Page 6 - ARUBA TODAY

A6 U.S. NEWS
Friday 15 March 2019

Reputed Gambino crime boss shot to death in New York City

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and and a multitude of other
TOM HAYS crimes. He was sentenced
NEW YORK (AP) — The re- to life in prison and died of
puted boss of New York's cancer in 2002.
Gambino crime family was On Wednesday, hours be-
shot to death in front of his fore Cali was killed, the re-
home by a gunman who puted boss and consigliere
may have staged a car ac- of the Bonanno crime
cident to lure him outside, family were acquitted in
dying a virtual unknown a Brooklyn racketeering
compared with his swag- and extortion case. In Oc-
gering 1980s-era predeces- tober, reputed Bonanno
sor, John Gotti. associate Sylvester Zottola
Police said Thursday they was fatally shot while wait-
were reviewing surveil- ing for a cup of coffee at
lance-camera video of a McDonald's drive-thru in
the attack on Frances- the Bronx. Also this week,
co "Franky Boy" Cali, 53, prosecutors in Brooklyn an-
who was gunned down nounced a case against
Wednesday night at his red- a Gambino associate ac-
brick colonial-style house in cused of killing a suspected
a quiet Staten Island neigh- Crime scene investigators load a car that appears to have been checked for fingerprints onto a loanshark affiliated with the
borhood. The assailant flatbed truck in the Staten Island borough of New York, Thursday, March 14, 2019. Lucchese crime family.
sped off in a pickup truck, Associated Press Last week, the longtime
police said. No immediate boss of the Colombo crime
arrests were made. had anything to do with in the country. News ac- said, arguing that the Ma- family, 85-year-old Car-
The motive for the attack Cali's slaying. counts since 2015 said he fia would frown on killing mine "the Snake" Persico,
was under investigation, The mobster emerged from had ascended to the top someone in front of his died at a North Carolina
police said. Chief of Detec- his home around 9:15 p.m. spot. home. He also said there hospital near the federal
tives Dermot Shea said it after the gunman backed The last Mafia boss to be was some uncertainty prison where he had been
was still an open question his pickup into Cali's Cadil- rubbed out in New York about whether Cali was serving what was effective-
whether it was a mob hit. lac SUV, damaging it, ac- City was Gambino don the boss or underboss. ly a life sentence. Persico
Aggressive federal prose- cording to police. "With "Big Paul" Castellano, as- Cali kept a much lower was convicted in a 1986
cutions in the past 25 years what we know at this point sassinated at Gotti's direc- profile than Gotti and was case overseen by then-U.S.
decimated the ranks of in time, it's quite possible tion while getting out of a killed in far less spectacular Attorney Rudy Giuliani.
New York's five Mafia fami- that was part of a plan," black limousine outside a fashion than Castellano. Cali's only mob-related
lies. The cases resulted in Shea said. high-end Manhattan steak- He was shot on a tree-lined criminal conviction came
long prison terms for their Video showed the assail- house in 1985. Gotti then street in one of New York a decade ago, when he
bosses — Gotti included ant pulling a 9 mm hand- took control of the family. City's less-glamorous outer pleaded guilty in an extor-
— and encouraged their gun and opening fire on "We thought those days boroughs, a short walk from tion scheme involving a
successors to keep a lower Cali about a minute after were over," Mayor Bill de ball fields, a country club failed attempt to build a
profile. they started talking, ac- Blasio said of Cali's slaying. and a day camp. NASCAR track on Staten Is-
But the new generation cording to Shea. At least 12 "Very surprising, but I guess Gotti, with his expensive land. He was sentenced to
still engages in old-school shots were fired. After get- old habits die hard." double-breasted suits 16 months behind bars and
crimes — loansharking, ting shot several times, Cali Jerry Capeci, a mob expert and overcoats and silvery was released in 2009.
gambling, extortion — that tried to crawl under his SUV who writes for the gang- swept-back hair, became In that case, authorities in-
can make enemies and to hide, Shea said. landnews.com website, known as the Dapper Don, tercepted conversations
spark bloodshed. Federal prosecutors re- cautioned that the killing his smiling face all over the shedding light on his quiet
Shea said there has been ferred to Cali in court fil- "doesn't have the feel" of a tabloids. As prosecutors underworld command. At
a slight uptick in alleged ings in recent years as the Mafia-sanctioned hit. tried and failed to bring a 2008 bail hearing, a pros-
mob-related violence in underboss of the Mafia's "Frank Cali was a pretty lik- him down, he came to be ecutor said Cali was seen
New York within the last Gambino family, once one able guy, and also this is called the Teflon Don. "as a man of influence and
year. But he said it is too of the most powerful and not a way the mob would In 1992, Gotti was convict- power by organized crime
soon to say whether that feared crime organizations kill one of their own," he ed in Castellano's murder members in Italy."q