Colombo mobster used noisy bowling alley to conduct business
A Long Island bowling alley gave new meaning to “family” fun when a mob boss turned it into his criminal hangout.
Colombo crime-family street boss Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli set up shop at the County Line Bowling Center near his Farmingdale home because he wanted the sounds of falling pins and screaming kids to mask his underworld conversations from the prying ears of federal agents, according to testimony at his ongoing mob-slay trial in Brooklyn federal court.
As locals bowled nearby without a clue to the gangland activity going on, “Tommy Shots” engaged in Mafia business such as orchestrating the “disappearance” of three fellow gangsters.
!['[We] were in the lead car. We took the Belt Parkway to the bowling alley...then we carried the body over and started digging.' - Mob turncoat 'Big Dino' Calabro, testifying against Colombo boss 'Tommy Shots' Goell (above)](http://www.nypost.com/rw/nypost/2012/04/13/news/web_photos/13.1n014.colombo2--300x300.jpg "'[We] were in the lead car. We took the Belt Parkway to the bowling alley...then we carried the body over and started digging.' - Mob turncoat 'Big Dino' Calabro, testifying against Colombo boss 'Tommy Shots' Goell (above)")
He even used the alley’s parking lot as a staging area to meet with his underlings before they buried their victims in a nearby wooded area.
At least two of his victims — Colombo underboss William “Wild Bill” Cutolo and Mafia associate Richard Greaves — were dumped in shallow graves a short drive from the now-defunct family recreation center.
Details of the bowling-alley activity have been revealed at the trial of Gioeli, 59, and Dino “Little Dino” Saracino, 39, who are charged with six gangland murders, including the killing of a cop.
Colombo turncoat Reynold Maragni was wearing a wire when reputed soldier Vincent Manzo Sr. blabbed about how Gioeli had showed him “where the hole was” for dumping Cutolo’s body.
Manzo explained how Gioeli led him to the wooded area and how, as Cutolo’s body was removed from the car trunk, Gioeli stayed in the vehicle. “Tommy didn’t even get out of the car,” Manzo was taped saying.
Greaves was fatally shot on Aug. 3, 1995, and the body driven to Farmingdale but never found.
According to testimony from key mob turncoat Dino “Big Dino” Calabro, County Line was the meeting spot before the crew headed to the makeshift graveyard.
“[We] were in the lead car. We took the Belt Parkway to the bowling alley,” Saracino’s cousin, Calabro, testified.
Calabro recalled saying later at the nearby wooded area: “I took the pick and the shovel and the bag of lime, and then we carried the body over and started digging.”
A third body, that of Colombo mob associate Carmine “The Gorilla” Gargano, was moved from a makeshift grave at the Brooklyn body shop where he was murdered in 1994 to Farmingdale and buried while Gioeli sipped cocktails at the bowling alley.
Gioeli was deathly afraid of wiretaps and bugs and went to great lengths to avoid them, prosecutors said in court papers filed yesterday, explaining why Gioeli was rarely caught on tape.
“Members of organized crime tend to avoid talking about crimes over the telephone or in places that can be intercepted,” Brooklyn federal prosecutors said in a letter sent yesterday to the judge in the Gioeli case.
In previous testimony, prosecutors have detailed that Gioeli was difficult to track because he used the Nextel walkie-talkie feature on his cellphone. Yesterday they explained why they could not subpoena the Nextel records: Gioeli obtained his phones from “a company controlled by the son of co-conspirator.”
“In light of Gioeli’s close relationship with [the associate], it would have been futile for law enforcement to obtain such court authorization to intercept communications over such a device because Gioeli would likely learn of the authorization and alter his behavior,” prosecutors said.
Colombo crime-family street boss Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli set up shop at the County Line Bowling Center near his Farmingdale home because he wanted the sounds of falling pins and screaming kids to mask his underworld conversations from the prying ears of federal agents, according to testimony at his ongoing mob-slay trial in Brooklyn federal court.
As locals bowled nearby without a clue to the gangland activity going on, “Tommy Shots” engaged in Mafia business such as orchestrating the “disappearance” of three fellow gangsters.
'[We] were in the lead car. We took the Belt Parkway to the bowling alley...then we carried the body over and started digging.' - Mob turncoat "Big Dino' Calabro, testifying against Colombo boss 'Tommy Shots' Goell (above)
At least two of his victims — Colombo underboss William “Wild Bill” Cutolo and Mafia associate Richard Greaves — were dumped in shallow graves a short drive from the now-defunct family recreation center.
Details of the bowling-alley activity have been revealed at the trial of Gioeli, 59, and Dino “Little Dino” Saracino, 39, who are charged with six gangland murders, including the killing of a cop.
Colombo turncoat Reynold Maragni was wearing a wire when reputed soldier Vincent Manzo Sr. blabbed about how Gioeli had showed him “where the hole was” for dumping Cutolo’s body.
Manzo explained how Gioeli led him to the wooded area and how, as Cutolo’s body was removed from the car trunk, Gioeli stayed in the vehicle. “Tommy didn’t even get out of the car,” Manzo was taped saying.
Greaves was fatally shot on Aug. 3, 1995, and the body driven to Farmingdale but never found.
According to testimony from key mob turncoat Dino “Big Dino” Calabro, County Line was the meeting spot before the crew headed to the makeshift graveyard.
“[We] were in the lead car. We took the Belt Parkway to the bowling alley,” Saracino’s cousin, Calabro, testified.
Calabro recalled saying later at the nearby wooded area: “I took the pick and the shovel and the bag of lime, and then we carried the body over and started digging.”
A third body, that of Colombo mob associate Carmine “The Gorilla” Gargano, was moved from a makeshift grave at the Brooklyn body shop where he was murdered in 1994 to Farmingdale and buried while Gioeli sipped cocktails at the bowling alley.
Gioeli was deathly afraid of wiretaps and bugs and went to great lengths to avoid them, prosecutors said in court papers filed yesterday, explaining why Gioeli was rarely caught on tape.
“Members of organized crime tend to avoid talking about crimes over the telephone or in places that can be intercepted,” Brooklyn federal prosecutors said in a letter sent yesterday to the judge in the Gioeli case.
In previous testimony, prosecutors have detailed that Gioeli was difficult to track because he used the Nextel walkie-talkie feature on his cellphone. Yesterday they explained why they could not subpoena the Nextel records: Gioeli obtained his phones from “a company controlled by the son of co-conspirator.”
“In light of Gioeli’s close relationship with [the associate], it would have been futile for law enforcement to obtain such court authorization to intercept communications over such a device because Gioeli would likely learn of the authorization and alter his behavior,” prosecutors said.
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