Colombo associate accused of beating driver for honking horn
The city will hit you with a $350 ticket for horn honking — but the mob really makes you pay.
In a scene right out of “GoodFellas,” mafioso Edward “Tall Guy” Garofalo Jr. allegedly turned a truck driver’s face into a bloody pulp when he dared honk his horn while the Colombo associate was chatting with a family capo.
With a build that’s a cross between an NFL linebacker and a commercial-grade refrigerator — and a fuse as short as Joe Pesci’s in the classic mob movie — Garofalo dislikes anything that can be interpreted as disrespect.
Brooklyn federal prosecutors say that Garofalo and Colombo captain Theodore “Teddy” Persico Jr. — at whose upcoming racketeering trial the feds want to tell the tale of mob violence and intimidation — were standing at a Mafia-run trucking firm back in 2004, where they were chatting with a driver who was sitting in his cab.
That’s when a second driver drove up to the Spencer Avenue facility on Staten Island and began “repeatedly honking his horn,” Assistant US Attorney Nicole Argentieri recently wrote a judge.
Garofalo believed that the trucker was honking at him, and so he told Persico that he “would handle the situation” personally, the feds say.
So the mobster pulled the driver from the cab, and hit him hard in the face, the feds say.
The trucker collapsed to the ground, where he lay unconscious, prosecutors say. But Garofalo kept pummeling the trucker’s face with his fist, turning it into a bloody mess, the feds say.
Garofalo and Persico slipped quietly away as an ambulance arrived.
It was one of the wiseguy moments that Garofalo later boasted about, unaware that his acquaintance was secretly taping the conversation, the feds say.
“I f--kin’ knocked out one of [the] drivers one day,” Garofalo bragged.
A supervisor at the trucking firm now tells drivers there to take heed of Garofalo and not to disagree with him, according to a transcript of the conversation.
“You know what he does, any time he sees me yell at somebody outside?” Garofalo asked.
“He goes, ‘Eddie, Eddie. No argue,’ ” Garofalo said, repeating the advice the trucking firm’s employee tells drivers.
The men can be heard laughing on the tape.
After the beating, the victim contacted police to report the assault, the feds say.
Prosecutors say that Garofalo and Persico later paid a visit to the trucker’s boss in an effort to ensure that the employer would prevent the man from testifying.
“Garofalo and Persico advised [a colleague] that, as planned, the employer had communicated a threat to the victim to ensure that he would not press charges,” prosecutors wrote the judge.
Now the feds want a government cooperator to take the witness stand and recount the beating and witness-intimidation incident at Persico’s mob trial next month.
In a scene right out of “GoodFellas,” mafioso Edward “Tall Guy” Garofalo Jr. allegedly turned a truck driver’s face into a bloody pulp when he dared honk his horn while the Colombo associate was chatting with a family capo.
With a build that’s a cross between an NFL linebacker and a commercial-grade refrigerator — and a fuse as short as Joe Pesci’s in the classic mob movie — Garofalo dislikes anything that can be interpreted as disrespect.
Brooklyn federal prosecutors say that Garofalo and Colombo captain Theodore “Teddy” Persico Jr. — at whose upcoming racketeering trial the feds want to tell the tale of mob violence and intimidation — were standing at a Mafia-run trucking firm back in 2004, where they were chatting with a driver who was sitting in his cab.
PERSICO
GAROFALO
Garofalo believed that the trucker was honking at him, and so he told Persico that he “would handle the situation” personally, the feds say.
So the mobster pulled the driver from the cab, and hit him hard in the face, the feds say.
The trucker collapsed to the ground, where he lay unconscious, prosecutors say. But Garofalo kept pummeling the trucker’s face with his fist, turning it into a bloody mess, the feds say.
Garofalo and Persico slipped quietly away as an ambulance arrived.
It was one of the wiseguy moments that Garofalo later boasted about, unaware that his acquaintance was secretly taping the conversation, the feds say.
“I f--kin’ knocked out one of [the] drivers one day,” Garofalo bragged.
A supervisor at the trucking firm now tells drivers there to take heed of Garofalo and not to disagree with him, according to a transcript of the conversation.
“You know what he does, any time he sees me yell at somebody outside?” Garofalo asked.
“He goes, ‘Eddie, Eddie. No argue,’ ” Garofalo said, repeating the advice the trucking firm’s employee tells drivers.
The men can be heard laughing on the tape.
After the beating, the victim contacted police to report the assault, the feds say.
Prosecutors say that Garofalo and Persico later paid a visit to the trucker’s boss in an effort to ensure that the employer would prevent the man from testifying.
“Garofalo and Persico advised [a colleague] that, as planned, the employer had communicated a threat to the victim to ensure that he would not press charges,” prosecutors wrote the judge.
Now the feds want a government cooperator to take the witness stand and recount the beating and witness-intimidation incident at Persico’s mob trial next month.
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