Randy Pizzolo
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- Browniety86
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Randy Pizzolo
Did Randy Pizzolo ever do any serious work for the Bonanno family?
- Dapper_Don
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Re: Randy Pizzolo
he shot gambino associate darren d'amico (didnt die) at caffe on the green in 2002. One thing most folks dont know is Randy was proposed by Vinny, but due to various transgressions was never inducted. Randy would later threaten to "level the Bronx" for not being inducted, etc which is a reference to the bronx faction of the family which wielded control at that time. That sealed his fate and he was popped in 2004. Interesting enough,there was a two part murder plot of Randy, where Randy would first murder somebody, then joey gambina would drive him to a meeting where Ace would kill Randy. Gambino later warned and told Ace he was backing out of this plan since he feared it was a setup by Dom Cicale should he later turn rat, this whole plot came about after Vinny was already in the can during the fall of 2004 right before Randy's murder.
"Bill had to go, he was getting too powerful. If Allie Boy went away on a gun charge, Bill would have took over the family” - Joe Campy testimony about Jackie DeRoss explaining Will Bill murder
- Browniety86
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Re: Randy Pizzolo
That's alot of info there I'd never heard before. I never knew Basciano proposed Randy, I always thought they kept him off the list for his cowboy antics...Dapper_Don wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 6:04 am he shot gambino associate darren d'amico (didnt die) at caffe on the green in 2002. One thing most folks dont know is Randy was proposed by Vinny, but due to various transgressions was never inducted. Randy would later threaten to "level the Bronx" for not being inducted, etc which is a reference to the bronx faction of the family which wielded control at that time. That sealed his fate and he was popped in 2004. Interesting enough,there was a two part murder plot of Randy, where Randy would first murder somebody, then joey gambina would drive him to a meeting where Ace would kill Randy. Gambino later warned and told Ace he was backing out of this plan since he feared it was a setup by Dom Cicale should he later turn rat, this whole plot came about after Vinny was already in the can during the fall of 2004 right before Randy's murder.
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Re: Randy Pizzolo
its all in court transcripts you can find on google, particularly in Vinny's appeals to get his conviction overturned
"But Pizzolo's killing is the backbone of the case since prosecutors allege Basciano had him whacked in 2004 and dumped in the street to send a message."He [Pizzolo] was what you might call a 'wanna-be,'" Assistant Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Nicole Argentieri told the jury.
"What Randy Pizzolo wanted to be more than anything was an inducted member of organized crime, a made man in the Mafia."
Basciano even proposed him for membership before Pizzolo made several fatal errors.
"[Pizzolo] treated the defendant with disrespect. ... He insulted him and he embarrassed him," Argentieri said.
His bullet-riddled corpse was found facedown on a Greenpoint, Brooklyn, street, his head in a puddle. He wore an expensive wristwatch and pinkie ring. He had $1,000 in his pocket and clutched a cigarette lighter."
"But Pizzolo's killing is the backbone of the case since prosecutors allege Basciano had him whacked in 2004 and dumped in the street to send a message."He [Pizzolo] was what you might call a 'wanna-be,'" Assistant Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Nicole Argentieri told the jury.
"What Randy Pizzolo wanted to be more than anything was an inducted member of organized crime, a made man in the Mafia."
Basciano even proposed him for membership before Pizzolo made several fatal errors.
"[Pizzolo] treated the defendant with disrespect. ... He insulted him and he embarrassed him," Argentieri said.
His bullet-riddled corpse was found facedown on a Greenpoint, Brooklyn, street, his head in a puddle. He wore an expensive wristwatch and pinkie ring. He had $1,000 in his pocket and clutched a cigarette lighter."
"Bill had to go, he was getting too powerful. If Allie Boy went away on a gun charge, Bill would have took over the family” - Joe Campy testimony about Jackie DeRoss explaining Will Bill murder
Re: Randy Pizzolo
Randy Pizzolo was the guy Basciano wanted to kill right? How long was Basciano technically in charged before getting arrested?
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Re: Randy Pizzolo
Massino was arrested in January 9, 2003, Basciano on November 19, 2004. The whole Pizzolo murder plot discussions heated up by late November 2004, Randy was murdered in December 2004.
"Bill had to go, he was getting too powerful. If Allie Boy went away on a gun charge, Bill would have took over the family” - Joe Campy testimony about Jackie DeRoss explaining Will Bill murder
Re: Randy Pizzolo
This is the guy Ace Aiello killed, right?
- Pogo The Clown
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Re: Randy Pizzolo
Dapper_Don wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 8:11 amMassino was arrested in January 9, 2003, Basciano on November 19, 2004. The whole Pizzolo murder plot discussions heated up by late November 2004, Randy was murdered in December 2004.
Antohny Urso was the Acting Boss after Massino was arrested. He was arrested in January 2004. So Basciano lasted less than 10 months on the street as Acting Boss.
Pogo
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Re: Randy Pizzolo
Yep. Pizzolo was whacked November 30, 2004 to be specificPogo The Clown wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 10:24 amAntohny Urso was the Acting Boss after Massino was arrested. He was arrested in January 2004. So Basciano lasted less than 10 months on the street as Acting Boss.Dapper_Don wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 8:11 amMassino was arrested in January 9, 2003, Basciano on November 19, 2004. The whole Pizzolo murder plot discussions heated up by late November 2004, Randy was murdered in December 2004.
Pogo
After Vinny was arrested Mancuso took over as acting boss (Basciano had gave him that role should Vinny be arrested). Massino was pissed Vinny put Mikey Nose in there without Massino's consent, Massino was also pissed at Basciano for basically taking the reins of the family when massino was in jail, barney bellomo offered to whack basciano during a jailhosue chat with massino but massino gave him a pass.
