By George Anastasia, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER POSTED: June 16, 1993 TOMS RIVER — It was a dinner meeting among mobsters and somewhere between the steaks and the spaghetti, the talk turned to murder. That, mob informant Philip Leonetti told a jury here yesterday, is how he first learned the details of the golf club bludgeoning death of mob associate Vincent Jimmy Sinatra Craparotta. Leonetti, whose testimony at a high-profile mob murder-racketeering trial here was interrupted for more than an hour by a bomb scare that forced the evacuation of the courthouse, said he was dining at the Chef Vola restaurant in Atlantic City with reputed Lucchese crime family soldiers Martin Taccetta and Thomas Ricciardi in July of 1984, a month after Craparotta had been brutally beaten to death. Taccetta, he said, brought up the murder. Marty was telling me how him and Tommy followed this Jimmy Sinatra, got a bead on him, and how Tommy Ricciardi really gave it to him, Leonetti said. Marty told me its better to use golf clubs than baseball bats because baseball bats break. Golf clubs, they do a lot of damage. They dont break. He told me Tommy Ricciardi hit him with all his might because he really hated this guy. Craparotta, 56, was found lying in a pool of blood on the concrete floor of his auto dealership here on the morning of June 12, 1984. Earlier in the trial, one eyewitness described how he was attacked by two men wielding metal golf clubs. Authorities said Craparotta, who died in the hospital a short time later, sustained fractured arms and legs and that his skull was cracked and crushed from the repeated blows of the clubs. His beating death is the centerpiece of the trial that opened here earlier this month and that is expected to include the testimony of at least three other well-known mob informants. Martin Taccetta, Ricciardi and reputed mob associate Michael Ryan are charged with the Craparotta murder. In addition, Taccettas brother, Michael, and Anthony Tumac Accetturo, both described by authorities as high-ranking members of the New Jersey branch of the Lucchese organization, are charged with racketeering and extortion. Prosecutors contend Craparotta was killed because he refused to share his cut from a highly lucrative video poker machine company owned by his nephews with the Lucchese crime family. After the murder, authorities say, Accetturo and the others took control of the company and several other businesses that Craparottas nephews owned along the Jersey Shore. Leonetti, the nephew and former under-boss of Philadelphia crime family kingpin Nicodemo Little Nicky Scarfo, spent nearly three hours detailing the inner workings of the mob for the jury yesterday. He is expected to be back on the stand when the trial resumes tomorrow. He had only been on the witness stand for about 30 minutes, however, when Judge Manuel Greenberg abruptly announced a recess at about 10:35 a.m. Several FBI agents quickly escorted Leonetti from the stand as court officers and county sheriffs deputies ordered everyone out of the courtroom. Within minutes, workers from every office in the sprawling courthouse complex were ordered out of the building. Prosecutors later said that an anonymous phone call warning that a bomb had been planted in the building led to the evacuation. Sheriffs deputies, local police and trained, bomb-sniffing dogs then searched the three-story courthouse as hundreds of workers and court spectators, along with prosecutors, defense attorneys and the defendants, gathered across the street to watch. Leonetti was in the midst of describing his own mob initiation ceremony and the Mafia soldiers code of conduct when Greenberg ordered the recess. Among other things, Leonetti said that made - formally initiated - members of the Mafia are prohibited from fooling around with another members wife, selling guns to foreign countries and using bombs. The 40-year-old admitted hit man, tanned and wearing a gray, neatly tailored business suit, white shirt and muted, gray and silver tie, appeared to take the hourlong delay in stride and returned to the witness stand for two hours of testimony later in the day, quietly picking up where he had left off prior to the break. The defendants also appeared to be unconcerned by the threat that court officials said had to be taken seriously. Its ridiculous, Michael Taccetta said to a waitress, as he sat eating a turkey sandwich and drinking a cup of coffee in a small restaurant a block from the courthouse during the delay. Restaurants also figured prominently in Leonettis testimony about the Craparotta killing and the subsequent takeover of the video poker machine business. He described meetings at restaurants in Atlantic City and New York City and at a luncheonette in the Miami area, to settle a dispute between the Lucchese and Scarfo crime families over control of the video poker machine company. Two of the meetings were held at Angelonis, an Atlantic City restaurant less than a block from the Georgia Avenue apartment house and office where he and Scarfo lived and conducted business, Leonetti said. Another was at Chef Volas where, the mobster-turned-informant said, the food was very good . . . steaks and spaghetti. Leonetti testified that his uncle, mob boss Nicodemo Scarfo, was receiving between $1,500 and $4,000 per month in shakedown or extortion payments from another owner of the poker machine company who was associated with the Scarfo mob. The dispute, which was eventually settled in the Lucchese familys favor, was about whether Craparottas nephews would be with - and make payments to - the Scarfo family or the Lucchese family. At the meeting in Florida, Leonetti said that Craparottas nephew, Pat Storino, was told that he and his brother would be with Accetturo and the Lucchese organization. Leonetti described Storino, who is expected to testify later in the trial, as scared to death of the Luccheses because of the Craparotta murder. But Leonetti said that Accetturo assured Storino that he would not have a problem with the mob. He told Pat Storino, Leonetti testified, that the reason they killed his uncle was because he didnt want to come up with the money. He told him, As long as you do the right thing, youll have no problem.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 07:28:28 +0000