Frank Carrone
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Francesco Carrone was an Italian-American Gambino crime family associate (c. 1938, Little Italy, Manhattan-1975, Walpole, Massachusetts). He was a close friend of Thomas Agro and Peter Calabrese.
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[edit] Biography
Francesco Carrone, was known as "Buzzy" or "Buzz" and was an Italian-American Gambino crime family mob associate. He earned the peculiar nickname because of his psychotic behavior and violent temper. Joseph Ianuzzi describes Carrone before his terrifying disfigurement as "a tall and handsome Italian" mobster who worked with Thomas Agro in New York City and in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and a close friend of Peter Calabrese. He was involved in bank robbery, hijacking as a "stick up man" and was involved in trafficking small shipments of cocaine, marijuana and Quaaludes with the powerful street soldier Thomas Agro in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Frank was a Gambino crime family mob associate who worked for a time under Thomas Agro and later Carmine Fatico at the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club and an associate of Robert DeSimone and Joseph Ianuzzi. Before his disfigurement, Frank suffered from Narcissistic personality disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder but following the mauling his conditioned worsened, which was brought on by a severe case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which remained undiagnosed during his life.
[edit] Receiving Facial Disfigurement
It is unknown why Frank did not consult an ocularist and have an ocular prosthetic set into the eye socket. In 1972 or 1974 (depending on what source you read) "he stood out from the rag tag group of mobsters emulating class". His right eye was gouged or shot out leaving him with a slightly demented look on his face from the severed nerve endings and paralyzed facial muscles with an empty right eye socket and a demented expression on his face, giving the impression half of his face was smiling. It is unclear how or who was responsible for Carrone losing his eye, if it was involving La Cosa Nostra matters or if it was accidental. This ultimately made the once handsome and youthful Carrone, once known for his stunning good looks stand out in a crowd with his horrible ghastly disfigurement. It is also unknown if the horrible accident cause Carrone with permanent brain from trauma caused by the injury making him psychopathic. As a result of the injury Frank suffered from depth perception issues in the years following his accident.
[edit] "Being Put on The Shelf"
Buzzy was later exiled from the Gambino crime family for performing bank robberies without knowledge of his capo Carmine Fatico and became a "cowboy" after which the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club crew refused to have anything to do with him. Carrone had earned a reputation over the years as a violent psychopath who always carried a concealed firearm on his person which made him a dangerous threat to authorities and the public in general.
[edit] Attempted arrest
Frank was identified quickly as a bank robber after a number of bank tellers who had confronted the man during robberies told the FBI of a "bizarre looking man with one eye and a gun". In May of 1972 FBI Special Agents Patrick Colgan and Thomas D'Onofrio were out searching for Carrone to question him about the string of New York City bank robberies for which Carrone was implicated for by first hand accounts. It was easy to identify the one-eyed Carrone in the mobster crowds. The agents were driving around in a dilapidated green compact when they spotted Carrone exiting an apartment building on Mulberry Street in Little Italy, Manhattan where he had been hiding since the warrant had been put out for his arrest. As the two agents prepared to move on Carrone, he saw them and sped off in a car giving a high speed pursuit. Colgan was right on Carrone's tail when D'Onofrio noticed they were entering a school zone. The police sped up to 90mph. Then as the agents approached a school zone with children crossing at a cross walk, they attempted to slow down, only to discover the car's brakes were out of commission. Carrone sped away but plowed into a woman's car. He had difficulties operated a motor vehicle on behalf of his injury and loss of depth perception. Reaching the scene the FBI agents discovered both crashed cars to be not occupied. A Good Samaritan in the crowd of onlookers surrounding the scene then shouted to FBI agent Patrick Colgan, "Look in the front seat." Agent Colgan turned just in time to see Carrone pop up from his hiding place where he was curled up underneath the steering wheel column. He came out firing and shot wildly at Colgan in the street with a handgun in each hand. Both agents dove for cover and fortunately no one was wounded in the onslaught, but Carrone managed to slip away in the pandemonium.
[edit] Angering The Mob
The agent's FBI supervisor, John Good, approached Fatico and told him to give up Carrone. This caused a period of major FBI harassment brought on by Carrone shooting at the FBI agents. Unfortunately Fatico could not give up Carrone. He was also featured as a fugitive on America's Most Wanted but without any results. Frank Carrone had fled to Boston, Massachusetts where he laid low avoiding the police and his fellow Gambino crime family mobsters. Nevertheless, Carmine Fatico handed out an open-ended mob hit contract on Carrone demanding for any Gambino crime family member to see him, should immediately murder Carrone, if they could find him; meanwhile, the Gambino crime family was able to pass word that Carrone's options for salvation had expired. Carmine also arranged with Aniello Dellacroce to have the mobster that successfully murdered Carrone to be inducted as a made man into the Gambino crime family. It was either the FBI that would track him down and ultimately send him or jail, or the equally infuriated La Cosa Nostra would murder him. The message was conveyed to the FBI personally by Gene Gotti to the FBI Supervisor John Good.
[edit] Capture in Massachusetts
When his money funds ran out and in 1974 Carrone held up a bank in East Boston, Massachusetts in the Financial District, Boston, Massachusetts, but a silent alarm alerted a posse of Massachusetts state police troopers. They chased the fleeing Carrone as he hid in some nearby woodlands. The state troopers fanned out in an effort to track down Carrone. One trooper tiptoeing through some heavy underbrush suddenly heard three loud clicks behind him. He turned with his gun drawn and saw Carrone standing there, his gun pointed at the trooper's head. Fortunately Carrone was out of ammunition. As the trooper leveled his own gun at Carrone, Frank pleaded with the trooper, "Do it." But the trooper would not shoot a man with an empty gun, and arrested him.
[edit] Time in prison
In prison, his head filled with whispers from other inmates that some people from the Mafia were seeking to kill him right in the prison. Carrone spent his days quivering in fear, convinced that at any moment on of Carmine Fatico's soldiers would poison his food, or waylay him in a dark corner. Carmine's mood was not improved by a visit from some of FBI Supervisor John Good's agents, who made it clear that they took the attempted murder of FBI agents very seriously and were determined, in an unspecified way to make his life very uncomfortable. While incarcerated at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution - Cedar Junction in Walpole, Massachusetts Frank suffered from insomnia brought on Chronic fatigue syndrome, which he gave himself in the two years as a highly sought after fugitive and hardly eating from having a paranoia that his food was poisoned, Carrone dropped dead of an undiagnosed supraventricular tachycardia in his prison cell brought on by hypertension, starvation, and malnourishment.
[edit] References
- Joe Dogs: The Life and Crimes of a Gangster, by Joe Dogs Iannuzzi
- Goombata: The Improbable Rise and Fall of John Gotti and his Gang, by John Cummings and Ernest Volkman