"Bill had to go, he was getting too powerful. If Allie Boy went away on a gun charge, Bill would have took over the family” - Joe Campy testimony about Jackie DeRoss explaining Will Bill murder
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Re: Randy Pizzolo
here are some old wiretaps of Massino with his chats with Vinny in jail and some testimony from Massino:
Massino, who is secretly leading Basciano down the garden path of betrayal, draws out Basciano on what prosecutors said was the murder of Randy Pizzolo.
Massino: I took twenty years to put this together. It's easy to take a life. I can take a life everyday.
Basciano: I know that.
Massino: What am I going to gain taking a life everyday?
Basciano: (Inaudible)
Massino: Who?
Basciano: Randy was fuckin' jerkoff, beau.
Massino: Yea, but did it warrant--wait a minute, did it warrant the clip?
Basciano: I tell you what, he goes into Villa Sonoma, drunk, with a fuckin' pistol.
Massino: So, why didn't you just chase him?
Basciano:...you want to know why? Because he's a fuckin' dangerous kid that don't fuckin' listen. He talks stupid, he talks that a fuckin' jerkoff. He's fuckin'--He just an annoying kid.
The tapes, transcripts of which are now available, continue to give insight into the way the Bonanno family was trying to regroup itself after Massino was convicted in July 2004. Massino annointed Basciano as a street/acting boss who was supposed to consult two or three other trusted captain. But Basciano was so smitten by the power that he considered himself a first among equals, as this exchange with Massino shows. Basciano said that other captains had to check with him before ordering hits but he didn't have to check with anybody.
Though both worked together in the Bonanno family, the Massino tapes show that problems developed in late 2004, when Basciano acting as street boss gave Mancuso powers in case he (Basciano) was arrested. This was shown as Basciano talked with Massino in jail. The transcript is now on filed in Brooklyn federal court in Basciano's death penalty case.
Basciano: My objective over here was for Joe Massino, not for Vinny Basciano. I put everybody together as a tough guy and told everybody that this is for you, it's not me. I made certain decisions over there to avoid all the bullshit of comin'back and forth in the can and I hadda make them in street. I told everybody, these decisions that I'm making aren't set in stone. If Joe wants to change 'em, he changes them. I'm doin' this right now for the good of this [borgata]. Everybody agreed. Michael Nose says Vinny, you know somethin'? I'm proud of ya. ...
Massino: Well, there's somethin' wrong now because...
Basciano then tried to explain the problems with Mancuso.
Basciano: The problem is over here, the first message I think that went out. What happened was, Michael might have moved too fast...after I got pinched, he went to Dominick and he started askin' Dominick questions about what I had goin' on the street. Dominick caught a delusion 'casue I know they had an argument.
Massino: Okay, okay.
Basciano then said that it wasn't Mancuso's business what he had. But Massino interjected and said Basciano couldn't say it wasn't Mancuso's business "if it's comin' to La Cosa Nostra." In other words any crime family business was something Mancuso had to be aware of, said Massino.
During the January 7, 2005 jailhouse conversation Massino had with Vincent Basciano, which was secretly taped, both men talk about the elevation of one "Michael" presumably Michael Mancuso, to a position of power in the Bonanno family. Massino is secretly cooperating with the FBI and seems to be trying to challenge Basciano, who had been Massino's selection as acting street boss until he got arrested, on the selection of Mancuso.
Basciano: Michael is lookin' for his day in the sun. I put Michael there with your consent, and I appreciated Michael"s...
Massino: No, you didn't put Michael there with my consent, you did it on your own.
Basciano: Well, I sent word afterwards.
Massino: After you did it, what good is that? Well I'm goona be straight up with ya.
Basciano: Yea.
Massino: I wouldn't do that to you....
Later on, in a humorous reference, Massino remarks about how there was some suggestion in a magazine that he was friendly with some woman seen with him in a surveillance photo. Massino tells Basciano he didn't even know the woman and that his wife, Josephine had a catty remark about the woman shown in the photo.
Massino: My daughter tells me yesterday, my wife got a microscope. And she's lookin' and she's tellin' my daughter, she' too old and too fat, daddy wouldn't go with her.
Basciano: That's your wife's sayin'?
Massino: Yesterday I had too much to do. I got a visit. I hadda wash my clothes, two lawyer visits.
Basciano: Bo, washing your clothes is a fuckin' trip though, right?
Massino: I can't wear the , the briefs, I gotta, I got a bah I got four pairs of boxers.
Basciano: I don't know who you do it in the that shower.
* * *
Basciano: How you feel, buddy?
Massino: I feel good.
Basciano: Oh, yeah?
Massino: My sugar's been good, but.
Basciano: Right, right, right.
Massino: You never mentioned one word about Randy (Pizzolo)...That was on a Friday. The following Friday we had a co-defendant meeting that's when you tell me that yous clipped him. Why don't yous tell me that Friday? Why didn't you ask me?
Basciano: (sighs)
Masssino: Why didn't you ask me that Friday? You didn't.
Basciano: It was already in the works beau.
Basciano: They had to check with me.
Massino: Yeah, but you don't have to check with them.
Basciano: No.
Massino: Why? What makes the difference...you understand where I'm coming from?
Basciano: ...What I did what I tried to do, Joe, I tried to give a structure because everybody was all over the fuckin' board. And what I did, by me taking the reigns, I annointed myself, through you, as acting boss. I made Michael acting underboss and Anthony acting consiglieri. I told everybody: nobody makes a move without coming to me....
Basciano was apparently talking about Michael Mancuso and Anthony Rabito. Massino seemed a bit puzzled by Basciano's remarks, saying that he should sit down with the other so-called ruling panel members to discuss things. Massino said discussion was the way to do things, even when he was the boss. "I was the boss, and I used to sit down with Tony Green and Joe C., hey discuss things." Basciano agreed with Massino.
