History of a former L.A. Mobster




August 31, 1944

Craig Anthony Fiato was born in Boston's North End.

1960

Fiato moved with his family to Hollywood, California, where his father John had a job waiting for him as a bartender at a popular Hollywood restaurant, the Villa Capri.

1962

Fiato met Michael "Mike Rizzi" Rizzitello, a mob associate and bartender at the Villa Capri. Rizzitello later became a capo in the L.A. mob.

He also met New York mobster Joey Gallo at the Villa Capri that same year. Gallo was there to recruit hitmen for the Gallo War.

1963

Fiato met Salvatore "Dago Louie" Piscopo, a soldier for the Los Angeles crime family at the Villa Capri.

Fiato hit a guy in the head with a baseball bat inside a Hollywood furniture store for Salvatore "Dago Louie" Piscopo. The victim was a salesman that owed Piscopo money and refused to pay.

Fiato robbed a liquor store and ran off with $85.00.

He met John Rosselli, a Los Angeles based member of the Chicago Outfit at the Villa Capri. Rosselli was with Dean Martin.

1964

Fiato and his family moved back to Boston.

1967

Fiato befriended New England mobster Jerry Angiulo.

1969

Fiato met New England mobster Nicky Giso at the Coliseum, an after-hours club in Boston. Giso was a soldier for the New England Mob and owned the Coliseum.

Fiato started hanging out with Willie Fopiano. The two became good friends. Fopiano was a local boxer and mob associate.

1971

Fiato and his friend Ronald "Ronnie Rome" Romanowski started jumping marijuana dealers and reselling their grass. In those days, most of the dealers were hippies that didn't carry weapons and were easy to victimize.

1974

Fiato's father died of cancer.

1975

Fiato and Romanowski moved to California and rented a small apartment in Hollywood.

February of 1976

Fiato ran into Rizzitello and renewed his friendship with him. Rizzitello told Fiato how sorry he was about the death of his father.

June 6, 1976

Rizzitello became a made member of the Los Angeles Crime Family.

November 15, 1976

Fiato became a bartender at the Villa Capri.

December 18, 1976

Fiato was fired from the Villa Capri for fighting with a customer.

January 13, 1977

Fiato met Rizzitello at Dupar's Restaurant in Studio City for coffee. Rizzitello introduced Fiato to L.A. mobster Jack LoCicero. From that point on Fiato was an associate of the Los Angeles Crime Family.

February 10, 1977

Los Angeles mob consigliere Frank "The Bomp" Bompinsiero was murdered, while using a pay phone in San Diego.

August of 1978

Fiato went to Las Vegas and hooked up with Nicky Costanza, who he met on previous trips to Las Vegas. Both men started muscling Las Vegas dope dealers and reselling their cocaine.

Fiato arranged a meeting with Anthony Spilotro, a soldier for the Chicago Outfit, who ran organized crime in Las Vegas. Fiato told Spilotro he would pay him a percentage for operating there. That way Spilotro wouldn't give them any trouble.

February of 1979

Fiato went back to California, where he moved in with a friend and video bootlegger named Norman Freedberg. They lived in a two-bedroom house in Panaroma City.

Freedberg introduced Fiato to Arnie "Al Martel" Seltzer. Seltzer was a jewel thief and committed dozens of armed robberies of the wealthy in Beverly Hills.

March 12, 1979

Fiato and Seltzer robbed a lady outside of her Beverly Hills home after following her there from a grocery store. They stole her diamond ring and $145.00 of cash she had. They sold the diamond, which was a three-and-a-half carat emerald-cut diamond worth $120,00.

April of 1979

Fiato and Seltzer went on their second score together. This time they bring along Fiato's brother Larry, who just moved to L.A. from Boston. Their luck this time wasn't as good. They robbed a lady outside of a market and took off with her diamond ring. A police cruiser saw them speeding out of the parking lot in a cadillac and chased them. Within five minutes, a dozen cop cars and a police helicopter chased the cadillac driven by Larry. They crashed into a tree after a kid got in the way. All three were arrested and taken to the L.A. County Jail. Seltzer was bailed out by Norman Freedberg. The Fiato's later pleaded guilty to a reduce charge and received six months in jail.

August of 1979

Fiato was released from jail.

He started working as a debt collector for a Jewish loanshark named Robert "Puggy" Zeichick.

