Victim murdered by Philadelphia mobster was undercover informant
Family
members say Gino DiPietro (center, with his sister and son Gino Jr.)
had cleaned up his act before being gunned down in December outside his
South Philadelphia home.
RATTING ON mobsters can get you killed. Wearing a wire is risking your life.
So when a government informant is allegedly gunned down by a reputed mob soldier in South Philadelphia, it sounds like an open-and-shut case.
But this is Philly. There are plenty of ways to die.
Sources tell the Daily News
that Gino DiPietro, a reformed drug dealer who was murdered in December
outside his home, had previously been a confidential informant - and
had helped put his younger cousin in prison by wearing a body wire.
His cousin is Victor DiPietro, a construction worker whom law-enforcement officials had once described as a mob associate. He insists he's gone legit after 3 1/2 years in prison as a result of Gino DiPietro's cooperation with the feds in 2005.
His cousin is Victor DiPietro, a construction worker whom law-enforcement officials had once described as a mob associate. He insists he's gone legit after 3 1/2 years in prison as a result of Gino DiPietro's cooperation with the feds in 2005.
Sounds like a textbook mob hit, right? Maybe not.
Victor DiPietro says it's a bizarre coincidence. And police think he might be right.
"I can't wrap my head around it. I have no idea whatsoever how this whole entire thing transpired," DiPietro said yesterday.
DiPietro, 31, said he felt betrayed when he learned that Gino had set him up.
"Since it was my family member, it hurt a lot. But did I wish harm to him? No," he said. "Did he deserve this? No."
Sources say Gino DiPietro, 50, was busted on a cocaine-distribution charge around 2004, shortly after serving 6 1/2 years in a 1997 drug case. Facing major prison time, the father of two sons flipped and agreed to wear a wire to take down his cousin, the sources said.
Gino DiPietro's cooperation had not been publicly disclosed because his case concluded with a sealed judgment in 2009. But after he was killed, a probation officer filed a court document in January that indicated that Gino DiPietro had received only house arrest and probation on his second drug arrest - a slap-on-the-wrist sentence for a repeat offender.
DiPietro had kept his secret from his family, according to his girlfriend, Alisa Lord. They got engaged the night before he was killed.
"If he was embarrassed about something he did, he's not going to tell me," Lord said.
Police have looked at the mob angle in the DiPietro case, but so far haven't found any indicators that he was killed because he was an informant. A police source said the motive for the shooting could be as simple as a street argument - two South Philly tough guys who wouldn't back down.
"He must've gotten somebody upset," Victor DiPietro said. "But it had nothing to do with me."
Gino DiPietro appeared to have turned his life around, and there was no evidence that he was involved in drug dealing at the time of his death, according to a law-enforcement official. Lord said he was delivering parts for BMW and Mini Cooper.
"He did straighten out," she said. "I lived it. I saw it, firsthand."
Victor DiPietro, who found John "Johnny Gongs" Casasanto shot in an unsolved 2003 mob hit, said he once ran with guys with mob connections, but not anymore.
"I go to work every day," he said. "I don't jaywalk."
http://articles.philly.com/2013-06-19/news/40072462_1_mob-associate-anthony-nicodemo-reputed-mob-soldier#IsOTu2TIyuKAvmBC.99
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