George Zappola

George "Georgie Neck" Zappola (born 1960) is a New York mobster and caporegime with the Lucchese crime family who became infamous for smuggling a sperm sample out of prison to impregnate his girlfriend.

Biography

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City. In the mid-1980s, Zappola joined the Lucchese family, working for the Brooklyn faction that was run by underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso. Zappola became one of Casso's closest allies and in 1990 was promoted to caporegime. Both his father and a paternal uncle, small-time criminal associates of organized crime, were each murdered by unknown gunmen, in homicides that were never solved. Despite this, George still wanted to become a 'made man' in the Mafia.

A Brooklyn faction-leader, Zappola joined the labor and construction racketeering operation that earned the most money for the family. This operation was run by Stephen "Wonderboy" Crea of the Bronx faction. He helped Anthony oversee his various business enterprises: a bagel factory that supplied local McDonald's restaurants, numbers rackets, and slot machines.

Zappola enjoyed watching professional Major League Baseball games and fights in bars around Brooklyn. He was a regular patron of Bruno's Hair Salon in Bensonhurst, where he would get a massage and a pedicure. Zappola was fastidious about his appearance and obsessed about his weight, walking six miles every day to stay trim. He wore a gold watch that was a gift from Casso, inscribed, "To George, a true friend, from Anthony." George was careless about police surveillance and electronic counter-surveillance, and carried a cell phone to which only Casso had the number. Zappola was Casso's most trusted contract killer.^[1]

In the late 80's, Zappola participated in the ambush murder of Lucchese capo Michael Pappadio. Lucchese boss Victor Amuso and Casso had ordered Pappadio' death after he refused to give up one of his rackets. After several Lucchese mobsters surprised and beat Pappadio in a bagel shop, Zappola shot him in the head with a .22-caliber pistol.^[2]

In 1990, Zappola and George Conte shot James D. Bishop, a Democratic district leader and former head of the painters' union in Whitestone, Queens as he was parking his car. The Lucchese family had controlled and looted the District Council 9 of the International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades (IBPAT) for years. The mobsters would receive kickbacks from contractors in exchange for bid rigging and allowing the use of cheaper non-union workers. When it appeared that Bishop might cooperate with prosecutors in a state investigation of the district council, the Lucchese family ordered Zappola and Conte to murder him.^[3]

Brooklyn Captain

The early 1990s turned into a disaster for the Lucchese family. In 1991, Amuso was convicted on murder charges and sentenced to life in prison. With Amuso in prison, Casso assumed the family leadership. However, Casso was soon indicted himself on murder and racketeering charges and fled the state. During this period, Crea was elevated to Underboss, acting on direct orders from the absent Amuso and Casso. In 1993, Casso was captured.

In 1993, Zappola and capos Frank "Bones" Papagni and Frank "Spaghetti Man" Gioia, Jr. saw an opportunity to wrest power away from Crea. With his ascension to power, Crea had shifted the family's power center away from Brooklyn, the power bases for Zappola, Pagagni and Goia, back to Manhattan and the Bronx, the historic power base of the Lucchese family. Zappola, Papagni, Gioia, and Consigliere Frank "Big Frank" Lastorino started planning to murder Crea.^[4] The disaffected mobsters also conspired with Casso to kill then Acting Boss of the Gambino crime family, John "Junior" Gotti in retaliation for the killing of Patrick Testa. Allegedly, Zappola and his fellow conspirators also wanted to kill Gotti's rival Nicholas "Little Nick" Corozzo, in an attempt to split up the Gambino family. Unfortunately for Zappola and the other mobsters, legal problems thwarted all of their plotting.

Indictments and prison

After his 1993 capture, Casso decided to avoid prison by becoming a government witness. Towards 1994, Zappola was indicted on racketeering and murder charges. As it turned, Casso was dropped from the Witness Protection Program and sent to prison for life. Although Casso never testified, the threat of his testimony convinced Gioia, to cooperate with the government for protection. Goia's testimony would lead to massive indictments of racketeering, extortion, loansharking, illegal gambling, bribery, money laundering, fraud, conspiracy and murder charges.

In January 1995, Zappola was indicted on federal charges linking him to four killings and conspiracies to kill other members of the Lucchese family. In January 1996, Zapolla was indicted in a broad murder and racketeering indictment.^[5] In June 1996, Zappola and pleaded guilty to several murders, including the 1990 Bishop slaying.^[6] Zappola was eventually sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Sperm smuggler

In October 1996, while being held at Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, Zappola bribed a federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) guard $1,000 to smuggle his sperm out of the facility. The sperm was taken to a Manhattan fertility clinic, where it was frozen for the future impregnation of Zappola's girlfriend. However, the girlfriend changed her mind about the scheme and went to the government. Authorities retrieved the sperm from the clinic, obtained a court order for a blood sample from Zappola, compared the DNA, and got a positive match. In 1999, the government fired the prison guard and charged him with smuggling the sperm.^[7] During this time, Zappola also bribed BOP correctional officers to receive special food, wine, and visitors along with information from BOP computers.^[8]

In 1997, Zappola was transferred to the Allenwood Federal Correctional Institution, a medium security prison in Central Pennsylvania. As of October 2011, Zappola is still incarcerated at Allenwood. His projected release date is March 3, 2014.^[9]

References

External links

• New York Times: Two More Men Are Charged In a Mob Killing in 1988 By ALAN FEUER
• "2 in Lucchese Gang Accused of 'Mob Hit'" by Selwyn Raab (January 25, 1996) New York Times
• "Blood Ties: 2 Officers' Long Path to Mob Murder Indictments" by Alan Feuer and William K. Rashbaum (March 12, 2005) New York Times