William Cutolo, Sr.

William Cutolo (June 6, 1949 – c. May 26, 1999 Bay Ridge, Brooklyn), also known as "Billy Fingers" and "Wild Bill", was a Brooklyn-born mafioso in the New York based Colombo crime family who was a hitman for a renegade faction within the crime family. He was later promoted to underboss by Colombo family boss, Carmine Persico.

Biography

William Cutolo christened "Guglielmo Cutolo" was born to a Mr. and Mrs. Penelope Cutolo from Potenza in Basilicata, Italy. He is not related to Camorra mob boss Raffaele Cutolo and husband to a Italian-American woman named Marguerite who bore him several daughters including Barbara-Jean Cutolo and a son, William Cutolo Jr. who later followed his father into organized crime and was convicted of extortion. William is the brother of Barbara Cutolo-DePalo. He was handsome with silver sideburns that implied distinguished banker at work. He stands at 5'9 and weighs 182 pounds with brown eyes. He has scars on his left forearm and right hand, which is also missing several fingers.

He earned his nickname Wild Bill in homage to Wild Bill Hickok after a vicious attack where he had beaten former municipal union official Vincent Parisi who himself had alleged ties to organized crime, ruthlessly with a baseball bat in 1989 while in the presence of a group of Teamsters in New York City. He was later acquitted of these charges in 1994. During the Colombo war in the 1990s, he lured a rival who many felt held too high of an opinion of himself, to a suburban Staten Island home . When the rival showed up, he was shot dead walking down a staircase by Cutolo and Carmine Sessa.

William spent a lot of time boosting his public image. He was a fundraising chairman for the National Leukemia Research Association in the late 1990's which authorities believed had connections to organized crime. The Association was responsible for raising hundreds of thousands of dollars each for research in multiple sclerosis. The charity's leaders stated William paid for their holiday parties and dressed up every year as Santa Claus. He posed for photographs and offered toasts at annual dinners.

William controlled the District Council 37 union hoping to win jobs and steer spending towards vendors and resorts owned and operated by the Colombo crime family. William was expelled from the union in 1990 for his alleged ties to organized crime. He also is the patriarch of the Local 400 union which he formed on his own. At the time of his disappearance he had a partnership with the Siemens on a Russian cell phone deal with Vincent Palermo, although not to the public knowledge. In 2002, following a hearing in Surrogate's Court, Cutolo was officially announced dead. His son, William Cutolo Jr. and Penelope formally joined the Witness Protection Program in 2001.

Labor racketeer

Cutolo rose up the ranks of the Colombo family and during the late-1980s under acting boss Victor Orena. Cutolo was originally a soldier in captain Pasquale Amato's crew. Cutolo soon became one of the family's more powerful leaders, both because of his money-making acumen, and the crew of "hitters" he commanded. In 1990, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters expelled Cutolo from the union. However, the resourceful Cutolo formed Local 400 of the Industrial & Production Workers Union. Cutolo was surprisingly beloved by the union rank and file, although it was suspected that he had engaged in looting the union's treasury and using the union's name to receive money from companies seeking to avoid union organizers. Cutolo was also involved in extorting money from companies such as Embassy Terrace and Gallo Wine. In addition, Cutolo controlled several restaurants and nightclubs.

Persico-Orena war

In 1991, Orena sought to depose longtime family boss, Carmine Persico. Persico wanted to see Alphonse "Little Allie Boy" Persico, soon to be released from prison, as the family boss. While Orena had the backing of the majority of the family, the Persico faction would win the war. The Persico victory was allegedly helped by Lindley De Vecchio, an Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent who provided information to Persico captain Gregory Scarpa Sr.). Later in 1991, Orena was ambushed and nearly killed outside his Long Island, New York home by a group of Persico hitmen. In response, Orena tried to kill Scarpa. On November 18, 1991, Scarpa was ambushed by a team of Orena hitmen while driving with his daughter and granddaughter. Scarpa was able to speed away from the shooters, who jumped out of their cars and fired shots at Scarpa and family on a Brooklyn street.

