Beware the Mafia mom Even after 30 years, she fights to keep son’s killer jailed
She’s the mom of a murderous mobster, and she can’t forgive another mobster who took out her son.
Thirty years after Antoinette Tuzzio’s son, a Bonanno family associate, was shot dead by fellow Bonannos in an intrafamily hit, she’s still fighting to keep one of the men who orchestrated the rubout in the slammer.
“I don’t want this guy to get out,” Tuzzio said about Daniel “Dirty Danny” Mongelli, former acting captain of the Bonanno crime family, who was part of the conspiracy to murder her son, Louis Tuzzio, in 1990.
Mongelli, now 54, recently underwent radiation treatment for prostate cancer at the federal prison in Fort Dix, N.J., where he’s serving out his sentence.
Mongelli contracted prostate cancer and underwent radiation treatment for it while serving out his sentence at FCI Fort Dix. He applied for compassionate release based on his weakened immune system and the threat of contracting coronavirus behind bars.
Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis did not immediately rule on Mongelli’s request at a hearing Friday.
“I don’t care if he gets the COVID,” said an upset Antoinette Tuzzio to her granddaughter after defense lawyers, prosecutors and the judge had all left a teleconference hearing on Mongelli’s application.
“Ma, you’re still on the line. Hang up,” responded Louis Tuzzio’s daughter, who was 4 when her father was killed.
The outburst came after Garaufis declined to hear from Tuzzio’s sister and mother earlier in the hearing, though he said he didn’t wish to minimize their pain.
“I am extremely aware of the terrible circumstances of Mr. Tuzzio’s death,” said Garaufis, who presided over Mongelli’s guilty plea in the case back in 2004.
Tuzzio’s killing was the final domino to fall in a series of mob shootings in the late ’80s and early ’90s.
In 1989, a young Tuzzio was tapped by Bonanno leadership to carry out the murder of Costabile “Gus” Farace, who had murdered a DEA agent named Everett Hatcher on Staten Island.
Farace, who evaded federal authorities for months, was causing problems for the Bonannos.
“Law enforcement officials were placing considerable pressure on the five families within La Cosa Nostra to assist in bringing Farace to justice,” wrote federal prosecutors in court papers.
Instead of turning in the killer, the mob decided to off him.
Tuzzio and fellow mobsters carried Farace’s murder — but during the killing they also shot Gambino crime family associate Joseph Scalfani, who was in the car with Farace.
Sclafani’s death greatly angered Gambino mob boss “Teflon Don” John Gotti, according to the feds.
To appease Gotti, then-acting Bonanno boss Anthony Spero ordered Tuzzio killed, court papers say.
In 1990, Mongelli lured Tuzzio, 25, to his killing by leading him to believe he was going to a meeting where he might become a made man — or be killed, federal prosecutors say.
“I was there when Louis Tuzzio was murdered and I knew he was going to be murdered,” said Mongelli when he pleaded guilty in 2004. Mongelli was a lookout.
Tuzzio was found slumped over the steering wheel of a stolen Chevrolet on Ave. L and E. 4th St in Brooklyn. He was shot many times in the head.
Mongelli was arrested in 2003, 13 years after the Tuzzio killing. He is serving a 24-year sentence imposed in 2004.