| Anthony Casso | |
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NYPD mugshot 20-12-1972 |
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| Born | May 21, 1940 Brooklyn, New York, United States |
| Alias(es) | Gaspipe |
| Allegiance | Lucchese crime family |
Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso (May 21, 1940) is a former New York City mobster who served as underboss and acting boss of the Lucchese crime family until he was arrested in 1993, becoming a cooperating witness for the Federal Government. During his criminal career he gained a reputation of being a "homicidal maniac."[1]
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Born in Brooklyn, Casso was the youngest of the three children of Michael and Margaret Casso (née Cucceullo). Each of Casso's grandparents had emigrated from Campania, Italy, during the 1890s. His godfather was Salvatore Callinbrano, a made man and captain in the Genovese crime family, who maintained a powerful influence on the Brooklyn docks. Casso dropped out of school at 16 and got a job with his father as a longshoreman. As a young boy, Casso became a crack shot, firing pistols at targets on a rooftop which he and his friends used as a shooting range. Casso also made money shooting predatory hawks for pigeon tenders. Casso stands at 5'6 and weighs 185 pounds. He was a violent youth and member of the infamous 1950s gang, the South Brooklyn Boys.[2][3] He is the father-in-law of Genovese crime family mobster Paul (Slick) Geraci. Casso soon caught the eye of Lucchese capo Christopher "Christie Tick" Furnari. Casso started his career with the Cosa Nostra as a loanshark. As a protege of Furnari, Casso was also involved in gambling and drug dealing, in addition to loansharking.
Over the years, there have been various stories of how Casso got the nickname "Gaspipe" - Casso himself claims it is from his father, a mob enforcer who used a gas pipe to threaten union dissidents and other victims, however others say it is because his father hooked up illegal gas connections. Even though Anthony detested the nickname, it stuck to him for life and though few would say it to his face, he allowed some close friends to call him "Gas". He married Lillian Delduca in 1968 and had a daughter and son. In the 1970s, Casso murdered a drug dealer who was suspected of cooperating with the government. In 1974, at age 32, Casso became a made man, or full member, of the Lucchese family. Casso was assigned to Vincent "Vinnie Beans" Foceri's crew that operated from 116th Street in Manhattan and from Fourteenth avenue in Brooklyn.[4][5]
Casso and another young soldier, Vittorio "Vic" Amuso, soon started a criminal partnership that would last for years. They committed scores of crimes, including drug trafficking, burglary and murder. When Furnari became the Lucchese consigliere, Casso's influence also increased. Casso and Amuso were chosen to handle the assassination of Gambino boss John Gotti, but the attempt failed. Lucchese boss Anthony Corallo, seeing a guilty verdict coming in his trial, picked Casso as new Lucchese boss. Casso refused and instead suggested that Amuso become new boss.
Under new Lucchese leader Amuso, Casso became the family underboss replacing Mariano Macaluso who retired in 1989, although he wielded as much influence as Amuso. During this time, Casso maintained a glamorous lifestyle, wearing expensive clothes and jewelry (including a diamond ring worth $500,000), running restaurant tabs up to thousands of dollars, owning a mansion in an exclusive Brooklyn neighborhood and going on huge spending sprees. While at the top of the Lucchese family, Amuso and Casso shared huge profits from their family's illegal activities. These profits included: $15,000 to $20,000 a month from extorting Long Island carting companies; $75,000 a month in kickbacks from eight air freight carriers that guaranteed them labor peace and no union benefits for their workers; $20,000 a week in profits from illegal video gaming machines; and $245,000 annually from a major concrete supplier, the Quadrozzi Concrete Company."[6] Amuso and Casso also split more than $200,000 per year from the Garment District rackets, as well as a cut of all the crimes committed by the family's soldiers.
In one instance, Casso and Amuso split $800,000 from the Colombo crime family for Casso's aid in helping them rob steel from a construction site at the West Side Highway in Manhattan. In another instance, the two bosses received $600,000 from the Gambino crime family for allowing them to take over a Lucchese-protected contractor for a housing complex project in Coney Island, Brooklyn.
Casso also controlled Greek-American gangster George Kalikatas, who gave Casso $683,000 in 1990 to operate a loan sharking and gambling operation in Astoria, Queens.
Casso had a close alliance and with Ukrainian mob boss Marat Balagula, who operated a multi-billion dollar gasoline bootlegging scam in Brighton Beach. Balagula, a Soviet Jewish refugee from Odessa, had arrived in the United States under the Jackson-Vanik Amendment. After Colombo captain Michael Franzese began shaking down his crew, Balagula approached Lucchese consiglieri Christopher Furnari and asked for a sit-down at Brooklyn's 19th Hole social club. According to Casso, Furnari declared,
"Here there's enough for everybody to be happy... to leave the table satisfied. What we must avoid is trouble between us and the other families. I propose to make a deal with the others so there's no bad blood.... Meanwhile, we will send word out that from now on you and your people are with the Lucchese family. No one will bother you. If anyone does bother you, come to us and Anthony will take care of it."[7]
Street tax from Balagula's organization was not only strategically shared, but also became the Five Families' biggest moneymaker after narcotics trafficking.
