Two years ago Peter Chiodo of Staten Island was shot a dozen times and critically wounded, but the 500-pound informer against the Mafia still lived to testify against a dozen major underworld figures.
A year ago Mr. Chiodo's sister, Patricia Capozzalo, of Brooklyn, was seriously wounded in what the authorities described as a failed attempt by the mob to kill her.
And yesterday, the police found the body of Mr. Chiodo's uncle, Frank Signorino, of Staten Island, stuffed in the trunk of a parked car in East New York, Brooklyn. There were numerous wounds to his forehead, some resembling gunshot wounds.
The authorities would not say last night what the motive might have been in Mr. Signorino's slaying. But the investigators and witnesses in the trials of Mafia leaders last year have said that the earlier shootings were intended to intimidate Mr. Chiodo into silence. Role in Upcoming Trial
Ronald Goldstock, director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force, said of Mr. Signorino's slaying, "There could be a thousand reasons for it, and the silencing of Mr. Chiodo is one possible motive."
Mr. Chiodo, one of the more prominent witnesses in the Federal Government's recent prosecutions of Mafia leaders, is expected to testify again at the upcoming trial of Anthony Casso of Brooklyn, whom prosecutors say is the boss of the Lucchese crime family.
Mr. Casso was captured by the F.B.I. two weeks ago as he was getting out of a shower at a hideout in Mt. Olive, N.J. He had been a fugitive for almost three years and had been charged with ordering the killings of 11 people linked to fraudulent construction contracts in New York.
Mr. Casso has been described by Federal authorities as one of the most dangerous Mafia figures in the country. With his capture, officials say the leaders of the region's five Mafia groups are either serving long prison terms or awaiting trial.
The police discovered the body of Mr. Signorino with a black plastic bag tied around his head in the trunk of an abandoned car at Vermont Street and Flatlands Avenue. Reported Missing
Sgt. Michael Race of the 75th Detective Squad said the remains, which were frozen, were turned over to the city Medical Examiner's Office, which will perform an autopsy.
"The body was frozen," Sergeant Race said "Mr. Signorino was reported missing three days ago, and we are not exactly sure what caused the wounds in his head." The detective said the remains had been identified by the dead man's family.
Sergeant Race said the authorities were trying to determine whether Mr. Signorino had any ties to the Mafia.
Mr. Chiodo, whose girth earned him the nickname "Big Pete," turned informant against Mafia figures after being shot a dozen times in May, 1991.
Mr. Chiodo, who has admitted that he was a captain in the Lucchese crime family, said he decided to cooperate with the authorities after two of his criminal associates threatened to kill his wife and his father.
According to the authorities, in the yearlong interval between the shooting of Mr. Chiodo and that of his sister, there were repeated attempts to intimidate other relatives of Mr. Chiodo's.
At the trial last year of Vittorio Amuso, a Lucchese crime chieftain who was convicted of nine murders, Alfonse D'Arco, another underworld figure turned informant, testified that he had made such attempts. Mr. Chiodo also testified about Mafia activities at that trial.
Another person connected to Mr. Chiodo, Anthony Fava, who the police said was a close associate, was found shot to death in Brooklyn 18 months ago. None of shootings has been solved.
Thanks to Richard D. Lyons.
Showing posts with label Peter Chiodo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peter Chiodo. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 03, 1993
Monday, October 21, 1991
U.S. Says Mob Is Drying Up In New York
New York's five Mafia families, who survived years of Federal attack, have deteriorated in recent months to the point that three are virtually out of business and two are crumbling, many law-enforcement authorities and experts say.
After 60 years of illicit expansion, the combined racketeering power and wealth of New York's five traditional families is going the way of their counterparts in most other cities around the country
, who have succumbed to a decade of aggressive Federal prosecution, the authorities say.
