Goodfella with bad manners

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — One look at Anthony Antico sitting at the defense table and you swear he was born to be on trial for something.

By the way the 74-year-old Genovese family capo throws up his hands and mouths, “So what?” to a bugged phone conversation played back in court Monday afternoon, it’s a cinch the old goat is a natural.

When U.S. District Judge Carol Amon gathered jurors last week for pretrial instructions at Brooklyn federal court, where “Tico” is on trial for racketeering and robbery in the murder of Grasmere jeweler Louis Antonelli, Tico occupied himself by burying every knuckle in his nostrils one at a time as if he were digging for Jimmy Hoffa.

Then he treated the courtroom to a matinee by licking his fingers.

Tico’s family said later that he was giving the jury a nose-picking show because he is “stressed” and the pressure of the trial is causing his nose to bleed.

Stress? Since when do mobsters show stress during a trial? Can’t a wiseguy pick his nose in court simply because he has the couth of an orangutan?

After all, they don’t also call Tico “Big Nose” for nothing.

No, Tico can relax, at least according to his lawyers.

Those federal racketeering conspiracy, robbery and weapons charges are bogus, Tico’s attorneys say, because Tico was nowhere near the El Sabor Tropical restaurant in West Brighton April 29, 2008, when Louie the Jeweler took two bullets in the chest.

Antonelli, who sold his jewelry at Tico’s social club in Brooklyn, died about a week later.

Prosecutors say Tico ordered the robbery of Antonelli because the jeweler wasn’t making his tribute payments.

Such is life when you make your living selling bling-bling to the mob. Mobsters love their bling even more than they love giving shiny gems to their wives and goombahs.

So much so, that when Louie the Jeweler showed up carrying cases of gold and silver rings, bracelets and necklaces made out of diamonds, rubies and sapphires, it should have been Louie’s pleasure to sell them all the bling they wanted and then kick the money back to Tico and the other higher-ups as tribute for sharing their space.

And by the tone of one wiretapped phone conversation between Tico and Antonelli, all was well at the social club in 2006 — even though Tico was calling from prison at the time.

“Miss you very much,” Tico told Louie the Jeweler without a trace of a hint that there was a problem.

Then Grant City role models Charles Santiago and Joseph Gencarelli showed up at El Sabor Tropical two years later and Louie the Jeweler was a memorial tribute.

Some robbery that turned out to be.

Although jewelry appraiser and prosecution witness Stacy Seger estimated that Antonelli was carrying about $250,000 worth of jewelry at the time, Santiago and Gencarelli skedaddled from the scene of the crime empty-handed.

Oh, sure, cooperating rats like Salvatore (Sally Fish) Maniscalco and Colombo wiseguy Michael (Mickey) Souza leap-frogged each other to cut deals with the feds and get on the stand to finger Tico as the guy who gave the order to rob Antonelli.

But there was no robbery.

It’s iffy to claim there was even an attempted robbery.

Prosecutors say Santiago shot Louie the Jeweler with Gencarelli at his side while Sally Fish, John (Wizzie) DeLutro and Anthony Pica stood lookout.

The other witness, Antonelli’s bodyguard, Joseph Aiello, killed himself a couple of months later. Now he’s too dead to get up on the stand and say whether he was the one who actually set up Louie the Jeweler for the hit.

That’s a tough robbery conviction to pin on Tico.

But all bets are off if the old coot starts picking his nose again.

Source: blog.silive.com

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