This Week In Gang Land
Legendary U.S. Marshal Mike Pizzi Checks Out At Age 84
Retired
U.S. Marshal Michael Pizzi, who became a legend among mob busters and a
scourge for wiseguys during the wild and wooly 1980s when he nabbed a
fugitive Colombo family leader that the FBI had begun looking for seven
years earlier, checked out after losing a hard-fought battle with cancer. He
was 84.
Pizzi, whose 1987 capture of underboss Alphonse (Allie Boy) Persico earned him a brief stint as the go-to guy summoned by the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office to locate fugitive wiseguys, died in home hospice in Englewood Florida on March 21, sooner than the "four-to-six months" that doctors had told the salt-of-the-earth ex-Marine he had to live.
A month earlier, Pizzi told Gang Land he was "feeling good" but that "four to six months" was the "wild guess" by his doctors when his latest tests showed that his lung cancer was "in remission" but it had spread "to other parts of my body." He chose home hospice since chemo "would only make my last days worse."
Extra, Extra, Read All About It: FBI Veteran Shares Stories About Wiseguys And More
FBI
Agent Neil Moran investigated and arrested many boldface Gang Land names
during his 29-year career. He discusses many of them — James (Jimmy the
Gent) Burke, Joseph Massino, Henry Hill, Michael (Mickey Boy) Paradiso,
Leonard DiMaria and Thomas (Huck) Carbonaro, for instance — in a new book
about his career, Stories.
Manhattan Hotel And High-Rise Heists Put Ailing Gangster's Wife In A Legal Bind
The
seven remaining defendants awaiting trial with Gambino capo Frank Camuso for
stealing $5 million from builders of dozens of Manhattan high rise
apartments and hotels include an ailing gangster's wife who spurned a
no-jail plea deal because prosecutors have linked it to a guilty plea to
criminal charges by her husband's company, Gang Land has learned.
