Baldassare Amato (born 15 December 1951) is a Sicilian gangster and a member of the Bonanno Mafia family in New York City. He was a cousin of

Bonanno crime family The Bonanno crime family (pronounced ) is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the " Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, and in the United States, as part of the criminal phenomenon known as ...

capo Cesare Bonventre. At age 18, he emigrated from

Castellammare del Golfo Castellammare del Golfo (; scn, Casteddammari; la, Emporium Segestanorum or ) is a town and municipality in the Trapani Province of Sicily. The name can be translated as "Sea Fortress on the Gulf", stemming from the medieval fortress in the h ...

, Italy, to New York City and lived at 199 Avenue South

Prospect Lefferts Gardens Prospect Lefferts Gardens is a residential neighborhood in the Flatbush area of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The community is bounded by Empire Boulevard (formerly Malbone Street) to the north, Clarkson Avenue to the south, New Yor ...

. He was one of two bodyguards to Carmine Galante who allegedly lured their own boss to the scene of his assassination in 1979. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' correspondent Ralph Blumenthal describes Amato as "...looking like a fierce Alain Delon, darkly handsome, a wave of thick black hair, deep-set sparkling eyes, full, sensuous lips." He told police that he was a delicatessen owner. In 2006, he was sentenced to life in prison for the 1992 murders of Sebastiano DiFalco and Robert Perrino. DiFalco was a restaurant owner, and prosecutors argued that Amato removed him so that he could take over his business. The Bonannos were concerned that Perrino, a delivery supervisor for the ''

New York Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com. It was established ...

'', would expose their infiltration of the newspaper's delivery operations.

References

Sicilian mafiosi 1952 births Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Criminals from New York (state) American gangsters of Sicilian descent Bonanno crime family People from Castellammare del Golfo Italian emigrants to the United States {{criminal-stub