George "Big Georgie" DeCicco (March 20, 1929 - October 3, 2014) was a New York

mobster A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from ''mob'' and the suffix '' -ster''. Gangs provide a level of organization and ...

and longtime

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

in the

Gambino crime family The Gambino 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, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Ame ...

. DeCicco is one of the last captains of the old

John Gotti John Joseph Gotti Jr.Capeci, Mustain (1996), pp. 25–26 (, ; October 27, 1940 – June 10, 2002) was an American gangster and boss of the Gambino crime family in New York City. He ordered and helped to orchestrate the murder of Gambino boss ...

administration in the 1980s who have not been under any indictment until now. DeCicco is the brother of former Gambino

underboss Underboss ( it, sottocapo) is a position within the leadership structure of certain organized crime groups, particularly in Sicilian, Greek, and Italian-American Mafia crime families. The underboss is second in command to the boss. The underbo ...

Frank DeCicco Frank DeCicco (November 5, 1935 – April 13, 1986), also known as Frankie D and Frankie Cheech, was an American mobster consigliere and eventual underboss for the Gambino crime family in New York City. Background DeCicco was the son of Vincent ...

, who was killed in a car-bomb meant for his

boss Boss may refer to: Occupations * Supervisor, often referred to as boss * Air boss, more formally, air officer, the person in charge of aircraft operations on an aircraft carrier * Crime boss, the head of a criminal organization * Fire boss, a ...

John Gotti, ordered by then boss of the

Genovese crime family The Genovese crime family, () also sometimes referred to as the Westside, is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City and New Jersey as part of the American M ...

who is now deceased,

Vincent "Chin" Gigante Vincent Louis Gigante (; March 28, 1928 – December 19, 2005), also known as "The Chin", was an American mobster who was boss of the Genovese crime family in New York City from 1981 to 2005. Gigante started out as a professional boxer who fough ...

, and

Lucchese crime family The Lucchese 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, in the United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as ...

leaders Vittorio "Vic" Amuso and

Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso Anthony or Antony is a masculine given name, derived from the ''Antonii'', a '' gens'' ( Roman family name) to which Mark Antony (''Marcus Antonius'') belonged. According to Plutarch, the Antonii gens were Heracleidae, being descendants of Anton ...

as revenge for the murder of former Gambino crime family boss,

Paul Castellano Constantino Paul Castellano (; June 26, 1915 – December 16, 1985), was an American crime boss who succeeded Carlo Gambino as head of the Gambino crime family. Castellano was killed in an unsanctioned hit on December 16, 1985. Early life Cast ...

, a strong ally of both the Genovese and Lucchese crime families.

Gotti's crew

During the 1980s, DeCicco worked as a sidewalk

soldier A soldier is a person who is a member of an army. A soldier can be a conscripted or volunteer enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, or an officer. Etymology The word ''soldier'' derives from the Middle English word , from Old French ...

in the old crew of

, then run by Angelo "Quack Quack" Ruggiero, but because Ruggiero suffered from cancer in 1989, Gotti's brother

Gene In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a ba ...

took over the crew, only to discover that he would be convicted of

drug trafficking A drug is any chemical substance that causes a change in an organism's physiology or psychology when consumed. Drugs are typically distinguished from food and substances that provide nutritional support. Consumption of drugs can be via insuffla ...

and

narcotics The term narcotic (, from ancient Greek ναρκῶ ''narkō'', "to make numb") originally referred medically to any psychoactive compound with numbing or paralyzing properties. In the United States, it has since become associated with opiates ...

charges and sentenced to 50 years in prison. Working with Gambino mobsters

John Carneglia John "Johnny Carnegs" Carneglia (born 1945) is an American mobster in the Gambino crime family. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison in 1989 for racketeering and drug trafficking charges. Early life Carneglia was born in 1945 in Ozone Park, Quee ...

, Salvatore "Fat Sally" Scala, Arnold "Zeke" Squitieri and Anthony "Red" Scarpaci for many years, DeCicco was at that time promoted to the rank of caporegime in the family.