Five days later, Cutolo dispatched another hit team that gunned down Orena loyalist Henry "Hank the Bank" Smurra outside a Brooklyn doughnut shop. Investigators later concluded that Cutolo was personally responsible for three of the 12 murders committed during this gang war. In one incident, Cutolo was driving away from a Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn social club when he spotted Persico loyalist (former Orena loyalist) Joel Cacace. The two men traded shots on a busy Brooklyn street, but neither was wounded.

The Colombo family war ended in 1993 after family associate John Pappa killed Orena captain Joseph Scopo, one of the City's most powerful labor racketeers. The war resulted in lengthy prison sentences for Orena and Cutolo's mentor Pasquale Amato. Amazingly, in 1994, Cutolo, his favorite shooter Joseph Campanella, and the rest of the Cutolo crew, were acquitted of charges related to the war. At the end of the war, the victorious Persico faction demoted Cutolo to the rank of soldier. Cutolo had taken the wrong side in this conflict. In addition, Cutolo had called Carmine Persico "a rat" for admitting the existence of La Cosa Nostra in his own defense at the Mafia Commission trial. However, after Allie Boy Persico's release from prison, he unexpectedly promoted Cutolo to underboss.

Disappearance

In May 1999, Cutolo was summoned to a meeting with the younger Persico. However, after the meeting, Cutolo disappeared. In 2004, Allie Boy Persico and the family's Underboss John "Jackie" DeRoss were indicted for conspiring to murder Cutolo. Testifying against Persico was Cutolo's son, Billy Jr., and former Gambino captain Michael DiLeonardo. DiLeonardo had arrived at the planned meeting with Cutolo, only to be told by Persico and DeRoss that Cutolo was gone. The body of William Cutolo has never been recovered. On December 28, 2007, Persico and DeRoss were convicted of Cutolo's murder, as they are awaiting their sentence, which could be life imprisonment. ”If the feds ever find William (“Wild Bill”) Cutolo, there’s a tombstone and empty grave waiting for him at the Cemetery of the Resurrection in Staten Island,” wrote John Marzulli of the "New York Daily News". As of October 2008, Federal agents have been searching a field in East Farmingdale, New York, where human remains and canine remains were discovered wrapped up in a blue tarp, suspected to be that of Cutolo and his 8 year old Bulldog Alexo. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Awaiting a Burial, This Time an Actual One
url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/nyregion/09cutolo.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin |quote=Mr. Cutolo disappeared on May 26, 1999, and, at a federal trial last year, his wife, Penelope, testified that he was on his way to meet Alphonse (Allie Boy) Persico, then the boss of the Colombo family. Mr. Persico was convicted of Mr. Cutolo’s murder last December, though the prosecution argued at the trial that the body had been dumped at sea, a theory flatly contradicted by the discovery of his remains outside the All County Flooring Supply store in Farmingdale, N.Y. |work=New York Times |date=October 8, 2008 |accessdate=2008-10-09 ]

A forensic dentist has confirmed that the body whose remains were found by FBI agents excavating an apparent mob burial site is that of former Colombo family underboss William Cutolo, according to Robert Nardoza, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell. A team of doctors and dentists has been working at the Suffolk medical examiner's office in Hauppauge since Monday to identify the body through dental records and DNA tests. Cutolo disappeared in 1999 and was believed to have been a victim in a war for control of the Colombo family in the 1990s, which resulted in more than a dozen murders. More than a dozen people were believed to have been murdered during that battle. The war was between factions headed by Alphonse Persico, the son of imprisoned boss Carmine Persico, and Cutolo.

References

Further reading

*Capeci, Jerry. "The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Mafia". Indianapolis: Alpha Books, 2002. ISBN 0-02-864225-2
*Fitch, Robert. "Solidarity For Sale: How Corruption Destroyed the Labor Movement and Undermined America's Promise". New York: PublicAffairs, 2006. ISBN 1-891620-72-X
*Raab, Selwyn. "Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires". New York: St. Martin Press, 2005. ISBN 0-312-30094-8
*Willis, Clint, ed. "Mob: Stories of Death and Betrayal from Organized Crime". New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2001. ISBN 1-56025-324-X

External links

*http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/c/cutolo_william.html