Thomas (Tommy Shots) Gioeli will have private viewing of deceased father in courthouse garage
Thomas (Tommy Shots) Gioeli will pay his last respects to his father in the garage of the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse. His request to attend the funeral was denied.
It's a rare furlough for a prisoner - let alone one of Gioeli's violent pedigree.
Gioeli, 58, the former acting boss of the Colombo crime family, had made a more ambitious request late last week to Brooklyn Federal Judge Brian Cogan: He asked to attend his father's wake and funeral in Farmingdale, L.I.
Gioeli envisioned spending two hours with his mother, wife and daughters while accompanied by U.S. marshals.
Prosecutors wrote a letter to the judge opposing the request.
"The government defers to the position of the United States Marshals Service who is in the best position to assess the risks involved in transporting an inmate such as Gioeli who poses a risk of flight, but also a danger to the community," Assistant U.S. Attorney James Gatta said in court papers.
Charles Dunne, chief marshal for the Eastern District of New York, approved a compromise that shows more humanitarianism than prosecutors say Gioeli ever showed his numerous victims.
After the funeral Mass inside St. Kilian Church in Farmingdale, the hearse will take the body 38 miles to Brooklyn for the private viewing, then back the same distance to Pinelawn Memorial Park in Farmingdale for burial.
"It's a happy medium," a source said of the arrangements.
Sources said there have been about a dozen courthouse wakes over the years.
The feds prefer not to take a prisoner to a funeral home even under heavy guard because the high emotions surrounding the event add to the enormous security concerns.
Salvatore Gioeli, 81, a longtime employee of the Town of Oyster Bay and president of the Farmingdale Soccer League, died on Friday.
The next day, Tommy Shots was blogging through his tears from his email account behind bars that he'd had a premonition there was trouble at home.
"I awoke at 5:08 a.m. ... My forehead and hands were sweating, my belly was flipping," he wrote. "Even before I heard my wife's cracking voice I knew that bad news awaited me.
"This saint of a man, this icon of [the] middle class had drawn his last breath around 5:03 a.m. ... I love you Dad, and I'm hugging and kissing you in my mind right now."
Monday, Gioeli was whining on the blog that he couldn't attend the services in person and even made the dubious claim that six NYPD cops had volunteered to provide security.
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