Friends like these...

In the last battle of the bloody three-year internal Colombo family war that had already claimed 11 lives, the Carmine Persico faction was so depleted that junior wannabe gangsters were sent to whack a rival capo, traditionally a task for made men.

Joe ScopoThe youngsters appeared appeared to have done everything right -- killing big, tough Joseph Scopo, wounding a nephew and his future son-in-law and escaping into the cool night of Oct. 20, 1993 without a scratch. But boys will be boys and they were soon waving around their big guns and shooting off their bigger mouths and on a path to the grave or a life behind bars, according to recent testimony in Brooklyn Federal Court.

The day after the hit, Eric Curcio was bubbling with joy when he visited Dino Basciano, a Red Hook, Brooklyn buddy, who testified at the murder and racketeering trial of John Pappa.

"He was hugging me, kissing me, telling me, 'The war is over. I got the guy,'" said Basciano, who said that Curcio, Pappa and John Sparacino all bragged to him how they had gunned down Scopo.


Pappa, 24, the only one still living, is charged with murdering Scopo as well as his pals, Curcio and Sparacino and a fourth young hoodlum, in 1993 and 1994. Calvin Hennigar, 26, is also charged in the Sparacino murder. Both are charged with dealing marijuana and cocaine in Brooklyn and Staten Island.

The braggadocio and boasting was the young hoodlums' attempt to obtain credit and respect from their cohorts and Colombo family leaders, according to assistant U.S. attorneys Stephen Kelly and Amy Walsh.

About eight months after Scopo was killed, Sparacino told Basciano about his role in the murder one night as Pappa and Curcio were leaving Basciano's social club. Sparacino threw a disgusted look at them and sneered: "They think they're a bunch of tough guys. They ain't shit. They're a bunch of punks. Remember the Scopo murder. I'm the one, I did the shooting and those two punks left me there."

After the club emptied out, Basciano, found Pappa and Curcio and told them what Sparacino had said. Their version was that Sparacino had driven off, and that after killing Scopo they had to Scopo's Carrun three long blocks from the crime scene in front of Scopo's Ozone Park home to a backup getaway car --the same scenario painted by prosecutors.

"Eric looked shocked. Pappa's face turned beet red. He turned around .... and said, 'That mother fucker, I'm going to rip his heart out.' Pappa was going nuts, and I just got in the truck and left," said Basciano.

Curcio and Pappa got Hennigar to lure Sparacino to his house on Aug. 13, 1994 and killed him before Curcio and Pappa could get there, according to testimony from another former cohort, Joseph Iborti.

This is a case where nobody could keep their mouths shut; Iborti's testimony was based on what Hennigar and Pappa told him.

Cakvin Hennigar"He (Hennigar) pulled out the gun and shot him in the back of the head," Iborti said, extending his hands in front of his face and squeezing his trigger finger, the way Hennigar described the murder to him. Pappa then "told me how they cut his face and tried to pull it off," Iborti testified, moving his hand back and forth in a sawing motion around his own face.

Sparacino's mother Rose, who has been in the courtroom the entire trial, began weeping during Iborti's gruesome descriptions. Judge Raymond Dearie called a recess. As the jury and Sparacino's sobbing mother left the courtroom, tears streamed down Iborti's face. Before resuming trial, Dearie advised Sparacino to spare herself the agony of more testimony, but allowed her to stay after she agreed to sit in the back and leave if things got too rough for her.

"I think we have to give her one chance, we owe that to her," Dearie told defense lawyers Michael Bachner and Michael Hurwitz, who complained that further outbursts would prejudice the jury.

"I have to stay," Sparacino said during a recess. "My son is dead and I need to hear about it. These were friends of his that ate at my table."

Her son's body was found shot, mutilated and burned two days after he was executed.

That same year, Iborti testified, he was driving Pappa on his drug route when Pappa told him that he was going to kill Curcio because he was trying to take all the credit.

"I killed Joe Scopo, I did all the work," Pappa complained, Iborti testified. Pappa told him he was going to walk into Curcio's auto body shop in Red Hook and kill him.

John PappaOn Oct. 5, 1994, a laughing and giggling Pappa (right) telephoned Iborti and asked why Iborti hadn't called and told him that their friend had been killed the day before before describing how he had made good on his vow to kill Curcio.

"He started making the sounds of gunshots on the phone," said Iborti, placing his right hand next to his ear in the shape of a telephone and imitating the sound of machine gun fire. "'Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom,' then he'd stop for a second, start laughing, and do it all over again, 'boom boom boom boom boom boom.' "

Asked to describe what was going through his mind at the time, Iborti said: "This guy's nuts."

If convicted, Pappa and Hennigar face life. Early on, prosecutors were considering seeking the death penalty for Pappa.



Who Needs Friends.