The Life and Times of Lucchese Underboss Anthony Casso

Anthony Salvatore Casso was born on May 21, 1940, in Brooklyn, New York.  Casso was raised in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, and it was a haven for La Cosa Nostra.  It is here where Casso fell in love with the mobster life.  Casso’s father was not in the mafia, but he knew connected guys.  Casso’s dad was so close to the mafia that he had a mobster Sally Callinbrano Baptize "little baby" Casso.  Casso’s father Michael carried a lead gas pipe, he was not a mobster, but it is this reason that Casso was given the nickname of Gaspipe.

As a teenager, Casso started hanging out with a local gang; he was a lousy student and preferred street life.  Casso’s godfather Sonny gave him his first job at the docks.  The job did not require Casso to show up for work, and he would receive a paycheck regardless.  In the evenings, Casso started high jacking trucks, and he became a partner in a local bar. 

Casso Becomes Underboss

In the mid-80s, many mob bosses were facing charges that would send them to prison for the rest of their lives.  Then Lucchese boss Anthony Corallo wanted to have a smooth power of transfer to make things easier.  Corallo then endorsed Casso for the position of boss.  In early 1986, because of the mafia commission trial, Anthony Casso was made Underboss of the Luchesse Crimefamily.  Casso was also making a lot of money on the streets, and running the family would make it hard to carry on the lifestyle. 

Luchesse Underboss Anthony Casso

  Hit on Casso

April 13, 1986, Dyker Heights Brooklyn, just outside of the Veterans and Friends Social Club.  The social club belonged to the Gambino family, and it was located in Brooklyn.  Frank DeCicco, Gambino Family Underboss, is walking to his car after finishing a meeting inside the club.  DeCicco starts to open the door to his car, a car driven by Herbert Pate pulls along DeCicco’s parked car and triggers a device.  The device signals a C4 bomb that was placed under the vehicle.  The bomb goes off, and DeCicco is killed instantly.  The bomb was meant for Frank DeCicco and Gambino boss John Gotti, because of the Castellano assassination.  The commission boss at the time Vincent “the Chin” Gigante ordered the hit.  Gotti failed to get permission from the commission to kill Castellano.  Gigante assigned the hit to Lucchese boss Vic Amuso and underboss Anthony Casso.  Years later, Casso stated that he and Vic Amuso were sitting in a parked car nearby, with a police scanner.  Casso picked Genovese associate Herbert Pale to conduct the hit.  Casso stated that Pale was used because he had no connection to the Gambino family, and no one would recognize him walking around the neighborhood.  Casso added that a bomb was to be used because the Gigante wanted the hit to look like the “zips” from Sicily conducted the assassination.  The explosion was partially successful in that half of the target was killed the other half, the Gambino Crime family boss did not attend.  John Gotti missed the meeting at the social club. Gotti sent Gambino family Consigliere, Sammy “the Bull” Gravano, and DeCicco to the meeting.  Not much is known about the bombing that day except for Casso’s account, so it is believed that Pale may have mistaken a Lucchese soldier near the car as Gambino boss John Gotti.

The Hit Team is Hunted

Gambino Family Capo Angelo Ruggiero ordered the hit on Casso.  Hydell, along with a hit team that consisted of Nick Guido, and Eddie Lino, all three Gambino family associates a hit was placed on Luchesse Underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.

On Sunday, September 12, 1986, in Brooklyn, Casso was sitting in his car outside of a restaurant eating an ice cream cone.  Casso was waiting for a Lucchese family associate to meet with him.  A car containing the hit team of Hydell, Guido, and Lino had been following Casso's every move.  As Casso is enjoying his ice cream, the hit team pulls their vehicle alongside Casso's vehicle and begin spraying bullets.  Casso gets hit but manages to get out of the car and enter a nearby restaurant and lock himself in the restaurant's freezer.  Casso hid out until the police showed up.  The NYPD police started their investigation and identified the Gambino family associate Jimmy Hydell as one of the assassins.

Corrupt NYPD detectives, Caracappa and Eppolito

Casso had a way of getting information; he referred to it as his “crystal ball.”  The crystal ball was two NYPD cops who had gone rogue and started working for the mob.  Casso had the two corrupt cops on his payroll, NYPD detectives Stephen Caracappa and Lou Eppolito track down his would-be assassins. Because of the attempted assassination on Casso’s life, he placed the crooked cops on retainer for 4000 dollars a month.  The two cops were put on the payroll to give Casso highly classified information that only law enforcement had access to.  Eppolito and Caracappa kidnapped Hydell, a Gambino Family associate, stuck him in the trunk of a car, and delivered him to Casso.

