Dominick Cataldo (March 19, 1923 – April 27, 1997), known as "Little Dom", was a

Sicilian-American Sicilian Americans ( Sicilian: ''Sìculu-miricani; Italian: Siculoamericani'') are Americans of Italian Sicilian birth or ancestry. They are a large ethnic group in the United States. The first Sicilians who came to the territory that is now ...

soldier in the New York

Colombo crime family The Colombo crime family (, ) is an Italian American Mafia crime family and is the youngest of the " Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City within the criminal organization known as the American Mafia. It was d ...

Biography

Dominick Cataldo was born in Lower East Side of Manhattan in a small apartment on

Essex Street Essex Street is a north-south street on the Lower East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. North of Houston Street, the street becomes Avenue A, which goes north to 14th Street. South of Canal Street it becomes Rutgers Street, ...

, his father, Samuel Cataldo, was a

Sicilian Sicilian refers to the autonomous Italian island of Sicily. Sicilian can also refer to: * Sicilian language, a Romance language spoken on the island of Sicily, its satellite islands, and southern Calabria * Sicilians, people from or with origins ...

immigrant from San Cataldo and member of the Profaci crime family. Dominick and his brother, Joseph, both joined the Colombo family. In 1972, Cataldo started an illegal

bookmaking A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays off bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds. History The first bookmaker, Ogden, stood at Newmarket in 1795. Range of events Book ...

operation and casino out of an after-nights club located on 87th Street just across Atlantic Avenue, which was one block over and one block down from Salvatore Polisi's apartment on 95th Avenue and 88th Street. He lived a quiet life in

Valley Stream, New York Valley Stream is a village in Nassau County, on Long Island, in New York, United States. The population in the Village of Valley Stream was 37,511 at the 2010 census. The incorporated Village of Valley Stream is within the Town of Hempstead, a ...

which was home to many Mafioso in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

The Gerard Pappa murder

On June 16, 1980, Genovese crime family Soldier

Gerard Pappa Gerard Pappa, also known as "Gerry" and "Pappa Bear" (, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn – July 10, 1980, Borough Park, Brooklyn), was a soldier in the Genovese crime family. Known as a hitman and a major narcotics dealer, Pappa was widely feared for hi ...

was shot to death in a Brooklyn

luncheonette A lunch counter (also known as a luncheonette) is, in the US, a small restaurant, similar to a diner, where the patron sits on a stool on one side of the counter and the server or person preparing the food serves from the opposite side of the c ...

by a Colombo hit squad. This was an act of revenge for carrying out the murder of a suspected Colombo police informant Ralph Spero, the uncle of mobster

Angelo Sepe The Lufthansa heist was a robbery at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport on December 11, 1978. An estimated $5.875 million (equivalent to $ million in ) was stolen, with $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewelry, ma ...

. He was murdered by Dominick and his nephews Nicholas and Joseph. Knowing how hard Gerard would be to kill, that he was always armed, very fast and very game, they were hiding in the luncheonette's rear kitchen when he arrived. They approached him from behind and shot him in the head with a sawed-off shotgun, literally blowing his head to pieces. He was killed instantly. Sammy Gravano later spoke of feeling great sadness and remorse for the loss of his childhood friend. Genovese crime family mob boss Vincent Gigante was suspected of handing down the murder contract, but was acquitted of his alleged involvement in the murder in 1997.

Indictment and incarceration

The "books" for membership into La Cosa Nostra had been officially closed since the late 1950s. Following the death of

Carlo Gambino Carlo Gambino (; August 24, 1902 – October 15, 1976) was an Italian-American crime boss of the Gambino crime family. After the Apalachin Meeting in 1957, and the imprisonment of Vito Genovese in 1959, Gambino took over the Commission of ...

in 1976, the last remaining mob boss to have decried such a rule, the books for proposed members were reopened. Cataldo received his membership into the Colombo family in the late 1970s. In 1981, Cataldo was convicted of providing unlicensed 9-millimeter

semiautomatic pistol A semi-automatic pistol is a type of repeating single- chamber handgun (pistol) that automatically cycles its action to insert the subsequent cartridge into the chamber (self-loading), but requires manual actuation of the trigger to actu ...

and a silencer to an undercover federal agent. On October 26, 1984, Cataldo was indicted on federal racketeering charges that included extortion, theft,

loansharking A loan shark is a person who offers loans at extremely high interest rates, has strict terms of collection upon failure, and generally operates outside the law. Description Because loan sharks operate mostly illegally, they cannot reasonably ...

illegal gambling Gaming law is the set of rules and regulations that apply to the gaming or gambling industry. Gaming law is not a branch of law in the traditional sense but rather is a collection of several areas of law that include criminal law, regulatory law, ...

, bribery and

drug trafficking A drug is any chemical substance that causes a change in an organism's physiology or psychology when consumed. Drugs are typically distinguished from food and substances that provide nutritional support. Consumption of drugs can be via insuffla ...

. Because of the testimony and evidence gathered by Ianuzzi and also by his supposed protege, Sal 'The Rat' Polisi, during Operation Homerun, Cataldo was convicted for a host of racketeering crimes or

Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization. RICO was e ...

predicate acts. In 1985, Cataldo was sentenced to 35 years in prison. On April 27, 1997, Cataldo died in prison of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal bl ...

, aged 74.

References

Sources

*Taylor, Nicholas, ''Sins of The Father The True Story of A Family Running From the Mob'' Backinprint (August 2002) *Schumacher, Michael, ''Dharma Lion : A critical biography of Allen Ginsberg''St Martins Press (December 1994) *Ianuzzi, Joseph, ''Joe Dogs: The Life and Crimes of a Mobster'' Simon & Schuster (June 1993) *Dietche, M. Scot
"The Beating of Joe Castellano"
(1999) *Albanese, S. Jay ''Contemporary Issues in Organized Crime'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Cataldo, Dominick 1923 births 1997 deaths Colombo crime family American gangsters of Sicilian descent People convicted of racketeering People from the Lower East Side People from Valley Stream, New York