An accused Colombo hit man, after accidentally killing a former nun, feared a fate worse than conviction: Eternal damnation.
Thomas (Tommy Shots) Gioeli confessed to both the January 1982 shooting and his anticipated sentence in the afterlife to a mob family capo, according to newly unsealed court documents.
Gioeli, in spilling his guts about the slaying, said he was "going to hell" for the shooting of sister-turned-social worker Veronica Zuraw - killed in her Brooklyn kitchen by a wayward shotgun blast.
Zuraw, a native of Brazil, was known as Sister Mary Adelaide before leaving her vocation, getting married and heading up the social services department of a Brooklyn-based agency.
The actual target of Gioeli's hit was Joseph Peraino Jr., who was shot to death on the stoop of Zuraw's Brooklyn home. His father, Joseph Sr., was shot and paralyzed in the mob hit.
Gioeli, 58, the former acting boss of the Colombo crime family, is facing federal trial for a half-dozen murders - including the 1997 slaying of off-duty NYPD cop Ralph Dols in Brooklyn.
The pretrial filing by prosecutors implicated him in several other murders and conspiracies - although Gioeli was never charged with any of the crimes.
Prosecutors asked a federal judge to allow testimony about those crimes at Gioeli's upcoming trial. Defense attorneys tried to keep the documented sealed, but it was made public after a request from the Daily News.
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