"As of early Friday, cops were searching a white Lexus left in front of a fire hydrant down the block from Barbati’s towering two-story brick home."

"Two bullet holes were visible in the white fence running along the side of the house. Police were also scouring nearby homes for security video footage."

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-...ticle-1.2695112

I still think it was a planned robbery and the prick shot the guy out of panic.
Too much of a coincidence that he was shot right after arriving home with 10k on him.
Perhaps the guy wanted to shoot the guy, not kill him, and then grab the cash ???
The only reason you guys think it was a hit is because he left the money behind. Pulling off a robbery gets the adrenalin pumping big time so its not uncommon for a novice to panic. You need a cool head to do that shit.
I could be wrong but i dont think so.

but why shoot of the gun that many times if you were trying to rob him. with everyone owning them secrurity cams on the front porch of there houses these guy will be arrighned on tuesday. unless the car was stolen and untracable.

To anyone who believes it was a robbery that went bad - I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell ya.

Exactly. Generally if someone freaks out in a robbery gone bad they are going to shoot once and run. I don't know one way or another but this don't look like a robbery gone bad.

Leaving the cash sends a message !!!

With respect to Belmont, robbery motive is absurd, given the circumstances.

You're going to be waiting at / near the guy's house, sun going down but still broad daylight on a clear early evening for a heist like that? With unknown # cameras / witnessses?

More likely 'robbery' motive is either decoy or coincidence.

if the former the question becomes who at L&B or among co-owners intimates tipped the robber / shooter tipped off?

Also Q: what aspect of the 'robbery' went 'wrong'?

There might be more details to come but so far nothing has suggested a 'struggle'.

Curious to see if any camera images come up. If it as it appears it was pro shooter, there's zero chance he went to Staten Island, far better to get on Belt / Gowanus despite backups, zig-zag and then... get the car chopped?

But that's pure speculation. Maybe things were sloppier than they appear and we'll learn more.

Here's the thing, though...wouldn't the guy finish him off with a shot to the head? From what I know, he shot him in the arm, leg, and back.

Leaving cash behind can mean 2 things:

1. Mob hit

2. The shooter panicked and ran off.

Another thing that points to a mob hit is speeding off in a white Lexus. Not many robbers drive Lexuses these days...unless it was stolen.

Either way, if it was supposed to be a robbery, someone knew this guy was leaving with a lot of cash on that day.

They give cops glocks then they shoot an innocent 70 times 15 bullets in the bottom of the foot. They are cool under pressure.

Just want to know one thing can they still make a good scicilian in the place. Was the owner armed he must have been armed. Did they say anything about that?

I didn't read anything about him being armed, did any of you? He just had cash on him.

But, Barbati, he certainly had his guard down. ??? Why was he so lax? That is the question. If he knew he wasn't doing right by somebody he'd be armed and ready at all times, ESPECIALLY when alone.

@Dom. The shooter may not have been experienced. This is 2016, not 1940. Lol. Just bustin you

Now they are saying $15k in cash and the guy was caught on camera smoking cigarettes outside of the Lexus. He better hope it was stolen or he is fucked for sure. Barbati's wife said he only brought that kind of cash home about 6 times a year, so somebody tipped the killer off and this was botched, or as said was a straight up hit. Cops are saying botched robbery but you can't always believe that this early on.

6 times/year my ass. He was bringing that in every 2-3 days. Restaurants are cash cows.

What are the chances that it was a hit but the money was a coincidence? The hitter saw his chance and it was just one of the days he was carrying the cash home. Stranger things have happened. I also have a feeling that the "bags of cash" thing happened more often than a half-dozen times a year.



http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/20...-pizza-man.html

According to this story he had a permit to carry a .38 that he usually had on his person, but wasn't carrying that particular day. It also reports he had an "ex-cop bodyguard" who also usually tagged along with him. Who knows if it's the truth or all hype about the "bodyguard", the guy could've just been an old pal.

re: L&B cash, they do take credit / debit cards ($10 min I think) so though it's a popular place and they keep pretty long hours... there's a lot of plastic.

was it opportunistic hit AND robbery? perhaps.

the only persuasive line I've seen against it being a hit is that hits are so unusual now, what the hell could he have been up to, even among crazy Columbos, to be a target?

