Turncoat Turns ‘Mob Justice’ Into Federal Justice

An imprisoned Colombo capo, John “Sonny” Franzese, should be beaming with pride right about now — assuming news has reached him about how three of his upand-coming mob underlings allegedly took speedy and fierce action last week when two shotguntoting, masked bandits robbed their high-stakes card game on Long Island.The next day, the angry trio are alleged to have armed themselves with handguns and confronted two card players they suspected of being involved in the brazen stickup. Mob justice was said to be immediately applied — the “inside men” were allegedly pistolwhipped and told that the triggers of the revolvers placed in their mouths would be pulled if they didn’t give up the names of their cohorts.“Do you want to walk out of here alive or do you not want to walk out of here alive?” the alleged gunwaving leader of the hoods, reputed capo Michael Uvino, is charged with having threatened.“Throughout the assault,” assistant U.S. attorneys Deborah Mayer, Paige Petersen, and Elizabeth Geddes said in court papers filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn yesterday, “the victims repeatedly screamed in pain and begged for their lives. One victim pleaded, ‘Please, please. I’ll do anything you want.’ The other begged, “Please don’t kill me.’ As the victims pleaded throughout the assault, the defendants repeatedly told them to ‘shut the f— up.’ “That’s the good news for Franzese, a legendary 90-year-old Long Island wiseguy. The bad news is that a drug dealer his cohorts had befriended more than a year ago turned out to be an FBI informer and, while working for the FBI, he tape-recorded the entire episode, leading to the arrest and jailing of the three rough and ready reputed gangsters three days later.If that’s not bad enough, Sonny, who’s now in an Ohio federal prison after his fifth parole violation stemming from a conviction in a 1950s bank robbery conspiracy, is apparently responsible for the whole mess.Sources say Franzese vouched for the turncoat, and was himself tape-recorded several times by the wired-up snitch, who was whisked off the streets following the arrests last Saturday of Mr. Uvino, 42, and associates Brian Dono, 37, and Philip Costanza, 43. All are currently detained without bail.Franzese is not named in an arrest complaint by FBI agent Vincent D’Agostino that lays out the charges. But sources say Sonny is the “made member of the Colombo family” whom the informer recorded 13 months ago stating that Mr. Uvino, 42, had been elevated to capo.Eight days ago, the informer learned about the robbery at Mr. Uvino’s “base of operations,” the Sons of Italy social club on Route 111 in Hauppauge, L.I., the complaint says. Later that day, he witnessed the beatings at a club on Wellwood Avenue in Lindenhurst, L.I., where the robbery took place, according to the complaint.A bitter irony for Franzese, sources say, is that the cooperating witness in the complaint, identified only as “CW-1,” is part of the same investigation in which Sonny’s youngest son, John Jr., also wore a wire and tape-recorded his father in conversations that led to Sonny’s parole violation arrest in May.As Gang Land disclosed then, knowledgeable sources say Franzese Jr. tape recorded discussions with his father in the summer of last year and was relocated last September under the federal Witness Protection Program.Sources say this most recent betrayal by a 40-something hoodlum who, according to the complaint, pleaded guilty to drug dealing in hopes of winning leniency and being “relocated for his security,” will be more troubling for Sonny, emotionally as well as pragmatically, than his son’s disloyalty.His son, a drug and alcohol abuser whose tip to the FBI led to his father’s fourth parole violation in 2001, was not trusted by Sonny — let alone his mob associates — and wasn’t terribly effective in his informer role, sources said. The snitch, however, was someone everyone trusted.“This guy was very close to Sonny, and Sonny treated him like a real son,” one source said, noting that the turncoat “was in the life” and also had “earned some respect” with wiseguys and mob associates from the way he handled himself.On September 5, the complaint says, CW-1 learned that the Wellwood Avenue card game in Lindenhurst had been robbed the night before when he reported to Mr. Uvino’s social club in Hauppauge. He then accompanied Messrs. Bono and Costanza to find and tell the two they suspected of being inside men in the holdup to go to the Wellwood Avenue club, where all the card players were going to be questioned about the robbery, the complaint says.When the two gamblers arrived, they were greeted by very pointed accusations about the robbery from Mr. Uvino and his henchmen, who brandished, pointed, and used semi-automatic pistols and revolvers to ultimately get the answers they wanted, the complaint says.Mr. Dono, a burly 6-footer who had been present during the robbery, was particularly incensed during the “questioning,” the complaint says. “Several times during the assault” he told the two gamblers that he knew they had stated that Mr. Dono “had acted like a ‘bitch’ during the robbery,” the complaint says.“Who’s the bitch now! Get on the floor,” he said at one point, before putting a revolver into one gambler’s mouth and smashing the other in the head with it, according to the complaint.“You think we’re stupid? You think we got where we are from being f—ing stupid like you?” asked Costanza, the complaint says.The complaint is silent about the final outcome of the ugly confrontation, but Gang Land managed to smoke out a few details.It turns out, sources said, that Messrs. Uvino, Dono, and Costanza were smart enough to deduce that the card players were behind the stickup. The trio also had what it took to get the terrified card players to give up the robbery team, and allowed the battered and bruised duo to walk out of the club alive, the sources added.But before Uvino & Company could take any follow-up action, the feds moved quickly to close down their long-running investigation, and teams of agents on the FBI’s Colombo family squad fanned out to arrest the three suspects on racketeering and assault charges.The prosecutors declined to comment about the status of the unidentified card players, or the robbery suspects who triggered the ire and quick reaction of their mob holdup victims.A LONGTIME INFORMER GETS REWARD With tears rolling down his ample cheeks, Peter “Fat Pete” Chiodo, a slightly slimmed down turncoat mob capo, was sentenced to probation Tuesday in return for his help in sending two Mafia bosses and 20 others to prison for murders and other crimes.Chiodo, 66, who became a cooperating witness in 1991 after surviving a rubout attempt ordered by his Luchese leaders, got a free ride despite his admitted involvement in five mob hits during his life of crime.Judge Raymond Dearie, who presided over several trials at which Chiodo testified in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, said he wasn’t happy giving him probation, but did so after weighing the important assistance that Chiodo had given the government in the past 16 years.Shortly after Chiodo began to cooperate, his sister was shot and wounded in front of her Brooklyn home. Eight years ago, at the sentencing of a mobster convicted of her attempted murder, Judge Dearie said the shooting of the totally innocent woman placed on the American Mafia “a black, indelible mark that will never be washed away.”This column and other news of organized crime will be available today at ganglandnews.com.

Turncoat Turns ‘Mob Justice’ Into Federal Justice

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