Frank Gioia: Lucchese Mobster Turned Informant Who Brought Down a Crime Empire
Frank Gioia Jr. led a double life. To his associates in the Lucchese crime family, he was a ruthless mobster willing to do anything to get ahead. To authorities, he became the ultimate turncoat, an informant who brought down one of America‘s most powerful mafia families and forever changed organized crime.
Gioia grew up surrounded by the mafia in Brooklyn. His father Frank Sr. had long-standing ties to the Luccheses. It seemed inevitable Gioia would end up walking the same path. By the late 1980s, he was making millions as one of the biggest drug dealers in the city, trafficking heroin between Boston and New York.
According to former Lucchese captain Michael DiLeonardo‘s testimony, the pipeline earned Gioia upward of $40 million per year. He soon garnered attention from family leaders looking to move up to capo (senior member). But with notoriety came pressure to carry out mob orders, even if it meant ending a life.
Murder As an Initiation Rite
In 1987, Gioia passed an initiation of sorts when he and his cousin Frank "Frankie Bones" Papagni murdered an associate named Michael Pappadio. Pappadio had made the mistake of disrespecting the girlfriend of Lucchese soldier Caesar DiPietro at a popular mob hangout called The Suite.
Normally the cost of such an insult is a savage beating. But Gioia, likely in an attempt to prove his loyalty, took things further by putting two bullets in Pappadio‘s head. Then he and Papagni transported the body to a New Jersey landfill.
The murder earned both men their "button," granting them full membership in the mafia. Gioia, now a made man in the Luccheses, continued his lucrative drug racket under the new street name "Babyface" and made moves to take over his own crew in East Harlem‘s drug trade.
Betraying the Oath of Omertà
But Gioia‘s fast rise soon came crashing down. A conflict over territory with the Genovese family in 1990 landed him severely wounded from a failed gangland hit. He recovered, but knew it was only a matter of time before another attempt ended him for good.
So Gioia turned to his father for help getting out of the life. When Frank Sr. refused, afraid his son becoming an informant would make him a mafia target, Gioia decided to handle things his own way – by becoming an informant himself.
In 1991, he cut a deal with the Brooklyn District Attorney‘s office to trade information about mafia dealings for witness protection. He hoped ratting out every mobster he knew would cover his betrayal of the oath of omertà (code of silence) and allow him to disappear into the sunset with his wife and kids.
Over the next two years, Gioia‘s testimony led to over 70 arrests of high-level gangsters from all Five Families of New York and even the Philadelphia mob. His recall of minute details like conversations, meetings, and hierarchies was eerily precise. This, along with knowledge gleaned from other informants he helped turn, allowed prosecutors to build complex charges linking dozens of unsolved murders to their mafia perpetrators.
Downfall of the Lucchese Leaders
Among the top Lucchese leaders caught in Gioia‘s crosshairs were underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, consigliere Frank Lastorino Sr., and captain Joseph DeFede Sr. Gioia implicated all three men in ordering gangland slayings, providing dates, locations, murder weapons, clean-up crews and more. This testimony proved invaluable for convicting them.
He also linked then-acting boss Vittorio "Little Vic" Amuso and his street boss Anthony "Bowat" Baratta to orchestrating their own hit spree in the early 1990s. The motive was to eliminate any capos they thought might challenge their power or cooperate with police. Victims included top earners like Anthony DiLapi, Michael Salanardi, Steven Creacmy, Peter Chiodo, and more.
Gioia testified in detail on these hits, even describing locations where victims‘ bodies were later recovered. His word was enough for prosecutors to convict Amuso and Baratta on murder and conspiracy charges that added life sentences to ones they already faced.
Infamous Hits Ordered by Amuso and Baratta
• Anthony DiLapi – rubbed out in 1990 parking lot ambush
• Peter "Fat Pete" Chiodo – shot 12 times, survived
• Steven Crea and Michael Salanardi – slain within 2 days of each other in ‘92
• Bruno Facciola – stabbed and shot at behest of Amuso and Baratta
Dismantling of the Luccheses
The amount of damage Gioia‘s intelligence gathering caused to the Luccheses’ leadership structure is almost beyond measure. By the mid 1990s, virtually every figure who wasn‘t killed or imprisoned had flipped for the government, leaving behind a shell of a family.
Amuso and Baratta attempted to keep control by running the family from prison through messengers. But this proved ineffective. On the streets, the Luccheses hemorrhaged money and power to rival families who gobbled up their once lucrative rackets. According to former capo Michael DiLeonardo, what was once the most sophisticated organized crime outfit in the country was reduced to little more than a street gang.
The dismantling highlights how devastating it is when made men rat out blood oaths and years of trusted alliances to save themselves. It‘s a lesson the Luccheses and other families are still recovering from today by strengthening loyalty measures for new initiates. But with modern RICO statutes granting turncoats generous plea deals, the element of honor among thieves may be forever compromised.
Gioia Disappears Into Witness Protection with Blood Money
Meanwhile, Gioia himself enjoyed the spoils of backstabbing his mafia brethren. Following years of testimony, he entered witness protection with his wife and children under new identities. From there, the self-preservation continued.
Rather than lay low, Gioia systematically exploited legal loopholes to embezzle millions of dollars from corporations he ran under his alias. When business partners discovered his fraud and sued, Gioia declared bankruptcy. But thanks to lax oversight of his finances under the marshals’ watch, he still walked away a multi-millionaire.
For betraying his oath of secrecy and helping crush the mafia family that made him, Frank Gioia Jr. paid little price. Unlike other documented informants, he suffered no retaliation. The government even eventually expelled him from witness protection not for his financial shenanigans, but for counterfeiting sports memorabilia.
So the ultimate gangster snitch enjoyed a soft landing from years sheltering murderers. He proved that cooperating witnesses, shielded from consequences by the legal system, can damage the mob then profit from criminality under new names. For all his help crippling New York’s La Cosa Nostra, Frank Gioia is a self-serving parasite on society – and one who will likely never answer for it.