Andy Thibault

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Cool Justice 
Repo Man Meets Hit Man
By ANDY THIBAULT, Columnist
Law Tribune Newspapers
March 20, 2006

`The next day, Jack's boss told him to take the car back to Milano .'

A good friend of mine was a rugged amateur boxer in Massachusetts. He fought a three-rounder with Hartford's WBA welterweight champion to be, Marlon Starling, and finished standing up while losing by a decision.

For purposes of this column, my pal will have a pseudonym. He and his family really do not want to meet any associates of a hit man he encountered while working for a bank in the 1980's.

The hit man -- who at the time had not yet pulled off the major job of his career for the Patriarca crime family - is a fellow named Gaetano Milano. Still, Milano was a respected and dutiful solider for the mob. After he did the big job, Milano believed he was in line to a be a capo or boss of a crew of Mafia soldiers.

I saw Milano on trial with seven co-defendants in Hartford's U.S. District Court in 1991. His lawyer, F. Mac Buckley, was on top of his game. Milano had performed the deed by this time, killing Connecticut mob under boss William "The Wild Guy" Grasso with a single shot to the back of the neck in a luxury van -complete with bar and television -- in 1989. Milano had reason to believe Grasso was out to kill him as well, and that was part of the defense.

Grasso had a reputation for robbing drug dealers as an adjunct to his loan-sharking and gambling enterprises in and around Hartford. He was also suspected of several murders.

Milano and several associates picked up Grasso in Wethersfield on the pretext of attending a mob meeting in Worcestor. The ride was late and Grasso was seething with anger. But, he calmed down when Milano gave him a newspaper article about a gambling raid. It can be dangerous to read a newspaper. Grasso lowered his head forward in the front seat, and then, pop, he was dead. They dropped his body in some poison ivy by the Connecticut River in Wethersfield.

The hit was set up during a feud between the Boston and Providence factions of the New England mob. Milano never did become capo. Instead, with the help of informants and astounding wiretaps, he was indicted. The trial featured the first recording ever played in court of a mob initiation ceremony, at the home of Raymond "Junior" Patriarca in Medford, Mass.

My boxing pal - call him Jack -- and I often reminisce about this case. When Jack met Milano, my friend's banker duties including repossessing cars. He was sent to Milano's house in East Longmeadow, Mass. one night. His job was to take a Cadillac away from Milano, about whom he knew little at the time.

Jack secured the car and ultimately drove it way.

"Milano was very friendly and polite," Jack told me. "He offered no resistance to my taking the car."

The next day, Jack's boss told him to take the car back to Milano.

As Milano faced life in prison for killing under boss Grasso, he and Buckley pulled a surprise move. Milano confessed and denounced the mafia, placing himself in grave danger. Buckley said Milano would wear a bulls-eye on his back the rest of his life. Judge Alan Nevas recognized this and sentenced the then 40-year-old father of two to 33 years in prison. With time off for good behavior, Milano could be released at age 67 in 2018.

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