Frank Amato
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (May 2013) |
Frank Amato | |
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Born | c. 1942 truck hijacker, butcher, window salesman |
Allegiance | Gambino crime family |
Frank Amato (
Biography
There is little information available on Frank Amato before his marriage into the Castellano-Gambino-Lucchese blood relative family. Amato was an
Legitimate business career
FBI Special Agent Joseph O'Brien states in Boss of Bosses: The FBI and Paul Castellano that after Amato married Paul Castellano's daughter, Constance, Castellano set Amato up in the legitimate business world as a distributor of Italian ice. Castellano greatly misjudged Amato who did not share the same keen business sense as Castellano and the Italian ice distribution business failed. Castellano put Amato to work as a butcher at his successful Meat Palace, a butcher shop franchise owned by Castellano and his sons. As a butcher employed at Dial Meat Purveyors Inc. and the Meat Market, he was involved in the selling of rancid and expired meat products. Although Amato had little formal school education, he could quarter a lamb with great skill and was knowledgeable about tallow. In Boss of Bosses, Agent O'Brien suggests that at Dial Meat and the Meat Market he was taught by Castellano's men how to bleach tainted, outdated, uninspected meats or meats of a dubious provenance by using a white preservative powder known as "dynamite" that gave the faded, discolored meat a healthy fresh red appearance. Frank was also shown how to drain meat of any foul smelling juices it had accumulated by using formaldehyde and use counterfeit United States Department of Agriculture stamps to assign meats a false grade or expiration date. O'Brien would also state that at Castellano's meat suppliers he would have Amato and fellow butchers carve meat and label it as "beef" that was not always carved from cows and "pork" that was not always carved from pigs.
FBI scrutiny
Because of his involvement in Castellano's stranglehold on the East Coast wholesale meat market and the
Infidelities and divorce from Constance
Although married to Constance, after turning
After he caught Frank having an affair with a fellow co-worker, Paul Castellano became enraged and ordered Amato to move out of the Todt Hill mansion and had him fired from his job as a butcher at Dial Poultry. After being fired, Amato found work at a clothing store in Queens with the help of cousins-in-law Thomas Gambino and Joseph Gambino, the sons of Carlo Gambino, and supplemented his meager income by committing petty burglaries. Constance moved to West Palm Beach, Florida and lived in her father's condominium to overcome her emotional distress.
Constance was granted divorce from Frank in 1973 on grounds of
Mob slaying and aftermath
On September 20, 1980, Amato was lured to the
References
- ISBN 0-451-40387-8.
- ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation (2003). Roy DeMeo FBI Records. Washington, D.C. p. 435.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Crime 'ring' wars Todd Venezia, New York Post (October 18, 2007) Archived August 7, 2022, at the Wayback Machine
- Sun-Sentinel (November 10, 1999) Archived January 24, 2023, at the Wayback Machine
Bibliography
- Murder Machine by Gene Mustain and Jerry Capeci
- Mafia Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the Gambino Crime Family by John H. Davis
- Contemporary Issues in Organized Crime by Jay S. Albanese
- Boss of Bosses: The Fall of the Godfather, The FBI and Paul Castellano by Joseph F. O'Brien and Andris Kurins