crazy Joe" was his nickname, and some even Italicized his name to re "upahts." But, Crazy Joe Gallo knew the difference between right and wrong.
Crazy Joe Gallo's mob outlook was Machiavellian, i.e. he was a student of the first great political philosopher of the Renaissance Nicolo Machiavelli (1469-1527). In particular, Crazy Joe Gallo was a student of Nicolo Machiavelli's (December 15, 2004) The Prince, Bedford/St. Martin's, ISBN: 0312149786.
Crazy Joey accurately perceived the changing America's demography. No longer is Europe, especially northern and western Europe, the source of the vast number of immigrants to the United States. No, most immigrants hail from Asia, Latin America, and other places outside of Europe.
Prisons are very segregated places. Prisoners tend to huddle together among their own race/ethnicities. During his prison terms, Crazy Joey exhibited a skill at co-existing and working with his nonwhite fellow prisoners, especially African Americans.
Crazy Joe Gallo's 20 man base of support was multicultural. As well as the usual Italian-Americans, he had a Greek, 2 Syrians, an Irish man and a Jew.
Machiavelli (December 15, 2004) based his work in The Prince upon his basic understanding of human nature. He held that people are motivated by fear and envy, by novelty, by desire for wealth, power and security, and by a hatred of restriction. In the Italy in which he was writing, democracy was an un-implemented Greek philosophical idea, not a political structure with a history of success; thus, one person's power usually involved the limitation of another person's power in an autocratic way.
Crazy Joey's long-term plans included integrating blacks and Hispanics to help control the multi-million dollar numbers business in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York. He often referred to his aim to operate "an equal opportunity mob."
Encore: Laughing To Keep From Crying
Joseph Columbo Sr. was eager to begin his second Italian-American Civil Rights League rally.
By June 29, Columbo Sr.'s commitment to "the movement," as he saw it, had become an obsession. The fame and the publicity had become, for Columbo Sr., intoxicating. It impaired his better judgment. On the Dick Cavett TV Show, Columbo Sr. discussed the movement's "aims and ambitions." Behind the scenes, Columbo Sr.'s criminal peers had serious misgivings about all the publicity and the growing public awareness of "this thing of ours." Carlo Gambino, by that time the de facto capo di tutti capi of the Cosa Nostra's New York sphere of influence, was furious at Columbo Sr.'s grandstanding.
Crazy Joe Gallo and Joseph Columbo Sr. manuvered around each other in the weeks leading up to the League rally. Joe Columbo was busy with the League's details. Crazy Joey made sure all posters that referred to the rally were torn down and removed from South Brooklyn. Crazy Joey met with black racketeers in South Brooklyn, Bedford Stuyvesant and Harlem.
June 28 was a sunny Monday morning and Joe Columbo Sr. was ready for his big day. Rocco Miraglia, Columbo Sr.'s bodyguard, picked him up promptly at 10:30 a.m. and drove him over to Columbus Circle. Columbo Sr. was wearing a white, open-neck short sleeve shirt, dark slacks and the usual highly polished black shoes. Arriving at the venue, Columbo Sr. approached the speaker's platform. Joe Jr. and Anthony were already there helping with the arrangements as were about 50 of his men. The police, T.V. reporters, newspaper photographers, and vendors hawking hot dogs and ice cream, as well as about 4000 visitors, were already there.
What Is A Mob Patsy?
There is an exception to the rule that "mob enforcers and executioners are serial killers." That exception exists in the example of the upahts executioner who is a patsy.
"Upahts" is a colloquialism in Italian for crazy. What definition of "crazy" and I using. When I say an individual is "upahts," I am referring to an individual for whom the difference between "right" and "wrong" is not clear.
What is a mob patsy? A mafia patsy is a man, living or dead, who has been blamed by the mafia for a crime he did not commit, e.g. Lee Harvey Oswald.
A "mob patsy" can be a man, living or dead, who has had to assume total responsibility for a crime in which he was only marginally involved, e.g. Sirhan Sirhan.
By "mob patsy," I mean the example of an individual who mafia decisionmakers use to their own advantage and to the individual in question's detriment.