According to Philip Carlo,
"It didn't take long for word on the street to reach the Russian underworld: Marat Balagula was paying off the Italians; Balagula was a punk; Balagula had no balls. Balagula's days were numbered. This, of course, was the beginning of serious trouble. Balagula did in fact have balls -- he was a ruthless killer when necessary -- but he also was a smart diplomatic administrator and he knew that the combined, concerted force of the Italian crime families would quickly wipe the newly arrived Russian competition off the proverbial map."[8]
Shortly afterward, on June 12, 1986, Balagula's rival, a fellow Russian named Vladimir Reznikov, entered the Rasputin nightclub in Brighton Beach. Reznikov pushed a 9mm Beretta into Balagula's skull and demanded $600,000 as the price of not pulling the trigger. He also demanded a percentage of everything Balagula was involved in. After Balagula promised to get the money, Reznikov snarled, "Fuck with me and you're dead -- you and your whole fucking family; I swear I'll fuck and kill your wife as you watch -- you understand?"[9]
Shortly after Reznikov left, Balagula suffered a massive heart attack. He insisted, however on being treated at his home in Brighton Beach, where he felt it would be harder for Reznikov to kill him. When Anthony Casso arrived, he listened to Balagula's story and seethed with fury. Casso later told his biographer Philip Carlo that, to his mind, Reznikov had just spat in the face of the entire Cosa Nostra. Despite Balagula's warning that Reznikov was, "a psychopath," Casso said, "Send word to Vladimir that you have his money, that he should come to the club tomorrow. We'll take care of the rest."[10] Casso also requested a photograph of Reznikov and a description of his car.[10]
The following day, Reznikov returned to the Rasputin nightclub to pick up his money. Upon realizing that Balagula wasn't there, Reznikov launched into a barrage of profanity and stormed back to the parking lot. There, Reznikov was shot dead by DeMeo crew veteran Joseph Testa. Testa then jumped into a car driven by Anthony Senter and left Brighton Beach. According to Casso, "After that, Marat didn't have any problems with other Russians."[11]
Following the imprisonment of Amuso in 1991, Casso became the de facto boss of the family. In Ernest Volkman's book "Gangbusters", it is alleged that while both Casso and Amuso were on the run from the law, Casso wanted complete control of the family and set up Amuso to be taken down by the FBI. This theory is contradicted, however, by Casso's biographer Philip Carlo. According to Carlo, Casso had no desire to be boss of the Lucchese family and attempted to arrange for Amuso's escape from Federal custody after his arrest. To the great disappointment of Casso and the Lucchese captains, Amuso refused to leave prison out of fear for his life. As a result, the Lucchese captains asked Casso to replace him as boss. Casso reluctantly accepted.
While evading authorities for over three years, Casso maintained control over the Lucchese family. In the process, he ordered 11 mob slayings as well as plotting with Genovese leader Vincent "the Chin" Gigante to murder John Gotti. Casso and Gigante were deeply disgusted that Gotti had murdered Paul Castellano without the sanction of the Mafia's Commission. All attempts on Gotti's life were stymied, however, by the constant presence of news reporters around the Gambino boss.
In early 1991, Amuso and Casso ordered the murder of capo Peter Chiodo, a fellow windows case defendant who had pled guilty without the administrations' approval. Chiodo barely survived the assassination attempt and subsequently agreed to turn state's evidence.[12] In September that year acting boss Al D'Arco, convinced he had also been ordered killed by Casso following his failure to kill Chiodo, also surrendered himself and agreed to testify. Both of these defections opened the door for new murder indictments against Amuso and Casso.[13]
In another incident toward the year of 1993, Casso used the Brooklyn faction-leaders George Zappola, Frank "Bones" Papagni as well as the family Consigliere, Frank "Big Frank" Lastortino, to kill former Lucchese Underboss and Bronx faction leader Stephen "Wonderboy" Crea. However, due to the massive indictments at the time, all members of the plot were eventually incarcerated on various charges, including Casso, who was arrested at a mistress's home in Mount Olive, New Jersey, on January 19, 1993.[14] Later that year the imprisoned Amuso, who had also come to believe Casso was responsible for his capture, had Casso demoted.[15]
Shortly before his trial commenced, Casso offered to turn state's evidence. He finalized a deal at a hearing on March 1, 1994, where he pled guilty to all 72 counts he had been indicted on, now including 15 murders.[15][16]
Casso disclosed that two NYPD detectives were on the Lucchese payroll. These detectives were later determined to be Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, who committed eight of the eleven murders Casso had ordered. Carracappa and Eppolito had also given Casso information which led to many others as well, revealing the names of potential informants. However, when Casso revealed similar corruption within the FBI, no one was interested. Casso further enraged Federal prosecutors by accusing Gambino turncoat Sammy Gravano of committing multiple felonies which were never disclosed as part of his immunity deal. Most seriously, Casso accused Gravano of paying Richard Kuklinski to murder NYPD Detective Peter Calabro. Once again, no one was interested.
After his information was used to completely dismantle the Lucchese family, Casso was dropped from the Witness Protection Program. He is currently serving a life sentence without parole at the Supermax ADX Florence prison in Florence, Colorado.
According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, in March 2009 Anthony Casso was transferred to the Federal Medical Center (FMC) at the Federal Correctional Complex, Butner in North Carolina for the treatment of prostate cancer.[17] However, by July 2009, he had been returned to ADX Florence.
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