Can’t ‘beat’ price
‘RHONJ’ ex gave wed deal for mob hit: feds
Before the bride said “I do,” her father allegedly took a vow of his own — to inflict a “Sopranos”-style beatdown in return for a deeply discounted wedding reception.
The ex-husband of a “Real Housewives of New Jersey” star, in a bizarre mix of true love and mob muscle, hired a made member of the Luchese crime family to assault his former spouse’s then-boyfriend back in 2015, federal authorities charged Tuesday.
Thomas Manzo, owner of the Brownstone restaurant in Paterson, N.J., in return offered mobster John Perna a deal to hold his daughter’s pricey wedding reception a month later for next to nothing, according to a federal indictment that read more like an episode starring the fictional Tony Soprano.
The 55-year-old Manzo, whose slain father was found stuffed inside a Garden State car trunk in 1993, reached out to Perna in spring 2015 regarding his exwife Dina’s then-boyfriend David Cantin, the feds charged. Perna agreed to handle the July assault, with Manzo then hosting the bride’s father and another 330 guests at the post-wedding party one month later, according to authorities.
“In exchange for committing the assault, Perna held a lavish wedding reception at Manzo’s restaurant for a fraction of the price,” said Newark U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito.
The unpaid portion of the tab was covered by another Luchese family associate, and many members of the crime family were reportedly on the guest list, authorities said.
The FBI, armed with a search warrant last November, recovered invoices for the wedding reception and other relevant documents in the probe, officials said. Cantin and Dina were married two years after the beatdown.
Her ex-husband was charged with a violent crime in aid of racketeering activity, conspiracy to commit the assault in aid of racketeering activity and falsifying and concealing records.
Perna, 43, of Cedar Grove, N.J., faces the same two racketeering counts along with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud in a separate insurance scam in which his Mercedes-Benz was torched to collect the insurance money, authorities said.
The top counts against the suspects carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
In August 1993, Manzo family patriarch Albert “Tiny” Manzo took a oneway trip to a Hillsdale, N.J., supermarket — where his naked body, with plastic wrap around the arms and legs, was found dead of four gunshots inside the trunk of his parked Lincoln Continental.
The 350-pound gangster was suspected of skimming from a mob casino on Staten Island, and the crime was never solved, according to Jersey officials.