This gangster’s fat in the fire
For the FBI, bringing down the Cheeseman was like shooting fish in a barrel.
A very, very fat fish, that is. He weighs 400 pounds, this don of doughnuts, this king of the mozzarella mob. And Carmen DiNunzio can’t keep his bleepin’ mouth shut, any more than he can keep his pants from falling down around his 66-inch waist.
Yesterday, the feds released more information about the arrest of the 50-year-old moron formerly known as the Big Cheese, now the Cheeseman. And you can stick a fork in the Boston Mafia, because it’s all done.
As we pick up the story, Mr. Cheese is trying to muscle in on the very lucrative dirt racket in the city of Boston. The capo of capicola was scheming to sell dirt to the Big Dig. Go figure.
Of all the mistakes the Cheeseman made in this sad caper, the one I can’t get over occurred last Friday morning. He’d just been lugged, and as he sat around FBI headquarters, he began yapping about the family business.
I called up a retired wiseguy I know and read to him the 302 report on the Cheeseman’s revelations. The guy listened in silence until after I came to the final sentence.
“DINUNZIO advised that he believes that narcotics are ruining society.”
“What is he, a bleepin’ philosopher now?” my source said. “Doesn’t he understand everything he says will be used against him?”
But the G-men released even better material yesterday. They bugged conversations of his attempt to bribe a state hack. That’s right, you heard me - the Big Cheese wasn’t shaking someone down, he was delivering money to a guy he thought was a Mass. Highway Department inspector, for the privilege of dealing, not drugs, but dirt.
Only problem was, this corrupt hack was actually an undercover FBI agent. The third guy, the go-between, has been flipped.
You know how you learn in Mafia 101, never give your real name. The conversation begins with the rat introducing DiNunzio: “This is my friend, Carmen.”
The Cheeseman starts talking to the wired rat and the fed about what he was going to do to this trucker, Andrew Marino.
“I was gonna throw this bleeping kid off a roof,” he says.
First, Cheeseman, you’d have to run him down and catch him. And even if he were in a wheelchair, or even an iron lung, in a race against you, my money’d be on Marino.
The FBI hack then tells DiNunzio that “what I need is a guarantee that somebody’s got their foot on Marino’s neck.”
“Listen to me,” growls the gross gangster, “right here you got the guarantee from here.”
The fed is warming to his role. He is staring at 400 pounds of you-know-what stuffed in the sweatsuit of a 200-pound man.
“I don’t know you,” says the fed.
“I’m the Cheeseman.”
“You’re . . . the Cheeseman?” The fed deserves an Oscar for keeping a straight face as he says that. Back to you, Fromage-man.
“We straighten out a lot of beefs.”
And they eat even more of them. But by God.
“If they had 100 million dollars - and I’m talking out of school here. They better leave town. Cause it ain’t gonna be safe nowhere for them.”
Yeah, they cross the Cheeseman, he’ll sit on them.
“If the check ain’t there then I’m going to the bleeping can - ”
Yes, you are, Mr. Cheese. For a good long time, too.
Next, he starts stealing lines from “The Godfather.”
“If I can help you down the line. I’m not saying I can, but sometimes I could help you probably more than I could help myself or somebody in my own family because I’m, ah ...”
Because you’re the Cheeseman!
Mr. Cheese. For a good long time, too.
Next, he starts stealing lines from “The Godfather.”
“If I can help you down the line. I’m not saying I can, but sometimes I could help you probably more than I could help myself or somebody in my own family because I’m, ah ...”
Because you’re the Cheeseman!
Somewhere in Nahant, Gennaro Angiulo is weeping. Somewhere in Europe, Whitey Bulger is laughiing
