The brother and four close associates of Joseph Gallo, the slain gangster, reportedly have been marked for assassination by members of the Mafia family reputedly headed by Joseph A. Colombo Sr.

A deposition filed on Monday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in State Supreme Court in Kingston asserted that, according to an F.B.I. informant “of known reliability,” the Colombo group “was responsible for the death of two members of the Gallo mob and there are five more victims scheduled to be executed by the Colombo mob.”

The five men said to be on the death list are Albert Gailo and Peter Diapoulas, brother and former bodyguard, respectively, of Joseph Gallo, and John Cutrone, Frank Illiano and Bobby Bongiove, all key members of the Gallo group.

Ciprio's Slaying Cited

In addition to Joseph Gallo, the second man slain by members of the Colombo group, according to the informant, was Gennaro Ciprio. He was shot to death three days after the murder of Gallo on April 7.
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The police said yesterday that no arrests were imminent for either the Gallo or Ciprio murders, but evidence on the Gallo killing “could lead to action in coming weeks.”

A “soldier” in the Colombo group is the prime suspect in the killing of Gallo and an associate member of the group is suspected of having driven the car in which the killer fled.

The F.B.I. deposition was filed in application for a warrant to search a farm in Saugerties, N. Y., said to be owned by Carmine Persico, a captain in the Colombo family now in the Federal penitentiary at Atlanta.

The deposition said that the farm was being used by the Colombo group as “a hide‐out and an arsenal.”

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The warrant was granted by the court in Kingston, and the farm was searched Monday afternoon and again yesterday morning. A dozen rifles, shotguns and pistols were found in the main house on Monday and a large cache of similar weapons was uncovered in a barn yesterday.
Four Men Arrested

Four men associated with the Colombo group and a woman companion of one of the men were arrested Monday morning as they were driving away from the farm.

Alphonse Persico and Jerry Angella, brother and bodyguard, respectively, of Carmine Persico, were in the front car, and the three others were in the second car following.

Two guns were found in the second car, according to state policemen who joined F.B.I. agents in the raid. The guns indicated that the purpose of of the second vehicle was to guard the first one carrying Persico.

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In the underworld, such vehicles are known as “crash cars” because they have been known to smash deliberately into any vehicle attempting to attack the car under guard.

One of the men in the second car stopped Monday was Charles Panarella, described as an acting captain in the Colombo family.

The fact that a man of such high position was assigned to protect Alphonse Persico showed that Persico was playing a leading role in the war against the Gallos, the authorities said.

Persico was brought back to the city and arraigned in Federal Court on a charge of making a false statement in application for a bank loan. The four others were charged with state weapons violations.
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Persico's arrest was part of an investigation by the Government's Brooklyn Strike Force Against Organized Crime headed by Denis Dillon on the use of bank loans by gangsters to finance illegal ventures.

The Brooklyn group and the Federal strike force in Manhattan are also conducting an investigation on stolen weapons said to be held by members of the opposing sides in the current gang war.


A March 1986 raid on DiBernardo's office seized alleged "child pornography and financial records." As "a result of the Postal Inspectors seizures [a federal prosecutor] is attempting to indict DiBernardo on child pornography violations" according to an FBI memo dated May 20, 1986.
Thousands of pages of FBI Files that document his involvement in Child Porn
https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/star-distributors-ltd-46454/
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/0...s-Miporn-investigation-of/7758361252800/
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1526052/united-states-v-dibernardo/