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A famed Brooklyn pizza twirler was sliced allegedly by a knife-wielding bagel-maker and left in a pool of blood thicker than red sauce along a hip stretch of Carroll Gardens yesterday.
Mark Iacono, owner of the famed Lucali pizzeria, had just eaten a prosciutto rice ball outside Joe’s Superette Deli on Smith Street at about 2:30 p.m., when he got into the dispute with ex-con Benny Geritano, in what may have been an attempted mob shakedown, sources said.
Seemingly out of nowhere, Geritano, a hood who beat two attempted-murder charges in the 1990s and is currently on probation, pulled a long kitchen knife and lunged at him, sources said.
“Calm down! Calm down,” Iacono pleaded with Geritano moments before the attack, according to sources.
His cries fell on deaf ears as Geritano, who helps out at his uncle’s nearby Bagels by the Park cafe, tried to carve holes in Iacono’s back, face and leg, sources said.
“There was blood all over. He was covered with blood,” one witness said.
The two men had exchanged words at a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts earlier in the day, sources said.
Geritano is associated with the Genovese crime family and attacked Iacono to squeeze money out of his popular eatery, according to one law enforcement source.
Iacono, 43, was taken to Lutheran Hospital and treated for puncture wounds. He underwent emergency surgery and is expected to survive his wounds, relatives said.
“How many times is he going to do this to someone before they put him away for good,” Iacono’s mother said of Geritano as she sat in the hospital waiting room with family members.
“He’s been in and out of jail for most of his life.”
At the hospital, a cousin, who didn’t give his name, said the family was baffled by the attack.
“He stabbed him good, the back, neck and legs, but he is stable,” said the cousin. “We don’t know why this happened.”
While fleeing the scene, Geritano, 38, who has 10 prior arrests and served three prison stretches, spotted a woman he knew driving by and hopped into her Lexus, police said.
A short time later she brought him to Long Island College Hospital with stab wounds and slashes to his hand. He was taken into custody and charged with assault, police said.
Lucali, a few blocks from the attack on Henry Street, is considered one of the nation’s top pizza joints.
Employee Anthony Guardascione said, “I’m in total shock. I don’t believe it.”
The restaurant, which was closed last night, usually has patrons waiting up to three hours for a table, with Jay-Z and Beyoncé among its loyal clientele. It’s been hailed as the best pizza in the city by Zagat’s and was named No. 2 in the country by GQ in 2009.
Iacono and his attacker have known each other since childhood, friends said. “It had to be jealousy,” said Faried Assad, 43, a lifelong pal of both men, referring to Iacono’s business success and marriage.
Another Iacono cousin called Geritano “a bad seed.”
In 2000 Geritano was charged with murdering a man over a 1991 drug dispute, but was able to plead down to criminal possession of a weapon, sources said.
Geritano’s stepfather was Anthony “Shorty” Mascuzzio, a member of John Gotti’s inner circle who was shot to death in 1988 by a Manhattan nightclub owner tired of making tribute payments to the mob, sources said.
Iacono, married with a young child, also made news in 2009 when a federal judge allowed reputed Colombo gangster Dominick “Black Dom” Dionisio to continue working as a $300-a-week prep cook at the pepperoni palace despite being under house arrest.
Additional reporting by Lorena Mongelli, Erin Calabrese and Kevin Sheehan