Dominick "Skinny Dom" Pizzonia (11 November 1941–) was a caporegime and hitman in the Gambino crime family of the American Mafia. A ruthless and efficient killer, Pizzonia committed the murders of a couple who robbed various Gambino social clubs in 1992.
Biography[]
Dominick Pizzonia was born on 11 November 1941 to an Italian-American family in Ozone Park, Queens, New York City. He never made it past the eight grade and was illiterate for most of his life, becoming a loanshark and joining the crew of Gambino family capo John Gotti during the 1970s, where he served as the manager and main cook of the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club, Gotti's headquarters. Pizzonia acted as a getaway driver in Gotti's assassination of Gambino boss Paul Castellano and his chauffeur Thomas Bilotti on 16 December 1985, and subsequently supported him in taking over the family. In June 1988, he was ordered to kill associate Frank Boccia for having physically assaulted his mother-in-law, the wife of Gambino capo Anthony Ruggiano, and he had Ruggiano's son Anthony Jr. drive Boccia to his Café Liberty Social Club, where he, Anthony Guerrieri and Alfred DiCongilio were waiting for him. Pizzonia lured him to the back porch of the social club, where he shot him repeatedly in the head; when Boccia wouldn't die, Pizzonia ran back inside the club, reloaded the gun and finished him off, later dumping his body in the Atlantic Ocean. As a reward for this and his role in the Castellano hit, Pizzonia became a made man at a ceremony in December 1988. The irate Pizzonia was immensely infuriated when two Queens thieves, Thomas and Rosemary Uva, robbed his social club in 1992 and made several of his men take off their pants in the process, which he saw as a personal humiliation. After asking for permission to take them out to acting boss John "Junior" Gotti, he and soldier Ronald Trucchio shot the Uvas to death as they sat inside their car on Christmas Eve 1992. He was promoted to capo of Peter Gotti's old crew in 1998, and arrested on loansharking charges three years later, for which he served time in prison. In 2005, he was indicted for the Boccia and Uva murders, and while he wasn't convicted of pulling the trigger in either one, he was found guilty of conspiracy to kill the Uvas in 2007 and sentenced to 15 years in prison, being released in 2019.