Gangland May 30th 2024

[Dr031718]

A 'Jerry Springer Moment': Ex-Hubby Of Real Housewives Of New Jersey Star Dina Manzo Staged Bloody Attack As Family Celebrated Their Niece's Wedding

It's no wonder that Thomas Manzo, owner of The Brownstone, the elegant Paterson New Jersey Banquet Hall, changed lawyers several times and managed to put off his racketeering trial for ordering the brutal assault of the boyfriend of his ex-wife Dina Manzo, the Reality TV star of the Real Housewives of New Jersey, for nearly four years.

Last week, a jury in Newark Federal Court saw a video of David Cantin getting hit over the head with a "slapjack" about 15 times. The weapon was wielded by a mobster whose reward for the assault was a free wedding reception at Manzo's catering hall. That's the brutal essence of the dramatic real life assault case, one that has had as many twists and turns as an episode of The Sopranos. The jurors also heard testimony that even though doctors needed 11 staples to close the gash in Cantin's head, Manzo later complained that "he didn't get hurt enough" to suit him.

Dina Manzo testified she learned about the assault in a "screaming" phone call from Cantin. She said the call came in while she was at The Brownstone attending a spectacular wedding reception for her niece. That was just a month before another spectacular wedding reception at the hall, that one an alleged freebie for Luchese mobster John Perna courtesy of Thomas Manzo in return for his savage July 18, 2015 assault of Cantin.

The brutal drubbing of Cantin took place at a strip mall in Totowa, according to trial testimony. It was less than an hour after Cantin had dropped Dina off at The Brownstone for the wedding reception for her niece Lauren. The gala event was a family affair: Tommy Manzo, who is Lauren's uncle, was also present at the reception. So was Lauren's mom, Caroline, a former Housewives co-star, who is Dina's sister. Caroline is married to Tommy's brother, Albert Manzo, a co-owner of The Brownstone.

The assault by Perna took place at 7:15 PM in the vestibule of Buddy's Small Lots store. It came after two other failed attempts, just hours earlier, by Perna and then-gangster Lorenzo Tripodi who has since become a cooperating witness and testified at the trial. The duo first tried to jump Cantin, Tripodi said, when he drove Dina to the Manhattan church where Lauren Manzo was married. They tried again when Cantin dropped her off at The Brownstone and drove away, Tripodi told the nine woman and three man panel.

When he "realized" that Cantin "wasn't going to the wedding," Tripodi recalled, "it was a very Jerry Springer type moment in my head," the turncoat gangster testified. "I found the whole situation weird," he said. "She was going to the wedding, the ex-husband owns the wedding hall" and has put in motion "you know, a plan to assault the boyfriend."

On that day, Tripodi testified, there was no stopping Perna. He needed a "lavish" wedding that he didn't have the cash to pay for to "cement the fact that he was a solid soldier doing well and making good money" before he went off to prison. At their last meeting before the attack, Manzo gave them Cantin's itinerary for the day and told them it would be their "last chance" to get the job done.

Tripodi testified that with "desperation" in his voice, Manzo said, "This is it, this is going to be your last chance. Here is the information: David and Dina were going to be at a wedding and that he had the location of the wedding. And he was also going to get us the make and model of the rental car that David was going to be driving."

It was the fourth and last meeting that he and Perna had with Manzo in The Brownstone parking lot, said Tripodi, whom Perna had assigned to carry out the assault.

At the third meeting Manzo was "extremely aggravated and pissed off" at Tripodi for failing to pull it off it at two locations where Manzo had stated Cantin would be. He also complained, Tripodi testified, that "it was taking too long," and said, "You don't understand, I want you to cut his face."

"He just walked extremely fast towards me and he said, 'You don't — you don't understand what I want. I want you to cut his fucking face like this," Tripodi said, thrusting his arm forward.

"I am saying it calmly," Tripodi testified, "but that's not how he was saying it to me," he said. "He almost put the hand on my face to mark (the spot) that he wanted his face cut," he testified. He said Manzo told the pair: "I want him, every time he looks in the mirror, I want him to think of me."