Mob Executioner As Mob Patsy, "Upahts" Before The Fact
Sometimes the mob finds it expedient to use an executioner who has trouble distinguishing "right" from "wrong." A classic example of a mob perpetrated hit that used an upahts executioner is the Joseph Columbo Hit 1972.
Jerome Johnson
Crazy Joe Gallo recruited Jerome Johnson, a nut from Harlem, to whack Joseph Columbo at the Italian-American Civil Rights League rally in Columbus Circle. Crazy Joe convinced Jerome Johnson that after fatally wounding Joe Columbo, he would escape from the site without suffering injury himself.
On June 29, 1971, Joseph Columbo, the boss of the Columbo Cosa Nostra Family, made his way to the platform to deliver his speech at the Italian-American Civil Rights League Rally in Columbus Circle. About three feet away was a black man holding a camera. Just as Colombo began to read his speech the black man threw down the camera, took out a pistol and shot Columbo three times in the back of the head and neck. The black man was apprehended immediately but whilst the police wrestled him on the floor a man emerged from the crowd and shot the black man dead. This man managed to escape through the crowd. The black man was identified as Jerome Johnson. The man who killed Jerome Johnson was never identified.
Although Columbo's killer had been seized, he was dead and so now the speculation began as to why Joe had been shot. Because Johnson was black, it was immediately assumed by members of the family that Crazy Joe, who was known to be working with black criminal groups, was behind it. The police announced that their investigations had revealed that Johnson had been offered $200,000 for the hit. He was known as a loser, a petty crook and con man with a record of seven arrests, for rape, assault, burglary and possession of drugs. He was known to have associated with people connected to the Gambino crime family, and it was well known how upset Carlo Gambino had been about the publicity generated by the activities of the League..."
See,
The Columbo's: A Family at War by Thomas L. Jones at:
www.crimelibrary.com/gang...mbo/1.html
Mob Executioner As Made Man, "Upahts" After The Fact
Baldassare "Baldo" Amato allegedly took part in the execution of cigar-chomping Carmine "Lilo" Galante twenty-five years ago. Baldo, a Bonanno mobster, was bodyguard for Carmine Galante, the Bonanno capo. He continued to sit on his hands when three hitmen called on Galante as he smoked an after-dinner cigar. Galante surely expected his Sicilian-born bodyguard to come to his aid with guns blazing. But, Baldo knew better. Balso sat on his thumbs and later on moved up to a higher rank in the Family hierarchy.
Baldo Amato was never charged in the murder. Because He and John Palazzolo are the two Bonanno soldiers charged with different murders in the same indictment, they are having their heads examined. Baldo Amato suffers from sleep apnea, memory loss, dizziness, and loss of smell. He says these disorders pose a "substantial danger" to his health and might even cause his death if he were to stand trial. Amato, 53, is charged with the March 17, 1992 murder of Ridgewood, Queens restaurant owner Sebastian DiFalco and the May 5, 1992 slaying of former New York Post delivery superintendent Robert Perrino. His extensive medical problems began five years ago while he was serving 70 months for a series of racketeering charges piled up from Ridgewood to Albany where Amato stored a small arsenal of weapons on property he owned.
In 2000, Amato complained to prison officials about "a medical problem which he did not understand and which he believed had impaired his short term memory," says lawyer Michael Hueston in court papers.
In August 2003, Hueston wrote, a doctor hired by Amato's family "concluded that it was highly likely that Mr. Amato has obstructive sleep apnea," and listed serious medical consequences including "hypertension and increased risk of heart attack and stroke."
After several stops and starts by prison officials in Pennsylvania and New York, Amato, whose prior racketeering sentence ended last July but who is being detained without bail on the pending murder charges, was finally examined by a neurologist on October 28.
Brooklyn Federal Judge Nicholas Gauraufis ordered the tests to determine whether Amato has a mental disease or defect that would prevent him from going to trial. Earlier in the month of February, 2005, Gauraufis instructed Bureau of Prisons officials to furnish the results of the neurological exam to Hueston and the prosecutors in the case for March 7. The reasons behind Amato's neurological testing may be a bit unusual.
