Foodfella

Feds: Capo cooks up violence at Bronx eatery

MORE THAN JUST bread is being broken at Pasquale’s Rigoletto in the Bronx, federal prosecutors claim in court papers.

Genovese capo Pasquale (Patsy) Parrello worked as an “unofficial maître d” at his wife’s Italian restaurant and conducted much of his brutal business from the Fordham eatery, prosecutors say.

Parrello, 73, copped to three counts of conspiracy to commit extortion in May.

He is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday. Under his plea deal, he is expected to spend 51/4 to 61/2 years in federal lockup.

Parrello was one of 46 East Coast wiseguys slapped with racketeering charges in August 2016.

While Parrello’s lawyer is pushing for leniency, prosecutors want Manhattan Federal Judge Richard Sullivan to sentence him within the plea deal’s guidelines — claiming that all of the time he spends at his wife’s Arthur Ave. restaurant, Pasquale’s Rigoletto, speaks to how dangerous he is.

“The defendant has shown that he poses a grave threat even from the confines of Rigoletto — where many of the meetings in the instant investigation occurred — or his home,” prosecutors said.

Parrello instructed his enforcers to violently collect gambling debts, the feds alleged. During a March 12, 2012, meeting, Parrello instructed an underling to “actually choke the motherf---er . . . and tell him, ‘Listen to me . . . next time I’m not gonna stop choking . . . I’m gonna kill you.’ ”

During an Oct. 10 meeting that year at Rigoletto, Parrello allegedly told a soldier to destroy another debtor’s tires with an ice pick, explaining, “Cut his f---in’ tire. That way he has to change the tire . . . Then you catch up with him because then he’s there, ya know, he’s got to get it fixed, he can’t go nowhere, and then you surround the motherf---er. That’s how yous(e) do it.”

“Parrello used his co-conspirators to exert influence and collect debts on his behalf without ever having to leave Rigoletto,” prosecutors said in arguing for a hefty sentence.

“When Parrello’s subordinates appeared on his behalf and threatened violence in Parrello’s name, the victims knew that those threats had teeth and would be carried out. Faced with the very real potential of violence, the victims had no choice but to pay their gambling debts. In this way, Parrello was able to terrorize debtors by proxy.”

He is also accused of sending his henchmen to smash a panhandler’s knees.

Parrello’s lawyers declined to comment.