Mafia kingpin Alphonse “Allie Boy” Persico wanted to “erase” a rival to his Colombo crime-family throne when he orchestrated the man’s 1999 murder, prosecutors charged yesterday.
The feds leveled the accusation in their opening statements at the mobster’s federal trial in Central Islip, L.I., where Persico is facing a retrial for his alleged role in the disappearance of former Colombo underboss William “Wild Bill” Cutolo in May 1999.
The first trial ended with a hung jury last year.
Persico, 54, the son of longtime Colombo godfather Carmine Persico, set up a meeting with Cutolo near 92nd Street and Shore Road in Bay Ridge the day he vanished, prosecutors said. He has not been seen or heard from since, and no body has been recovered.
“Bill Cutolo wasn’t only murdered, he was erased,” prosecutor Jeffrey Goldberg said.
Persico ordered the murder after he grew nervous about his position as acting family don in 1999 as he prepared to serve a prison sentence, prosecutors said. He feared that Cutolo, then second in command of the powerful family, was planning a takeover of the top spot with Persico behind bars.
Cutolo had sided with a rival of Carmine Persico, Victor Orena, during a bloody struggle for family supremacy during the early 1990s and was demoted because of it.
But Alphonse Persico eventually reinstalled him as underboss, Goldberg said, to “keep his enemies close.”
“It’s a case about fear,” said Goldberg. “It’s a case about intimidation, it’s a case about murder. It’s a case about organized crime.”
The prosecutor said Persico and underling John DeRoss also engineered the botched killing of another Colombo soldier, Joe Campanella, because of his allegiance to Cutolo.
Campanella was shot twice on a Coney Island street corner but survived the hit, Goldberg said. He is expected to testify against his former boss in the coming weeks.
“Billy Cutolo and Joe Campanella were members of the mob who were targeted for death by their own Mafia gang,” Goldberg said. “When people get in their way, they beat them into submission or they murder them.”
Persico’s lawyer, Sarita Kedia, told the court the charges against her client were feeble, trumped-up attempts by prosecutors to nail the Colombo chief who faces life in prison if convicted.
“It’s based on fiction, it’s based on imagination, it’s based on fabrication,” she said.
Kedia, who was part of the legal team that guided John Gotti Jr. to several mistrials, even raised the possibility that Cutolo vanished on his own to avoid imminent federal indictments.
The stocky, salt-and-pepper-haired Persico, who took furious notes in court yesterday, is currently serving a 12-year sentence on a 2001 loan-sharking rap.