March 17 (UPI) — A 24-year-old man was taken into custody Saturday morning in connection with the killing three days earlier of Francesco Cali, a reputed boss of New York’s Gambino crime family.
At his home in Brick, N.Y., members of the New York/New Jersey Regional Task Force picked up the Staten Island man, who has been identified by WNBC-TV and the New York Daily News as Anthony Camello. His home was about 50 miles south of the murder scene.
The New York Daily News reported the killing was a non-organized crime, including not involving any Mafia-type feud, and some sort of issue between the killer and Cali is an “angle that is being explored,” a high-ranking NYPD source told the Daily News.
Cali, 53, was shot outside his home in the Todt Hill section of Staten Island on Wednesday night, authorities said.
Cali, who was known as “Franky Boy,” was shot six times and died later at Staten Island University Hospital.
Cali had left his family at the dinner table to investigate a pickup truck that had rammed into Cali’s parked SUV outside his house around 9:15 p.m. The truck driver jumped from the vehicle and opened fire.
The suspect’s fingerprint reportedly was lifted from Cali’s car.
Cali, a native of the Italian island Sicily, served in the organization’s ruling panel for years before replacing Domenico Cefalu in 2015. His wife is the niece of purported mobster John Gambino.
Cali was released after 16 months in federal prison in April 2009 for an extortion scheme.
The killing marked the first murder of a sitting mob boss in New York since the December 1985 hit on Gambino boss Paul “Big Paul” Castellano, who lived in the same neighborhood where Cali was shot.
Outside Sparks Steak House in Midtown, Castellano and his driver were gunned down. He was set up by John G. Gotti who then took over the Gambino family.
Gotti, who was convicted of murder and racketeering in 1992, died of cancer in prison nine years later at the age of 61.