Massino, who is secretly leading Basciano down the garden path of betrayal, draws out Basciano on what prosecutors said was the murder of Randy Pizzolo.
Massino: I took twenty years to put this together. It's easy to take a life. I can take a life everyday.
Basciano: I know that.
Massino: What am I going to gain taking a life everyday?
Basciano: (Inaudible)
Massino: Who?
Basciano: Randy was fuckin' jerkoff, beau.
Massino: Yea, but did it warrant--wait a minute, did it warrant the clip?
Basciano: I tell you what, he goes into Villa Sonoma, drunk, with a fuckin' pistol.
Massino: So, why didn't you just chase him?
Basciano:...you want to know why? Because he's a fuckin' dangerous kid that don't fuckin' listen. He talks stupid, he talks that a fuckin' jerkoff. He's fuckin'--He just an annoying kid.
The tapes, transcripts of which are now available, continue to give insight into the way the Bonanno family was trying to regroup itself after Massino was convicted in July 2004. Massino annointed Basciano as a street/acting boss who was supposed to consult two or three other trusted captain. But Basciano was so smitten by the power that he considered himself a first among equals, as this exchange with Massino shows. Basciano said that other captains had to check with him before ordering hits but he didn't have to check with anybody.
Though both worked together in the Bonanno family, the Massino tapes show that problems developed in late 2004, when Basciano acting as street boss gave Mancuso powers in case he (Basciano) was arrested. This was shown as Basciano talked with Massino in jail. The transcript is now on filed in Brooklyn federal court in Basciano's death penalty case.
Basciano: My objective over here was for Joe Massino, not for Vinny Basciano. I put everybody together as a tough guy and told everybody that this is for you, it's not me. I made certain decisions over there to avoid all the bullshit of comin'back and forth in the can and I hadda make them in street. I told everybody, these decisions that I'm making aren't set in stone. If Joe wants to change 'em, he changes them. I'm doin' this right now for the good of this [borgata]. Everybody agreed. Michael Nose says Vinny, you know somethin'? I'm proud of ya. ...
Massino: Well, there's somethin' wrong now because...
Basciano then tried to explain the problems with Mancuso.
Basciano: The problem is over here, the first message I think that went out. What happened was, Michael might have moved too fast...after I got pinched, he went to Dominick and he started askin' Dominick questions about what I had goin' on the street. Dominick caught a delusion 'casue I know they had an argument.
Massino: Okay, okay.
Basciano then said that it wasn't Mancuso's business what he had. But Massino interjected and said Basciano couldn't say it wasn't Mancuso's business "if it's comin' to La Cosa Nostra." In other words any crime family business was something Mancuso had to be aware of, said Massino.
During the January 7, 2005 jailhouse conversation Massino had with Vincent Basciano, which was secretly taped, both men talk about the elevation of one "Michael" presumably Michael Mancuso, to a position of power in the Bonanno family. Massino is secretly cooperating with the FBI and seems to be trying to challenge Basciano, who had been Massino's selection as acting street boss until he got arrested, on the selection of Mancuso.
Basciano: Michael is lookin' for his day in the sun. I put Michael there with your consent, and I appreciated Michael"s...
Massino: No, you didn't put Michael there with my consent, you did it on your own.
Basciano: Well, I sent word afterwards.
Massino: After you did it, what good is that? Well I'm goona be straight up with ya.
Basciano: Yea.
Massino: I wouldn't do that to you....
Later on, in a humorous reference, Massino remarks about how there was some suggestion in a magazine that he was friendly with some woman seen with him in a surveillance photo. Massino tells Basciano he didn't even know the woman and that his wife, Josephine had a catty remark about the woman shown in the photo.
Massino: My daughter tells me yesterday, my wife got a microscope. And she's lookin' and she's tellin' my daughter, she' too old and too fat, daddy wouldn't go with her.
Basciano: That's your wife's sayin'?
Massino: Yesterday I had too much to do. I got a visit. I hadda wash my clothes, two lawyer visits.
Basciano: Bo, washing your clothes is a fuckin' trip though, right?
Massino: I can't wear the , the briefs, I gotta, I got a bah I got four pairs of boxers.
Basciano: I don't know who you do it in the that shower.
* * *
Basciano: How you feel, buddy?
Massino: I feel good.
Basciano: Oh, yeah?
Massino: My sugar's been good, but.
Basciano: Right, right, right.
Massino: You never mentioned one word about Randy (Pizzolo)...That was on a Friday. The following Friday we had a co-defendant meeting that's when you tell me that yous clipped him. Why don't yous tell me that Friday? Why didn't you ask me?
Basciano: (sighs)
Masssino: Why didn't you ask me that Friday? You didn't.
Basciano: It was already in the works beau.
Basciano: They had to check with me.
Massino: Yeah, but you don't have to check with them.
Basciano: No.
Massino: Why? What makes the difference...you understand where I'm coming from?
Basciano: ...What I did what I tried to do, Joe, I tried to give a structure because everybody was all over the fuckin' board. And what I did, by me taking the reigns, I annointed myself, through you, as acting boss. I made Michael acting underboss and Anthony acting consiglieri. I told everybody: nobody makes a move without coming to me....
Basciano was apparently talking about Michael Mancuso and Anthony Rabito. Massino seemed a bit puzzled by Basciano's remarks, saying that he should sit down with the other so-called ruling panel members to discuss things. Massino said discussion was the way to do things, even when he was the boss. "I was the boss, and I used to sit down with Tony Green and Joe C., hey discuss things." Basciano agreed with Massino.
