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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. |
6-7-02 Capo's Sis Vows Mob-Style Revenge. Won't forget nephew the 'rat'.
By MICHELE McPHEE
New York Daily News Police Bureau Chief Barbara DePalo was brought up believing in La Cosa Nostra law - never go against the family. And that code of honor, to her, runs thicker than blood. DePalo - the sister of slain Colombo crime family capo William (Wild Bill) Cutolo - placed an ad in yesterday's Daily News that sent a message to her brother's family that was as pointed as a dead fish. "I'm sorry your family took the easy way out," the In Memoriam ad for Cutolo reads. "Especially the Pansey on his crusade. I promise to take care of him just as you would. Remember all your blood runs through my veins." DePalo, 54, told The News that the Pansey is her own "rat" nephew, William Cutolo Jr., a one-time fashion model and stockbroker who began wearing a wire three weeks after his father vanished May 26, 1999. That wire allowed Billy Jr. to exact revenge on the crime family he believes killed his father. With the younger Cutolo's help, the government snared more than a dozen Colombo gangsters on racketeering charges, including suspected boss Alphonse (Allie Boy) Persico and accused consigliere Jackie DeRoss - the men Billy Jr. targeted. The son and his family are now in the federal witness protection program. DePalo told The News her brother would be "rolling in his grave" if he knew what his son had done. "My brother believed in the old rules, and I still do," said DePalo, who wears a gold pendant around her neck with a photo of Cutolo. She says her nephew should have followed Mafia law, not worked with law enforcement, to take out Cutolo's killer. "I'm Italian. I may be born here, but I'm still from Italy and I believe in the Italy rules," she said. "If my nephew knew who did [the slaying], he should have walked up to him and did what he had to do, like my brother would have, instead of taking the easy way out and wearing a wire." DePalo - who spends at least an hour a day praying in front of Cutolo's Staten Island mansion, now owned by strangers - said she'd love to come face to face one day with her nephew and his family. "They are all dead to me. In fact, I'd love to run into one of them. I can't tell you what I would do, you couldn't print it." Vanished Before Birthday Wild Bill, a dapper union official whose estate was on Bulter Blvd. in Tottenville, was last seen in the shadow of the Verrazano Bridge in Bay Ridge 11 days before his 50th birthday. Just before noon that day, he called his wife, Peggy, with his last words to her. "I love you," he said, "and I'll see you later." He never came home. His family filed a missing persons report with the NYPD a few days later. Investigative sources have said Cutolo had a rocky relationship with Persico. During the storied Colombo war - a power struggle between acting boss Victor Orena and Persico's father, Carmine, that left a dozen gangsters dead on the streets of Brooklyn from 1991-93 - Cutolo sided with Orena. Law enforcement officials believe Persico never forgot the disloyalty and is the man who made Cutolo disappear, sources said. Persico has not been charged in the murder, but investigators found Cutolo's loansharking records on a computer disk in the oven at an apartment belonging to the alleged Colombo boss, and DeRoss was suspected of taking over leadership of Wild Bill's crew. Days after Cutolo vanished, his family had a monument erected in his name at Staten Island's Resurrection Cemetery and vowed revenge. Three weeks later, FBI agent Gary Pontecorvo and NYPD Detective Tommy Dades taped a voice recorder to Billy Jr.'s chest. 'This Is for You, Dad' "So, Gary, what are we going to call this operation?" the young Cutolo was heard asking Pontecorvo in the first few seconds of the tape. "How about Operation Pay Back?" Cutolo snickered. "Because I'm going to get every one of them." For 17 months, Cutolo hung around in Colombo haunts, talked business and caught it all on tape. Each recording started the same: "This is for you, dad." Persico eventually pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges and is facing 13 years in prison. DeRoss was found guilty of extortion and is awaiting sentencing. On a cold February morning last year, Billy Jr., his sister Barbara - who is named after DePalo, her godmother - Peggy Cutolo and other family members fled Staten Island, protected by Dades and Pontecorvo. The detective and the agent refused comment yesterday. A relative who had been allowed to say one last goodbye to the family before they went into the witness protection program that night went home and hanged himself in his garage, DePalo said. A law enforcement source said the suicide was not sparked by the Cutolos' cooperation with the government. "He was devastated that they were all leaving. He wasn't against what they did," the source said. For three years, Cutolo's family has placed an In Memoriam ad in The News on May 26 - the day he vanished. This year was no different. "To my beloved Father and Pal," Billy Jr. wrote from an undisclosed location. "Not a second of the day goes by that you are not on my mind. A lot has happened in the last 3 years, but I will never give up on my crusade. I will finish what I started and I will send my best to the Deep Sea Diver and Stubbie. I'm sure they are thinking of you a lot." The Deep Sea Diver, law enforcement sources said, is Allie Boy Persico, who often scuba dived in Florida. Stubbie refers to the stout stature of Jackie DeRoss, who is built like he "has two basketballs in his shirt," one source said. Under Billy Jr.'s ad was another from his son, who is also named for his grandfather. "To my Poppy," it read, "I Love you and Miss you and wish you could come and play with me." Original Publication Date: 6/7/02
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