ITALIANS ONLY: When Colombo Wiseguys Took Over Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center
In late 1993 through September 1994, the Feds conducted an experiment that involved putting 21 members of the Colombo crime family close together in one section of the dormitory-like Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn to enable the accused to "more easily get legal homework done" for upcoming trials, which had to do with crimes allegedly committed during the Colombo war. The experiment failed miserably. William (Wild Bill) Cutolo and members of his Colombo crime family crew. The wiseguys took over a wing of MDC in Brooklyn , terrorizing inmates and guards alike, and stealing and hoarding so much food that prisoners elsewhere in the MDC went hungry. The Colombos even turned the TV room into their own private club, replete with Italians Only sign. ( Gang Land News and some of the New York dailies reported on the Colombo clubhouse inside the MDC.) The charismatic William (Wild Bill or Billy Fingers) Cutolo--then a capo in the Colombo crime family -- an...