Bad luck, he was acquitted of racketeering a couple of weeks ago and now this..

FBI: Body identified as missing mobster Ricci
BY ANTHONY M. DESTEFANO
STAFF WRITER
December 7, 2005

The decomposed remains found a week ago in the trunk of a car at a New Jersey diner has been positively identified as being the body of missing Genovese crime family captain Lawrence Ricci, an FBI spokesman said Tuesday.

Ricci's body, which was found on Nov. 30 behind the Huck Finn diner in Union, N.J., was identified through a check of dental records Friday, said James Margolin, a spokesman for the FBI in New York.

After a wake, Ricci was laid to rest at a cemetery in New Jersey Tuesday, said his former attorney, Martin Schmukler.

"There was quite an outpouring, about a thousand people," Schmukler said about the turnout for Ricci's wake. "He was a very liked guy."

Margolin said that the preliminary cause of death has been listed as gunshot wounds. Ricci sustained two shots to the head and one to the body, he said.

Investigators have three theories about why Ricci was killed, Margolin said. The lead theory centers on remarks Ricci made that the Genovese family was thinking about decimating the leadership of the Philadelphia mob, an idea that the Genovese clan didn't sanction, Margolin said.

It was while he was on trial along with two officials of the International Longshoremen's Association in October that Ricci went missing. There was immediate speculation that Ricci, 60, was the victim of foul play. He was last seen borrowing a car from a relative to attend what is believed to have been a social engagement.

In an ironic twist, Ricci and his two co-defendants, Harold Dagget and Arthur Coffey, were acquitted by a Brooklyn federal jury of wire and mail fraud conspiracy last month.

Margolin said there is also speculation that mob bosses believed that Ricci's killing, along with an earlier discovery of his body during the trial, might have prompted a mistrial. Mobsters may have also been angered by Ricci's failure to take a guilty plea, something other top Genovese family bosses had done in their waterfront cases, he said.