Edward Barberra
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Edward Barberra-Barberro is a New York mobster who is an associate of the Bonanno crime family. Before working for the Bonannos, Barberra worked with the Lucchese crime family under caporegime Paul Vario.
[edit] Biography
As an adolescent, Barberra hung out with mobster and future informant Henry Hill, then being groomed for the mob by Vario. Eventually, Vario hired Barberra as an armed escort for patrons of his floating craps games in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. As a courtesy to the big winners, Barberra and Frank Sorace would drive them home. The two mobsters would sit in their Cadillac outside Peter "The Killer" Abbandante's social club until the craps games ended in the early morning hours.
Later on, Barberra was implicated in the murder of a African-American mugger. The man had attempted to rob Theresa Bovina, a young teenager in Barberra's neighborhood. Barberra, Abbandante, Sorace, and Peter Morales caught the mugger, dragged him to the roof of Bovina's apartment building, and threw him over the edge. Barberra was tried for his murder, but was never convicted. In the late 1970s or early 1980s, Barberra joined the Bonanno crime family and worked under Dominick Napolitano and later Louis Attanasio. In 1985, Barberra was arrested during a failed armed bank robbery in Atlanta, Georgia and sentenced to twenty years in prison. Barberra was released sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s and continued his criminal career. In October1996, Barberra and Attanasio]] pled guilty to to attempting to extort $2,500 from a loanshark victim who had fallen behind in gambling debts.
[edit] References
- Pileggi, Nicholas, Wiseguy: Life In A Mafia Family, Corgi (1987) ISBN 055213094X