At his first meeting with Manzo, "John introduce(d) me to him, saying that I would be taking care of it," Tripodi testified, noting that "it" referred to "the assault on Cantin." Manzo gave them "an information packet, 15 or so pages stapled together" as well as "photos of David," at their second session, Tripodi said.

Tripodi said he was involved in gambling, extortion, drug dealing and violence since going "on record" with the Lucheses around 2000 when Perna introduced him to his acting capo father Ralph. He testified though, that he had dogged his assignment to locate and attack Cantin for many weeks, right up until the day they caught up with him at the Totowa strip mall.

Tripodi said he agreed to carry out the order because he needed to do it to enhance his status with the crime family. He testified, however, that he "wasn't really putting any energy" into finding Cantin, and was lying to Perna about having an accomplice ready to handle the job with him.

"I knew it would have to get done eventually, but I was able to kick the can down the road for a while" and focus instead "on my own personal situations," he said. This included making extra money he "needed" to support his addiction to opiates that he was also dealing.

"A lot of what is done in that life is like a shell game," Tripodi testified. "You say, 'Yes, we're going to do it, we're going to take care of it. And if you put minimal effort into it, you could kind of give it a smokescreen and make it seem like you're doing a lot more than you're actually doing."

Tripodi said that Perna, who pleaded guilty to assault and served a 30-month prison term for the crime, was personally involved in the caper only because the wiseguy insisted on replacing the made-up cohort who Tripodi told his mob leader wasn't going to make it.

Through a quirk of fate, Tripodi said, Perna ended up being the gangster who attacked the victim with the slapjack when Cantin walked to the passenger's side of his rented black SUV after emerging from the store.

"John was in the passenger seat, jumped out, and started to assault him," Tripodi testified. Tripodi said he went around the other side, but Cantin ran back into the vestibule of the store. He was “on the floor" and "getting pummeled by John," who was wearing a hoodie that he grabbed out of the back seat of Tripodi's wife's car.

The slapjack is "a weapon" with a "leather strap (that is) spring-loaded with a lead shot on the end of it. If you hit this on something, you are going to split it wide open," Tripodi testified.

"There was a lot of people starting to gather, so I am like, ‘Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go,’" he said. He dropped Perna off at his home, and when he drove home, he removed a bulldog sticker from his wife's car that could link him to the caper. But within days, he was arrested, and cops seized the car.

The arresting detective told him there was a video of him assaulting Cantin and showed him a surveillance photo of the car, but he knew that it wasn't him in the video, he testified. "At the time," he said, "I was very arrogant and confrontational, so when he showed me the picture, I said, 'If that's the best you got, then I will see you in court.'"

When he was released on bail a few days later, with cash that Perna gave his wife, he told Perna only that the cops had a "bullshit picture" of his car. "I was like, you know, downplaying it all because I really didn't think it was anything. And I really just wanted to get high, you know, I felt like I was dying. I was withdrawing from opiates."

A month later, Tripodi was flying high, not only on drugs. He was invited to Perna's wedding along with dozens of other wiseguys, including then acting Luchese boss Matthew Madonna. Tripodi said he was proud that he was the only Perna crew member who was a groomsman.

"After the assault," he testified, "I was asked if I would be a groomsman," explaining that it was about "the rising star aspect" of his status. "I did another thing that made me valuable. I was part of another thing that made me valuable to John and then ultimately to the family."

Under questioning by Manzo lawyer Zach Intrater, Tripodi admitted he was a drug abuser and addicted to opiates, but he insisted that it did not affect his "ability to remember the events that" led to his arrest.

"I was a junk box," and would take "anything that would make me feel good or take me off myself," he testified. "It might tweak like a certain date or something like that," Tripodi said, "but drug use doesn't give me amnesia. It just clouds certain little, maybe, details, but the overall details are all there. I just remember everything."

Her Ex-Hubby's Alleged Assault Of Her Boyfriend Was Dina Manzo's Worst Fear

The phone call Dina Manzo got from David Cantin stating he had been attacked shortly after he dropped her off at her ex-husband's New Jersey catering hall in July of 2015 was her worst fear — but not an unexpected one. She knew immediately, she testified, that her jealous and "dangerous" former spouse was behind the attack and had gotten "his people" to assault her fiancé.

