Imprisoned actor Lillo Brancato beats up inmate who wouldn't cut short phone call
He's still a punk.
TV tough guy Lillo Brancato whaled on a fellow inmate at an upstate prison because the con wouldn't cut short a phone call to his wife, The Post has learned.
The hotheaded "Sopranos" and "A Bronx Tale" actor was waiting the night of Jan. 26 to use the phone booth in a rec room at the Oneida Correctional Facility when he decided he had waited long enough, law enforcement officials said.
The baby-faced Brancato started badgering petty thief Alvaro Hernandez, who refused to cut short his conversation with his wife, Barbie.
Hernandez, 39, says Brancato jumped him and gave him a beating.
"He thinks he runs the place, like he's God's gift to this earth. He tells me, 'Hang up the phone! I gotta use the phone!' " Hernandez said.
"He forces open the door and spits at me, and he's punching me in the face and on the head."
Other inmates, including Steven Molinaro, 22, grandson of Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro, intervened, and Hernandez was taken to the prison nurse.
After an investigation, Brancato, 33, lost phone and commissary privileges and was "T-blocked" -- confined to his cell for 23 hours a day for a month.
The Rome prison typically houses about 400 inmates, including former Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress, who Hernandez said witnessed the fight.
Hernandez, doing time for lifting a wallet, suffered seizures after the beatdown. Neither he nor Molinaro, serving five years for assaulting a 14-year-old paperboy, was disciplined.
Brancato is serving a 10-year sentence for his role in a burglary in which accomplice Steven Armento shot and killed NYPD cop Daniel Enchautegui.
But Hernandez says Brancato shows little remorse, fantasizes about getting high once he's sprung and obsesses over the mob -- reading book after book about organized crime.
"He got this fetish with the Mafia. Maybe it's the roles he played in the past. He's got this persona likes he's acting like he's in the mob," he said.
In December 2005, Brancato and Armento were breaking into a friend's house in a desperate search for drugs when the off-duty cop tried to stop them, wounding both. Armento shot Enchautegui dead with a .357-caliber revolver.
Armento was convicted of murder, while Brancato was convicted of burglary and acquitted on the murder charge. He got a sweetheart deal in January 2009 after an emotional statement to the judge in which he blamed his drug addiction and said he prays daily for the slain officer's family.
TV tough guy Lillo Brancato whaled on a fellow inmate at an upstate prison because the con wouldn't cut short a phone call to his wife, The Post has learned.
The hotheaded "Sopranos" and "A Bronx Tale" actor was waiting the night of Jan. 26 to use the phone booth in a rec room at the Oneida Correctional Facility when he decided he had waited long enough, law enforcement officials said.
The baby-faced Brancato started badgering petty thief Alvaro Hernandez, who refused to cut short his conversation with his wife, Barbie.
JAILHOUSE ROCK: Lillo Brancato (above), who's doing 10 years in Oneida Correctional Facility, pounded a fellow inmate.
"He thinks he runs the place, like he's God's gift to this earth. He tells me, 'Hang up the phone! I gotta use the phone!' " Hernandez said.
"He forces open the door and spits at me, and he's punching me in the face and on the head."
Other inmates, including Steven Molinaro, 22, grandson of Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro, intervened, and Hernandez was taken to the prison nurse.
After an investigation, Brancato, 33, lost phone and commissary privileges and was "T-blocked" -- confined to his cell for 23 hours a day for a month.
The Rome prison typically houses about 400 inmates, including former Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress, who Hernandez said witnessed the fight.
Hernandez, doing time for lifting a wallet, suffered seizures after the beatdown. Neither he nor Molinaro, serving five years for assaulting a 14-year-old paperboy, was disciplined.
Brancato is serving a 10-year sentence for his role in a burglary in which accomplice Steven Armento shot and killed NYPD cop Daniel Enchautegui.
But Hernandez says Brancato shows little remorse, fantasizes about getting high once he's sprung and obsesses over the mob -- reading book after book about organized crime.
"He got this fetish with the Mafia. Maybe it's the roles he played in the past. He's got this persona likes he's acting like he's in the mob," he said.
In December 2005, Brancato and Armento were breaking into a friend's house in a desperate search for drugs when the off-duty cop tried to stop them, wounding both. Armento shot Enchautegui dead with a .357-caliber revolver.
Armento was convicted of murder, while Brancato was convicted of burglary and acquitted on the murder charge. He got a sweetheart deal in January 2009 after an emotional statement to the judge in which he blamed his drug addiction and said he prays daily for the slain officer's family.
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