For the first time since the Mafia groups were formed in the 1930's, the experts say that all five families -- Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese, Colombo and Bonanno -- are in disarray, hurt by convictions and indictments of top leaders, murderous internal disputes, generational changes and defections by high-ranking members who have become Government witnesses.
The Lucchese family, for example, has had three changes of leadership in less than a year: one boss was jailed, and a second became a Government witness after he botched the killing of a mob captain -- who himself went on to become a key witness in a major racketeering trial aimed at ending the Mafia's influence in the window-installation industry.
All eight defendants were cleared of the racketeering charge on Friday, and six were cleared entirely, while two mid-level bosses were convicted of extortion. But prosecutors said afterward that the case had succeeded in driving the mob out of what had been a lucrative industry.
Moreover, many of the mob's customary money-producing rackets in the New York region, including extortions and kickbacks in the garment district, the Fulton Fish Market and the construction and trucking industries, have been eliminated or reduced by recent convictions and civil court remedies, the experts assert.
Federal and state law-enforcement officials say that the Colombo and Bonanno families have also been so shaken that they are no longer considered powerful threats. But officials cautioned that the the Genovese and Gambino groups -- the two largest in the country -- remain potent forces in illegal sports betting, loan-sharking, labor racketeering and the waste removal industries in the region.
Andrew J. Maloney, the United States Attorney in Brooklyn, and Ronald Goldstock, the director of the state's Organized Crime Task Force, forecast that the families could be reduced to the level of street gangs within a decade. They said that if prosecution pressure and defections continue, the mobs will lose what remains of their once-flourishing extortion rackets in legitimate businesses.
"No organization, legal or illegal, can withstand repeated decapitations at the top," Mr. Maloney said about the New York area. "They are certainly no longer a growth industry."
Not all experts are that optimistic. Robert J. Kelly, the president of the International Association for the Study of Organized Crime, agreed that the families seemed to have been weakened, but said that if the family units disappear they may undergo another incarnation. Mafiosi 'Will Persist'
"There may not be a Mafia, but there will be mafiosi who will persist as long as there are lucrative criminal opportunities," said Mr. Kelly, who is a professor of social science and criminal justice at Brooklyn College.
From intelligence obtained mainly from electronic eavesdroping and informers, experts cited these signs of decay in the families:
The new turmoil in the Lucchese family stemmed from distrust and a failed attempt to kill Mr. Chiodo in May. After surviving 12 bullet wounds, Mr. Chiodo became a Government witness. When Mr. D'Arco learned last month that there was a contract on his life for botching the hit on Mr. Chiodo, he, too, became a turncoat.
Since the 1930's, the New York region has been the Mafia's strongest bastion in America. Except for New York and Chicago, the F.B.I. and Federal prosecutors maintain that in the last decade they have largely eliminated Mafia strongholds in most big cities. But they say the job has been harder in New York, the only area with five separate, large families, while other cities had one family to eradicate.
Experts say that New York's families have survived because each family created a rigid organization, with rules that defined what kinds of crime could be committed and how profits would be divided.
The Mafia groups also engaged in more sophisticated white-collar crimes than other criminal gangs, and they infiltrated major labor unions. 'Mob's Invisible Tax'
The Manhattan District Attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, said that by skimming "multimillions" annually from the construction and garment industries, the families had imposed an "invisible tax" on the region.
"What they do translates directly into higher costs for such basic things as clothes, the costs of an apartment and an office and discourages legitimate businesses from coming here or staying here," Mr. Morgenthau added.
Laura Brevetti, a former Federal prosecutor, noted that testimony and records disclosed that the Colombo family alone netted at least $80 million a year in the mid-1980's from gasoline tax frauds in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. And Mr. Morgenthau noted that a raid last year on the office of Thomas Gambino, 62, whom prosecutors have called a major organized-crime figure in the garment district, found records showing that he had $75 million in stocks, bonds and bank accounts.
The names of the five families are actually designations by law-enforcement authorities, based on the groups' founders or later bosses. Most members are not related by blood.