A judge recently ruled that John Palazzolo also needs a shrink---to make sure the Bonanno wiseguy knew what he was doing when he rejected free legal advice. Palazzolo was ordered to undergo psychological evaluation simply because Judge Garaufis wanted to be sure the veteran gangster knows what he's doing.
According to Double Deal: The Inside Story of Murder, Unbridled Corruption, and the Cop Who Was a Mobster, by Sam Giancana, Michael Corbitt, (March 1, 2003) , HarperCollins, ISBN: 0060195851, Hyman "Hy" Larner, the brilliant Chicago mobster, was "the real power behind the Chicago Outfit's throne for almost thirty years."
Giancana and Corbitt (March 1, 2003), in Double Deal, insinuate that Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro was killed on the orders of Hy Larner.
In other words, The Ant could not have been killed without the acquiescence of Hy Larner. See: http://www.laborers.org/Corbitt_testimony.html
In the coming James "Jimmy the Man" Marcello, Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo et al. indictment, "Albert Tocco," the name of the long-time boss of Chicago's south suburbs, is sure to crop up. After all, mob turncoat Nick Calabrese's singing has helped to rewrite the script of the Spilotro murders. Nick Calabrese was a high ranking member of the Chicago Outfit's notorious 26th Street Crew.
Led by street captains such as Angelo "the Hook" LaPietra and John "Johnny Apes" Monteleone, the 26th Street Crew--one of six street crews that operate as part of the Chicago Outfit--prowled a territory south of the Eisenhower Expressway that included Chinatown's gambling dens and the South Side auto chop shops.
Albert Tocco was convicted in 1989, partly on the testimony of his estranged wife, Betty, of extortion, racketeering, and tax evasion and sentenced to prison for 200 years.
Betty Tocco split with her husband and became a fount of information about Mob activities, including the 1986 murders of Tony “The Ant” Spilotro and his brother Michael. Betty Tocco maintains the Spilotros were killed by her husband Albert, Laborers’ officials Nick Guzzino and Dominick Palermo and a fourth Mob guy, Albert “Chickie” Roviere. Betty Tocco makes no mention of the name "Hy Larner." See, "the testimony of witness Pecoraro" at: http://www.ipsn.org/mob_hits/this_testimony_of_witness_pecora.htm
It is unlikely that the name "Hy Larner" will be mentioned in the pending indictments of Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo et al. for the murder of Tony and Michael Spilotro.
On Tuesday, March 1, 2005 a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court abolished the death penalty for juvenile criminals and declared there was a "national consensus" such executions were unconstitutionally cruel. The abolition of the death penalty for juvenile criminals has a largely unrecognized and unintended side effect. Ideally, a contract killer is rational, unremitting and remorseless. S/he can commit homicides independently with a maximun of discretion. The seventeen-years-old or younger murderer has great value to the mob. After all, such an individual is no longer subject to capital punishment.
During the night of Friday, February 11, 2005, Costantino Magrelli, a boy of 14 was in custody after shooting dead the Mafia boss who had just killed his own mobster father. Costantino Magrelli saw his dad Giovanni, 44, gunned down by Raffaele Di Lorenzo in a shootout on a crowded street in Naples, southern Italy. But with Di Lorenzo, 46, also wounded, the boy picked up his father's gun and shot him in the head from close range. Police said the row started when Costantino had a fight in the street with Di Lorenzo's 20-year-old son Antonio.
In a Culture of Honor, the ethic, "an eye for an eye" and the defence of honor reign supreme.
As a marketable skill, contract killing ranks high among the criminal specialties in the underworld's system of stratification. The U.S. National Mafia Commission banned mob hits, except as the very last option, a little more than a decade ago. So many mobsters were facing life long jail terms, and; the feds were getting so much leverage against the mob with the murder raps, that too many guys were turning state's evidence. The mob called a moratorium on hits.
The abolition of the death penalty for juvenile criminals, which overturns a 1989 high court ruling throws out the death sentences of 72 murderers who committed the crimes as juveniles and bars states from seeking to execute others. Nineteen states had allowed death sentences for killers who committed their crimes under age 18.