"Bill had to go, he was getting too powerful. If Allie Boy went away on a gun charge, Bill would have took over the family” - Joe Campy testimony about Jackie DeRoss explaining Will Bill murder
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Re: Randy Pizzolo
some more
There was one more trip Massino took two days before he was arrested on January 9, 2003. That was when he met Vincent Basciano at a diner on Rockaway Avenue in Queens on January 7, 2003. In his testimony, Massino described telling Basciano that he was going to get arrested very soon and that if they had to kill anybody it could be done. The code word for a hit was to be the word "Jocko" which was to be said in conjunction with the name of the target, said Massino. Basciano also wanted to kill the family underboss, Sal Vitale, but Massino said he told him not to, that he needed facts and not mere suspicion that Vitale was an informant. [Vitale didn't turn government witness until a month later, after he was arrested on the same day as Massino] "Take care," Basciano wished Massino.
"[Anthony] Ace Aiello is like a Luca Brasi," Basciano said, comparing the Bonanno soldier to the Corleone's loyal hit man, on recordings played in Brooklyn federal court yesterday.
"He's your Luca Brasi," Basciano said.
"Did your wife get the money, by the way?" Basciano asks on the recording. "I sent your wife money."
Massino replied that his wife, Josephine, received the tribute from Basciano, which was stuffed inside a bottle of champagne.
"A bottle of Dom Perignon. $50,000. It came from Vinny," Massino explained on the stand.
Prosecutors played the recordings Massino made in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to prove that Basciano ordered the hit.
Massino proved adept at drawing out evidence for the feds.
"Randy -- you OK'd it?" Massino asked Basciano.
"I gave the order," Basciano replies. "Randy was a f--king jerkoff."
Massino pushed further. "Did it warrant the clip?"
Basciano explained that Pizzolo went to meet a made man while carrying a pistol -- a major Mafia no-no.
Massino kept pushing Basciano to reveal more.
"I don't want people talking that 'we' clipped Randy. 'You' clipped Randy," Massino said.
Massino explained to the court that "we" means the family, while "you" means Vinny ordering it on his own.
"No, nobody knows that. 'We' didn't do it," Basciano answers.
"He's a f--king dangerous kid, who don't listen. He's just an annoying kid," Basciano said.
"These guys were out there doing whatever the f--k they want. I thought this kid would be a good wake-up call for everybody.
"People get killed every day. They gonna blame everybody in The Bronx on me?" Basciano said.
The full weight of Massino's betrayal is made clear in the loyalty Basciano showed on the recording.
"I'd go to hell and back. I made an oath to you," he told Massino.
Massino, who turned informant in 2005 after being convicted of seven murders and facing death-penalty charges on an eighth, complained Basciano didn't clear the hit with him first.
"Why didn't you ask me?" Massino asked.
"It was already in the works, bo [slang for boss]," Basciano said. "This kid though . . . this kid deserved it. This kid was a f--king thorn. He didn't listen to no f--king body."
He would shed light on slightly vague metaphors from Basciano, like when the latter said in a taped conversation, "It's your show. I'm only out here running it for you."
Massino clarified: "He's running the Bonnano family."
When a prosecutor asked the aging mobster what he meant by saying someone "had a hair up his nose about Michael," Massino responded, "He had a bug up his ass."
When Massino was asked to clarify what he meant by calling Vic "a boob", he just repeated, "He was a boob" which drew muffled snickering from several people in the federal court room.
It takes all kinds of meat to make a good sauce, he said at one point, as a metaphor for the many types of mobsters who constitute a good crime family.
Basciano did his fair share of talking on the tapes as well as the two discussed laundry, women and food. At one point he said, "I was f-----g made for this life."
When Basciano was taped saying, I told them who to use, Massino told prosecutors that meant Basciano gave the order to use two members of the Bonnano family to murder Pizzolo in 2004.
When prosecutors played recordings of Massino discussing other mobsters who had worn a wire or his relationship with Basciano.
"Im your boss, but Im not your boss", Massino said in a taped conversation. "Im also your friend."
They groused about their accommodations.
MASSINO: Oh, you gotta see the flood I had in my cell yesterday.
BASCIANO: The toilet?
MASSINO: No, the f------ roof. Five towels, mopped the floor. I gotta walk around.
BASCIANO: That's my bunkie (cellmate). F------ jerk.
MASSINO: They're comin' to get us.
BASCIANO: Bo, I get stronger every f------ day.
They griped about their wives and girlfriends.
MASSINO: They come out with a magazine, FHM. It's about me. Paris. All the bull----. I'm at a wake, 1986, Frankie DeCicco. I'm walkin'....
BASCIANO: I saw it.
MASSINO: You see the girl alongside me?
BASCIANO: Oh no. I didn't see that. That's her, Bo?
MASSINO: No!
BASCIANO: Your wife saw that?
MASSINO: I don't know who the f--- she is. My daughter tells me yesterday, my wife got a microscope. And she's lookin' and she's tellin' my daughter, 'She's too old and too fat. Daddy wouldn't go with her.'
BASCIANO: That's your wife sayin'? On everything else you need this.
MASSINO: I really set her off. Really, really, really.
BASCIANO: She ain't gonna divorce you, Bo. My wife ain't gonna divorce me either.
MASSINO: I don't know. I don't know.
BASCIANO: Maybe if she seen that, she want my girlfriend ...
MASSINO: If I had a baby? Fuhgeddabout that.
BASCIANO: I denied it.
MASSINO: But with Big Lou (James Tartaglione, captain in Bonanno family), you tell him your girlfriend's pregnant? You had the baby already, no? Or am I wrong?
BASCIANO: Yeah, I had the baby already.
MASSINO: So what are you talking about pregnant?
BASCIANO: I never told about my girlfriend being pregnant. She had the baby two years ago. I said (to then-wife), 'Angela, it's not true.' I said, 'It's a lie.'
