Violent Crew Ready To Follow Huck's Orders If The Gambino Soldier Is Released, Sources Say

If Thomas (Huck) Carbonaro's compassionate release motion were granted, a crew of violent, prison-hardened felons—led by two Carbonaro relatives—would be ready to follow the longtime Gambino soldier's orders, sources tell Cosa Nostra News. They also discussed how some on the street view Sammy the Bull's recent podcast.

Eddie Garafola, Lou Vallario, Joe D’Angelo, Frankie Flapp, Thomas ‘Huck’ Carbonaro
Gravano crew, from left: Ed Garafola, Lou Vallario, Joe D’Angelo, Frankie Flapp, Huck

Carbonaro, who came up in Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano's Brooklyn crew, has been seeking to get a judge to put an early cap on his 70-year sentence. He was convicted in 2003, and his lawyers are using chronology to Huck's benefit, arguing that so much time has passed ("decades of distance between" him and the mob) that he has transformed himself into a new person who is not a violent criminal with a Gambino button.

Today, Huck "is a simple convict doing his time, trying to improve himself and attempting to maintain relationships with his large, loving and ever-growing family.”

Huck also is a longtime made member of the Gambino family who would have true power were he to return to the street, sources note, saying that Huck could have an army waiting for him if he chose to embrace his old life. 

All sources in this story agreed to speak only if allowed anonymity.

"Huck is a very violent individual and his nephew Tommy Dono has a lot of childhood friends who are all prison hardened and real blue-collar criminals,” said one source. “Kevin  Granato also has a lot of followers from his Colombo days. All these guys are extremely dangerous and will follow Huck's orders."

Huck’s nephew Tommy Dono, 47—who was proposed for membership in the Gambino family in 2001—was released from prison this past April following a 15-year hitch. Huck's nephew-in-law Kevin Granato, 61, is a former Colombo associate who was part of Greg Scarpa Jr.'s crew, spent about 30 years in prison for drug dealing and racketeering, and is likely a made member of the Gambino family today.

Dono was proposed for induction in 2001 as a "reward" for participating in the murder of Frank Hydell, who was killed in April 1998 while leaving a Staten Island strip club. (He’d been shot three times in the head and chest and was likely dead before hitting the ground.) Some were concerned that Hydell, a suspected informant, would talk about the 1997 Super Bowl Sunday slaying of construction foreman Frank Parasole in a Brooklyn social club. (Parasole, who wasn't supposed to die, bled to death after Letterio DeCarlo shot him in the ass. DeCarlo was furious with Parasole, who he blamed for turning his no-show job  into a labor-intensive job at a construction site.)

Granato has been affiliated with the Gambinos possibly since his 2013 release from prison, sources say, noting that he is likely a made Gambino member today.

Another source echoed what we'd been hearing, saying, "Granato was from Scarpa Jr. crew and is a very dangerous guy, and Tommy Dono also very dangerous, a real criminal, very well respected by real criminals. When I say real criminals it’s beyond the bookmakers, drug dealers, and guys who extort using the reputation of the crime family. I mean guys that will actually use a gun to rob and don’t have to get someone in a car or a basement to kill them, they will kill in the middle of traffic."

He noted that "one of Granato’s murders is Albert (Alby) Variale, who was killed on 86th Street and 20th Avenue in front of hundreds of witnesses, and Dono was convicted for the Frankie Hydell murder. They are both on the street, with Granato a confirmed full member and Dono was proposed and is more than likely a made member."

Granato and others in the Scarpa crew were charged in 1987 with conspiring to control drug dealing in Brooklyn and Staten Island following an 18-month probe by the Joint Drug Enforcement Task Force, which was composed of Federal, state, and city narcotics investigators.

Granato generated extensive media coverage about a decade into his prison sentence when he was charged with smuggling his semen out of federal prison to impregnate his wife. In 2003, Granato and his wife pleaded guilty to charges they used a cryogenic sperm kit to smuggle sperm out of Allenwood to a New York fertility clinic. Granato got another 16 months in prison added to his sentence.


