January 12, 2017 This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci

Anthony Colombo, Son And Key Aide Of Mob Boss Joe Colombo, Dead At 71

Anthony ColomboGang Land Exclusive!Anthony Colombo, who spent two stretches behind bars for mob-related criminal activity after following his late Mafia boss father into the Colombo crime family, died peacefully in his sleep last week from diabetes related ailments that plagued him for decades. He passed away in San Diego, where he has been living for the past year. He was 71.

His death came a year after he likened the fatal shooting of his dad in 1971 to the assassination of President Kennedy in a book, Colombo, The Unsolved Murder. There is no doubt "who pulled the trigger," Colombo wrote, but no one ever learned "who pulled the strings behind the trigger man" in what was a "faulty investigation" by the FBI and NYPD from beginning to end.

Coauthored by Donald Capria, the book is an unapologetic story about Anthony's love and devotion to his father. But it also concedes that Joe Colombo was a powerful mob boss and close associate of Carlo Gambino. The book details talks that the duo had, including Gambino's initial support of Joe Colombo's role as a civil rights icon, and Don Carlo's later change of heart before the June 28, 1971 rally at which the Mafia boss was gunned down and mortally wounded.

Carlo Gambino"Carl spoke softly," the authors wrote, but he told Colombo in no uncertain terms that attending the second Italian American Civil Rights League rally in Columbus Circle was a bad move. But Colombo stubbornly ignored the sage advice from his wise old friend and supporter. The section is without any attribution, but like several other anecdotes in the book, can only be an account that Anthony Colombo obtained from his father.

Gambino: "You can no longer be around this League."
Colombo: "Then everything we worked for, everything you helped me do, it would all die in vain."
Gambino: "That is not your problem anymore. If it cannot work without you, then it does not deserve to."

Joe ColomboColombo: "If I walk away now, then I have backed away from my own fight."
Gambino: "This is a fight you can no longer win, Joseph. Why can't you see that? Can't you see how angry they are with you? All of these arrests. This thing you say you care so much about. These people. You are infecting them."

Each mob boss held fast. Colombo said he could not go back on his word, but would only show his face, and not speak, "only be there as a spectator," the authors wrote. Gambino could not go back on his word either, he said, and the rally was off limits for his people because it was "more incentive" for prosecutors to go after them, adding: "There are many men that are afraid to show their faces that will not be there on Unity Day. You should be one of them."

Anthony Colombo Addresses Unity Day RallyOver the years, Anthony never forgave himself for not being next to his father when Jerome Johnson, a slim black man "disguised as a press reporter" took a "small black pistol from his pocket" and fired three bullets into the back of his father's head.

"I should have been standing right there," he stated. "I was changing my clothes because I had to make a speech. Who the hell knows? Maybe I could've pushed his hand after the first shot. I just can't believe that with all those people right there, nobody did anything. I just can't believe it."

Anthony, then 26, was an important player in the League. He accompanied his father when he appeared on the Dick Cavett show, was involved in the meetings with Al Ruddy that ended with him deleting the word "Mafia" from The Godfather, and also in the sessions that led to Attorney General John Mitchell banning its use by the Justice Department in July, 1970. And Anthony had been a key speaker in June of that year.

Seconds after the shots rang out, police officer Tony Schiozzi tackled Johnson, knocked the gun out of his hand and with help from other cops, handcuffed him behind his back. All of a sudden, the authors wrote, "through the mesh of policemen a small revolver pressed against the center of Johnson's back and two more gunshots popped off."

Joe & Anthony Colombo & Dick CavettThe authors make much of the fact that "the gun used to shoot Johnson hit the pavement and was quickly retrieved by police but the shooter inexplicably escaped through a thick crowd of FBI, detectives and a few hundred policemen." They argue that he was allowed to escape because he was an accomplice whose role was to keep Johnson from fingering law enforcement officials who put him up to it.

That argument falls flat, however, because that shooter, according to Gang Land sources on both sides of the law, was a longtime Joe Colombo pal, the late soldier Philip (Chubby) Rossillo, who would be a codefendant with Anthony and brothers Vincent and Joseph Jr. in a 1985 racketeering indictment in which all four men copped guilty pleas. Rossillo, who was released from prison in 1994, died in 1998. (Anthony and brother Christopher were charged with racketeering in 2004. Each was acquitted, but convicted of a lesser charge, and spent several months behind bars.)

Philip RossilloBut it's not easy to dismiss the authors' complaints that an alleged Johnson accomplice, a black woman "with a camera around her neck" who was seen by police officers standing next to Johnson, somehow "managed to escape from the press area." Authorities could never locate her, even after longtime top echelon informer Greg Scarpa gave the FBI a color photo of her.

