10.26.06 -
Feds: Mob boss 'cold' killer
The murder of a Colombo gangster was "revenge ... served ice cold" by
crime boss Alphonse (Allie Boy) Persico, a federal prosecutor charged
yesterday.
William Cutolo, 49, was whacked May 26, 1999, in the culmination of a
decade-long power struggle within the Colombo crime family, Assistant U.S.
Attorney Katya Jestin told a Brooklyn Federal Court jury.
"In a plot to maintain Persico control of the family and settle old
scores, the defendants made sure Billy Cutolo would disappear forever,"
Jestin said.
Persico and underboss John DeRoss are charged with racketeering for allegedly
ordering Cutolo's death.
The prosecutor said in her closing argument that Persico loathed Cutolo for
trying to oust him and his father, Carmine Persico, during a bloody mob war in
the early 1990s, and only pretended to make peace with him until the time was
right for murder.
"The rivalry never ended and the war was never forgotten," Jestin
added. "Alphonse Persico's revenge was served ice cold years later."
Within a week of the rubout, Persico was installing his cousin in Cutolo's post
as vice president at Local 400 of the Production Workers and DeRoss had
ascended to underboss.
While DeRoss told Cutolo's girlfriend that her man might have fled to Italy, he
offered a more ominous explanation for the disappearance to Colombo associates,
according to cooperating witnesses. "Billy had to go," DeRoss told
them, and, "I took him into the family and I took him out."
Defense lawyer Robert LaRusso said the turncoats are lying because the
government has no physical evidence of a murder - Cutolo's body was never
found.
"Is it fanciful that Mr. Cutolo might still be around?" LaRusso said.
"Is he the first person with $3 million to take off?"
- John Marzulli: New York Daily News
Staff Writer
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