The abolition decision ends a practice that had brought international condemnation. The United States has stood almost alone in the world in sanctioning juvenile executions. Juvenile offenders have been put to death in recent years in only a few other countries, including Iran, Pakistan, China and Saudi Arabia.
Some critics of the policy of subjecting juvenile criminals to the death penalty point out that many juveniles lack the maturity and intellectual development to understand the ramifications of their actions. Other critics note the profound inconsistency in prohibiting those under 18 years of age from voting, serving in the military or buying cigarettes, while allowing them to be sentenced to the ultimate punishment.
The ruling continues the court's practice of narrowing the scope of the death penalty, which it reinstated in 1976. Executions of those 15 and younger when they committed their crimes were outlawed in 1988. Three years ago, justices banned executions of the mentally retarded, citing a "national consensus" against executing a killer who may lack the intelligence to fully understand his crime.
In finding a similar consensus against juvenile executions, the court noted that most states bar them and those that allow them do so infrequently. Only three states---Virginia, Oklahoma and Texas---have executed juveniles in the past 10 years.
On February 8, 2005, Anthony "Ace" Aiello, 28, the reputed Bonanno Cosa Nostra Family soldier, was labeled a fugitive from justice after the FBI issued an arrest warrant alleging that he played a role in the December 2004 killing of Randolph "Randy" Pizzolo, the mob associate. Aiello is now the object of an international manhunt by FBI agents.
Jailhouse tapes made by Joseph Massino, the Bonanno Crime Family boss, who in an unprecedented move became the first major New York mob boss to cooperate with investigators, implicated Aiello in the homicide.
Massino decided to help authorities in a bid to get out from under a pending death penalty case in Brooklyn federal court, as well as to save some of his assets from being forfeited following his July 2004 racketeering conviction.
On December 1, 2004, Randolph Pizzolo, 43, was found shot to death in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, New York. It has become known that Pizzolo was murdered by the Bonannos because he bragged about his role in the murder of Nicolas Cirillo, the son of Genovese Acting Boss Dominick "Quiet Dom" Cirillo. Joseph Massino taped Vinny Gorgeous talking about the Pizzolo hit.
During the week of January 23, 2005, "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano, 45, the reputed Bonanno acting boss and Dominick Cicale, the reputed captain, were indicted for the racketeering murder of Pizzolo. The tapes show that Vinny Gorgeous believed that "Dominick and Ace," meaning Cicale and Aiello, committed the December 1, 2004 killing of Pizzolo.
Aiello has a 1998 federal robbery conviction for which he was sentenced to 46 months in prison in 1999. He was released from federal prison in July 2001 after serving 39 months. His period of supervised release ended in August 2004 and federal prosecutors believe Aiello was inducted into the Bonanno family during the months he was previously under supervision.
Aiello disappeared on January 28, 2005, the day after Big Joey Massino was identified as a turncoat and Vinny Gorgeous and Dominick Cicale were charged in an indictment with Pizzolo's murder. Aiello knew that conviction for the Pizzolo murder could mean life in prison, or even the possibility of a death sentence.
If he is apprehended, Anthony "Ace" Aiello will have every reason to flip. After all, federal prosecutors armed with Joseph Massino's testimony, Aiello is sure to be convicted of Randolph "Randy" Pizzolo's murder. Ace Aiello is dangerous to Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano and Dominick Cicale because he can corroborate the cases against them. Assuming Ace Aiello is still alive, if he is apprehended, there will be great pressure on Vinny Gorgeous and Dominick Cicale to cooperate, too.
It is conceivable that the organization of a Bonanno/Massino Cosa Nostra Family Reunion Choir is eminent. This Reunion will feature a choir that consists of Joseph "Big Joey" Massino and all eight rats who testified in the United States of America v. Joseph Massino et al. Defendants, (2004) (Salvatore "Good Looking Sal" Vitale, etc.), and Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano, Dominick Cicale, Anthony "Ace" Aiello, with Anthony "Tony Green" Urso, the former Bonanno Crime Family acting boss, Joseph Cammarano and Louis Restivo. All singing harmony.