Shooting Mobster's Sister A Departure From Tradition

NEW YORK - The shooting of a mob turncoat's sister appears to be a radical departure from the Mafia tradition of sparing members' wives, children and other female relatives.

Patricia Capazzalo, 38, was shot in the back and neck and seriously wounded yesterday by two masked men who fired into her car. Capazzalo, who is married and has three children, had just returned home after driving her son to school.

"I know of no other case where a woman relative of a Mafia guy was the primary target in a shooting like this," said criminologist Howard Abadinsky, author of the textbook "Organized Crime."

Capazzalo is the sister of Peter "Fat Pete" Chiodo, a former capo in the Lucchese crime family who became a government witness after he was wounded in a mob hit last May.

Chiodo is one of several mob informers who may testify against John Gotti, the reputed Gambino crime family boss on trial in Brooklyn. He also could be a prime witness in the trials of his Lucchese superiors.

Police Inspector Edward Cappello said the only apparent motive for shooting Capazzalo is her relationship to her brother.

Edward Wright, chief investigator of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force, said the shooting may have been a warning to her brother not to testify.

"Apparently they're sending a message in the Lucchese family to informants: They may be able to protect themselves, but not their relatives," he said.

Abadinsky said the mob's tangled web of kinship ties, not chivalry, explains its rule against harming members' wives or other female relatives.

"If you shoot someone's wife, you might be shooting another guy's sister or cousin," he said.

He said the shooting was more typical of the ruthless Colombian "cocaine cowboys" who began operating in the United States in the 1970s.

"Their attitude toward someone who crossed them was, `If we can't kill you, we'll kill your wife, and if we can't kill her, we'll kill your cousin,' " Abadinsky said.

Chiodo already testified last year in the trial of a group of mobsters accused of fixing prices for windows in city housing projects. But Abadinsky said the shooting probably was an attempt to prevent future Chiodo testimony.

Female relatives of Mafiosi have died violently on occasion, but usually by accident or because of something they did.

The sister of Buffalo boss Stefano Magaddino was killed in 1936 when assassins mistakenly bombed her house, which was next door to her brother's.

The wife of Bonanno family leader Philip "Rusty" Rastelli was gunned down in 1962 after she told federal agents her husband was a drug dealer.

"Trigger Mike" Coppola, an associate of Lucky Luciano, allegedly had his first wife killed in the hospital shortly after she gave birth to their daughter. The woman had overheard Coppola planning a murder and had been called to testify against him.