May 08 2008
Insider: Hub’s mob in the toilet
Cheeseman seeks a larger bathroom
Reputed New England Mafia underboss Carmen “The Cheeseman” DiNunzio. Photo by Stuart Cahill
Boston’s once legendary La Cosa Nostra - which for years struck fear in Hub hearts as its hit men painted the town red with blood - sank to a sorry new low yesterday with the Mob’s 400-pound reputed underboss’ pathetic plea for a jail cell with a super-sized toilet.
That bizarre request came to light yesterday amid a hearing in federal court on alleged New England Mafia underboss Carmen “The Cheeseman” DiNunzio.
DiNunzio, whose Fresh Cheese shop made him the Gorgonzola guru of the North End, is awaiting trial on charges he bribed an undercover FBI agent with $10,000 in a feeble attempt to sell $6 million worth of potentially tainted dirt to the Big Dig.
“This is not organized crime’s finest hour,” a source with close ties to the New England Mafia told the Herald yesterday.
“The mob as we know it is dead and buried,” the source said, “and if people like (DiNunzio) are considered the leaders, the upper-echelon mobsters of today, then Rome is on fire.”
The poster don for today’s mob, DiNunzio, 50, lumbered into U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Judith G. Dein’s courtroom yesterday, his belly bobbing below his ghastly green prison scrubs.
DiNunzio’s gargantuan girth seemed to underscore the urgency of his request for “a larger bathroom situation” in a handicapped cell at the Plymouth County House of Correction, according to an FBI report reviewed by the Herald.
His family physician, Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Patrick J. Perri, says the reputed racketeer also known as the Big Cheese is a ticking time bomb contending with a “significant elevated risk for heart attack, congestive heart failure and stroke.”
Yesterday, Dein suggested she had no plans to cut the Cheese loose any time soon, as she heard testimony from Special Agent Michael J. Kelly of the FBI’s organized crime unit and oral arguments from assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Levitt and defense attorney Anthony Cardinale.
Cardinale told Dein his client has been on a waiting list “for months” to enroll in a specialized pulmonary program at Mass. General that was supposed to start today.
Dr. John Howard, medical director at the house of correction, met with DiNunzio on Tuesday and said, despite his struggles with diabetes and sleep apnea, the mobster “would be in great shape if he lost 120 pounds.”
Meanwhile, new details of the Big Cheese’s alleged Big Dig scheme came to light yesterday.
They included a conversation purportedly taped in October 2006, between DiNunzio, a trucker friend turned federal informant, and “Mike,” the undercover agent pretending to be a state inspector.
Mike is heard allegedly assuring DiNunzio that the soil at the heart of the dirty deal would not be tested by the state highway department, and that all other competing contractors would be sent packing.
Insider: Hub’s mob in the toilet - By Laurel J. Sweet - Thursday, May 8, 2008 - http://www.bostonherald.com - http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1092603&srvc=home&position=0
