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ON THE CABLE Disorganized crime is exposed in 'Mob Stories'

BY KIRK NICEWONGER

March 5, 1993

About the article

This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.

See the article in its original context from March 1993.

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Time was when a career in organized crime was a reasonably simple affair. You hung around some wiseguys, then you whacked a couple of goons as a favor. After obtaining a colorful nickname, you became a made man and watched the money roll in: You bought a big house and filled it with tasteless furniture. When it came time to retire, federal officials led you away with your cashmere overcoat discreetly draped over your manacles. Or a picture of your bullet-pocked body slumped over the steering wheel of your car would appear on a tabloid's front page, headlined: "BURIED BY THE MOB!"

Well, those halcyon days are gone forever, if "Mob Stories" (premiering Tuesday, March 9, on HBO) is any indication. In it, five former wiseguys relate their colorful experiences. And three of them are "flippers"-mobsters who defected to the feds and turned in their colleagues. It's easy to pick them out - they're the ones in the acrylic beards and the toupees that don't fit quite right. A wiseguy flipping to the feds instead of attaching a bomb to an ignition cylinder? Whatever happened to tradition?

Included in "Mob Stories" are Dominick "Big Dom" LoFaro, who was a member of the Gambino crime family headed by John Gotti. Big Dom helped bring down the Big Don after he turned FBI informant in exchange for reduced charges in some unpleasantness having to do with murder and heroin smuggling.

Then there's Joe "Joe Dogs" Ianuzzi, so monickered for his love of greyhound racing. It seems Joe Dogs fell behind in some payments to a capo, who one night met the debtor in a restaurant, then tried to lop off his hand with a meat cleaver. (Moral: Always stay away from the Chef's Surprise.) Turning to the feds, Joe Dogs began taping his conversations with the capo, who is now in prison, presumably not working in the kitchen.

Thomas "Tommy Del" DelGiorno tells of his madcap days in the employ of Philadelphia crimelord Nicodemo "Little Nick" Scarfo, who was a bit of the suspicious type. How suspicious was he? Once, when Little Nick went horseback riding, his mount made a misstep. Little Nick, convinced that the horse was intentionally trying to whack him, had it pushed off a cliff. If "Mob Stories" proves anything, it's that "omerta," the mob's code of silence, is dead. Not only can't the bosses keep their boys from flipping to the feds they can't even keep them from singing to HBO.