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Notorious hitman dies, spent last days in Sunrise nursing home

As an elderly resident of an assisted living facility in Sunrise, former hit-man for the mob, Harold "Kayo" Konigsberg was just considered unpleasant, a fading gangster who was cranky, demanding and rude.

By Mike Clary,Sun Sentinelcontact the reporter

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Mob hitman Harold 'Kayo' Konigsberg dies at 89 after scaring residents of his Sunrise nursing home

Notorious Mafia hitman Kayo Konigsberg dies in Sunrise

As a hitman for the mob, Harold "Kayo" Konigsberg was once considered "the most dangerous uncaged killer on the East Coast," according to Life magazine, suspected in at least 20 murders.

As an elderly resident of an assisted living facility in Sunrise, he was just considered unpleasant, a fading gangster who was cranky, demanding and rude.

"I don't know how anybody could put up with him," said Eric Konigsberg, his great-nephew. "I know I was truly terrified when he threatened to kill me."

Konigsberg, who spent nearly 50 years in prison before he was released to live with a daughter in Weston two years ago, died last month. He was 89.

CAPTIONHarold Konigsberg

Photos courtesy NYC Municipal Archives (1947) and New York Dept. of Corrections (2012)

Composite photo shows Harold Konigsberg, in 1947 and 2012.



CAPTIONHarold Konigsberg

The Jersey Journal, Courtesy

Harold Konigsberg being restrained by Jersey City police officers in 1958

"I feel no remorse for this man dying," said North Fort Myers resident Jenny Castellitto, 69, the daughter of a union official Konigsberg was convicted of strangling when she was a teenager. "I never got a chance to say goodbye to my father."

Before being lowered without ceremony into a grave at the Star of David Memorial Gardens in North Lauderdale, Konigsberg showed flashes of the cold-blooded menace that prompted a government official back in the 1960s to describe him as "an animal on a leash" for the Mafia.

"All they had to do was unsnap the leash and he'd kill for the fun of it," Life quoted the official as saying.

Some of the residents of the Westchester of Sunrise, an assisted living facility, might believe it. According to reports published last spring, Konigsberg terrorized some residents while paying off employees for special benefits like being permitted to cook in his room.

"To say he was pushy is putting it mildly — he didn't get along with anybody," 83-year-old Sandra Fiebert told the New York Daily News. "He told me to shut up more than once."

A Westchester administrator declined to comment.

Sunrise police also took note of Konigsberg. On Feb. 27 they were called to Wal-Mart when store managers suspected him of attempted shoplifting. With a police officer as a witness, Konigsberg was issued a trespass warning by a store manager.

Konigsberg's exploits here pale in comparison to the crimes he was charged with committing for the mob. Although internal memos from the U.S. Justice Department linked him to nearly two-dozen contract killings, he was convicted of only one: the 1961 murder of Teamsters official Anthony "Three Fingers" Castellitto, garotted with the cord from a Venetian blind.

Prosecutors said Konigsberg carried out the hit on orders from rival union boss Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano, who was also a Mafia lieutenant in the Genovese crime family.

cComments

I like the old guy. I would like to hear some stories.

ERNIE D

AT 9:03 AM DECEMBER 12, 2014

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Born in 1925 and raised in Bayonne, New Jersey, Konigsberg seemed hellbent on causing trouble from the start, according to his nephew, who profiled the legendary racketeer in "Blood Relation," published in 2005.

The boy called Heshy by his Yiddish-speaking parents first showed a propensity for violence at the age of 13, when he pulled a gun during a fight over control of a neighborhood craps game, his nephew wrote. He dropped out of school at 16, and soon went to work as a bodyguard and enforcer for Abner "Longy" Zwillman, known as the "Al Capone of New Jersey," in the 1940s and '50s.

By the time he was 23, Konigsberg had been arrested 20 times, mostly for robbery and assault.

In 1950 Konigsberg went to prison for the first time, convicted of robbing an appliance store and beating up the owner. He did eight years of a 14-year sentence.

Soon after getting out, Konigsberg built a reputation as a loan shark and a freelance killer, working for whatever Mafia family needed muscle, Eric Konigsberg said.

While picking up more nicknames – Boom Boom, the Bayonne Bomber – Konigsberg also gained the attention of the FBI and its director J. Edgar Hoover. Under surveillance for years while working out of an office in Manhattan in the late 1950s and early 1960s, federal agents reported him dealing in stolen watches, running a scheme involving real estate in Argentina and a planning to sell arms to Cuban revolutionaries.

One of his former lawyers described Konigsberg to his nephew as a "true sociopath."

In 1998 Eric Konigsberg went to meet his notorious great uncle in an upstate New York prison where he was serving 20 years to life. He went back to visit him nine more times while working on the book.

Even in his 70s and behind bars, Kayo Konigsberg remained an intimidating man, his nephew said. Although he often seemed happy to discuss his violent past, he could also turn angry and threatening in an instant.

"I pushed him as far as I felt I could," said Eric Konigsberg, 46. "And then he threatened to kill me. He terrified me."

Konigsberg said he was shocked when his uncle was released from prison in 2012 after being denied parole seven times previously.

"He did not have a good prison record, he never expressed any remorse and he admitted to 20 murders," said Konigsberg, referring to a U.S. Justice Department memo dated Oct. 31, 1967, and cited in his book.

Under questioning by police and prosecutors during his many years in custody, Konigsberg at times admitted to killings and at others times denied them, according to officials. In 1988 a New York appellate court upheld his murder conviction in the death of Castellitto, whose body was never found.

At a parole hearing in April 2012, Konigsberg nonetheless professed his innocence, according to a transcript. When a hearing officer at Mohawk Correctional Facility asked him to confirm his murder conviction and other arrests in New York and New Jersey, Konigsberg bristled.

"Whatever you got there, just keep this in mind, sir, with all due respect, that all this is over 50 years old," Konigsberg said. "When does it end? I mean, you can't keep holding it against somebody for 50 years, 60 years, and say the crime was this or that."

Eric Konigsberg, who is on a reporting assignment in Kenya, said he got news of his uncle's death from the son of a man he was suspected of killing.

Asked if he had any sentiments he might express at his uncle's grave site, Konigsberg said, "Rot in hell."

Staff researcher Barbara Hijek contributed to this report

mwclary@tribune.com

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