Three masked men walked into an Ozone Park, Queens, barbershop yesterday and, in a barrage of gunfire, killed a barber as he reclined in a chair watching television.
Although detectives said that at least 10 shots were fired and that the gunfire must have been heard in the residential neighborhood, the police were not called for 30 minutes.
Law-enforcement officials said the victim, Vito Scaglione, 36 years old, had ties to organized-crime figures and was suspected of being involved in narcotics trafficking.
In the early 1980's, John Gotti, whom law-enforcement officials have identified as the head of the Gambino organized-crime group, frequently was a customer at the scene of the slaying, the Father & Sons Haircutters, at 83-01 101st Avenue, according to Lieut. Remo Franceschini of the police. 'They're Hits,' the Police Say
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Police officials said, however, Mr. Gotti was not linked to the shooting.
The slaying was the fourth gangland-style death in the city in a week. But police officials said they had no evidence the shootings were connected.
''They're hits,'' the deputy commissioner for public information, Alice T. McGillion, said. ''But as far as we know, they are not related,''
Police officials also said they had no information linking the murder to the shooting and wounding of another barber, Amedeo Azzaro, in his home in Astoria on Tuesday.
The slaying of Mr. Scaglione was similar to one of the most notorious Mafia murders in the city, the assassination of the head of the Gambino crime family, Albert Anastasia, on Oct. 25, 1957, as he was having his hair cut at the old Park Sheraton Hotel on Seventh Avenue and 55th Street. Convictions in Weapons Case
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Mr. Scaglione, who, the police said, lived at 1070 Frances Drive in Valley Stream, L.I., was convicted in 1981 in Federal District Court in Brooklyn on a charge of providing an unlicensed 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol and a silencer to an undercover Federal informer.
Mr. Scaglione's brother-in-law, Dominick Cataldo, who, the authorities described as an important figure in the Colombo crime family, was also convicted in the case.
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After pleading guilty, Mr. Scaglione was placed on probation. Mr. Cataldo was sentenced to eight years in a Federal prison.
''He did not look like a typical wise guy, or a tough guy,'' said Laura A. Brevetti, who, as a lawyer with the Federal Organized Crime Strike Force in the Eastern District, prosecuted Mr. Scaglione on a gun charge in 1981. ''He was a mild, almost meek-looking person.''
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Deputy Chief Joseph R. Borrelli, commander of Queens detectives, said Mr. Scaglione was alone in the shop at 10 A.M. when the gunmen entered. They shot him at close range in the face, neck and chest, detectives said. Spent .380-caliber cartridges were scattered on the floor.
Chief Borrelli said Mr. Scaglione's body was found 30 minutes after the shooting by his brother Nino.
Later, several witnesses told detectives they had heard the gunfire and saw two men wearing ski masks and a third in a stocking mask drive away in a green and white 1983 or 1984 Chevrolet.
Police officials said detectives did not press the witnesses for their reasons for failing to call the police. Ties to Crime Groups
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Mr. Scaglione, the police said, was a partner in the shop with his father, Salvatore, who was said to be in Italy.
A law-enforcement official said that in addition to his connections to the Colombo group, Mr. Scaglione had been observed with associates of the Gambino crime family.
Lieutenant Franceschini, the head of detectives in the Queens District Attorney's office, said that in the early 80's, Mr. Scaglione's brother, known as ''Frank the Barber,'' was occasionally called to cut the hair of Mr. Gotti, at Mr. Gotti's hangout, the Bergen Hunt and Fish Club, in South Ozone Park, Queens.
Lieutenant Franceschini said that Mr. Gotti had been observed at the Scagliones' shop in the early 80's, before he became the purported head of the Gambino group, but that he had not been seen there in recent years.
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The police said Frank Scaglione has been missing since July 17, 1982. On that day, ''Frank the Barber,'' accompanied by two other men - John Cavallo, 37, of 101-12 101st Avenue, and Eugene Gotti, 40, the brother of John Gotti - had an argument with Raymond Mareno, a bartender, at the 101 Bar, on the corner of 101st Street and 101st Avenue in Ozone Park.
The police said the argument spilled out onto the street, where Frank Scaglione quarreled with Mr. Mareno and shot and killed him. Frank Scaglione has not been seen since the shooting and no one was charged in the case, the police said.
