Mobsters such as Dirty Danny and Little Robert take their punishment like made men
Bonanno soldier Daniel "Dirty Danny" Mongelli is one of the few wiseguys to pay for his life of crime instead of squealing to feds.
One Colombo captain, Anthony "Big Anthony)"Russo, was taped in December pledging to track down a rat and "chop his head off" only to turn into Tiny Tony and start eating cheese the minute he was pinched.
Now, we have a Genovese associate-turned-informant named Joe Barone crying about the FBI dumping him for getting involved in a murder-for-hire case with an NYPD informant.
Rats ratting out rats!
It's almost enough to make you admire the standup guys, if there are any left.
Guys like Daniel "Dirty Danny" Mongelli and Robert "Little Robert" Lino. Both are 44 - relatively young in the real mobster world.
Both were charged with murder after Bonanno underboss Sal Vitale turned rat, just before Bonanno boss Joe Massino turned rat.
Little Robert stood tall even when facing 27 years because he was what his lawyer terms "a true believer." Too bad what he truly believes in is a collection of sociopaths.
Lino kept with tradition and steadfastly refused to admit to being in the Mafia even as he pleaded guilty to being a hit man.
"Nobody ever told me I was a member of the Bonanno family or the Massino family," he told the court in 2004.
Dirty Danny may be unique in not only refusing to turn rat, but actually feeling bad when he pleaded guilty.
"I think he was a guy who was remorseful for what he had done in his past," his lawyer, Gerard Marrone, said Monday. "He wanted to pay his debt to society. He wanted to take his punishment."
Dirty Danny felt what appeared to be true remorse even though the crime had occurred 14 years before and the victim, Louis Tuzzio, was also a killer.
Tuzzio was marked for death because he had recklessly wounded a gangster's son while killing a mob associate.
The circumstances invited Dirty Danny to tell himself he was only doing unto Tuzzio what Tuzzio had done unto others.
Maybe Dirty Danny felt guilty because Tuzzio was a friend and had been lured to his death with the promise of finally becoming a made member.
Maybe it was that Tuzzio had a young daughter. Maybe it was that Dirty Danny had settled down and gotten married and had a daughter by the time he was arrested.
Whatever it was, he did not seek to get out of a 23-year sentence by becoming a rat.
"He didn't point the finger at anybody else," his lawyer said. "He took responsibility for his actions. Which is not something many people do these days in life in general, not to mention the criminal world.
"The buck stopped with Danny."
That sounded better than a good many of our politicians and business leaders.
I was ready to say that Danny deserved a new nickname, maybe "Danny Buck Stops."
I started to think maybe he wasn't such a terrible guy, until someone reminded me that a rat taped him after 9/11 talking about selling steel from the ruins of the World Trade Center.
So, Dirty Danny it remains.
Being standup is only as admirable as where you stand.
Not being a rat does not mean you are also not a louse.
0 comments:
Post a Comment