The New York Daily News
October 6, 1996

By Jerry Capeci

Watts Held in Gotti Revenge Slay

One of John Gotti's loyal henchmen has been charged with torturing and killing a man who fired a shot at the Don back in the days when he was invincible instead of incarcerated.

Joseph Watts, a backup shooter in the 1985 slaying of Paul Castellano who pleaded guilty in another federal murder case in February, is charged with the 1987 slaying of Gotti's assailant in a sealed indictment returned by a Staten Island grand jury, sources said.

Even though the bumbling "hit man," William Ciccone, turned out, in fact, to be a mentally disturbed religious fanatic, sources said Gotti -- then at the height of his power and notoriety -- ordered: "Kill 'im."

So Gotti's pal Watts fired five shots into Ciccone's head after torturing him in the basement of a New Dorp sweet shop, law enforcement sources said.

Later, when Ciccone turned out to be distant kin of a Gambino capo, the capo apologized profusely to Gotti about his "nut case" relative.

Gotti replied with a magnanimity equal to his mob stature: "Forget about it."

It has taken nearly 10 years, but the slaying of Ciccone has finally been linked to Watts.

"We had physical evidence [fingerprints] that Watts was at the murder scene from day one, but now we have a witness who puts the gun in his hand," said one detective who worked on the case.

The witness, sources say, is Dominic (Fat Dom) Borghese, a Gambino mobster who told the grand jury that Watts fired the fatal shots and had intended to dispose of Ciccone's body, which was a mob specialty of his.

Indeed, when Watts pleaded guilty earlier this year to taking part in the 1989 murder of Thomas Spinelli, he said: "My role was strictly to get rid of the body."

But Watts did not fulfill that role - after allegedly dispatching Ciccone.

At 4:30 a.m. on April 30, 1987, police responded to a report of a burglary at Paul's Sweet Shoppe, found the door of the candy store off its hinges and discovered Ciccone, his hands and feet tied, stuffed inside a mortician's body bag.

It was 13 hours earlier that Ciccone had sealed his fate.

Gotti stepped out of his South Ozone Park clubhouse at about 3:30 p.m. on April 29 - a month after his acquittal of federal racketeering charges - and Ciccone fired a shot in his direction, turned and ran.

Ciccone was brought down with a single shot in the buttocks by one of Gotti's bodyguards, thrown into a car and driven to Staten Island.

Ciccone was tortured for hours in an effort to find out who hired him to kill Gotti, law enforcement officials said.

When Watts was convinced that the Bible-quoting Ciccone was disturbed, he reported his findings to Gotti, who ordered the execution.

Watts' lawyer, James LaRossa, said his client "insists he had nothing to do with this act and will vigorously defend himself."

District Attorney William Murphy and Borghese's attorney, Douglas Grover, declined to comment.