February 14, 2001

By MIKE CLAFFEY and MICHELE McPHEE
New York Daily News Staff Writers

The wife and son of missing Colombo crime family captain William (Wild Bill) Cutolo have vanished themselves — into the federal Witness Protection Program.

Cutolo's wife, Peggy, and his son William Jr., 30, are cooperating with prosecutors against the Colombo crime family, it was revealed in court yesterday.

Authorities — and the Cutolos — believe reputed Colombo crime family boss Alphonse (Allie Boy) Persico was involved in Wild Bill's 1999 disappearance.

The younger Cutolo, a self-described actor and model, wore a wire to collect evidence against Colombo mobsters, law enforcement sources said.

He is expected to testify against Persico at the reputed mob boss' trial on racketeering and money-laundering charges — along with another Colombo associate, Miami club king and former Madonna pal Chris Paciello.

"We are not concerned about their cooperation," said Persico's attorney Barry Levin. "My client had no business dealings with the Cutolos. They only knew each other socially."

Persico was indicted last month — along with more than a half-dozen other suspected Colombo gangsters — days before he was to be released from a Florida jail, where he served 18 months on federal gun charges. He has denied any involvement in Cutolo's disappearance.

But investigators believe Persico ordered Cutolo's killing because the missing mobster sided with an insurgent faction of the Colombo family during a bloody two-year internal war. The rebel faction was led by acting boss Victor Orena, who was at odds with Carmine Persico, Allie Boy's father.

"At the end of the Colombo war, Wild Bill was one of the few captains still alive and not in custody," a law enforcement source said. "He was an extremely wealthy and extremely powerful captain, but he was on the other side from Allie Boy."

The indictment alleges that as a result of Cutolo's disappearance, Persico wound up taking over a crew that was raking in large quantities of cash. A computer disk containing records of Wild Bill's loansharking and extortion operations was found in the stove at Persico's Brooklyn home, prosecutors said.

William Cutolo Jr. decided to flip after he was charged in an extortion case in Brooklyn Federal Court last year, sources said. In that case, Cutolo allegedly threatened to "baseball bat" a stockbroker who had lost a large chunk of his money in the stock market.

During a meeting with the broker's manager, Cutolo allegedly "implied he had connections to organized crime," according to court papers.

Cutolo was charged in June, but the case was dismissed Nov. 3, according to the court papers.

Wild Bill Cutolo fell out of sight on May 26, 1999, after he dropped his Lincoln Navigator off at a Brooklyn car repair shop and asked a mechanic for a ride to 92nd St. and Shore Road in Bay Ridge.

Wild Bill's family believes he is dead and held a private wake for him shortly after he vanished. Last May, on the anniversary of his disappearance, the family placed ads in the Daily News reading: "... Always missed and never, ever forgotten. You live on in all of us."

Two defense attorneys, who have represented both Wild Bill and his son, learned that the younger Cutolo had flipped yesterday at the arraignment of two of Persico's co-defendants, Dominick Dionisio and Enrico Locascio.

Attorneys James LaRossa and Andrew Weinstein were asked by a judge if they wanted to leave the Persico cases because of their ties to the Cutolos.

"This is a bolt out of the blue to me," said LaRossa, who won an acquittal for Wild Bill in a 1994 murder case in Brooklyn Federal Court. "It's a huge shock. I had no idea he was cooperating. I don't know why he's doing this. I don't know what he has to offer."

Original Publication Date: 2/14/01

AmericanMafia.com
div. of PLR International
P.O. Box 19146
Cleveland, OH 44119-0146
216 374-0000

Copyright © 1998 - 2001 PLR International