Michael Meldish had been sleeping with Michael Mancuso's girlfriend while Mancuso was serving fifteen years for murder conspiracy. Meldish and Mancuso were both once members of the East Harlem Purple Gang, and Meldish was actually Mancuso's higher-up in that organization. But fast-forward to the 21st century, Mancuso was the imprisoned boss of the Bonanno family and Meldish was just a Lucchese associate.

Mancuso sent a message to Meldish to stop seeing his wife, but it was ignored. So, in August of 2012, Bonanno acting capo Ernest Aiello (Mancuso's nephew) assaulted Meldish right in front of Rao's Restaurant at the center of the annual Pleasant Avenue Festival in honor of Saint Anthony Giglio.

The NYPD's Organized Crime Squad got involved and told Matthew Madonna, street boss of the Luccheses, not to retaliate and that "they would take care of this," meaning the police would handle it.

Then on May 29, 2013, Enzo Stagno, a Bronx-Bonanno guy whom Gang Land News sources said had been made in the past few months, was shot in his car on First Avenue and 111th Street. He survived. The assailent, a black man, left on foot, running around frantically and caught by blurry CCTV footage. It later turned out that Meldish had gotten Terrence Caldwell to do the hit, and Meldish would be the getaway driver. But Meldish got cold feet and sped off.

The Lucchese administration, presumably pissed off about the Stagno hit, the pressure from the Bonannos, and the pressure from the police, decided to murder Meldish, and they did so using - guess who - Terrence Caldwell, who obviously had a revenge complex going on.