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  December 13, 2007

By Jerry Capeci
Tough Old Bird Pays His Respects 

A Gang Land Exclusive

Stevie Coogan GrammautaThe reputed hit man in New York’s most spectacular unsolved mob slaying showed up two weeks ago to pay his final respects to Gambino mobster Joseph Arcuri, a fellow old soldier who cashed in his chips at the ripe old age of 94. 

Stephen (Stevie Coogan) Grammauta, (right) whom knowledgeable sources say was the primary shooter in the storied slaying of Albert Anastasia in 1957, joined scores of family wiseguys at the wake for Arcuri, whose life of crime was unblemished by prison bars. 

Along with acting boss John (Jackie Nose) D’Amico and a who’s who of other family heavyweights, Grammauta, who celebrated his 91st birthday on December 6, paid tribute to Arcuri at the Frederick Funeral Home of Flushing, law enforcement officials told Gang Land. 

“He’s a tough old bird,” said one law enforcement source, adding that Grammauta served as an acting capo in the late

Body of Albert Anastasia1990s. He was apparently more spry back then. The old-time tough guy has been inactive since 2002, according to the FBI.

It was on October 25, 1957, according to law enforcement sources, that Stevie Coogan and another gunman – both wore suits and scarves covering the lower portion of their faces – calmly blew Anastasia away as he sat in a Manhattan hotel barbershop waiting to get his hair trimmed. 

As five barbers, two customers, two shoeshine men, a manicurist and a valet streamed out into the street screaming, Steve ArmoneGrammauta and the second gunman, Arnold Wittenberg, calmly walked off into the mid-morning crowd and disappeared. 

Gang Land first disclosed that Stevie Coogan, (right) Wittenberg, and Stephen Armone – all drug dealers from the Lower East Side – had carried out the rubout in 2001. Until then, Colombo family rivals –

 

Handsome Jack GiordanoCrazy Joe Gallo, who was killed in 1972, and the family’s current boss, Carmine (Junior) Persico – had frequently been credited with the slaying. 

Wittenberg died in 1978, Armone in 1960. Grammauta, who spent eight years behind bars for dealing French Connection heroin in the 1960s, emerged as an acting capo in the 1990s, when capo John (Handsome Jack) Giordano (left) went to state prison in 1996 for bookmaking. Joe Arcuri

Sources say Giordano, who has been confined to a wheelchair since he was shot in a botched rubout attempt in front of Lenox Hill Hospital a year earlier, took over his crew when he was released from prison in 2003. He was not spotted by any of Gang Land's sources at Arcuri’s wake. 

Arcuri (right) hailed from the Upper East Side and also had a connection to Anastasia, albeit a much more genteel one than his Lower East Side colleague. Arcuri, who owned an Upper East Side liquor store, supplied his then-Mafia boss with fine wines and other spirits.

Persico Case: The Last Picture Show?

Alphonse PersicoPictures may or may not be worth a 1000 words, but mob trials usually feature dozens of photos that prosecutors, as well as defense lawyers, introduce into evidence in an effort to sway jurors to their respective points of view. 

John (Jackie) DeRossTake the racketeering re-trial of acting Colombo boss Alphonse (Allie) Persico (left) and key aide John (Jackie) DeRoss. (right) The prosecution rested Tuesday; the defense begins its case today. Both men are charged with the May 26, 1999 murder of former underboss William (Wild Bill) Cutolo, who was last seen alive at 92d Street and Shore Road in Brooklyn. 

In an effort to humanize the alleged murder victim and undercut a defense argument that Wild Bill may have run away, prosecutors called his wife and daughter to tell the jury that he was a loving husband, father and grandfather who would never have run out on them. 

Over objections by the defense, Central Islip Federal Judge Joanna Seybert also allowed prosecutors Deborah Mayer, Bill & Peggy CutoloJeffrey Goldberg and John Buretta to buttress the testimony of the Cutolo women by introducing happy family pictures that included Wild Bill.  

Bill Cutolo & daughter Barbara JeanThe jurors viewed two pictures of Cutolo and his wife, Marguerite. In one they're frolicking at Disneyworld. In the other, they're kissing at a family birthday party. In two other shots,

a smiling Wild Bill is seen embracing his granddaughters. 

Prosecutors also introduced headshots of Persico, DeRoss, Cutolo and numerous Colombo mobsters, associates, and others whose names came up in one way or another during the trial, as well as locations where events are said to have taken place.  

In obvious tit-for-tat moves, defense lawyer Sarita Kedia also managed to introduce a few pictures into evidence during her cross-examination of prosecution witnesses, including turncoat Gambino capo Michael (Mikey Scars) DiLeonardo. Allie Persico in a tux

To counter a government-introduced photo of Allie that she said made her client look like a terrorist, Kedia showed DiLeonardo a smiling photo of Persico and placed it into evidence after Mikey Scars stated: “It’s a handsome guy. It’s Allie.” 

In an effort to make the point that topics being discussed at meetings between Allie and Mikey Scars were proper and above board, the attorney introduced photos of public parks and

 

Patrick O'Rourke Parkschoolyards in Brooklyn where DiLeonardo said they met, including the Francis O’Rourke Park in Dyker Heights. 

As for Shore Road Park in Bay Ridge, the 92d Street and Shore Road location where Cutolo was dropped off and where he had told his wife he was going to see Allie on May 26, 1999, the semi-secluded park turns out to have been a favored meeting place for Mikey Scars too.

For years, he testified, he had an apartment across the street from the hilly park – which lies between Shore Road and the Belt Parkway many steps (right) below street level – and that he had used it often for walk-talk meetings with Jackie Nose D’Amico and other family cohorts, including Ozone Park, Queens-based wiseguys like Dominick (Skinny Dom) Pizzonia and Ronald (Ronnie One Arm) Trucchio.

Unfortunately, neither the prosecution nor the defense placed 

any pictures of this key location in the case into evidence so Gang Land, an amateur photographer at best, walked down the steps and into Shore Road Park to see where Gambino and Colombo wiseguys often met, and from where Wild Bill Cutolo had  disappeared without a trace.

At the bottom of the steps, as you look through the trees and up the hill to the left of the Shore Road Park sign, you can see the Shore Road building where Mikey Scars shared an apartment with his comare.

Opposite the sign, is a pedestrian bridge that crosses over the six lanes of the Belt Parkway to enable joggers, young mothers with baby carriages, skateboarders, and bicyclists, as well as wiseguys on walk-talks to make their way to the waters edge from where they can gaze across the Narrows at Staten Island or toward Liberty Island at the Statue of Liberty.

To the right of the foot bridge, running alongside the Belt Parkway, a bicycle path that runs for miles along the waterfront is visible at the bottom of the hill. But on the cold, clear fall day that Gang Land was there last week, there was nary a clue about the fate of Wild Bill Cutolo.   

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