Anthony Indelicato

Anthony Indelicato, also known as "Bruno", "Whack-Whack" and "Anthony Indelligado" (b. 1956 Little Italy, Manhattan) is one of the top caporegimes with the Bonanno crime family in New York City, and the son of Alphonse Indelicato ("Sonny Red") and stepson of Mary Elizabeth McFhadden. He is portrayed in the 1997 movie "Donnie Brasco" as "Bruno" by actor Brian Tarantina.

Biography

Anthony Indelicato also the paternal nephew of Bonanno crime family "capo" Joseph Bruno Indelicato who is a salesman for a New Jersey-based garment factory and is also the son-in-law to Lucchese crime family mob associate Jimmy Burke and brother-in-law to Gambino crime family mob associate Jesse James Burke and Frank James Burke. He is a nephew of Irish-American Gerard Indelicato born c. 1946 Boston, Massachusetts, who was the Special Assistant for Educational Affairs to Governor of Massachusetts Michael Dukakis from 1983 to 1986. Gerard was later appointed President of Bridgewater State College and served from 1986 to December 1988. He is the maternal nephew of small-time Irish-American armed robber and burglar Edward Deegan and brother-in-law to Bonanno crime family mob associate Salvatore Valenti. He is also a maternal grandson of Colombo crime family capo Charles (Charlie Prunes) Ruvolo, the father of his unidentified biological mother. Anthony is also a relative of Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily born convicted heroin smuggler and Bonanno crime family capo Giuseppe Indelicato. With his father's youthful looks he was able to pass as Anthony's older brother. In 1982 he had a $500-a-day cocaine addiction. Additionally, information surfaced in early 2008 revealing that Anthony Indelicato is the second cousin of mobster and recording artist Danyael Shovera Caliberi, who is better known as Sho Caliberi and Genovese crime family mobster Vito Lasata whose daughter Britney married Sho. Britney was later gangbanged, mutilated and set on fire before finally dying from her wounds. By the age of twenty-five he was starting to loose his hair which gave him self confidence and esteem issues that plague him. He had hair plugs installed to help the premature hair loss but with no avail. He constantly complained about his hair loss to his fellow criminal associates which aggrivated them. Anthony was married in 1977 to Irish-American cocaine addict named Maryanne whose last name is not revealed. She is described as weighed not much more than eighty-five pounds and was worse than Anthony. By 1979 Anthony had ended his relationship with Maryann and would later marry Catherine Burke one of the two daughters fathered by Lucchese crime family mob associate Jimmy Burke in 1992 who he met while in prison for murdering Carmine Galante. He is the brother-in-law of Jesse James Burke and the late Frank James Burke.

Career in organized crime

He is suspected by authorities to have participated in the July 12, 1979 murder of Carmine Galante ("Lilo the Cigar") that occurred while dining at a restaurant Bushwick, Brooklyn. After he was promoted to the rank of capo, he intended to inherit his father's loanshark and bookmaking rackets, and live off his prosperity. Dominick Napolitano ("Sonny Black") immensely disliked the rival Bonanno crime family "capo" because of living off his father's reputation in the La Cosa Nostra. He was supposed to be murdered with his father, Alphonse, Phillip Giaccone ("Philly Lucky") and Dominick Trinchera ("Big Trin") on May 5, 1981, but was high on cocaine and was fortunately late for the "meeting". Convicted of Galante's murder during the historic Mafia Commission Trial in 1986, Indelicato was serving twelve years in a Lewisburg, Pennsylvania penitentiary, when he met Catherine Burke, while visiting her incarcerated father Jimmy Burke in 1985 and were eventually married in 1992 while Indelicato was serving time in Terre Haute, Indiana for racketeering. Following his release in 1998, Indelicato resides with his wife in Howard Beach, Queens, while taking care of his father's old crew and is being one of the Bonanno crime family's biggest earners, with a murderous crew of at least fifteen of them are all listed as a made man or "street soldier". Since the murder of his brother Alphonse, Joseph Indelicato has become the capo over his nephew Anthony and formed relationships with Vincent Basciano. She was murdered in revenge for Sho murdering a rival mobster's nephew. After the death of his father, Anthony attempted to assasinate John Gotti and Angelo Ruggiero (who were only minorly involved in arranging the disposal) by driving up alongside them and machinegunning them to death on the Van Wyck Expressway during a high speed chase but Ruggiero who was driving at the time careened the vehicle away avoiding imminent death.