October 18, 1986, in a house located in Brooklyn, Anthony Casso has Gambino family associate Jimmy Hydell strapped to a chair.  Casso and Hydell were in the basement of the home.  Casso wanted information about who tried to assassinate him.  Casso tortured Hydell by using him as target practice; he pumped bullet after bullet into Hydell's limbs.  Hydell finally succumbed to the torture and gave the name of Gambino family associate Nicky Guido, and Eddie Lino.  Casso shot Hydell a total of 14 times and eventually begged Casso to kill him.  Once Casso got the information he wanted, he put a bullet in Hydell's head. Hydell's body has never been found.

During the torture session, Casso extracted another name Bartolomeo Boriello.  Eppolito and Caracappa accepted the contract to murder Bartolomeo "Bobby" Boriello; another Gambino soldier believed to have been involved in Casso's attempted murder. Eppolito and Caracappa aborted their efforts to kill Boriello when one of them was discovered by a fellow police officer searching for their target. Instead, they provided Casso with information about Boriello's whereabouts, as well as an audio cassette of Boriello, recorded without his knowledge, on which Boriello is repeatedly heard threatening Casso and his family. On May 13, 1991, shortly after the crooked cops provided a possible address for Boriello, Boriello was murdered.  The contract for Boriello's murder was given to Luchesse Capo Frank Lastorino, who successfully carried out the hit.  Lastorino shot Boriello twice in the head and five times in the torso. Boriello died in the street beside his 1991 Lincoln Towncar, outside his home on Bay 29th Street.

Eddie Lino hit

In November of 1992, the crooked cops accepted a $65,000 contract from Casso to murder Edward "Eddie" Lino, a Captain in the Gambino Crime Family who was believed to be associated with the crew that had participated in the attempt on Casso's life. On November 6, 1992, Eppolito and Caracappa followed Lino from his social club, pulled him over as he drove down the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn, and shot Lino dead.

Eppolito and Caracappa also accepted Casso's contract to find and kill Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, a Gambino Family member affiliated with the crew that Casso believed was responsible for the attempt on his life. Although they regularly reported their progress to Casso, the crooked cop's efforts were unsuccessful.

Luchesse Leadership late 80s

Lucchese Boss Amuso and Underboss Casso

In the 1980s, Gaspipe and Lucchese boss Vic Amuso controlled the family through brute force; it was so violent that anyone within the family who criticized them was killed.  In the early 90s, word came down through an FBI informant that Casso was going to be arrested.  Casso went on the run, and for 30 months, he maintained his distance from the feds.  In 1991 Vic Amuso was captured, and this gave Casso a promotion to the acting boss of the Lucchese family.  Casso had been running the Lucchese family from home in Mount Olive, New Jersey.  One morning as Casso was exiting the shower, FBI and local police closed in on the house and took Casso into custody without any trouble.

Conviction, Sentence, and Witness Protection

March 1, 1992, Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York City.  Casso was indicted on 72 counts, to include more than a dozen murders.  Casso has former top Luchesse members ready to testify against him.  Casso decides to turn states evidence.  A little over a year later, Lucchese Boss Vic Amuso stripped Casso of his powers because he believed that Casso was trying to take control of the family.  Casso went into the Witness Protection Program.  In 1997, Casso was kicked out of the program because his testimony was changing, and it was a contradiction to other statements from mobsters who turned states evidence.  In one instance, Casso stated that Sammy Gravano was buying drugs from him, federal prosecutors refused to believe Casso. 

Former Gambino consigliere Sammy “the Bull” Gravano testified that he approached Anthony Casso in December 1985 to gain his support in the slaying of Gambino boss Paul Castellano.  Gravano stated that Casso would support the hit, and Casso later refuted this testimony.  Anthony Casso is currently serving 455 years in prison, effectively making sure that he dies in prison.  Casso is known for having the two corrupt NYPD detectives on his payroll.  Casso had NYPD detectives Stephen Carracappa and Lou Eppolito as his detectives.  Casso had a go-between that two detectives and himself.  A mob associate by the name of Burton Kaplan would get information from the detectives and give it to Casso.  The detectives sold Kaplan the information, and some of these regarded ongoing investigations, wiretaps, informants, and upcoming warrants.

Casso in prison

Anthony Casso believes that being a mobster is better than being a Hollywood star.  Casso says that he received special treatment wherever he went because people knew that he was in the mob.