As the Mafia code of omerta – silence – broke down in his crime family, Joseph Massino threatened serious violence against mob rats and their relatives, one of the turncoats said in federal court yesterday.
Among those that Bonanno boss Massino allegedly menaced was Salvatore Vitale, his brother-in-law, who is expected to be a star witness at Massino’s murder and racketeering trial now under way in Brooklyn federal court.
Massino, 61, “told me he knows he [Vitale] has been cooperating,” testified turncoat Frank Lino, 66. “He said he was very upset, and he’d give him a ‘receipt.’ ”
Asked by Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Andres what Massino meant by the mob term “receipt,” Lino explained: “I guess, hurt him.”
Lino also talked about another turncoat, Frank Coppa, whose son, Frank Jr., is allegedly a Bonanno family soldier.
Lino said Massino asked him to “keep Frank Coppa Jr. close to the family . . . so we can get information off him to discredit his father.”
Lino said he personally experienced some of the intimidation after Massino’s arrest in January 2003. While Lino, also behind bars, was still negotiating the terms of his cooperation with federal prosecutors, Massino summoned him to jailhouse meetings with his lawyers.
Lino said he was called to the meetings “against my will.
“I figured they were jeopardizing my family,” he said.
A source told The Post that, at one meeting, Lino got into a scuffle with Massino that the lawyers had to break up. “They were two fat walruses banging into each other,” the source said.
Under cross-examination by defense lawyer David Breitbart, Lino discussed the 1981 slaying of Dominick “Sonny Black” Napolitano, slain for his role in hiring undercover FBI agent Joseph Pistone to his crew.
Pistone – under the alias “Donnie Brasco” – helped convict dozens of Bonanno mobsters. His story became a movie starring Al Pacino and Johnny Depp.
Lino has testified that, under Massino’s orders, he helped arrange Napolitano’s killing.
Breitbart asked Lino if he disliked Napolitano.
Lino said he didn’t know him, “so how could I dislike him?”
“Well, you participated in his murder,” Breitbart said. “I got orders,” Lino explained.
In February 1982, when Lino was vacationing in Hawaii, members of his crew – under Massino’s orders – killed another Bonanno family member, Anthony Mirra, whose body was found behind the wheel of a car in a Manhattan parking garage.
Asked why Mirra died, Lino said: “First, he was one of the guys who brought Donnie Brasco around. And they thought he was cooperating.”