Cocaine addiction

Anthony was very abusive to women. In one incident a sobbing woman approached Anthony in a social club, but he just ignored her, or one of the waiters would try to pull her away. Finally after she persisted for too long, Anthony got up from his chair, made a move like he was going to hug her, and instead, grabbed her by the hair, he dragged her towards the door. Someone opened the front door for him, and he pushed her down the stairs. He screamed, "If you don't get the fuck out of here, I'm going to have to fucking kill you. And you better not open your mouth." Anthony and Maryanne owned a house in Florida that was a block away from Frank Lino's vacation home. They would spend all day with their blinds closed snorting cocaine, and then at night they would come out, pale and cadaverous, like vampires. He was constantly irrational and badgered friends for drugs. The cocaine made him so paranoid that he was even suspicious of himself. On one occasion he even hassled Frank Lino's girlfriend Andrea Giovino and once broke into Frank's Florida home while she was asleep looking for cocaine. Frank eventually became concerned about Anthony's increasingly erratic behaviour. On a constant basis Anthony would swing back and forth between fits. He would go through periods when he would go to a drug rehabilitation center and clean himself up where he could be the most handsome, charming man that anyone could meet and the next day a volatile angry irrational man. He wore thousand dollar Armani suits and silk ties and displayed himself as the movie mobster stereotype. Frank Lino later informed his girlfriend Andrea Giovino that there had been several sit-downs involving the Gambino, Bonanno, Lucchese and Colombo crime families in New York City to discuss the situation. Anthony was often so volatile that he was ordering contract killings left and right for no good reason that the leaders of the organized crime families could not see. By 1977, the Bonanno crime family led by Phillip Rastelli were considering having him murdered to help ease the inner-familiy tensions that would eventually peak in 1981 with the Donnie Brasco investigation, as well as among the other crime famlies. Fortunately, for Anthony he was so "arrogant and stupid" that he was one of the first "skippers" to get arrested and convicted of racketeering charges in 1979. At this time, if he had not wound up being sent to prison for racketeering and the murder of Carmine Galante, he himself would have been murdered.In 2007 Anthony Indelicato was indicted by a federal grand jury in Dallas,TX as a member of a notorious "SWATting" ring,who terrorized victims across the U.S. and Canada by making false 911 Swat calls to their homes using "spoofcards", a commercially available calling card which alters the users caller id data.Indelicato pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the case and was sentenced to five years in federal prison and three years of supervised release.Five others ,including ringleader Stuart Rosoff,were also convicted in the case and sentenced. The FBI claimed they were still seeking charges against several "unindicted co-consprirators" in the case,which was the first "SWATing" prosecution ever in the U.S.

Current

After his release from prison in the late 90's, Bruno Indelicato returned to organized crime linking up with the Bonanno Crime Family. He was sent back to prison for violating his parole by meeting with known members of the mob. Sometime in 2001, he was believed to have participated in the conspiracy to murder mob associate Frank Santoro. Frank Santoro was shot to death while walking his dog. Acting boss Vincent Basciano was convicted for that murder in a 2007 trial. In August 2008, Anthony "Bruno" Indelicato pleaded guilty for his involvement in Santoro's murder. Under the plea agreement Indelicato faces 20 years in prison. As of August 2008, he is being held at The Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) Brooklyn awaiting sentencing.

Further reading

*Jacobs, James B., Christopher Panarella and Jay Worthington. "Busting the Mob: The United States Vs. Cosa Nostra". New York: NYU Press, 1994. ISBN 0-8147-4230-0
*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
*Saggio, Frankie and Fred Rosen. "Born to the Mob: The True-Life Story of the Only Man to Work for All Five of New York's Mafia Families". New York: Thunder Mouth Press, 2004. ISBN 1-56025-559-5
* Giovino, Andrea "Divorced from the Mob: My Journey from Organized Crime to Independent Woman"

External links

* [http://www.thelaborers.net/lexisnexis/articles/anthony_indelicato.htm Anthony Indelicato, Petitioner vs. United States of America] , In the Supreme Court of the United States: On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
* [http://www.ipsn.org/court_cases/us_v_indelicato.htm United States of America, Appellee, vs. Anthony Indelicato, Defendant - Appellant] , United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
* [http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,145082,00.html TIME.com - Hitting the Mafia] by Ed Magnuson