Gigante, according to court records. Pipolo, (right) 45, and four others are charged in the 2003 armed robbery of the Montgomery, NY home where Teutul lived with his girlfriend at the time. 

Sources say the robbery team – which included a crew member who owned an upstate New York gym where Teutul worked out – had expected to reap a $400,000 payday in the October 19, 2003 robbery. 

The plan went awry however. Neither Teutel nor his girlfriend were home. And even though they pistol-whipped an elderly friend of the couple who was house sitting, the gang “did not succeed in finding any money,” according to assistant U.S. attorney Elie Honig. 

“They had an inside tip that he had a significant amount of cash in his home from his business,” Honig said at a bail hearing for the alleged leader of the robbery team, John (Rocky) Melicharek, 37. “They missed it. They realized afterwards that they missed the cash,” which sources say was hidden in the attic. 

Rocky organized the Teutul robbery and “drove the car full of the break-in team to the site, and then waited for them outside in the car,” said Honig, adding that Melicharek knew that

Teutul had a successful Cable TV show and was a “well-known public figure” at the time. 

“That’s why they targeted him,” said Honig. 

Melicharek (left) and three other crew members – Dominick (Shakes) Memoli, 42, Dardian (Danny) Celaj, 30, and Ened (Neddy) Gjelaj, 27 – are also charged with a successful home invasion in which two women and a five-year old child were beaten and terrorized before the robbers made their escape with several hundred thousand dollars in cash and jewelry. 

If convicted of the armed robbery counts, all five defendants face life imprisonment. 

Last month, Judge Scheindlin ruled that Melicharek, a reputed top aide to Prisco, and two other Genovese associates, Michael Iuni, 50, and Angelo Nicosia, 45, should be tried separately on extortion conspiracy charges that had been part of the original indictment. That case will follow the robbery trial, which is set for July 7. 

Prisco, 68, (right) pleaded guilty last year in Newark Federal Court to extortion charges that cover his involvement in the Melicharek prosecution, and was sentenced to five years in prison. 

Luchese wiseguy Ralph (Raffie) Cuomo, (right) who founded the real original Ray’s Pizza in Lower Manhattan in 1959 and was a popular denizen of Prince Street, died last month of complications from diabetes and heart disease, ailments that have plagued him for years. He was 71. 

Cuomo, who was released from prison in 2002 after a four year stretch for using the pizzeria’s phones to arrange drug deals, died April 12. According to the Deluca Funeral Home, he was buried at Calvary Cemetery after funeral services at Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Prince Street. 

“For decades, Raffie was a neighborhood landmark, a familiar presence on Prince Street,” said his attorney, Scott Leemon. “His perennial smile will be missed.” 

With help from his mother, and recipes she had brought along when she emigrated from Italy, Cuomo opened Ray’s in the

first floor storefront at 27 Prince Street, the building where he lived with his family at the time. 

Cuomo would never speak to Gang Land, but back in 1991, he told the New York Times how he became the proprietor of the original Ray’s Pizza, and not Ralph’s Pizza. 

“Ralph’s might have sounded, I don’t know, maybe too feminine. Besides, no one ever called me Ralph. My family took the Italian for Ralph – Raffaele – and shortened it to Raffie, or just Ray. All my life I was addressed that way,” he said. 

During that same interview, Raffie complained about the proliferation of Ray’s pizzerias that had sprung up all over town. 

“Every other corner there seems to be a Ray’s now,” he said. “Their pizza gives us a bad name. I don’t want to knock anyone else, but there’s nothing like our Ray’s.”