1980

Fiato and his brother muscled their way into owning a piece of the Tiffany Night Club in Encino. It was owned by a guy named Lonnie. Lonnie was a drug addict and got in deep with a drug dealer named Eddie. The drug dealer took over the place and was ripping off the customers every night. Fiato put a gun to Eddie's head after giving him a beating and told him if he doesn't leave and stay gone he was a dead man. Lonnie still ran it the way he wanted.

Fiato was asked to shake down Marty Krause, who owed Harvey Rosenthal $15,000 and wouldn't pay. Rosenthal owned an adult video store and was a customer of his friend Norman Freedberg. Fiato received $2,500 for forcing Krause to pay up.

September of 1981

Fiato and Rizzitello met at a restaurant. While they were dinning at Matteo's they met Frank Sinatra's bodyguard Jilly Rizzo, and Rizzitello took time to talk about their mutual friend Frank Sinatra. Three LAPD organized crime detectives were observing them talking.

March of 1982

Fiato befriended actor James Caan through L.A. cocaine dealer Mike Liszt. Liszt introduced Fiato to Caan at the Tiffany Night Club. Caan had a big cocaine habbit at the time and the two did lines together.

June of 1982

A frantic James Caan called Fiato and asked if he could help his brother Ronnie get away from some drug dealers that were holding him hostage. Ronnie owed one of them money. Fiato told Caan he'd take care of it. Within five minutes, he had assembled Larry Fiato, Steven "Fat Steve" Munichiello and David "Cowboy Dave" Tracy. Caan set up a meeting with the kidnapper's and agreed to drive to a spot and pay the fifty thousand his brother owed. Fiato and his men followed Caan to the meeting place and waited for Caan's signal when the deal was ready to take place. When Caan gave them the signal, Fiato and his men jumped out of a car and pointed guns at the two men. The men dropped their guns and ran off. Fiato's men caught one of them and gave him a beating and left him sprawled out on a front yard.

August 12, 1983

Fiato attacked a gambler named Robert Smith, who owed L.A. organized crime figure Walter Stevens $6,000 on a football bet and wouldn't pay.

January 23, 1984

Fiato was proposed for membership in the Los Angeles Crime Family.

February of 1984

Larry Fiato told his brother that he has been talking to FBI agents after being picked up for selling cocaine. Larry said they had stacks of evidence on both of them. Anthony Fiato also decided to cooperate with the feds. Fiato and Larry met with the FBI agents the next day at a Ramada Inn. The Fiato's were asked to betray the biggest mobsters in L.A.

March 14, 1984

Fiato sat down with Luigi Gelfuso at the Melting Pot on Ventura Boulevard. He was wearing a bulky recording device strapped to his body.

March 22, 1984

Fiato was involved in the beating of West Hollywood card dealer and hustler Mike Murray, who knew John "Popcorn" Pellegrino, a restaurateur and mob associate. Some of Anthony Spilotro's people overheard Murray criticising Italians. Gelfuso received the message, and passed it along to Fiato, who dispatched his brother and Steven "Fat Steve" Munichiello to the Cavendish West Bridge Club, where Murray was busy working one of his tables. All three of them saw him and gave him a beating for bad-mouthing Italians.

April of 1984

Fiato received $5,000 from his government handlers to produce as a tribute to the Los Angeles Crime Family.

Luigi Gelfuso and Jack LoCicero made Fiato a member of the Los Angeles Crime Family. He was placed in Rizzitello's crew.

May 17, 1984

The Fiato's met at Gelfuso's Encino apartment. In the back bedroom, Gelfuso spoke privately with Anthony. Gelfuso told him to make a move on Danny Mandavano and gave him a photograph of him with a piece of paper with Mandavano's address. Fiato was asked to beat him to a pulp for owing $468,000. Fiato went to Mandavano's home, but found out he no longer lived there.

August 16, 1984

James Caan called Fiato and asked him to give actor Joe Pesci a beating for not paying a hotel bill to a friend of his. Caan's friend owned the hotel in Miami, Florida. Fiato refused to do it.

December of 1984

Fiato met with L.A. mob soldier Rocco Zangari at a Hollywood bar. As Fiato approached Zangari he shook his hand, and Zangari patted Fiato on the back and felt a recording device. Fiato's cover was blown. The Fiato's moved to a hotel in Bakersfield after Anthony Fiato told the FBI what happened at the bar. Life in the mob for the Fiato's were finished.