They marveled at the ascension of octogenarian gangster John "Sonny" Franzese to Colombo underboss.
MASSINO: I mean, the funniest thing, Sonny's gotta be 87 years old and I like Sonny. It's just crazy.
BASCIANO: You gotta see him. He's gonna be in here.
MASSINO: How long more does he got to live?
BASCIANO: He's in some shape, Bo. He might live to be a hundred. He'll be the screwiest underboss.
They pondered whether legit guys can double as gangsters.
BASCIANO: The only problem is Jerry, like you said, he works from nine to five.
MASSINO. That's OK. That was Ronnie Mozzarella's thing. 'Oh, I gotta go sell mozzarella.' I said you gotta go at night or the weekends. You can't stop a guy from makin' a living. You gotta service your guys. I lost my cake business. I lost my deli because I was on the lam. He shut right up.
BASCIANO: How did Ronnie Mozzarella get there? What was he born and became a mozzarella guy? He got there because of us.
They discussed the importance of leadership.
MASSINO: When you become a boss, you become a c---s-----. You can't make everybody happy ... I got the toughest f----- job in the world. If I listen to everybody I won't have a f----- friend. I'm not stupid. I didn't fall off no f----- pumpkin truck. To me, life is precious.
They waxed philosophic.
MASSINO: We got enough enemies. We're fighting the law. We're fighting the rats. We fight ourselves. We can't confuse our people. We gotta confuse the enemy.
BASCIANO: I know you're a compassionate guy and I know you believe in giving everybody a second chance.
They compared laundry.
MASSINO: Yesterday I had too much to do. I had to wash my clothes.
BASCIANO: Bo, washing your clothes is a f----- trip, though, right?
MASSINO: I can't wear the briefs. I got four pairs of boxers.
BASCIANO: I don't know how you do it in that shower.
And they parted friends - temporarily.
MASSINO: I'll see ya. Have a good weekend.
BASCIANO: I love you, Bo.
MASSINO: I love you too. It felt good, the (fresh) air.
BASCIANO: You sleep alright?
MASSINO: Eh, I'm not a sleeper.
BASCIANO: Yesterday, I passed your room, you had a towel over your head.
MASSINO: Yeah, because the light bothers my eyes. I read the (trial) minutes and s---.
BASCIANO: Take care.
MASSINO: Be good.
"I was thinking of who to put there, and Vinny Basciano put himself there," Massino said.
When Basciano's lawyer George Goltzer asked Massino if that meant he didn't want Basciano to take over, he said: "Correct . . . I could have killed him [Basciano]. They [the Genovese family] wanted to kill him. I said, 'Take a pass.' "
Massino said five hit men were hiding inside a closet and waited for a pre-arranged signal to jump out and begin firing at Dominick "Big Trin" Trinichera, Alphonse "Sonny Red" Indelicato, and Philip "Philly Lucky" Giaccone.
Massino said the three men were buried about 15 feet deep with the help of the Gambino family.
"John Gotti [who helped with the disposal] said, 'You'll never find them.' "
* Murder must look random instead of professional, so don't bury bodies in out-of-the-way locations. "Do it in the street. Throw [a body] in the street," Massino said.
* Massino said he didn't believe in hiring the family members of his soldiers because "you can't be a father and a son in the same crew. It don't work."
* And don't let fear stop you, he advised Basciano when discussing the younger man taking the reins. "You can't be afraid to be [in] the top seat. I wasn't afraid."
* As for ever trusting a lawyer to help communicate your orders, don't, he said. "A lawyer never gets a message right. I was getting messages [to people] through my daughter."
* Massino also said it was a complete violation of his policies for anyone to kill without his permission, insisting, "Life is precious to me."
"I don't know if I'm gonna get divorced," Massino confided to Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano in a secretly taped prison conversation.
Not even a delivered bottle of Dom Perignon champagne with $50,000 hidden inside could appease his fuming spouse.
"She's on tranquilizers and she's got my daughters going out of their f------ minds," the mob boss said.
"She started Thursday night with the girl again," he continued, apparently referring to testimony about a goumada at his trial.
Meanwhile, prison life was wearing down Massino.
"I went to the bathroom 15 times," he complained. "The food is terrible. The shower is terrible."
“He (Barney) told me that they were going to make a move on me — they were going to kill me,” Massino testified. “If John was in the street, I believe him and my brother-in-law would have killed me.”
Vitale may not have killed Massino, but he delivered a near-fatal blow when he agreed to cooperate with investigators and testify at Massino’s murder trial. It was following that conviction on seven murders, and while still awaiting trial on an eighth, that Massino also agreed to turn stoolie.
As part of his cooperation agreement with the FBI, Massino agreed to turn over $7 million in cash and hundreds of gold bars.
But the Bonanno bad guy insisted yesterday that he had the kind of natural business talent that could have made him rich even without resorting to violence and intimidation.
“I didn’t need to be boss,” Massino said on the stand. “I didn’t need the life.” Basciano’s defense attorney, Richard Jasper, asked Massino if he believed that he could have been just as wealthy in a legitimate enterprise. “That’s fair to say,” Massino said.
“But you did make millions in the mob,” the defense attorney shot back.
“That’s correct,” Massino said of his Mafia fortune.
Massino, who wore a wire and managed to get Basciano to admit to ordering a hit on Bonanno associate Randy Pizzolo, showed a talent for drawing out dirt on his compatriot.
In order to get him to talk, he did have to stretch the truth a bit, he told defense attorneys, admitting that some of what he said on the tapes were outright lies.
“I just said that for conversation — I made that up,” Massino said. “I felt he was strokin’ me, so I was strokin’ him back.
