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News and Features about Organized Crime, Mafia and La Cosa Nostra taken from National and Local News Sources. In an attempt to get you this type of coverage in a timely manner we can not be responsible for the content of the following material. |
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3-11-00 Reputed mob ally held in killings. 03/11/00
By Guy Sterling An alleged associate of the Bruno organized crime family in northern New Jersey was arrested yesterday on charges he carried out the execution-style slayings of two reputed mob figures. Peter "Pete the Crumb" Caprio, 70, was picked up by the FBI at his Union Township home and charged with the 1996 murder of Joseph Sodano, a reputed captain in Philadelphia's Bruno-Scarfo crime family, and the 1994 slaying of Willie "Crazy Willie" Gantz, an alleged family associate and Sodano's right-hand man. Both men were found shot in the head in Newark. The indictment provided no motive for the slayings other than to contend that Caprio conspired with others to kill the pair "for the purpose of maintaining and increasing their position in the North Jersey crew of the Bruno crime family." No co-conspirators were named. Sodano, 58, lived in Montville, while Gantz, 44, resided in Belleville. Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Kaplan told U.S. Magistrate Ronald Hedges during Caprio's initial court appearance yesterday in Newark that the suspect faces a maximum penalty of life in prison on the earlier murder, death on the later one. She attributed the harsher punishment to a change in the law between 1994 and 1996. Caprio, indicted on two counts of conspiracy to commit murder in the aid of racketeering and two counts of murder, said only in reply to the magistrate's questions: "I don't hear too well." That prompted Hedges to cut the hearing short and reschedule it for Wednesday, when he said he will have special equipment brought to the courtroom to make certain Caprio understands what is said. Caprio will be held in a federal lockup without bail until the new proceeding. After the hearing, Kaplan said he was a "made" member of the Bruno-Scarfo family. At the time of the shootings, investigators had little doubt they were mob-related. Of the two, Sodano's murder was the more significant in organized crime circles because of his long-standing tenure in the mob and because he was considered a major money-maker for the Bruno-Scarfo family, primarily from running its illegal gambling operations in North Jersey. In 1992, Sodano pleaded guilty to conspiracy, racketeering and heading an organized crime operation stemming from two of the state's more prominent mob investigations in recent years -- Operation Leap and Operation Boardwalk. He was ordered to forfeit $250,000 and sentenced to 10 years in prison, serving roughly two years before he was paroled. Within weeks of Sodano's murder, the hierarchies of the Bonanno, Bruno-Scarfo and Lucchese crime families in New Jersey began meeting to discuss their mutual business concerns, state authorities said. Reputed boss Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino represented the Philadelphia mob at some of those meetings, they added. Sodano's death, detectives noted at the time, was a sign the mob's new bosses were executing any wayward members who didn't fit into the new alignment. In his final days, Sodano had started to show a lack of respect for his superiors in Philadelphia, sometimes refusing to attend their meetings, law enforcement officials said. Sodano began his career in the underworld in the 1950s when the family was run by Angelo Bruno, later found murdered. Bruno was succeeded by the now-imprisoned Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo. © 2000 The Star-Ledger. Used with permission.
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