As in other regions, the New York Mafia has now has been severely injured by long-term legal strategies that concentrate on eliminating entire family hierarchies.
Federal prosecutors have used the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, and state authorities have applied the state's new Organized Crime Control Act, known as Little RICO, to obtain convictions and indictments against previously insulated bosses and leaders. 'Process of Grinding Down'
Mr. Goldstock, who was not involved in the case, called the window trial "neither a victory nor a defeat, but rather part of an investigative process of grinding down organized crime."
He emphasized that until several years ago it had been "almost unheard of" to convict such high ranking mobsters as Venero Mangano and Benedetto Aloi, who were convicted on Friday on charges of extortion in the window-installation industry.
Two bosses who remain in control of their organizations, investigators say, are John Gotti and Vincent Gigante, 63; authorities say they head the Gambino and Genovese crime families.
Mr. Gotti, 51, is in jail awaiting trial on racketeering charges that include the slaying of his predecessor, Paul Castellano. But Federal and state investigators said that Mr. Gotti still runs the Gambino family from prison, using his son John Jr. The officials, however, believe that his absolute control has slipped in his absence.
Mr. Gigante, 63, was declared mentally unfit last March to stand trial. But investigators believe that he, too, is still in charge.
Thanks to Selwyn Raab
After 60 years of illicit expansion, the combined racketeering power and wealth of New York's five traditional families is going the way of their counterparts in most other cities around the country
, who have succumbed to a decade of aggressive Federal prosecution, the authorities say.For the first time since the Mafia groups were formed in the 1930's, the experts say that all five families -- Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese, Colombo and Bonanno -- are in disarray, hurt by convictions and indictments of top leaders, murderous internal disputes, generational changes and defections by high-ranking members who have become Government witnesses.
The Lucchese family, for example, has had three changes of leadership in less than a year: one boss was jailed, and a second became a Government witness after he botched the killing of a mob captain -- who himself went on to become a key witness in a major racketeering trial aimed at ending the Mafia's influence in the window-installation industry.
All eight defendants were cleared of the racketeering charge on Friday, and six were cleared entirely, while two mid-level bosses were convicted of extortion. But prosecutors said afterward that the case had succeeded in driving the mob out of what had been a lucrative industry.
Moreover, many of the mob's customary money-producing rackets in the New York region, including extortions and kickbacks in the garment district, the Fulton Fish Market and the construction and trucking industries, have been eliminated or reduced by recent convictions and civil court remedies, the experts assert.
Federal and state law-enforcement officials say that the Colombo and Bonanno families have also been so shaken that they are no longer considered powerful threats. But officials cautioned that the the Genovese and Gambino groups -- the two largest in the country -- remain potent forces in illegal sports betting, loan-sharking, labor racketeering and the waste removal industries in the region.
Andrew J. Maloney, the United States Attorney in Brooklyn, and Ronald Goldstock, the director of the state's Organized Crime Task Force, forecast that the families could be reduced to the level of street gangs within a decade. They said that if prosecution pressure and defections continue, the mobs will lose what remains of their once-flourishing extortion rackets in legitimate businesses.
"No organization, legal or illegal, can withstand repeated decapitations at the top," Mr. Maloney said about the New York area. "They are certainly no longer a growth industry."
Not all experts are that optimistic. Robert J. Kelly, the president of the International Association for the Study of Organized Crime, agreed that the families seemed to have been weakened, but said that if the family units disappear they may undergo another incarnation. Mafiosi 'Will Persist'
"There may not be a Mafia, but there will be mafiosi who will persist as long as there are lucrative criminal opportunities," said Mr. Kelly, who is a professor of social science and criminal justice at Brooklyn College.
From intelligence obtained mainly from electronic eavesdroping and informers, experts cited these signs of decay in the families:
- Leadership vacuums or internal wars have weakened the Gambino, Lucchese, Colombo and Bonanno groups, with the bosses and top leaders in each of the families serving prison sentences or in jail awaiting trials.
