Former Bonanno acting boss Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous” Basciano didn’t always have such a stylish nickname – at one time, he was known as “Vinny Pills,” a witness at his murder and racketeering trial said yesterday.
Former underboss Richard “Shellackhead” Cantarella told jurors a mobster once had come looking for Basciano and referred to him with the strange new moniker.
When Cantarella asked him why he’d given Basciano such a nickname, the mobster said matter-of-factly, “That’s where I buy my pills from.”
Prosecutors allege that in addition to murdering Frank Santoro, a neighborhood junkie who was overheard saying he planned to kidnap one of Basciano’s sons for ransom, the Bonanno big was an ecstasy and marijuana dealer. The new nickname apparently referred to his ecstasy dealings.
Basciano is on trial in Brooklyn federal court on charges of gunning down Santoro while he walked his Doberman pinscher in 2001 in the Throgs Neck section of The Bronx. Basciano was already tried on the charges last year, but when the jury deadlocked, a mistrial was declared and another trial ordered.
Cantarella, whose gray hair didn’t look as shellacked yesterday as his nickname would imply it once did, also testified that Bonanno boss Joe Massino never liked Basciano much.
“He was always leery of Vinny. He didn’t know how he made his money. He thought he was too quick, too hot-headed,” Cantarella said.
In fact, Cantarella said, Massino made a point of avoiding Basciano at his Queens eatery, Casa Blanca.
“Vinny comes to the restaurant every other Saturday,” Massino supposedly said. “We won’t come when he is supposed to come.”
Massino once even made a point of shooting down one of Basciano’s theories at a Christmas Eve induction ceremony, Cantarella said.
He said the mobsters were having a philosophical discussion about what a guy had to do in order to become a “made” man.
Vinny “felt that a guy should have to do work to get made,” Cantarella said. “Doing work” refers to killing someone in Mafia-speak.
“Both me and Joe Massino said that wasn’t necessarily true,” Cantarella said.
Then Massino used a colorful expression to make his point.
“It takes all kinds of meat to make a good soup,” he allegedly said. “Some of us are earners, some of us have the ability to kill.”