Family files $10M lawsuit against two turncoat Colombo mobsters for decades old murder

Family files $10M lawsuit against two turncoat Colombo mobsters for decades old murder

  July 14, 2018    Dapper_Don

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Maybe time heals all wounds — but for a Brooklyn family suing over a decades-old murder, the wound is still deep and raw.

It was 24 years ago this past week when Carmine Gargano Jr. walked out of his parents’ Bay Ridge home.

“Mommy, I’ll be right back,” he said.

It was the last time his mother, Rosa, would ever hear or see son.

A malicious mobster shot the 21-year-old man twice that day at a McDonald Ave. chop shop, and took a sledgehammer to his 6-foot-2, 230-pound frame. Joseph "Joey Caves" Competiello was acting on orders from Dino "Big Dino" Calabro to “take care of it,” Brooklyn federal prosecutors said.

Someone’s beloved son was just someone else’s dirty job.

And then the Colombo crime family bigs became cooperators. Competiello received a 12-year sentence in 2014 for his turncoat talents and Calabro received an 11-year term in 2017. They dodged the possibility of lifetime sentences for a multitude of admitted sins, and just like that, Gargano’s murder went away.

Competiello’s racketeering conspiracy plea counted the savage killing as one of his underlying crimes. Calabro was not charged with Gargano’s murder, but one of the underlying crimes in his racketeering conspiracy plea was being an accessory after the fact in connection to Gargano.

The Garganos say justice was not served. Rosa, 66, and Carmine Sr., 73, are now suing Calabro and Competiello in a $10 million wrongful death case.

“I’ll never let it go,” Rosa Gargano told the Daily News during a tearful interview. “Those guys changed my life and my family forever.”

The retired Navy custodian opted to sue because she “wants them to pay and that they suffer as much as possible.”

Everyone in the surviving family is pitching in with the Brooklyn Supreme Court case against the pair, and their help is sorely needed. Years ago, the wiseguy duo testified they were in witness protection, but it’s not clear where they are now. No lawyers wanted the Garganos’ civil case for fear of the Mafia, they said.

The December 2017 case is actually a second effort from the Garganos, after a judge said an initial 2015 wrongful death suit against the pair had technical defects.

Before they knew who was linked to crime, the Garganos knew to be worried when Carmine didn’t return soon that day. They traveled to Long Island, Staten Island and downtown Brooklyn looking for Carmine and his white van.

Gargano was a Pace University student eyeing an accounting career. But prosecutors said the young man was also helping to operate a chop shop with Competiello.

Rosa Gargano said her son didn’t really hang with Competiello and his circle, but only knew them briefly through a cousin she disliked and didn’t trust.

Shortly before he died, Gargano made the mistake of complaining to Competiello about getting his full share of the proceeds, according to prosecution court papers.

Joseph Competiello is walked by the FBI from Federal Plaza on June 4, 2008.

Competiello initially buried Gargano at the garage.

In that first, frantic search, Gargano’s brother, Michael, went to the McDonald Ave. spot.

“I probably walked by his body and didn’t know that,” he said.

Prosecutors said that at some point, Competiello, Calabro and others moved the body to a wooded spot in Farmingdale, Long Island.

Gargano’s corpse was never found, though investigators with Competiello’s cooperation found strands of his hair at the chop shop in 2008.

At Calabro’s sentencing, the eight-time killer said he knew “the words just don't exist to heal the wounds I have inflicted.”

“He doesn’t feel sorry. He got away with it.” Gargano’s brother, Jerry, 44, said.

“Look at their sentence,” fumed Gargano’s 46-year-old brother Michael. “Is that justice?”

No reply papers, or anything else, have been filed in the case.

Rosa Gargano said the family will press the lawsuit as much as they can.

“The rest is in God’s hands,” she said.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-metro-mob-wrongful-death-brooklyn-lawsuit-20180713-story.html?outputType=amp