Richard Mazzeo

Richard Mazzeo (d. 1983) was a member of the Manhattan City Council and Director of Real Estate for New York City's Marine and Aviation Department in the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. He was also a Bonanno crime family associate who accepted thousands of dollars in bribes from businessmen in return for news stand and parking lot concessions.

Biography

Mazzeo's relationship with Bonanno caporegime Richard Cantarella began when Cantarella informed Mazzeo of a news stand operator who was selling National Football League (NFL) tickets in violation of his lease. Sensing an opportunity to make money, Mazzeo broke the operator's lease and leased Cantarella the news stand. Testifying later at the trial of the Bonnano boss Joseph Massino, Cantarella said that he gave Mazzeo a couple thousand dollars in bribes each month from the mid 1970's to the 1980's. By the late 1980s, Mazzeo and Cantarella had became millionaires dispensing lucrative leases for newsstands and parking lots for Staten Island ferry terminals on both sides of the harbor. The two men even shared an apartment together in Upper Manhattan. Mazzeo was a car enthusiast who drove a Mercedes Benz with the personalized vanity license plate "Gatzby", in reference to the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel "The Great Gatsby". Mazzeo associated himself with lawyers, judges, and elected officials when attending mob lawyer Roy Cohn's garish birthday parties at the famous Studio 54 club.

By 1983, Mazzeo had acquired a cocaine dependency and had been fired from his city council job. Later that year, Mazzeo was convicted of income tax charges and served six months in prison. As Mazzeo went into a downward spiral, Cantarella and his uncle, Albert Embarrato, became concerned that he might be become an informant. The Bonanno family decided to murder Mazzeo to protect themselves.

Gangland Execution

In the fall of 1983, the unemployed Mazzeo was looking for a job. One day Mazzeo met Cantarella at the sanitation garage of mob associate Michael DiBenedetto in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Cantarella and Mazzeo started discussing a job offer in DiBenedetto's office. During the meeting, Cantarella asked Mazzeo what kind of car he was driving. Mazzeo went out to his car and drove it into the garage to show it to Cantarella. Mazzeo then went back up to the office, and both men started walking down the stairs. At that point, Cantarella shot Mazzeo in the back of the head. Then Joseph D'Amico shot him when he was on the ground. D'Amico and Bonanno soldier Patrick Romanello put Mazzeo in a plastic garbage bag and D'Amico stabbed him once in the back. D'Amico then drove the body to an unknown destination for disposal.

References

*Crittle, Simon"The Last Godfather: The Rise and Fall of Joey Massino", Berkley (March 7, 2006) ISBN 0425209393
*"Unusual Mob Hit Solved Twenty Years Later" June 17, 2004 GangLand News The Online Column by Jerry Capeci