Knife Fight Ends in a Draw, Happily

By Ed Scarpo
A Friday afternoon in April. A celebrated pizza chef and a mobster, acquaintances from the neighborhood, were slashing each other bloody on the streets of Brooklyn. Smith Street to be precise. Some say it was over a woman, that the chef was dating the ex-girlfriend of the mobster.

The fight occurred outside Joe’s Superette deli in Carroll Gardens, a few blocks from Lucali on Henry Street, where pizza chef Mark Iacono sweated on a daily basis over his wood-burning oven, for years drawing rave reviews for his pizzas.

Iacono suffered significant blood loss on that Friday in April, as did Batista "Benny" Geritano. The police charged both men with attempted murder and other crimes.

They declined, however, to testify against each other. Each man walked away from court yesterday, when the Brooklyn district attorney had to dismiss all charges.

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