Colombo Turncoat Tied to 3 Hits Wins Big

A mob turncoat who flipped on a multitude of Colombo gangsters, including Thomas "Tommy Shots" Gioeli, and whose cooperation was described as "historic" was sentenced last Friday to no jail time.

Thomas McLaughlin, the turncoat, was himself involved in three gangland hits, two of which were tied to the 1990s Colombo civil war. He also was a member of the Bay Parkway Boys, a farm team for the mob. In McLaughlin's case, it gave him entry into the Colombo crime family, one of the youngest and most violent of New York's Five Families.

Tommy McLaughlin has a secret

"I just want to apologize for my past and look forward to the future," McLaughlin, 46, told Judge Brian Cogan last week in Brooklyn Federal Court. One year after he'd finished serving a long prison term for a drug conviction, McLaughlin voluntarily began informing in 2009, and secretly recorded thousands of hours of conversations with mobsters.


McLaughlin's testimony against Gioeli in 2012 helped convict his cousin of the killing of Frank "Chestnut" Marasa, which was key to convicting Tommy Shots.
Gioeli is serving 18 years in prison. Initially his split verdict stunned many trial watchers. Gioeli was acquitted of several murders that could have sent him away for life -- among them the 1997 hit on NYPD cop Ralph Dols, who married the ex-wife of Joel “Joe Waverly” Cacace, a former Colombo consigliere.

Joey Caves and Tommy Shots in (somewhat) happier times.

Gioeli also was cleared of the 1999 slaying of Colombo underboss William “Wild Bill” Cutolo, and the 1995 execution of Colombo associate Richard Greaves.

Gioeli was convicted of plotting the murders of Frank Marasa and John Minerva. Tommy Shots was also found guilty of crimes committed on his quest to win power.
In testimony, McLaughlin, "caused a a stir in the courtroom when, on cross examination, he claimed that the former Colombo boss approved a killing."

Tommy Shots lawyers had called McLaughlin to testify on the accused murderer’s behalf, only the plan backfired (detonated, is more like it) when McLaughlin claimed that the Colombo chief had approved a gangland slaying.

The Brooklyn federal courtroom "erupted in pandemonium after the bombshell testimony by Thomas McLaughlin, who had described how Gioeli approved the 1991 revenge killing of Frank “Chestnut” Marasa," the New York Post reported.

After Gioeli's cousin's cross-examination by prosecutor, Tommy Shots couldn't resist taunting McLaughlin.

“How’s ‘Joey Caves’?” Gioeli shouted at McLaughlin. He'd been referring to mob turncoat Joseph Competiello, who had already testified against him.

"Richie says hello!” McLaughlin, then-42, quickly shot back an apparent sarcastic reference to Colombo crime associate Richard Greaves, who was rubbed out in 1995.

Gioeli was accused of OK’ing the Greaves murder and had even allegedly directed subordinates on where to bury he body.

Gioeli’s lawyers knew they were courting potential disaster when they called McLaughlin to the witness stand. Although he was a blood relation of Tommy Shots, McLaughlin also was a government witness.

“I know Gioeli since I was a kid,” McLaughlin had testified.

He said he had introduced his cousin to Dino “Big Dino” Calabro, a Colombo capo who also had testified against Gioeli earlier in the trial.

McLaughlin said he became affiliated with Gioeli and his crew in the 1980s.

Asked by Gioeli’s lawyer, Adam Perlmutter, what role he played in Marasa’s murder, McLaughlin answered, “I drove Richie Greaves and Dino Calabro” to the scene where Greaves and Calabro fatally shot Marasa.

Under cross-examination by Assistant US Attorney Liz Geddes, McLaughlin added another detail about Marasa’s murder.

He said that, right before the killing, Calabro told him that Gioeli had approved both the hit and the two men assigned to carry it out.

Gioeli and his alleged associate, Dino “Little Dino” Saracino, were charged with six murders in total -- including Marasa; John Minerva and Michael Imbergamo in 1992; Richard Greaves in 1995, and former Colombo underboss William "Wild Bill" Cutolo, whose body was finally unearthed a year prior to that trial, not far from Gioeli’s home in Farmingdale, L.I.

Joey Caves and Gioeli went on vacations together with their families.

Gioeli is actually suspected of committing many more murders, including the Deep Throat murders.

"Joey Caves" was sentenced to 12 years in prison for five gangland murders, including the rubout of an off-duty police officer.

Competiello helped law enforcement authorities crack the long-unsolved murder of Ralph Dols. All the while he'd maintained that he did not know Dols was a cop when his former mob superiors handed him the contract in 1997.

Last week the judge called McLaughlin's assistance "historic" and "beyond anything I've ever seen" in his decade on the federal bench.

"I'm confident that he's gone straight and he is going to stay straight," Cogan said.

McLaughlin and his family are in the witness protection program and have been relocated with new identities for their safety.


Unknown Side to Tommy McLaughlin
The Mafia Hitman's Daughter, Linda Scarpa's story about life as the daughter of ruthless Colombo capo/FBI informant, Gregory Scarpa, includes a chapter with interesting information about McLaughlin.

Click to purchase....

According to the book, he married Linda Scarpa before he was sent away for drugs.

Tommy was quick tempered and during the Colombo war had actually turned on his cousin to support his father-in-law Greg Scarpa’s crew.

According to the book, McLaughlin spent a lot of time at the Scarpa home.

In fact, when the war began and a Colombo crew tried to ambush Greg Scarpa (putting Linda and her baby in a deadly crossfire) Tommy was one of the first Scarpa loyalists on the scene, packing a .38.