Online Reporter
BOSTON. – Wearing nothing more than boxer shorts and a bathrobe, Mafia hitman Anthony Arillotta was asked “which trigger finger do you shoot with?”
The big time drug dealer from Massachusetts in the United States was about to become a “made man” as a reward for shooting a union boss nine times in 2003.
But while this secret ceremony is depicted in the movies as the ultimate moment for a gangster, Arillotta felt it meant his “life was over”.
That’s because he had spoiled his “beautiful life” of wine, women and private jets by becoming a killer.
Arillotta, who tells The Sun he’d “participated in several murders”, later plotted to bump off his mentor Adolfo ‘Big Al’ Bruno and his brother-in-law Gary D Westerman in the same year.
Both hits were organised with his feared enforcer Fotios “Freddy” Geas
These were not the type of men you wanted to cross.
When Geas’s bullet to Westerman’s head wasn’t fatal, Arillotta finished him off with a blow from a shovel.
Two years ago Geas was jailed for bludgeoning notorious gangster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger, who was portrayed by Johnny Depp in the movie Black Mass, to death for being a “rat.”
But Arillotta, 57, who became a witness for the prosecution against the mob, regretted taking those lives.
In an exclusive interview he says: “Prior to me getting made in the Mafia I was a multi-millionaire and the life was so beautiful.
“Life is beautiful until you kill somebody. Once you kill somebody your life is over – you don’t sleep the same way you used to.”
Salad days
Arillotta, from Springfield in Massachusetts, could have followed his “hard-working” dad into a grape and vegetable business.
But he is honest enough to admit that he didn’t fancy the routine of getting up at “four or five in the morning” and returning home at 6pm.
He says: “I just liked the street life, the easy money when it came down it. I didn’t like the hard back-breaking work like he did.”
Arillotta started off by getting involved with gambling on sport, loan-sharking and then dealing cannabis. He was sent to jail in 1990 for a firearms offence and made “lots of connections” while inside before getting out the following year.
Superstar dealer
The ex-gangster continues: “When I got out of prison I got heavily involved in the marijuana business and crack cocaine started to get big.”
He preferred shifting cannabis because he was unlikely to suffer jail time if he was caught in possession of the banned drug.
It made him so rich he lived like a “superstar.”
Arillotta says: “I became a millionaire at a very young age mostly due to the marijuana. I had a wife, a beautiful wife.
“I had beautiful girlfriends, it was non-stop beautiful women. The money I had, I could do anything I wanted. I could rent a private jet. I might rent the nicest house in the Bahamas. Drinking the best liquor, the best cigars, it was the best of the best and it was 24/7.
“You were living like a superstar. Everywhere you went, because the Mafia was so powerful, it was such a powerful organisation that you had that reputation of being in the Mafia, so everybody wants to treat you like you’re royalty.”
But the Mafia did not approve of drug dealing and between 1996 and 1998 he was thrown out of the criminal organisation.
He says: “The mob got mad at me, they were looking to kill me, because there is a rule you’re not supposed to deal drugs.”
Killing spree
Eventually, Arillotta managed to smooth things over and members of the Genovese gang were allowed to associate with him again.
The deeper he got into the violent enterprise the more dangerous it was.
Arillotta remembers: “There was one altercation – we ended up shooting three guys, stabbing them, hitting them with clubs, ice picks – that happened in 2003. “My house was shot with 25 bullets after that. So, I had shoot-outs. We shot a guy in the middle of the street with an AK47, shooting the car.
“In the streets of New York, we participated in several murders.”
They included the attempted slaying of union boss Frank Dadabo in New York City in May 2003.
Arillotta says: “Me and two associates went there and shot the union boss nine times. Because of that shooting that’s when I got inducted five months later.”
Blood brothers
Before the ceremony he had to strip down to his underpants to make sure wasn’t wearing a wire.
He was given a dressing gown and stood in front of Genovese clan bosses, who put a needle in his trigger finger. They then burned the tissue with the blood on it as he accepted an oath that “if we tell you to kill, you will kill.”
It wasn’t long before that promise to his “brothers” was put to the test.
The first to die was police informant Westerman, who Arillotta dug the grave for with Emilio Fusco in 2003 before Geas shot him in the head.
Next up was his “cousin on my mother’s side” Bruno, who had taken Arillotta under his wing and twice proposed, unsuccessfully, that he should be a “made man”. Bruno, who became the head of the Genovese operation in Springfield in 2001, was to be replaced by Arillotta. The promotion came with a steep price – killing his mentor.
Arillotta recalls: “I got called down by the bosses in New York. They said, okay, we have to kill Al Bruno. He got caught talking to the FBI, so we want you to take care of this.”
Three weeks after Westerman was put in the ground, Bruno was shot fives times by paid hit man Frankie Roche as he left his regular Sunday night card game in November 2003.
Turning on his crew
The result of all this bloodshed was a fear of a life spent behind bars. When he was finally arrested for the murder of Bruno and Westerman seven years later, Arillotta decided to become a prosecution witness in order to massively reduce his jail time.
In 2011 and 2012 he gave evidence in trials against Fusco, Geas, his brother Ty Geas, and his former Genovese clan boss, Arthur ‘Artie’ Nigro, who were all given life sentences for murder.
Arillotta was jailed for 99 months for admitting his part in the murders, drug trafficking and extorting bars, restaurants and strip clubs.
He was offered a place in the federal Witness Security Program, but in 2017 he opted to return to his home town under his real identity where started up a business called Pazzo Wine.
It was a brave move because Geas hates informants so much that he killed Whitey Bulger, a multiple killer turned FBI spy, as he sat in his wheelchair in 2018. Arillotta says: “They offered me witness protection. I have all my children. I wasn’t going to just not come back to them, so I refused that.”
Having now gone straight he thinks his dad would have been proud of him.
He concludes: “It would make him proud, the fact I’m no longer committing illegal acts. I’m in the legitimate business world.” – Sun Club
Mathew Masinge