Feast Washout For Tony Waterguns

By Jerry Capeci

CROWDS of smiling people were enjoying sausage and peppers, deep fried calamari and a host of other Italian goodies as they strolled up and down Mulberry Street over the weekend. But the San Gennaro Festival in Little Italy just ain't what it used to be.

Gone are the Big Six Wheel, the under-and-over table and other gambling booths that Tony Waterguns allegedly controlled for the mob. Also missing from The Feast - which runs this year through Sept. 22 - is Tony Waterguns.

With 17 others, he awaits trial on racketeering charges stemming from the mob's alleged ripoffs of hundreds of thousands of dollars supposedly earmarked for charity.

Tony's given name is Anthony Pisapia but everybody calls him Tony Waterguns. Even in an official court affidavit the FBI called him Tony Waterguns when G-men were looking for court approval to raid his home last year to get the goods on him.

"Tony Waterguns is the Genovese Crime family's representative who controls The Feast and other New York City feasts," said FBI agent Michael Campi. "A stand operator cannot participate in one of these feasts without Tony Waterguns' approval."

Armed with a warrant, agents raided the Waterguns home and seized records linking him to the San Gennaro Feast and other feasts in the New York Metropolitan area. The raid also indicated that the old saying that most rich businessmen still have the first dollar they earned, surely applies to Pisapia, 57.

In addition to nine bankbooks with deposits of $940,263, agents seized many thousands of dollars wrapped and packaged in safes, plastic bags and envelopes indicating there was some sentimental value attached to them.

For example, found in several safes were $100 and $50 bills, 25 rolls of "silver" dimes, one $10 bill, one ripped $1 bill, four $1 silver certificates, one "gold" John F. Kennedy silver dollar, one 1971 $1 bill and a white box of 15 gold coins.

In one yellow envelope, agents found 14 dimes, five pennies, two nickels and two quarters. In a white envelope, they found a $1 bill, five silver dollars, three dimes and two pennies.

Agents also found, and seized, the tools of his trade: four green money aprons and a box containing 15 waterguns - the kind you still see at the San Gennaro festival and street fairs everywhere.

 

ANOTHER familiar Mulberry Street figure missed the 70th annual San Gennaro Festival. For the sixth straight year, John Gotti couldn't make it. (That's a recent shot of him in his cell at Marion Federal Penitentiary, as seen on Larry King Live, courtesy of Gotti-pal Lewis Kasman.)

In front of Gotti's old clubhouse, the Ravenite Social Club, guys were hawking "Free John Gotti" T-Shirts for $14. They featured a smiling picture of the once Dapper Don - a photo similar to the one that's on the cover of Gotti: Rise & Fall, the book by yours truly and Gene Mustain. We couldn't resist the temptation and picked up a couple, which have tags saying they were "made in Russia."

STARING at a possible death sentence, two members of the Fujianese Flying Dragons blinked and opted for life without parole for the torture slaying of a Chinese woman immigrant they kidnapped in a failed ransom plot.

Chen Fu Xin, 21, and Chen Jia Wu, 30, pleaded guilty last week to the murder of a 38-year-old factory worker whose finger was chopped off with a meat axe, raped, beaten over the head with a TV set, and strangled a year ago.

A third alleged member of the gang, Peng You Zhong, 24, has elected to go to trial before Federal Judge Edward Korman despite the possibility of execution if convicted under a 1994 law.