Tommy "Karate" Pitera and associates

I was hoping to start a topic on Tommy Pitera and his associates if anyone has pics they can post such as his crew, associates, victims, etc would be cool unless people on this chat feel it is a waste of time.. I can't find anything on him and his crew except for a couple NY times articles and just a couple of highly used pics of him. Trying to find pics of Solomon Stern and Leone as well as Burdi.

obvious used pic from book

The book is probably your best bet for associates, although from memory I dont think it contains pictures of neither Burdi nor Stern. A bunch of associates, though.

i wonder if he really resisted arrest or if those cops were just disgusted by his reputation and decided to bash his face in. i wouldn't hold it against them

An innocent question: why are some people intrigued by Pitera? His time studying matrial arts in Japan made him unique amongst LCN gangsters, but he didn't seem to have any redeeming graces. At least DeMeo was a great dad.

Sal in all fairness to Pitera, I started this topic because nothing is really known about him personally just bits and pieces of his past none of his family has stepped forward unlike DeMeo's we know Pitera was a dad too fathered a child from his high school sweetheart. Now if his son Charles were to write an auto biography about his father Tommy and showed a softer side of him would we say okay DeMeo and Pitera are similar and not that bad of guys?

I'll bet Giselle and Hunt roughed up Pitera especially handcuffed I bet if Pitera wanted too he would have beat the crap out of those two in few seconds.

Yes, if people came forward to say there was another side to him, a better one, I'd say something to that effect. It's a possibility that he was more complex than is currently known.

I don't think anybody should feel any sympathy for demeo or pitera. Yes demeo was a good family man but that doesn't erase the 200 or more innocent people he killed. I read Demeo's book and heard him talk about his father and he said although he was a good father he got what he deserved and he doesn't hold a grudge against anybody. I think Tommy was worse than demeo. I mean they did similar execution style killings but pitera was so wrapped up in his samurai beliefs mixed in with his belief in omerta i don't think he was human anymore lol

Agreed, JCrusher. Eva Braun, for example, thought Hitler was a nice guy.

Its a question of perspective. Even the meanest, cruelest, most degenerate killer's have someone who saw them differently. Jeffrey Dahmers father wrote a book about how Jeffrey was such a nice kid growing up. Ted Bundy was married during a court appearance. Just because Albert DeMeo still loves his father does not diminish the horrors he perpetrated. I bet Charlie Pitera feels the same way about his dad; still changes nothing.

I agree with both of you, JCrusher & Mickey. My first post mentioning that Roy Demeo was a great dad was not at all meant to imply that he's less evil than Pitera because of that fact. My post had nothing to do with his son's perspective about him, either. I only meant that being a known family man makes Demeo intriguing because of the big paradox in his personality.

And in an earlier post, I wrote that I'd say 'something to that effect' in that Pitera and Demeo were "not that bad of guys". I had to make my response short at the time, but 'something to that effect' meant that I'd definitely agree that they were evil monsters but had another side to them that made them complex.

Yeah its strange how mafia guys can live a "double life" vicious killers but then fitting into the suburbs like everyone else. With guys like Crips and MS-13 guys there always thugs at every moment, its interesting how mob guys can switch off.

Remember we most times only concentrate on the role so and so played within LCN. We rarely talk about a guys personal life, and when we do its only because it out of the ordinary or such.


But thats just it Sal. The only reason some percieve DeMeo as a "well known family man" is because his own son wrote a book stating as much. But heaps of psychotic a-holes love their kids.

If Charlie Pitera wrote a book talking about all the times his father Tommy Karate did real Dad stuff, after reading one would be inclined to accept that while Pitera was a pure nutter he did have warmer and more tender sides to him, ie-there was more to him then we knew. But thats pretty much the case with most people.

Im not having a go mate. I only mean that I dont think its apt top draw a distinction between the interest in guys like DeMeo or Pitera on the those grounds.