A former mob associate pleaded guilty today to lying about his role as a trigger-man in a double-hit during the Colombo crime family’s bloody factional war two decades ago.
Anthony Colandra, 43, who has since left the Mafia, admitted in Brooklyn federal court that he lied to investigators about being present at a 1992 double-murder that allegedly was sanctioned by Colombo street boss Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli.
Last year, Gioeli was convicted of murder conspiracy charges stemming from his role in planning the hit.
Brooklyn federal prosecutors say that Colandra was part of a hit team – and one of two gunmen – who carried out the bloody killing of renegade Colombo crime-family member John Minerva, who was shot dead along with a friend, Michael Imbergamo.
The feds say that Imbergamo – who had no mob connections – was in the wrong place at the wrong time, as he and his mobster pal were gunned down as they sat in a parked car outside the Broadway Cafe in North Massapequa, LI.
Minerva – a mob soldier who had allied himself with the breakaway Orena faction during the bloody internecine Colombo war in the early 1990s – had been marked for death by a team of Colombos loyal to the Persico faction, which eventually prevailed as victors in the mob conflict.
The feds never charged Colandra with the murders, partly because the statute of limitations on the federal murder-racketeering laws in force at the time of the killings had lapsed.
Today Colandra pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about his involvement in the hit, but he did not admit pulling the trigger. He will eventually serve a five-year term in prison, in a plea agreement with federal prosecutors.
Today Brooklyn federal Judge Brian Cogan was told by prosecutors that Colandra had only a brief involvement with the Colombo crime family over several months in the early 1990s.
After the murders, he left the mob, and became an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration, the feds told the judge.
He has since been living a normal life, working at a church, and coaching youth baseball, officials say.
mmaddux@nypost.com