"While trying to exit the barricades, she was stopped by a pair of police officers," the authors wrote. "She negotiated her release with them by stating, 'Stay here and get my head blown off? No sir.' And they let her flee the scene."

The authors wrote that, according to an FBI memo they obtained, Scarpa "told the FBI he and others were supposed to be on the hunt for the woman so that she could be snatched and made to tell 'who hired Johnson to hit Colombo'" but that the FBI "buried the photo" and never gave it to the NYPD because the agency feared it could jeopardize Scarpa's status as an informer.

Gregory ScarpaThe memo, which Capria provided Gang Land, states that Scarpa got the color photo of the mystery woman from his mob superiors who told him to show it to a friend of Scarpa's who knew Johnson. The plan was to ID the woman "so she could be snatched and made to tell 'who hired Johnson to hit Colombo.'"

Scarpa passed the picture to his FBI handler on July 15, 1971. After making several black and white copies, the agent returned it to Scarpa. But the photos were never shown to the NYPD because, the memo stated, that "might seriously jeopardize informant's position." To this day, who she was, and what she was doing with Johnson, is still a mystery.

In the book, Colombo never acknowledges, or denies, that his father was a powerful mob boss. The son writes that he "always knew" his dad was a "powerful man, [someone whose] whole demeanor exuded power" in the years, months and days before the 1971 shooting in Columbus Circle. But he says he never asked him, "Dad, are you in the Mafia?"

Joe and Lucille Colombo Wedding Day Picture"I would never have done that," he stated. "It would have been too embarrassing for me to ever ask that." And when he did hear and read stories linking his dad to the Mafia, "he denied being a member of organized crime so vehemently that it was hard not to believe him. He was my father and I trusted what he said. He made it very easy to believe him. He was a very convincing man."

He said that his father, who died from his wounds in 1978, "would have tried to kill me" if he lived to see him engage in criminal activity. "This I know for sure. He never wanted that life for me."

Anthony Colombo, who died last Friday, "was cremated at a private service in San Diego," according to his son, Anthony Jr, who is a practicing California attorney. "His remains will stay with his family as he never wanted to miss Sunday dinner." A mass to honor his father's memory will be held January 21 at St. Mary's Church in Washingtonville, NY, where he met his wife Carol more than 50 years ago.

Colombo is also survived by three other children, Joseph, Lucille, and Cristine; grandchildren Koral, Anthony, Jackie and Alyssa; a sister Catherine, and brothers Vincent and Christopher.

"Anthony lived a tortured existence with diabetes," said his brother Christopher. "I'm happy he's not suffering anymore. That he went peacefully in his sleep, and that he is now with his parents. And I hope he finds the peace he was always looking for in life."

Mob Induction Standards Ain't What They Used To Be

John GottiThe prevailing wisdom used to be that you had to take part in a mob hit to get "made." That morphed into you only had to promise to kill someone if you were ordered. Some mob turncoats have reported that being an "earner" — someone who can rake in the dough — or a relative of a made guy, can also win a mob associate his "button."

These days, though, all it takes to "get straightened out" is to whine long and loudly that a tough mobster from a rival crime family keeps picking on you.

That's what sources say happened a few months ago when the Gambino family inducted a longtime mob associate from Howard Beach, Queens in order to protect him from a Bonanno wiseguy from the same neighborhood. Howard Beach of course, was home to the late John Gotti. Turncoat mob boss Joe Massino also lived there, as did Luchese family boss Vittorio (Vic) Amuso, who now resides in a federal prison. But make no mistake about it, Howard Beach is still home for mobsters.

Joe MassinoGang Land is withholding the names of the feuding duo — at least for now — but usually reliable sources say the pair have been feuding since they were behind bars together in a New Jersey federal prison in 2009.

The sources say the dispute began when the Gambino associate, whose father was an associate before him, pressed the Bonanno soldier, whose uncle is a wiseguy, to confront a third inmate in a dispute over commissary money, or to make a stink about it to prison officials.

The Bonanno soldier, who was in the early stages of a seven-year bid, didn't want to rock the boat. But his Gambino antagonist, who was by then a short timer in a 10-year stretch, began to badmouth the Bonanno wiseguy as a wimp to other inmates. By time that got back to the Bonanno guy, the Gambino guy was gone from the prison, but his actions, sources say, were never forgotten.

