25 Years Ago in Mob History

March 10, 1992 – Patricia Capozzalo sat in her car across the road from her home in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn at 7:40 A.M. after dropping one of her sons at school. Two masked gunmen approached her car on the driver's side and fired at least five times through the window, shattering it. She was shot in the neck and back and survived. Her assailants then fled in a stolen black 1991 Plymouth van.

A neighborhood man acknowledged, " This was a Mafia hit, nothing else."

Capozzalo was the sister of Peter (Fat Pete) Chiodo, a potential witness in the John Gotti trial and the trial of another reputed Mafia leader. After he was shot 12 times and his wife's life was threatened, 450-pound Chiodo agreed to go into the Federal witness-protection program along with his wife and to testify for the Government. Authorities found no indication of Patricia Capozzalo’s involvement with organized crime other than that caused by the accident of birth. Her brother’s deal left her a prime target for mob vengeance.

An investigator called the shooting one of the "last desperate acts" of organized-crime bosses "sending a message to their subordinates saying whether you go into the witness protection program or not." The shooting broke one of the mob's ancient rules that relatives, and especially women, are untouchable from retaliation in family feuds.

Fat Pete admitted to being a member of the Lucchese crime family and suspected his shooting involved a dispute over money with his old boss, Vittorio Amuso. He also admitted to participating in four murders and planning four others, and provided testimony in the trial of eight men accused of being members of crime families, and of using rigged bids and labor payoffs. A jury later acquitted all eight defendants of the main racketeering charge but convicted three of them of extortion-related charges.

Anthony Salvatore Casso was suspected of shooting Capozzalo. Before going into hiding, Casso was second in command of the Lucchese family from 1987 to 1990. The boss of the family, Vittorio Amuso, also fled in May 1990, and later captured. Amuso was convicted on racketeering charges and sentenced to life in prison in June 1992.

After turning Government Informer, Casso acknowledged killing 40 to 50 people and ordering more than 100 more murders. The Government later rescinded Casso's plea agreement and dropped him from the witness protection program. A federal judge then sentenced him to 455 years in prison.

Anthony Casso, "the most dangerous, cunning and ruthless Mafia leader left on the streets," said Andrew J. Maloney, the United States Attorney in Brooklyn, 1992