At first, her split with Manzo after seven years of marriage, when she moved out of their home and into a Manhattan apartment, had been civil. But seven months before the assault, when he learned she and David were planning a New Year's Eve trip to Paris, Manzo got "very angry," Dina testified.

A few days after Christmas in 2014, he began "violently texting" her late one night, she testified. The next morning, he threw her daughter Lexi and all their belongings out of their house.

Dina testified that she had tried to ignore Manzo's texts and taunts. But when her daughter called "very early in the morning," and Lexi was "freaking out that Tommy was going nuts, threw her out of bed, told her to get out of the house, get the animals (her cats) out of the house, (and was) very violent," Dina got dressed and drove to "rescue" Lexi, she testified.

"Tommy had his car blocking the driveway," when she arrived at the Franklin Lakes home they had shared after their 2005 marriage until she moved out in 2012, she recalled. "There was chaos in the house, people changing the locks, people throwing my belongings in garbage bags, Lexi was crying" and Dina's cats were on the lawn "in their carriers," she testified.


"And (Tommy) was just going nuts. 'Get the fuck out of here, you whore.' He was going crazy. And it went from very violent and angry (to where) he would go to his knees and beg me to stay and not do this and don't go away," Dina testified.

"It went on for quite some time," Dina continued. "Lexi called the police, and my sisters came. An ambulance was called because at one time Tommy was having a heart attack. As soon as they showed up, his heart was fine. It was really disturbing." Sister Caroline is a former co-star with Dina in Real Housewives of New Jersey. Sister Cookie works at The Brownstone.

"I finally couldn't take it anymore," Dina testified. "I grabbed my daughter and the animals and made some phone calls for some friends to come and get (them.) And my car was on the street and Tommy was on his knees begging me not to go away and to come home, and I just had to pull away. It had to end." she said.

On the stand as she told the story, Manzo appeared to be gasping for air. "One second," she said. "I need to breathe. Just a second. I feel a little nauseous. I didn't sleep well, so I get nauseous."


Assistant U.S. Attorney Kendall Randolph quickly accepted the offer "to take a break" from Newark Federal Judge Susan Wigenton, but Dina refused one.

"No, I am good," she said. "I want to get this done. Okay, I am good. I am good."

She and Cantin had gone to California to get away from Manzo in June, Dina testified. There was no way she was going to miss her niece's wedding, especially since Lexi "was in the bridal party," she said, even though her sister Caroline had told her that David would not be welcome at The Brownstone. So she warned Cantin that it was "not a good idea" to drive her there.

Cantin, however, insisted. "Dave is very protective," she said. "He wanted to make sure I got there okay."

Q. Why did you think it wasn't a good idea?
A. Because I know my ex-husband.
Q. What do you mean by that?
A. He could be a dangerous man.

Under leading questioning by Randolph, Dina recounted that during March and April when she would go to their home to pick up belongings he would be there "begging" her to "come home" and that once when she drove there in Cantin's car he "was very angry" with her.

The jury did not hear the prosecutor tell Judge Wigenton at a sidebar session that on one occasion Manzo "was so mad that it was David's car that she came in that he physically threw her down out of the house, out of the front door." Wigenton agreed with defense lawyer Marc Agnifilio that was "unduly prejudicial" and blocked Dina from mentioning that.

But Dina testified that she had been terrified about a possible assault of David. She said she told Cantin to drop her off “far away" from the church and "on a side street" in an effort to keep her ex's people from "beating him up, attacking him," Dina testified.

Asked what she meant by "his people," Dina said: "In my brain, it would be the people he hangs out with, the kitchen staff, who are tough guys. He never does it himself, so his people."

Dina testified that she knew that Manzo's father, Albert (Tiny) Manzo, who was found shot to death and in the trunk of his Lincoln Continental in 1984, had been killed in a "Mafia hit," so she asked Tommy directly if he was in the Mafia when he began to pursue her, because "I didn't want to be involved with someone in the Mafia."

"He told me that he wasn't, but he knew people," she testified, and she stated that she did see persons "with connections to organized crime" at The Brownstone.

"I didn't know them or maybe even know their names, but Tommy would refer to them as "wise guys," she said.