Vittorio AmusoIn 2013 or 2014, the sources say, the Bonanno member lost his cool after he heard again on the street that his nemesis was telling others that he was "gutless" and "running scared" while they were in prison together. Sources say the Bonanno guy sought out and assaulted the big mouth Gambino in Howard Beach. "He hurt him pretty bad, knocked him out," said one source.

When they ran into each other on Cross Bay Boulevard the next time, the sources say, the Gambino guy "was looking to hide" and ran as the Bonanno guy "verbally abused" and "humiliated" him in front of several neighborhood denizens.

The feuding duo made it through last year with no major confrontations, the sources say. That was largely because the Bonanno guy got nailed for a violation of his supervised release and was behind bars for most of the year. But just to play safe, before the Bonanno guy was released, the Gambino associate prevailed on the powers that be in that family, and he was inducted into the crime family.

So make that a first in the Gang Land Book of Mafia Records: A wiseguy gets his button — to keep him from getting decked by another wiseguy.

Ask Andy: RSVP = RIP

Andy PetepieceSammy Bull Gravano kept his promise to Joey Bilotti and never had him whacked any time he summoned him to a meeting during the five years he and John Gotti were on top of the Gambino crime family in the late 1980s. But Gravano's old buddy Dee Bee wasn't so lucky. Like so many mob rubouts of old, his demise was quickly and efficiently executed on orders from the boss.

The Dapper Don had ordered capo Robert (Dee Bee) DiBernardo's death after hearing complaints about treasonous talk by him. Sammy Bull associate Joe Paruta did the actual shooting, but avoided justice by dying a natural death before Gravano flipped and spilled his guts about 19 killings he was involved in. Dee Bee was whacked in the basement meeting room of The Bull's construction business. The unsuspecting DiBernardo sat down only to be given two shots to the back of the head instead of the coffee he was expecting.

Robert DeBernardoBonanno capo Gerlando Sciascia fell victim to the same sucker method in March 1999. Patrick (Patty from the Bronx) DeFilippo invited Sciascia to drive to a meeting to help settle an inner family dispute. Once Sciascia settled himself in the back seat of the vehicle, DeFilippo unloaded four shots into him, then dumped the body into the street.

Mob boss Joe Massino, and his brother-in-law underboss, both detailed their roles in Sciascia's murder after they rolled. DeFilippo got a life sentence on a host of racketeering charges but was found not guilty of the Sciascia murder. He died in prison in 2013. The driver of the death car, mobster John (Johnny Joe) Spirito took a plea deal and was given 20 years in the slammer.

Yet another RSVP-RIP victim was Philadelphia soldier Pasquale (Pat the Cat) Spirito, not believed to be related to Johnny Joe. Pat the Cat had grown tired of hunting down enemies of boss Little Nicky Scarfo and his reluctance greatly angered the boss. In April of 1983, Spirito became a targeted enemy.

Gerlando SciascoNick (The Crow) Caramandi told Spirito they were going enemy hunting and that Spirito would do the driving. As the car slowed, Charles (Charlie White) Iannece fired two shots into the back of the unsuspecting Spirito's head from the back seat. Eventually Caramandi became a government witness and helped convict triggerman Iannece and others. Iannece was released in 2011 while former boss Scarfo is still languishing behind bars.

The same thing happened to Vincent (Jimmy the Hammer) Massaro in Rochester in late 1973 after he got a call from his "friend" Angelo Monachino. They agreed to meet at Monachino's place of business to settle some unpleasantness that had developed between them.

The unsuspecting Massaro walked into a trap and took eight bullets from another "friend." At two 1976 trials, the direct participants in the hit, plus the Rochester Family hierarchy, which ordered the hit, were all convicted and given long sentences. Two years later, the convictions were thrown out, after it was revealed that some of the evidence was fabricated by the police. Nevertheless Massaro's RSVP left him RIP.

Nicolo RizzutoNorth of the border, Nicolo Rizzuto used the RSVP ploy to assume control of the Montreal faction of the Bonanno crime family on January 22, 1978. At the time Rizzuto was badmouthing Paolo Violi, the acting captain who headed the Montreal crew, to defacto Bonanno family boss Carmine (Lilo) Galante, and got permission from him to eliminate Violi. His brother, and a close associate had already been whacked by the Rizzuto faction, but Paolo accepted an invitation to play cards in a local bar without the presence of bodyguards. Violi never knew what hit him when a Rizzuto ally fired a shotgun blast into Paolo's head. Three decades later Rizzuto, and many who conspired against the Violis were themselves whacked in Montreal and its suburbs where mob violence is much more pronounced today than it is in the U.S.