- The number of active mob members has dropped by half in most cases since a peak in the late 1970's, law-enforcement officials say. The Colombos are down to about 100 members and the Bonnano family to 75.
- The only reputed boss of a family not behind bars is Vincent Gigante, the suspected Genovese leader, who has been declared mentally unfit to stand trial on racketeering charges. Four capos or captains are trying to run the family but still consulting Mr. Gigante on major decisions.
- The acting boss of the Lucchese family, Alphonse D'Arco, 59 years old, and a capo, Peter Chiodo, 40, both apparently fearing for their lives because of family strife, have become government witnesses. Their defections, said Mr. Maloney, may produce a wave of new indictments against Lucchese members. "It could be the death knell for the family," he asserted.
- Control of the Colombo family is being disputed by two factions and the authorities say that the rivals have issued contracts to murder each other.
The new turmoil in the Lucchese family stemmed from distrust and a failed attempt to kill Mr. Chiodo in May. After surviving 12 bullet wounds, Mr. Chiodo became a Government witness. When Mr. D'Arco learned last month that there was a contract on his life for botching the hit on Mr. Chiodo, he, too, became a turncoat.
Since the 1930's, the New York region has been the Mafia's strongest bastion in America. Except for New York and Chicago, the F.B.I. and Federal prosecutors maintain that in the last decade they have largely eliminated Mafia strongholds in most big cities. But they say the job has been harder in New York, the only area with five separate, large families, while other cities had one family to eradicate.
Experts say that New York's families have survived because each family created a rigid organization, with rules that defined what kinds of crime could be committed and how profits would be divided.
The Mafia groups also engaged in more sophisticated white-collar crimes than other criminal gangs, and they infiltrated major labor unions. 'Mob's Invisible Tax'
The Manhattan District Attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, said that by skimming "multimillions" annually from the construction and garment industries, the families had imposed an "invisible tax" on the region.
"What they do translates directly into higher costs for such basic things as clothes, the costs of an apartment and an office and discourages legitimate businesses from coming here or staying here," Mr. Morgenthau added.
Laura Brevetti, a former Federal prosecutor, noted that testimony and records disclosed that the Colombo family alone netted at least $80 million a year in the mid-1980's from gasoline tax frauds in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. And Mr. Morgenthau noted that a raid last year on the office of Thomas Gambino, 62, whom prosecutors have called a major organized-crime figure in the garment district, found records showing that he had $75 million in stocks, bonds and bank accounts.
The names of the five families are actually designations by law-enforcement authorities, based on the groups' founders or later bosses. Most members are not related by blood.
As in other regions, the New York Mafia has now has been severely injured by long-term legal strategies that concentrate on eliminating entire family hierarchies.
Federal prosecutors have used the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, and state authorities have applied the state's new Organized Crime Control Act, known as Little RICO, to obtain convictions and indictments against previously insulated bosses and leaders. 'Process of Grinding Down'
Mr. Goldstock, who was not involved in the case, called the window trial "neither a victory nor a defeat, but rather part of an investigative process of grinding down organized crime."
He emphasized that until several years ago it had been "almost unheard of" to convict such high ranking mobsters as Venero Mangano and Benedetto Aloi, who were convicted on Friday on charges of extortion in the window-installation industry.
Two bosses who remain in control of their organizations, investigators say, are John Gotti and Vincent Gigante, 63; authorities say they head the Gambino and Genovese crime families.
Mr. Gotti, 51, is in jail awaiting trial on racketeering charges that include the slaying of his predecessor, Paul Castellano. But Federal and state investigators said that Mr. Gotti still runs the Gambino family from prison, using his son John Jr. The officials, however, believe that his absolute control has slipped in his absence.
Mr. Gigante, 63, was declared mentally unfit last March to stand trial. But investigators believe that he, too, is still in charge.
Thanks to Selwyn Raab
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