Hit on cop shocked killer
He never saw it coming.
A coldblooded killer told in chilling detail yesterday how he and another mob hit man calmly walked up to an NYPD officer — marked for death because he’d married a Mafia bigwig’s ex-wife — and gunned him down outside his Brooklyn house nearly 15 years ago.
“What’s up?” housing cop Ralph Dols asked the two men as they approached him on Aug. 25, 1997, one of the killers, mob rat Dino “Big Dino” Calabro, told rapt jurors in Brooklyn federal court yesterday.
“We shot him,” Calabro testified. “Multiple times.”
“When we shot him, he fell back,” said Calabro, 45, describing Dols staggering and falling onto the hood of the car he had just exited in Sheepshead Bay.
“I shot him. I shot him with my cousin Dino,” said the former Colombo capo-turned-government witness.
The dying Dols then stumbled into his house, where his wife and baby daughter had been waiting for him.
Calabro’s matter-of-fact account came during testimony at the trial of his cousin, Dino “Little Dino” Saracino, 39, and Colombo acting boss Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli, 59, for the murder of Dols and five others.
Watching silently from the gallery were four of Dols’ relatives.
Dols, 28, was targeted because he had married Kim Kennaugh, whose former husband, then-Colombo consigliere Joel “Joe Waverly” Cacace, was enraged at the insult of her having married a cop.
Calabro said he blasted away at the unsuspecting Dols with a .44-caliber Magnum, while his cousin fired a .45-caliber semiautomatic.
Dols stumbled, blood-spattered, into his home, where Kennaugh found him downstairs.
It was only the next day that the mob goon learned who Dols really was.
“I seen that on the front page,” Calabro told jurors. “I learned that he was a cop.”
“We don’t typically kill police officers. That’s just a rule in the Mafia,” Calabro noted, without irony.
“You don’t kill kids, you don’t kill cops.”
“At first I was amazed,” he testified about learning Dols’ occupation. “I went straight to Tommy’s house.”
When Calabro walked into Gioeli’s Farmingdale, LI, home, Tommy Shots put his index finger to his lips in a “shhhh” motion, the turncoat testified.
They went for a walk outside, into a wooded area to avoid possible police surveillance.
“I asked him, ‘This guy’s a cop?’ ” Calabro recalled.
“He acted like he didn’t know.”
Calabro testified he then tried to contact Cacace on a walkie-talkie, but “Joe Waverly” didn’t answer.
Dols’ widow, Kennaugh, was not in court yesterday, having said she could not bear to be there. At her Staten Island home yesterday, she declined to comment.
Her first husband, Colombo soldier Enrico Carini, was taken out in a mob hit 10 years before Dols’ murder.
In 1997, Calabro was just a Colombo associate, but he had close ties with Gioeli — who allegedly told him that Dols had to die.
“How did you learn that Joel Cacace wanted ‘a piece of work done?’ ” asked Assistant US Attorney James Gatta.
“Tommy Gioeli told me,” Calabro answered.
Calabro said he jumped at the chance to carry out the job on Dols so that he could merit becoming a made man.
“I wanted to be inducted into the Colombo crime family,” testified the Sicily native, who on the witness stand Monday admitted having killed eight men.
Gioeli showed Calabro where Dols lived on East 19th Street, showed him Dols’ car, and gave Calabro a slip of paper with Dols’ license-plate number written on it, the rat recalled.
“We couldn’t find him at that location for a long period of time,” Calabro said.
The delay irritated Cacace.
“Joe Waverly took me for a walk,” Calabro testified. “He asked me, ‘What’s going on with that thing, because it’s taking a long time?’ ”
Calabro and Saracino resumed their efforts — with “aggression to get it done,” Calabro said.
Calabro said he later approached Gioeli about killing Cacace — who later became head of the family and now resides in prison on a racketeering conviction — for having issued an order to kill a cop in violation of Mafia rules.
