John D'Amato (13 June 1940-6 January 1992) was an American mobster who served as acting boss of the DeCavalcante crime family from 1990 to 1992, succeeding Gaetano Vastola and preceding Gioacchino Amari.
Biography[]
John D'Amato was born in New York City in 1940, and he was arrested on gambling charges in 1963, for burglary in 1971, and for forgery in 1984. He became a caporegime in the DeCavalcante crime family during the 1980s and became involved in large labor and construction racketeering operations for the family's Elizabeth faction. He stepped up as acting boss of the family during Giovanni Rigi's trial in 1990, and he conspired with John Gotti and Sammy Gravano to assassinate Gaetano Vastola and take full control of the New Jersey mob. However, the Genovese crime family refused to approve the hit, which did not go ahead. Vastola was instead arrested in 1990 and convicted of major extortion charges. In 1991, D'Amato's girlfriend brought about his downfall by telling Anthony Rotondo that D'Amato was bisexual, and this accusation, together with D'Amato's supposed usurpation and stealing from the family, led Gioacchino Amari and Stefano Vitabile to seek D'Amato's death. In November 1991, Vitabile authorized D'Amato's murder.
On 6 January 1992, D'Amato was shot by Anthony Capo in the back seat of a car while being driven from his girlfriend's house in Brooklyn to a lunch venue. D'Amato's body was wrapped in plastic at Rudy Ferrone's Mill Basin home before beign loaded into a black Cadillac, driven upstate, and disposed of at a farm in Newburgh.