You were bulls- - -tting me, so I’m bulls- - -tting you back,” Massino explained about his prison-house chats with Vinny.
He also used his undercover work as an opportunity to vent about the rigors of being a boss.
“I broke my f - - king ass like Guadalcanal,” Massino is heard telling Basciano on the tapes.
Ironically, Massino testified that even after many of his close associates had turned on him, Basciano remained loyal.
After he went to prison, only Vinny Gorgeous delivered a share of the earnings from the family’s various illegal businesses to Massino’s wife.
“I didn’t get a dime,” Massino said, referring to his loansharking business and his sports-betting operations.
“[Basciano] was the only person who was doing the right thing,” he said.
There was one more trip Massino took two days before he was arrested on January 9, 2003. That was when he met Vincent Basciano at a diner on Rockaway Avenue in Queens on January 7, 2003. In his testimony, Massino described telling Basciano that he was going to get arrested very soon and that if they had to kill anybody it could be done. The code word for a hit was to be the word "Jocko" which was to be said in conjunction with the name of the target, said Massino. Basciano also wanted to kill the family underboss, Sal Vitale, but Massino said he told him not to, that he needed facts and not mere suspicion that Vitale was an informant. [Vitale didn't turn government witness until a month later, after he was arrested on the same day as Massino] "Take care," Basciano wished Massino.
"[Anthony] Ace Aiello is like a Luca Brasi," Basciano said, comparing the Bonanno soldier to the Corleone's loyal hit man, on recordings played in Brooklyn federal court yesterday.
"He's your Luca Brasi," Basciano said.
"Did your wife get the money, by the way?" Basciano asks on the recording. "I sent your wife money."
Massino replied that his wife, Josephine, received the tribute from Basciano, which was stuffed inside a bottle of champagne.
"A bottle of Dom Perignon. $50,000. It came from Vinny," Massino explained on the stand.
Prosecutors played the recordings Massino made in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to prove that Basciano ordered the hit.
Massino proved adept at drawing out evidence for the feds.
"Randy -- you OK'd it?" Massino asked Basciano.
"I gave the order," Basciano replies. "Randy was a f--king jerkoff."
Massino pushed further. "Did it warrant the clip?"
Basciano explained that Pizzolo went to meet a made man while carrying a pistol -- a major Mafia no-no.
Massino kept pushing Basciano to reveal more.
"I don't want people talking that 'we' clipped Randy. 'You' clipped Randy," Massino said.
Massino explained to the court that "we" means the family, while "you" means Vinny ordering it on his own.
"No, nobody knows that. 'We' didn't do it," Basciano answers.
"He's a f--king dangerous kid, who don't listen. He's just an annoying kid," Basciano said.
"These guys were out there doing whatever the f--k they want. I thought this kid would be a good wake-up call for everybody.
"People get killed every day. They gonna blame everybody in The Bronx on me?" Basciano said.
The full weight of Massino's betrayal is made clear in the loyalty Basciano showed on the recording.
"I'd go to hell and back. I made an oath to you," he told Massino.
Massino, who turned informant in 2005 after being convicted of seven murders and facing death-penalty charges on an eighth, complained Basciano didn't clear the hit with him first.
"Why didn't you ask me?" Massino asked.
"It was already in the works, bo [slang for boss]," Basciano said. "This kid though . . . this kid deserved it. This kid was a f--king thorn. He didn't listen to no f--king body."
He would shed light on slightly vague metaphors from Basciano, like when the latter said in a taped conversation, "It's your show. I'm only out here running it for you."
Massino clarified: "He's running the Bonnano family."
When a prosecutor asked the aging mobster what he meant by saying someone "had a hair up his nose about Michael," Massino responded, "He had a bug up his ass."
When Massino was asked to clarify what he meant by calling Vic "a boob", he just repeated, "He was a boob" which drew muffled snickering from several people in the federal court room.
It takes all kinds of meat to make a good sauce, he said at one point, as a metaphor for the many types of mobsters who constitute a good crime family.
Basciano did his fair share of talking on the tapes as well as the two discussed laundry, women and food. At one point he said, "I was f-----g made for this life."
When Basciano was taped saying, I told them who to use, Massino told prosecutors that meant Basciano gave the order to use two members of the Bonnano family to murder Pizzolo in 2004.
When prosecutors played recordings of Massino discussing other mobsters who had worn a wire or his relationship with Basciano.
"Im your boss, but Im not your boss", Massino said in a taped conversation. "Im also your friend."
They groused about their accommodations.
MASSINO: Oh, you gotta see the flood I had in my cell yesterday.
BASCIANO: The toilet?
MASSINO: No, the f------ roof. Five towels, mopped the floor. I gotta walk around.
BASCIANO: That's my bunkie (cellmate). F------ jerk.
MASSINO: They're comin' to get us.
BASCIANO: Bo, I get stronger every f------ day.
They griped about their wives and girlfriends.
MASSINO: They come out with a magazine, FHM. It's about me. Paris. All the bull----. I'm at a wake, 1986, Frankie DeCicco. I'm walkin'....
BASCIANO: I saw it.
MASSINO: You see the girl alongside me?
BASCIANO: Oh no. I didn't see that. That's her, Bo?
MASSINO: No!
BASCIANO: Your wife saw that?
MASSINO: I don't know who the f--- she is. My daughter tells me yesterday, my wife got a microscope. And she's lookin' and she's tellin' my daughter, 'She's too old and too fat. Daddy wouldn't go with her.'
BASCIANO: That's your wife sayin'? On everything else you need this.
MASSINO: I really set her off. Really, really, really.
BASCIANO: She ain't gonna divorce you, Bo. My wife ain't gonna divorce me either.
MASSINO: I don't know. I don't know.