Gambino capo

Toward the 1990s, John Gotti was eventually caught up to by US law enforcement, as his ''underboss'' Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano decided to turn state's evidence due to internal rivalry with Gotti at the time, and was put on the stand to testify against Gotti,

consigliere Consigliere ( , ; plural ) is a position within the leadership structure of the Sicilian, Calabrian, and Italian-American Mafia. The word was popularized in English by the novel ''The Godfather'' (1969) and its film adaptation. In the novel, a c ...

Frank "Frankie Loc" LoCascio and dozens of other Gambino mobsters during the early 1990s. In 1992, Gotti and LoCascio were sentenced to life imprisonment for murder,

conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agree ...

extortion Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, ...

loansharking A loan shark is a person who offers loans at extremely high interest rates, has strict terms of collection upon failure, and generally operates outside the law. Description Because loan sharks operate mostly illegally, they cannot reasonably ...

money laundering Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...

tax evasion Tax evasion is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to reduce the taxp ...

and

illegal gambling Gaming law is the set of rules and regulations that apply to the gaming or gambling industry. Gaming law is not a branch of law in the traditional sense but rather is a collection of several areas of law that include criminal law, regulatory law, c ...

charges. But as many went down due to the testimony provided by Gravano, others went under the radar, especially former rivals of Gotti like Nicholas "Little Nick" Corozzo and Leonard "Lenny" DiMaria, who were at some point promoted to run the Gambino crime family unofficially with Pete Gotti. DeCicco, a true Gotti loyalist, also went under the radar of the US law enforcement, as he continued to operate out of the

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...

and

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

factions of the family, with labor

racketeering Racketeering is a type of organized crime in which the perpetrators set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordinated scheme or operation (a "racket") to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit. Originally and of ...

, extortion, money laundering, loansharking, illegal gambling and fraud activities.

Indictments and trial

On January 30, 2007, more than ten mobsters from two of the

Five Families The Five Families refers to five major New York City organized crime families of the Italian American Mafia formed in 1931 by Salvatore Maranzano following his victory in the Castellammarese War. Maranzano reorganized the Italian American gangs ...

were arrested and indicted on federal

Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization. RICO was en ...

charges, including DeCicco, one of the last untouched capos from the old John Gotti regime in the 1980s. DeCicco was charged with operating a multimillion-dollar-a-year loansharking operation in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, as well as extortion, illegal gambling, racketeering and money laundering operations. As it turns out, an associate of DeCicco had turned state's evidence, as a soldier in the DeCicco crew named Joseph Orlando had threatened to kill him over a loansharking debt. Because he thought he would be killed, the associate turned to the federal authorities for help, and provided the loansharking operation to the federal prosecutors. At the same time, much of their illegal business was recorded by hidden wires on the newly made turncoat. Toward December 2007, George DeCicco's lawyer said he would seek house arrest for his client because DeCicco reputedly has heart problems and wears a nitroglycerin patch. On December 19, 2007 DeCicco pleaded guilty to racketeering charges and faced 27 to 33 months in prison. He served his time at the Devens Federal Medical Center in Massachusetts. He was released on December 1, 2009.

Attempted murder of his son

On June 6, 2007, DeCicco's son Robert DeCicco, whom federal authorities identified as a 56-year-old mob associate, was shot four times, once in the torso, once in the head and twice in the arm, as he exited a pharmacy in Bath Beach. According to the Post, the bungled assassination came just a day after another Gambino crime family mobster busted with DeCicco and his dad and in January he was moved into protective custody because of threats against his life. The younger DeCicco, who was indicted in January along with his father, had just gotten into his 1998 gray

Cadillac Seville The Seville was manufactured by Cadillac from 1975 to 2004 as a smaller-sized, premium model. It was replaced by the STS in 2004. Origin of the name The name of "Cadillac's first small car" was selected over a revival of LaSalle or the GM des ...

after shopping only moments before the assassination-attempt. DeCicco managed to drag himself out of the car and stagger into a pharmacy to call for help, witnesses said.MOB HIT & MISS IN BROOKLYN RUBOUT ON GOTTI BUDDY IS BOTCHED

External links

Reference list

{{DEFAULTSORT:Decicco, George 1929 births American gangsters of Italian descent Gambino crime family