It might cost you $50,000 for messing around with a mobster's wife, but think of all that peace of mind you get as a result: a cuckolded mobster testified yesterday in the trial of former Bonanno crime-family boss Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano, and related the sordid tale of his own wife's affair, and the unusual tax brought against him. "They wanted to take [the restaurant owner] to the basement of the restaurant and kill him...Instead of him getting killed, he'd have to pay a tax. It was basically a penalty," said Salvatore Volpe.
Volpe, a low-level Bonanno associate, told jurors that a Staten Island restauranteur, identified as "Anthony" of Staten Island's Trattoria Romana, almost got himself killed for having an affair with Volpe's wife. Even worse, the wife tried to pass off her baby with Anthony as Volpe's. Volpe went to his crew leader, Bonanno soldier John Palazzolo, for advice on how to handle the situation; at the same time, the restauranteur reached out for protection from the New Jersey-based DeCavalcante crime family.
Proving yet again why civilians should never mess around with the mob (see: Robert Patrick's doomed character David Scatino in The Sopranos), the DeCavalcantes pushed for the restaurant owner to be killed in his trattoria's basement. But the Bonannos wanted to settle things peaceably, and settled upon the tax—$40,000 for them, $10,000 for the DeCavalcantes.
Basciano is accused of ordering the hit on mob rat Randolph Pizzolo; Volpe also testified that Pizzolo dug his own grave by drunkenly boasting that he was going to "level the Bronx" in retaliation for not getting "made" into the crime family. This is why the only "Made" we care about is a terrible movie starring Vine Vaughn.