BASCIANO: Maybe if she seen that, she want my girlfriend ...
MASSINO: If I had a baby? Fuhgeddabout that.
BASCIANO: I denied it.
MASSINO: But with Big Lou (James Tartaglione, captain in Bonanno family), you tell him your girlfriend's pregnant? You had the baby already, no? Or am I wrong?
BASCIANO: Yeah, I had the baby already.
MASSINO: So what are you talking about pregnant?
BASCIANO: I never told about my girlfriend being pregnant. She had the baby two years ago. I said (to then-wife), 'Angela, it's not true.' I said, 'It's a lie.'
They marveled at the ascension of octogenarian gangster John "Sonny" Franzese to Colombo underboss.
MASSINO: I mean, the funniest thing, Sonny's gotta be 87 years old and I like Sonny. It's just crazy.
BASCIANO: You gotta see him. He's gonna be in here.
MASSINO: How long more does he got to live?
BASCIANO: He's in some shape, Bo. He might live to be a hundred. He'll be the screwiest underboss.
They pondered whether legit guys can double as gangsters.
BASCIANO: The only problem is Jerry, like you said, he works from nine to five.
MASSINO. That's OK. That was Ronnie Mozzarella's thing. 'Oh, I gotta go sell mozzarella.' I said you gotta go at night or the weekends. You can't stop a guy from makin' a living. You gotta service your guys. I lost my cake business. I lost my deli because I was on the lam. He shut right up.
BASCIANO: How did Ronnie Mozzarella get there? What was he born and became a mozzarella guy? He got there because of us.
They discussed the importance of leadership.
MASSINO: When you become a boss, you become a c---s-----. You can't make everybody happy ... I got the toughest f----- job in the world. If I listen to everybody I won't have a f----- friend. I'm not stupid. I didn't fall off no f----- pumpkin truck. To me, life is precious.
They waxed philosophic.
MASSINO: We got enough enemies. We're fighting the law. We're fighting the rats. We fight ourselves. We can't confuse our people. We gotta confuse the enemy.
BASCIANO: I know you're a compassionate guy and I know you believe in giving everybody a second chance.
They compared laundry.
MASSINO: Yesterday I had too much to do. I had to wash my clothes.
BASCIANO: Bo, washing your clothes is a f----- trip, though, right?
MASSINO: I can't wear the briefs. I got four pairs of boxers.
BASCIANO: I don't know how you do it in that shower.
And they parted friends - temporarily.
MASSINO: I'll see ya. Have a good weekend.
BASCIANO: I love you, Bo.
MASSINO: I love you too. It felt good, the (fresh) air.
BASCIANO: You sleep alright?
MASSINO: Eh, I'm not a sleeper.
BASCIANO: Yesterday, I passed your room, you had a towel over your head.
MASSINO: Yeah, because the light bothers my eyes. I read the (trial) minutes and s---.
BASCIANO: Take care.
MASSINO: Be good.
"I was thinking of who to put there, and Vinny Basciano put himself there," Massino said.
When Basciano's lawyer George Goltzer asked Massino if that meant he didn't want Basciano to take over, he said: "Correct . . . I could have killed him [Basciano]. They [the Genovese family] wanted to kill him. I said, 'Take a pass.' "
Massino said five hit men were hiding inside a closet and waited for a pre-arranged signal to jump out and begin firing at Dominick "Big Trin" Trinichera, Alphonse "Sonny Red" Indelicato, and Philip "Philly Lucky" Giaccone.
Massino said the three men were buried about 15 feet deep with the help of the Gambino family.
"John Gotti [who helped with the disposal] said, 'You'll never find them.' "
* Murder must look random instead of professional, so don't bury bodies in out-of-the-way locations. "Do it in the street. Throw [a body] in the street," Massino said.
* Massino said he didn't believe in hiring the family members of his soldiers because "you can't be a father and a son in the same crew. It don't work."
* And don't let fear stop you, he advised Basciano when discussing the younger man taking the reins. "You can't be afraid to be [in] the top seat. I wasn't afraid."
* As for ever trusting a lawyer to help communicate your orders, don't, he said. "A lawyer never gets a message right. I was getting messages [to people] through my daughter."
* Massino also said it was a complete violation of his policies for anyone to kill without his permission, insisting, "Life is precious to me."
"I don't know if I'm gonna get divorced," Massino confided to Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano in a secretly taped prison conversation.
Not even a delivered bottle of Dom Perignon champagne with $50,000 hidden inside could appease his fuming spouse.
"She's on tranquilizers and she's got my daughters going out of their f------ minds," the mob boss said.
"She started Thursday night with the girl again," he continued, apparently referring to testimony about a goumada at his trial.
Meanwhile, prison life was wearing down Massino.
"I went to the bathroom 15 times," he complained. "The food is terrible. The shower is terrible."
“He (Barney) told me that they were going to make a move on me — they were going to kill me,” Massino testified. “If John was in the street, I believe him and my brother-in-law would have killed me.”
Vitale may not have killed Massino, but he delivered a near-fatal blow when he agreed to cooperate with investigators and testify at Massino’s murder trial. It was following that conviction on seven murders, and while still awaiting trial on an eighth, that Massino also agreed to turn stoolie.
As part of his cooperation agreement with the FBI, Massino agreed to turn over $7 million in cash and hundreds of gold bars.
But the Bonanno bad guy insisted yesterday that he had the kind of natural business talent that could have made him rich even without resorting to violence and intimidation.
“I didn’t need to be boss,” Massino said on the stand. “I didn’t need the life.” Basciano’s defense attorney, Richard Jasper, asked Massino if he believed that he could have been just as wealthy in a legitimate enterprise. “That’s fair to say,” Massino said.
“But you did make millions in the mob,” the defense attorney shot back.