Interesting timeline never heard of him thanks for this

That seems odd since the LA family wasn't indicted until over 2 years later.

Camarel, thank you my friend. Ted, that is true, but actually the first indictment that were brought against members of the L.A. Mob due to the Fiato Bro's was two years later, and during those years the brothers stayed in a hotel in Bakersfield, CA and were watched by the FBI. Peter Milano, the boss of L.A. was one of over a dozen men indicted.

January 1985- Under protection by Federal Agents in a Bakersfield, Hotel Larry Fiato took a massive dump which clogged the toilet and caused it to overflow. The FBI Agents made both Anthony and Larry clean up all the turds and and bits of poop floating throughout the bathroom. Their two FBI Handlers abusing their authority made the brothers use their bare-hands to clean all up the dookie. Fiato reached out to his attorney, who immediately following the incident reached out to the Handlers Superiors within the FBI. A motion was filed for cruel and usual punishment again the two FBI Handles. The Fiatos thought they might of had some clout having a hotshot Hollywood lawyer. The motion for cruel& unusual punishment was later suppressed when one of the handlers took the stand and had produced a sh*t stained receipt; having bought rubber gloves, a plunger and bucket.

Hahaha... good one DickNose!!

1976 was strange year. He wound up as bartender, then was fired. Bit of a downfall.

What is source for Joey Gallo meeting him to recruit him in 1966.

Hi Jace. Gallo wasn't there to recruit Fiato, but was there to recruit other gangsters, and did get Mike Rizzi and another mobster.

Does this guy have a blog he runs "hollywood Goodfella" or something like that.

Hollywood Goodfella is one of his blogs, he has another one, though. 2 blogs and a twitter page. This is one of his blogs.

http://mafiaslugger.blogspot.com/l

March 1985- Antony Fiato mingled with someone hollywood directors for a true crime/oc movie. It is was suppose to be titled "Reservoir Logs", but the script was then passed onto a young up and comer at the time by the name of Richard Certo.

The Simpson trial where Gallo was on the stand as a witness didn't come until 1995, I just did this timeline more on his mob life.

I changed a date and fixed some spelling on it. A lot of the info is from Fiato's book.

Then some of this is skeptical. Fiato was a notorious liar/self promoter.

Thank you NJ. I am surprised Gallo had to go al the way to California to recruit. I would have thought he would have enough of people from Brooklyn to back him.

Agreed. He lied about a lot of things he did. He said he was involved in the Forex thing involving the L.A. mob in the 1970s, but according to Jimmy Frattiano he never was involved in that. Also L.A. mob informant Robert "Dino" D'Agostino said Fiato wasn't anything but a debt collector and cocaine dealer that the L.A. family used as muscle.

didnt patriarca send nick binarco or wats his name scarpa snitched all about him that thing is a mess, cause gallo liked him but i guess a boss sent him to be a peace maker. there all dead, but a few.

Jace, it was early 1962 when Gallo went out West to look for a few guys, not 1966. Thanks for liking it, though.

HairyKnucks, that's a cool link...

Evey read this book before nj?


http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Animal_in_Hollywood.html?id=UM4GAAAACAAJ

Yes, It's a pretty good book, but there's a lot of lies in his book, like what Ted wrote.

Fiato was a crazy MF. He really wasn't all that big it seems.

Read the book again. It's an interesting one.

boy, was he ever a liar, gallo in 1962 was busted in Brooklyn
for shaking down teddy moss, I doubt he was ever in L.A. at that time.

he was never made, nobody trusted him, and with good reason.
to frattiano he was a "punk" never worth a mention in his book.
he was in witness protection when he met denise brown'

the sister of Nicole simpson [whom o.j. murdered] he said on the larry king show, he was dating her. she denied it, calling him a " gangster wannbe" and she could not stand him.

he's nothing but a punk-ass stoolie!! who should have been clipped.

Fiato also claims that in the early 1980s he knocked around Vito Spillone, a Chicago Outfit made man who was an L.A. area shark and bookie. This is clearly a lie because Chicago never would have tolerated this in the early 1980s. Fiato also claims to have met with Anthony Spilotro a number of times to discuss business. This is also clearly a lie as Spilotro would likely have met with comparable individuals to his rank from the L.A. Family.