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Tom Robbins, the award-winning reporter-columnist for the Village Voice filed this week's Gang Land column.
By Tom Robbins

Genovese crime family member Arthur Nigro still goes by the nicknames “Little Guy” or “Short Guy,” thanks to his modest stature. But his standing in his outfit has gone straight up.
Nigro, 65, was charged last week in a murder and racketeering case and prosecutors gave him deep bows, claiming that he had served for a time as acting boss of the powerful Genovese clan.
The last time the feds had occasion to bring up Nigro’s name he was merely an acting captain. That was back in 2007 when Nigro pled guilty to using threats to try and force a landlord to charge below-market rates on a commercial space he wanted for a friend. Since then, the Little Guy has been at the federal prison at Fort Dix, serving the 51-month prison term he was handed. Which suggests that the feds have come up with some insider information that didn’t come from watching other mobsters pay Nigro the kind of respect due an acting boss.
The heavy betting in Gang Land circles is that the feds’ source is a Genovese veteran insider named John Bologna who suddenly disappeared last month along with his family from his modest suburban home in the Westchester village of Shrub Oak.
Bologna, 68, was close to Nigro and other Genovese figures, sources say. He is now believed to have worn a wire for the feds, possibly for several years.
If so, he was well-placed to pick up mob secrets. Bologna is said to have been part of a crew that pulled shakedowns of strip joints, bars, and restaurants in Westchester and the city of Springfield in western Massachusetts where the Genovese family has long had a strong foothold.
Springfield figures prominently in the case filed in Manhattan Federal Court last week against Nigro and five others. Nigro and Anthony (Bingy) Arillotta, a Genovese soldier who lives in Springfield, are both charged with conspiring to kill a local mob heavy named Adolfo (Big Al) Bruno back in 2003.
Bruno was long considered the Genovese boss of western Massachusetts, and the racketeering indictment claims that he was whacked as part of a family power struggle, and to prevent him from squawking to authorities. The charge falls under federal death penalty statutes, but the feds are not expected to seek it in this case.
Bruno was gunned down the night before his 58th birthday in a parking lot of a Springfield social club at the end of his regular Sunday night card game. A local ex-con named Frankie Roche has admitted to pulling the trigger after being promised $10,000 by a Bruno rival, Fotios (Freddy) Geas. According to an FBI interview in the case, Roche bragged after the murder that he had called out to his victim just before he shot him six times: “I walked up to Bruno and said, ‘Hey Al, you looking for me?’ And I popped him.”
Roche is expected to be the key witness against Geas when he faces the murder rap in federal court in Springfield later next month.
Interestingly, a few months before Bruno’s killing, Bologna popped up in Springfield, cruising local strip clubs and bars, allegedly in a bid to hike mob “rent” payments from owners. Stephanie Barry, a dogged reporter for the local Springfield Republican who has closely covered the Bruno case, reported in 2007 that state police obtained a search warrant based on evidence that Bologna and Arillotta were shaking down local businesses.
Bologna was described in an affidavit as wearing gold-rimmed dark glasses, even inside the dark bars he hung out in. State cops reportedly documented 32 separate meetings between Bologna and other New York gangsters and their local counterparts.
Shortly after court permission was obtained for a bug and tracking device to be placed in Bingy Arillotta’s car, however, the New Yorkers stopped showing up. Barry (at right with TV newsman Ray Herschel at a 2008 scholarship fundraiser in Springfield) reported that troopers suspected a leak.
According to the indictment, after Bruno’s death, Nigro and Arillotta teamed up to take over bookmaking, gambling, and loansharking in Springfield where they also extorted the owner of a strip club.

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Tommy Shots: They want me running the family, don't they know I have a young wife?
Sal Vitale: (laughs) Tommy, jump in, the water's fine.