Mobster ‘Fat Pete’ Chiodo is shot 12 times but lives as Mafia assassination goes awry on Staten Island in 1991

Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso was on the warpath, looking to permanently silence Peter “Fat Pete” Chiodo, his onetime right hand man who he feared had turned rat.

The final act of this organized crime drama would play out on a spring morning at a service station in Fort Wadsworth.

But it wouldn’t go the way Casso planned.

GASPIPE’S RISE AND FALL

One of the most notorious killers in Mafia history, Casso claimed to have taken part in anywhere from 15 to 36 murders, including attempts on the life of Gambino crime boss John Gotti.

Casso’s goodfella father had also been called “Gaspipe,” thanks to his penchant for bludgeoning victims with a pipe, according to “Five Families,” a book on mob history by former New York Times investigative reporter Selwyn Raab.

A career criminal, Casso by 1989 was underboss, or second in command, to Lucchese crime family chieftain Vittorio Amuso.

Amuso had been placed at the head of the family by former boss Anthony “Tony Ducks” Corralo, who’d been indicted in the famous “Mafia Commission” case.

The deal that elevated Amuso, and Casso along with him, was brokered at the Staten Island home of top Lucchese gangster Christopher “Christie Ticks” Furnari.

Amuso and Casso enjoyed a bloody and lucrative run at the top, but by 1990, the feds were closing in.

Casso had been tipped off by a law enforcement source on his payroll that he, Amuso and others in the Genovese, Colombo and Gambino crime families were about to be indicted in the “Windows” racketeering case.

The charges involved the Mafia’s bid-rigged control of window replacements in city housing projects.

Casso and Amuso decided to go on the lam and made Alfonse D’Arco, known as “the Professor” for his bespeckled and non-threatening appearance, acting Lucchese boss.

But Casso and Amuso continued to direct family business while on the run, including ordering hits on rivals.

‘KILL FAT PETE’

In spring of 1991, Raab wrote, Casso ordered a killing that stunned D’Arco: the murder of Lucchese capo and Staten Islander Peter “Fat Pete” Chiodo “who had been Casso’s right hand for years.”

The 435-pound Chiodo had been a family enforcer and killer, and was known as one of Casso’s murderous “Angels of Death.”

But Chiodo was jammed up too, facing indictment himself in the “Windows” case as well as being charged in a second case involving Lucchese control of the city painters’ union.

Facing two separate trials, Chiodo decided to plead guilty rather than go on the lam, hoping to be paroled in 10 years instead of serving life in the slammer.

But Chiodo committed the unpardonable mob offense of failing to ask Casso and Amuso for permission to plead guilty.

The bosses were infuriated. Believing that Chiodo had turned informant, Casso gave the order: “Kill Fat Pete.”

HAIL OF BULLETS

Knowing that he was being hunted, Chiodo, 40, stayed close to his home on Overlook Terrace in Grasmere.

But D’Arco had had mob technicians tap Chioco’s home phone and learned that Chiodo planned to go to into hiding until his sentencing date.

Before leaving town on May 8, 1991, Chiodo went to Pellicano’s service station, at the corner of Fingerboard Road and Bay Street in Fort Wadsworth, to get a new fanbelt for his white Cadillac.

Chiodo and his father pulled up to Pellicano’s at about 3:42 p.m. Chiodo opened the hood of his Cadillac.

Three shooters who’d been lying in wait approached Chiodo. One of the would-be killers used a black ski jacket to hide his weapon, the Advance reported.

Seeing the hitmen, Chiodo pulled his own gun and fired before running for cover. The hitmen then let out with a fusillade of bullets, including from a .38-caliber pistol and a 9mm handgun.

Chiodo was hit a reported 12 times, including in the chest, stomach, legs and arms. Bullets also lodged in a car and a truck parked at the service station and hit two neighboring homes as well.

“I happened to see that the man fell and when he got up, he was in a pool of blood,” one eyewitness told cops. “I thought they were like, fooling around. But they weren’t. It was real.”

“Nothing like this has ever happened here,” said a neighborhood woman, who told the Advance that one of the bullets meant for Chiodo had come flying through her upstairs bedroom window.

The shooters ditched a car they’d used, a blue Chevrolet Caprice, at the corner of School Road and Tompkins Avenue, the Advance reported. The car had been reported stolen in Brooklyn two months earlier.

Chiodo’s estranged wife, Filomena, arrived on the scene of the attempted rubout right after the shooting but left immediately, the Advance reported.

Chiodo was taken to St. Vincent’s Medical Center in West Brighton, where eight hours of emergency surgery saved his life.

Surgeons would later say that Chiodo’s huge girth saved him from death as none of the bullets that struck him was able to penetrate far enough to damage any vital organs.

But the mob wasn’t done with Fat Pete yet.

A Lucchese hitman disguised as a doctor, accompanied by a mob-friendly nurse, later tried to sneak into Chiodo’s hospital room to finish the job, but was run off by FBI agents.

TURNCOATS

Chiodo later testified against his mob cohorts at the “Windows” trail after the Luccheses broke mob protocol and threatened his parents and other family members. Chiodo’s uncle would later be murdered and his sister shot and seriously wounded.

Chiodo joined his family in the Witness Protection Program and died of natural causes in January 2016.

After running afoul of Amuso, Casso too turned government witness. Among his revelations was that NYPD Detectives Stephen Carracapa and Louis Eppolito were on his payroll and had taken part in murder contracts and other illegal activities for the mob. The two detectives would later be dubbed “The Mafia Cops.”

Casso was later thrown out of witness protection for various infractions and was sentenced to 455 years in jail without parole. He died of COVID-19-related complications on Dec. 15, 2020, at the age of 78.

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