Sammy the Bull's "Punk" Podcast
Sammy the Bull mentioned Huck in a recent podcast, and sources talked about what some of Gravano’s former cohorts thought. 

Unsurprisingly, they aren't fans and say, basically, that Sammy is full of shit.

"Sammy claimed that he helped Huck, and that’s why Huck only got 10 years. Huck was charged with conspiracy to commit murder, the murder never happened, and the max was 10 years and that’s what he got. Also Sammy was asked what he would of done if he’d seen Huck in Phoenix, and Sammy said, “I would of shot him in his head.” Huck thought that Sammy was going to say that they were still friends, and when Sammy told the Phoenix paper that he would send a lot of body bags back to New York, guys on the street, Huck included, laughed at him. They also had him marked as a punk as he had only killed one guy and it was his childhood friend. He supposedly let Frankie DeCicco kill his brother in law. Any other wiseguy would of told the brother in law to run away. Only a punk would bring him in."


Scarpa Jr. Crew
An eleven-count superseding indictment was filed in the Eastern District of New York on January 27, 1988, naming the appellants, including Granato, and others as defendants.

Scarpa Jr. took control of his father's crew after he died. The Scarpa Crew, under Greg Junior, operated several lucrative marijuana sales locations in parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island from approximately July1985 until the law shut them down.

(Scarpa Junior was finally released from prison last November when Brooklyn Federal Judge Edward Korman ended his 32-year prison stretch on racketeering murder charges by ordering his compassionate release. Scarpa, 69, was at a federal Bureau of Prisons halfway house in Kansas City, Kansas, at the time, according to Daily News reporter Larry McShane.)

The Scarpa Crew congregated frequently at the Wimpy Boys Social Club adjacent to the Parkway Luncheonette at 75th Street and 13th Avenue in Brooklyn.

The crew sold $10,000 in marijuana a day at Staten Island College and large amounts of drugs at Wolf's Pond Park and Willowbrook Park in Staten Island and in Brooklyn's Bay Ridge section.

In the process of building their operation, the group's members killed two drug dealers, beat another savagely with baseball bats, and used violence and threats to force rival pushers to pay protection money. They also sought to bribe police officers.

The crew was brought down with help from two drug dealers who flipped.

According to testimony at trial, the Scarpa Crew first became involved in marijuana distribution in the summer of 1985 when they ousted two dealers, Scotty Brennan and Peter Crupi, from a location adjacent to Staten Island College. The operation at the college spot proved highly lucrative, so the Scarpa Crew also established spots at Wolf's Pond Park on Staten Island, and at 13th Avenue and 73rd Street, and 20th Avenue and 81st Street, both in Brooklyn.

The college spot, however, remained the primary location. It was operated for the Scarpa Crew by Eric Leon, who had been employed by the Crew for $100 per night. Other lower-level workers, earning approximately $30-$70 per night, were employed by the Crew to function as "chickeys" or look-outs, "dealers," who distributed marijuana to buyers, and "runners," who collected the money from the dealers and brought it back to Leon.

In a typical day of operation, Letterio DeCarlo would prepare the marijuana for sale by bagging it in individual packets and then placing the packets in duffle bags. Leon and the workers would gather at Mike's Candy Store on 69th Street in Brooklyn at approximately 4:30--5:00 p.m. and either wait for Letterio DeCarlo, Granato or Mario Parlagreco to bring the marijuana in duffle bags to the candy store, or go to Letterio DeCarlo's house to pick it up. The group would then assemble in several cars and drive to the college spot at about 6:00 p.m.

Upon arrival, Leon would distribute the marijuana to the dealers, who in turn sold it to customers who walked or drove by. Leon, Granato, Parlagreco, William Meli or Cosmo Catanzano, and sometimes DeCarlo would wait close by and observe as the marijuana was sold.

At about 9:00 p.m., the spot would close down and Granato, Parlagreco, Meli and an individual who had been hired to count the money would depart and do the counting at that individual's apartment.

An evening's proceeds usually exceeded $10,000, and the amount sometimes reached as high as $17,000 or $18,000. Finally, after the money had been counted, the workers would be paid by Leon, and the assemblage would return to Brooklyn in cars.

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