NEW YORK - A husband and wife who robbed gangland social clubs in the early 1990s - sometimes forcing their victims to drop their pants - were brutally killed for humiliating the mob, a prosecutor said Wednesday at closing arguments at a federal racketeering trial.
“This was not just murder; this was a public execution,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Paige Petersen.
Defense attorney Joseph R. Corozzo Jr., in his closing, argued that the evidence was too weak to prove his client, Dominick “Skinny Dom” Pizzonia, “had anything to do with these murders.”
The jury was expected to begin deliberations on Thursday.
At trial, the Brooklyn jury heard testimony that the couple gambled with their lives by ripping off card games at a Queens social club operated by Pizzonia, then a reputed soldier with the Gambino organized crime family.
Rosemarie Uva, 31, took the wheel of the getaway car, and Thomas Uva, 28, armed with an Uzi submachine gun, stripped patrons of their money and jewelry and made the men drop their pants, witnesses said. Their brazenness earned them the nicknames Bonnie and Clyde and made them the target of a hit prosecutors claim was orchestrated by Pizzonia.
Pizzonia “was very angry, as everybody else was, that these guys had the nerve to go around robbing clubs, like committing suicide,” said a turncoat Gambino capo, Michael “Mikey Scars” DiLeonardo, who earned his nickname because of a childhood dog-bite scar on his face.
The witness claimed then-acting Gambino boss John A. “Junior” Gotti sanctioned the slayings - an allegation Gotti has denied.
Corozzo attacked the government for building its case on the word of admitted killers like DiLeonardo and suggested another crime family - the Bonannos - whacked the Uvas. Lacking eyewitnesses and solid evidence, prosecutors also relied on rumors in Pizzonia's Ozone Park neighborhood, he said.
“There's a heck of a lot of gossip there,” he said. “It doesn't mean anything.”
On Dec. 24, 1992, the Uvas were sitting in their car at a Queens intersection when they were each shot in the back of the head. The car rolled through the intersection and collided with another vehicle before it stopped; police officers found a stash of jewelry with the bloody corpses.
“The Uvas' bodies were left in the street like garbage as a message: Don't disrespect the Gambinos,” Petersen told the jury on Wednesday.
If convicted of racketeering murder, Pizzonia, 65, faces life in prison.
Defense attorney Joseph R. Corozzo Jr., in his closing, argued that the evidence was too weak to prove his client, Dominick “Skinny Dom” Pizzonia, “had anything to do with these murders.”
The jury was expected to begin deliberations on Thursday.
At trial, the Brooklyn jury heard testimony that the couple gambled with their lives by ripping off card games at a Queens social club operated by Pizzonia, then a reputed soldier with the Gambino organized crime family.
Rosemarie Uva, 31, took the wheel of the getaway car, and Thomas Uva, 28, armed with an Uzi submachine gun, stripped patrons of their money and jewelry and made the men drop their pants, witnesses said. Their brazenness earned them the nicknames Bonnie and Clyde and made them the target of a hit prosecutors claim was orchestrated by Pizzonia.
Pizzonia “was very angry, as everybody else was, that these guys had the nerve to go around robbing clubs, like committing suicide,” said a turncoat Gambino capo, Michael “Mikey Scars” DiLeonardo, who earned his nickname because of a childhood dog-bite scar on his face.
The witness claimed then-acting Gambino boss John A. “Junior” Gotti sanctioned the slayings - an allegation Gotti has denied.
Corozzo attacked the government for building its case on the word of admitted killers like DiLeonardo and suggested another crime family - the Bonannos - whacked the Uvas. Lacking eyewitnesses and solid evidence, prosecutors also relied on rumors in Pizzonia's Ozone Park neighborhood, he said.
“There's a heck of a lot of gossip there,” he said. “It doesn't mean anything.”
On Dec. 24, 1992, the Uvas were sitting in their car at a Queens intersection when they were each shot in the back of the head. The car rolled through the intersection and collided with another vehicle before it stopped; police officers found a stash of jewelry with the bloody corpses.
“The Uvas' bodies were left in the street like garbage as a message: Don't disrespect the Gambinos,” Petersen told the jury on Wednesday.
If convicted of racketeering murder, Pizzonia, 65, faces life in prison.
Citizen
Hot Jobs
New! Off the Menu
The Citizens' Say
Post your comment - click hereThere are No comments posted.