Bonanno rat was at a basketball game while murder was carried out hitmen
He figured face time was better than hard time -- even if it meant watching the Nets.
A Bonanno crime-family capo-turned-canary testified yesterday that he sat courtside at a New Jersey Nets home game to establish an alibi during a mob hit he'd ordered and timed to coincide with the hoop action.
Dominick Cicale, a one-time mobster now testifying for the government against ex-Bonanno boss Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano, said he knew the pricey floor seats would get him plenty of screen time during the game against the Charlotte Bobcats -- a plan hatched to distance himself from the hit on another wiseguy. "Throughout the evening, where I'd be sitting, there would be TV cameras," Cicale told a jury in Brooklyn federal court.
The tanned, chiseled rat said he directed several Bonanno soldiers to time the hit carefully -- "to do it between 8 to 8:30 p.m."
"That would be the time I would definitely be at the arena," he said.
Cicale said before the game he dined with a fellow Bonanno wiseguy at a restaurant in Fort Lee, NJ, and they then made their way to the Continental Airlines Arena in the Meadowlands, arriving shortly after the game had begun.
"We went down to the courtside seats," Cicale said.
While seated there watching the basketball game, Cicale said he got a call on his cellphone from his girlfriend's daughter, who had spotted him while watching a live telecast.
"I see you on TV -- you're with someone who looks like Papa Smurf," the young woman said, according to Cicale, who explained the reference was to the other Bonanno, who was wearing a light-blue outfit.
At the same time, another Bonanno crew was meeting a mob associate on a grimy industrial street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
After the brief meeting, Randy Pizzolo, the Bonanno crime-family associate, lay dead.
He was shot seven times, with bullets in his lower back, his neck, and the back of his head.
Pizzolo, who was seen as a loose cannon with little respect for mob rules, was later found by police lying face down in a puddle, wearing a rhinestone belt buckle with the initials "RP."
In his pocket was a fat roll of more than $1,000.
Federal prosecutors put Cicale on the stand to testify how he orchestrated the hit on the orders of Basciano, the Bonanno boss who at the time of the killing was behind bars awaiting trial on other crimes.
Cicale, who is now in the witness-protection program, said he left the Nets game a few minutes before the fourth quarter ended, and the Nets beat the Bobcats, 99-86.
While driving back to New York across the George Washington Bridge, his pager began vibrating.
Displayed on the pager was the prearranged code -- "7-11" -- a signal from the Bonanno hit team that Pizzolo had been gunned down.
At that point, Cicale said rolled down his car window.
"I slid my arm out the window and I dropped the pager on the highway," Cicale said.
A Bonanno crime-family capo-turned-canary testified yesterday that he sat courtside at a New Jersey Nets home game to establish an alibi during a mob hit he'd ordered and timed to coincide with the hoop action.
Dominick Cicale, a one-time mobster now testifying for the government against ex-Bonanno boss Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano, said he knew the pricey floor seats would get him plenty of screen time during the game against the Charlotte Bobcats -- a plan hatched to distance himself from the hit on another wiseguy. "Throughout the evening, where I'd be sitting, there would be TV cameras," Cicale told a jury in Brooklyn federal court.
TURNCOAT: Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano (left) with former pal Dominick Cicale. Cicale testified yesterday that he attended a New Jersey Nets game in order to be seen publicly at the time a
Bonanno family hit was going down.
The tanned, chiseled rat said he directed several Bonanno soldiers to time the hit carefully -- "to do it between 8 to 8:30 p.m."
"That would be the time I would definitely be at the arena," he said.
Cicale said before the game he dined with a fellow Bonanno wiseguy at a restaurant in Fort Lee, NJ, and they then made their way to the Continental Airlines Arena in the Meadowlands, arriving shortly after the game had begun.
"We went down to the courtside seats," Cicale said.
While seated there watching the basketball game, Cicale said he got a call on his cellphone from his girlfriend's daughter, who had spotted him while watching a live telecast.
"I see you on TV -- you're with someone who looks like Papa Smurf," the young woman said, according to Cicale, who explained the reference was to the other Bonanno, who was wearing a light-blue outfit.
At the same time, another Bonanno crew was meeting a mob associate on a grimy industrial street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
After the brief meeting, Randy Pizzolo, the Bonanno crime-family associate, lay dead.
He was shot seven times, with bullets in his lower back, his neck, and the back of his head.
Pizzolo, who was seen as a loose cannon with little respect for mob rules, was later found by police lying face down in a puddle, wearing a rhinestone belt buckle with the initials "RP."
In his pocket was a fat roll of more than $1,000.
Federal prosecutors put Cicale on the stand to testify how he orchestrated the hit on the orders of Basciano, the Bonanno boss who at the time of the killing was behind bars awaiting trial on other crimes.
Cicale, who is now in the witness-protection program, said he left the Nets game a few minutes before the fourth quarter ended, and the Nets beat the Bobcats, 99-86.
While driving back to New York across the George Washington Bridge, his pager began vibrating.
Displayed on the pager was the prearranged code -- "7-11" -- a signal from the Bonanno hit team that Pizzolo had been gunned down.
At that point, Cicale said rolled down his car window.
"I slid my arm out the window and I dropped the pager on the highway," Cicale said.
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