There was a sushi place on Sunny Isles Blvd. in Miami Beach called "Hiro's".

Just like this place L&B you almost could never get a table. The place just happened to catch on and you'd see all sorts of famous people from back in the early 1990's.

Whitney and Bobby Brown, the boxer Vinny Pazienza, Stallone, Maddona and a bunch of others.

The owner Hiro would close every night at 2am with a sack full of cash. But he always had a bodyguard, some gun nut who was ex military. He had special permits for mac10's and all kinds of heavy shit.

Point is , he made sure that Hiro got inside his house safely every night with all his cash.

The other point is that if this pizza place was so busy this guy who got popped must have been bringing home a ton of cash EVERY night, not just a few times a year like the wife says.

Sal

If he is smart you send people a few times a day to make bank deposits.

"According to this story he had a permit to carry a .38 that he usually had on his person, but wasn't carrying that particular day. It also reports he had an "ex-cop bodyguard" who also usually tagged along with him. Who knows if it's the truth or all hype about the "bodyguard", the guy could've just been an old pal."

No gun he must have ran out of bullets. Cop as a body guard. My dead mother would be better then a cop.

Yeah, if they're depositing it into a business account. The money he was bringing home was for his personal safe. If you make frequent deposits into a personal account that total over 10K, you get flagged right away.

Why would he need a bodyguard if he wasn't suspicious of something happening to him...

There is a excop that works at the pizzeria it gets crazy on Thursday Friday and Saturday nights a lot of people and also a lot of cash. He is usually with Lenny the chef the other partner.

Any deposits that are $10k and over at a bank gets immediately reported to the IRS. If you make multiple deposits just under $10k they come after you. I think the wife is full of it too, but I also think it could be a hit that was just a coincidence with the money. Because if the hitter knew him well enough like they claim, he would have to know he had a bodyguard and a gun most nights (I haven't seen those in stories yet as I haven't read them all) so someone would be stupid to try and rob him with a bodyguard toting a weapon and possibly the owner toting too. Too damn risky for one person.

It just don't make sense for a robbery in my opinion.

It's not hard to get a table like at Raos or some other places. It was a hit. Period. EVERYONE knew that the Colombos had that place. There was a big dust up over the sauce a few years back. No joke. No sense speculatin' as to why or who or what. But the owner of L&B doesn't get knocked off in that manner, in that area of Brooklyn without a reason.

It not hard to sit at the bar at Rao's. It's hard to get a table unless Frankie knows you. He knows when a table is not being used. That doesn't mean you can get it.

On Brooklyn it not like it was years ago. I remember when the Latin Kings killed some guy on 18 ave. nothing happened to them.

I remember something less then that happened. Kings did a job on a kid. Then a UPS guy made a delivery to one of the kings houses where his mother and sister lived. That was some delivery he killed everyone in the house. The Latin King was not there but so what you can't kill all of them. But you got one of them where they breathe.

I think a robbery motive is possible. The guy was a restaurant owner. Restaurants are cash businesses, he had cash on him. There's a lot of crazy and evil people in the world looking to get money, it happens.

I would say he probably does more in credit cards/debit cards than cash these days.

He was shot 5 times, right? And other bullet holes were seen in a fence at his house. If the shooter had only fired one or two shots then it could well have been that he's panicked and shot him. But to fire that many rounds? I don't see it. If you panic you are going to run away, not stand there and fire maybe 10 shots at the guy.

Of course he might have been high and went overboard, but I think this was a designated hit. Who by and why, I wouldn't have a clue, but Barbati was taken out for a reason and I sincerely doubt it was a botched robbery.

We will just have to wait for the real detectives to solve this- if they can

This guy is pretty cool and calm after killing a guy in broad daylite

http://nypost.com/2016/07/05/this-is-the-gunman-who-killed-the-owner-of-a-famed-brooklyn-pizzeria/

He should've wore a cap. It clearly doesn't look like someone looking to rob another guy, though. He seems too chill after a "robbery gone bad".