Dina was asked about Patrick (Peaches) Pici, a Wayne NJ businessman whom prosecutors say was the link between Manzo and Luchese mobster John Perna, and who is identified as "Pat Peachie" on the reservation he made for the wedding that Perna allegedly received for free in exchange for assaulting Cantin.

Dina testified that Pici was "a friend of Tommy's," adding, "a close friend. He would say, 'he is an old wiseguy.'"

The government is slated to rest today. Closing arguments in the fast-moving trial are expected to take place Friday.

Tragic Demise Of Tiny Manzo, Who Left The Brownstone To His Sons, Still Unsolved

More than 30 years later, the gruesome gangland-style slaying of Albert (Tiny) Manzo, the 350-pound, onetime owner of The Brownstone, the Paterson NJ catering hall that is mentioned quite a few times in the first two items in this week's column, remains unsolved. As far as Gang Land knows, there are not even any so-called likely suspects.

Not that there is any doubt that Manzo, who was shot four times in the chest and found unclothed in the trunk of his Lincoln Continental in August of 1983, was a mob-connected businessman. There's also no doubt that he was killed in a dispute with one or more wiseguys that he crossed one way or another.

When asked about his death, however, family members have publicly denied that Tiny had anything to do with organized crime — just as Tommy Manzo said when he was asked by Dina Laurita, the pretty divorcee he was pursuing more than 20 years ago.

The feds link Tommy to the Lucheses, but for decades, law enforcement officials have linked his late dad to the Gambino clan.

In July of 1990, Tiny's son Albert, the co-owner of The Brownstone, told The Record that his father, a colorful and well-known man-about town and active Republican politician who ran for Mayor of Paterson in 1974, was a successful businessman. He was also "the greatest father you could ever have, said the son.

"They tried to paint him as a mobster," he said. "But everybody who knew him knew he was anything but that. I can't find anybody to say a bad thing about the guy."

In 2009, Albert's wife Caroline told the Daily Beast, shortly after the premiere showing of the Real Housewives of New Jersey drew 1.72 million viewers, that the Manzos were Americans of Italian descent with "very strong" traditions "regarding love of family, hard work, and loyalty." They had nothing to do with organized crime, she insisted.

"As far as my father-in-law goes," she said, "in his lifetime there was never so much as an accusation of him being involved in organized crime."

Law enforcement officials have a different opinion about her late father-in-law, and her brother-in-law as well.

[Dr031718]

[OcSleeper]

Thanks for posting.

What Joe Perna is that? Doesn't look like Big Joe or Little Joe to me.

[chin_gigante]

What Joe Perna is that? Doesn't look like Big Joe or Little Joe to me.

I assumed it was Big Joe. I haven't seen any other photographs of him to compare it against. Definitely not Little Joe anyway.

[OcSleeper]

We have the recent photo of Big Joe from Taccetta's hearing about 2 weeks ago. After looking at it some more I guess I could see it but he's definitely aged a lot and gained some weight if it is him.

[Yotam]

Thanks for posting.

What Joe Perna is that? Doesn't look like Big Joe or Little Joe to me.

Looks to me like Big Joe Perna, Mike's son and Jersey (acting?) captain. I could be wrong.

[aray22]

We have the recent photo of Big Joe from Taccetta's hearing about 2 weeks ago. After looking at it some more I guess I could see it but he's definitely aged a lot and gained some weight if it is him.

This is little Joe Perna, John's older brother.

[OcSleeper]

Ah shit I thought Schratwieser said it was Big Joe.

[chin_gigante]

Yeah, Big Joe is Joseph R Perna, son of Michael Perna. Little Joe is Joseph M Perna, son of Ralph Perna and older brother of John Perna.

Little Joe is the guy in the photograph from the Taccetta hearing. Big Joe is the guy in the Gang Land photograph.

Big Joe is the guy Pennisi says is the current official captain of the NJ crew. He had previously been acting captain for Richard DeLuca and then George Zappola when they were in charge. Little Joe was transferred to the Brooklyn crew during Pennisi's time on the street. Now he says Little Joe is the acting captain of the NJ crew for his cousin.

IMG_4295.jpeg

Another photograph of Big Joe taken at Joey Merlino's birthday.