A coldblooded killer told in chilling detail yesterday how he and another mob hit man calmly walked up to an NYPD officer — marked for death because he’d married a Mafia bigwig’s ex-wife — and gunned him down outside his Brooklyn house nearly 15 years ago.
“What’s up?” housing cop Ralph Dols asked the two men as they approached him on Aug. 25, 1997, one of the killers, mob rat Dino “Big Dino” Calabro, told rapt jurors in Brooklyn federal court yesterday.
“We shot him,” Calabro testified. “Multiple times.”
“When we shot him, he fell back,” said Calabro, 45, describing Dols staggering and falling onto the hood of the car he had just exited in Sheepshead Bay.
WEDDED DISS: NYPD cop Ralph Dols was targeted for murder because he married Kim Kennaugh, the ex-wife of a high-ranking Colombo family member.
'We don’t typically kill police officers. That’s just a rule in the Mafia.' — Dino ‘Big Dino’ Calabro, testifying in Brooklyn federal court yesterday about the murder of NYPD housing cop Ralph Dols
The dying Dols then stumbled into his house, where his wife and baby daughter had been waiting for him.
Calabro’s matter-of-fact account came during testimony at the trial of his cousin, Dino “Little Dino” Saracino, 39, and Colombo acting boss Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli, 59, for the murder of Dols and five others.
Watching silently from the gallery were four of Dols’ relatives.
Dols, 28, was targeted because he had married Kim Kennaugh, whose former husband, then-Colombo consigliere Joel “Joe Waverly” Cacace, was enraged at the insult of her having married a cop.
Calabro said he blasted away at the unsuspecting Dols with a .44-caliber Magnum, while his cousin fired a .45-caliber semiautomatic.
Dols stumbled, blood-spattered, into his home, where Kennaugh found him downstairs.
It was only the next day that the mob goon learned who Dols really was.
“I seen that on the front page,” Calabro told jurors. “I learned that he was a cop.”
“We don’t typically kill police officers. That’s just a rule in the Mafia,” Calabro noted, without irony.
“You don’t kill kids, you don’t kill cops.”
“At first I was amazed,” he testified about learning Dols’ occupation. “I went straight to Tommy’s house.”
When Calabro walked into Gioeli’s Farmingdale, LI, home, Tommy Shots put his index finger to his lips in a “shhhh” motion, the turncoat testified.
They went for a walk outside, into a wooded area to avoid possible police surveillance.
“I asked him, ‘This guy’s a cop?’ ” Calabro recalled.
“He acted like he didn’t know.”
Calabro testified he then tried to contact Cacace on a walkie-talkie, but “Joe Waverly” didn’t answer.
Dols’ widow, Kennaugh, was not in court yesterday, having said she could not bear to be there. At her Staten Island home yesterday, she declined to comment.
Her first husband, Colombo soldier Enrico Carini, was taken out in a mob hit 10 years before Dols’ murder.
In 1997, Calabro was just a Colombo associate, but he had close ties with Gioeli — who allegedly told him that Dols had to die.
“How did you learn that Joel Cacace wanted ‘a piece of work done?’ ” asked Assistant US Attorney James Gatta.
“Tommy Gioeli told me,” Calabro answered.
Calabro said he jumped at the chance to carry out the job on Dols so that he could merit becoming a made man.
“I wanted to be inducted into the Colombo crime family,” testified the Sicily native, who on the witness stand Monday admitted having killed eight men.
Gioeli showed Calabro where Dols lived on East 19th Street, showed him Dols’ car, and gave Calabro a slip of paper with Dols’ license-plate number written on it, the rat recalled.
“We couldn’t find him at that location for a long period of time,” Calabro said.
The delay irritated Cacace.
“Joe Waverly took me for a walk,” Calabro testified. “He asked me, ‘What’s going on with that thing, because it’s taking a long time?’ ”
Calabro and Saracino resumed their efforts — with “aggression to get it done,” Calabro said.
Calabro said he later approached Gioeli about killing Cacace — who later became head of the family and now resides in prison on a racketeering conviction — for having issued an order to kill a cop in violation of Mafia rules.
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