Genovese associate charged with extortion
Frank DiMattina owns the catering hall Ariana's in Woodbridge, N.J..
FBI agents today arrested a Genovese crime family associate — a wannabe reality TV star who runs a popular New York City catering hall — and charged him with brandishing a gun to shake down the operator of a rival catering business.
Frank Di Mattina, who owns Ariana’s catering halls in Staten Island and New Jersey, appeared in Brooklyn federal court and was charged with extortion.
A 43-year-old mob associate known as “Frankie D” and “Frankie Ariana,” Di Mattina was also featured in a bid to film a reality TV show called “Banquet Boyz.”
Di Mattina appears in a video posted on a Web site called “Banquet Boyz.” In a professionally produced segment, Di Mattina talks enthusiastically about the glamor of his profession while images of a busy catering hall swirl in the background.
“I’m Frankie D,” he says, looking into the camera.
It’s not clear whether the video was produced as a business promotion or perhaps intended as a demo tape for a proposed reality TV show.
Brooklyn federal prosecutors say that Di Mattina had placed a bid to secure a school lunch program contract at a school on Staten Island in 2010.
When Di Mattina learned that a man who runs a competitor catering business also put in a bid to prepare lunches at the school, the mobster and another man confronted the competitor at his business, the feds say.
Di Mattina then demanded that the owner of the rival firm withdraw his bid for the school lunch program, and then “lifted his shirt and showed [the competitor] the butt of an automatic handgun tucked into the waistband” of the mobster’s pants, an FBI agent wrote in court documents.
Di Mattina remarked to the man accompanying him, “This is the guy you’re going to come back to and kick the s--t out of,” the report says.
Prosecutors say that Di Mattina, who lives on Staten Island, has a New York City handgun permit and owns several firearms.
FBI agents say that Di Mattina reports to John “Johnny Sausages” Barbato, a Genovese made-man who is reportedly related by marriage to Frank Sinatra.
A judge ordered Di Mattina to be held in federal lockup, despite an effort by attorney Vincent Romano to secure his release.
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