“That’s correct,” Massino said of his Mafia fortune.
Massino, who wore a wire and managed to get Basciano to admit to ordering a hit on Bonanno associate Randy Pizzolo, showed a talent for drawing out dirt on his compatriot.
In order to get him to talk, he did have to stretch the truth a bit, he told defense attorneys, admitting that some of what he said on the tapes were outright lies.
“I just said that for conversation — I made that up,” Massino said. “I felt he was strokin’ me, so I was strokin’ him back.
You were bulls- - -tting me, so I’m bulls- - -tting you back,” Massino explained about his prison-house chats with Vinny.
He also used his undercover work as an opportunity to vent about the rigors of being a boss.
“I broke my f - - king ass like Guadalcanal,” Massino is heard telling Basciano on the tapes.
Ironically, Massino testified that even after many of his close associates had turned on him, Basciano remained loyal.
After he went to prison, only Vinny Gorgeous delivered a share of the earnings from the family’s various illegal businesses to Massino’s wife.
“I didn’t get a dime,” Massino said, referring to his loansharking business and his sports-betting operations.
“[Basciano] was the only person who was doing the right thing,” he said.
"Bill had to go, he was getting too powerful. If Allie Boy went away on a gun charge, Bill would have took over the family” - Joe Campy testimony about Jackie DeRoss explaining Will Bill murder
- Pogo The Clown
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Re: Randy Pizzolo
Massino annointed Basciano as a street/acting boss who was supposed to consult two or three other trusted captain. But Basciano was so smitten by the power that he considered himself a first among equals, as this exchange with Massino shows. Basciano said that other captains had to check with him before ordering hits but he didn't have to check with anybody.
I was thinking of who to put there, and Vinny Basciano put himself there," Massino said.
When Basciano's lawyer George Goltzer asked Massino if that meant he didn't want Basciano to take over, he said: "Correct . . . I could have killed him [Basciano]. They [the Genovese family] wanted to kill him. I said, 'Take a pass.' "
A bit of a discrepancy here. Massinos lawyer flipped and he said about two weeks after Urso and Cammarano Sr were arrested he delivered a message from Massino to Basciano telling that he had been chosen as the new Acting Boss. He talked about how happy Basciano was when he was told that. I think it was a case of Basciano overstepping his authority as Acting Boss rather than appointing himself Acting Boss without the consent of Massino.
Pogo
It's a new morning in America... fresh, vital. The old cynicism is gone. We have faith in our leaders. We're optimistic as to what becomes of it all. It really boils down to our ability to accept. We don't need pessimism. There are no limits.
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Re: Randy Pizzolo
Didn't Massino send word later saying he approved of Basciano after he put himself up as acting boss? Could that be the message the lawyer was referring to?
'You don't go crucifying people outside a church; not on Good Friday.'
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Re: Randy Pizzolo
IIRC, Massino is arrested, urso is later arrested in january 2004, basciano then takes the reins right after as acting boss on behalf of massino and starts runings things on the street (massino didnt appoint him, didnt intend to) massino finds out after the fact and send a msg thru his lawyer in January 2004 he wants basciano to take the reins (this helps massino save face showing he still influences things, basciano gets the legitimacy from massino, etc).See the blurb about the lawyer below, this makes sense since later wiretaps between massino/basciano and massino's testimony shows that massino didnt want to put Vinny in the spot and that Vinny put himself there and then Massino blessed it cause it was in his interest since he already had it in his mind he was going to probably cooperate which he did when he was convicted in july 2004chin_gigante wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 12:12 pm Didn't Massino send word later saying he approved of Basciano after he put himself up as acting boss? Could that be the message the lawyer was referring to?
"It was January 2004, and the lawyer was delivering his first illegal message between the Bonanno leaders. Lee told Vinny Gorgeous that Massino, then detained on murder and racketeering charges, wanted him to "take the reins of the Bonanno crime family." The lawyer said he remembered Basciano's reaction very well.
"He was excited. He asked me to repeat several times the exact words that were used by Mr. Massino," said Lee, adding that Basciano expressed no reservations about assuming the "acting role as boss of the Bonanno crime family."
"I don't remember the exact words," said Lee, but they were "something to the effect, 'I love him. I won't let him down. Things aren't going to skip a beat with me out here.'"
It was in prison in 2004 that Mr. Massino learned from his lawyer that Mr. Basciano had appointed himself the acting boss. He acknowledged that he also heard that the “word on the street” was that the captains were unhappy with Mr. Basciano’s leadership because “he thinks he’s John Gotti.”
Under questioning from Mr. Goltzer, Mr. Massino conceded that Mr. Basciano had shown disrespect by appointing himself acting boss, since Mr. Massino was technically still the boss even while in prison. He added that he could have ordered Mr. Basciano killed, but that by that time he was already cooperating with the government.
“I love you,” Mr. Basciano said at the end of one of their taped prison conversations that was played in court.
“I love you, too,” Mr. Massino responded.
"Bill had to go, he was getting too powerful. If Allie Boy went away on a gun charge, Bill would have took over the family” - Joe Campy testimony about Jackie DeRoss explaining Will Bill murder
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Re: Randy Pizzolo
Would be great if Massino or Vitale resurfaced with a book,podcast or anything. I wonder if Massino is back in Howard Beach...
looks like the Massino's are still around at least Josephine... check out property tranfer records here https://www.realtyhop.com/property-reco ... %20Massino
looks like the Massino's are still around at least Josephine... check out property tranfer records here https://www.realtyhop.com/property-reco ... %20Massino
"Bill had to go, he was getting too powerful. If Allie Boy went away on a gun charge, Bill would have took over the family” - Joe Campy testimony about Jackie DeRoss explaining Will Bill murder