Robert "DiB" DiBernardo (31 May 1937 – 5 June 1986) was a member of the Gambino crime family and one of John Gotti's lieutenants. He was the most influential and important mobster in the porn industry during the 1970s and 1980s, and he was responsible for the flooding of Times Square with adult video stores and sex shops. In 1986, while being investigated for distributing child pornography, he was murdered by Sammy Gravano.
Biography[]
Robert DiBernardo was born in Hewlett, Long Island, New York on 31 May 1937, and he became a made man in the Gambino crime family without committing a single murder. During the late 1960s, he bought Star Distributors, a softcore pornography business, and he sold hardcore of all types and media to adult industry businesses around Times Square. The proliferation of such businesses during the 1970s was a symbol of New York City's decline, and hardcore child pornography was openly sold at adult video stores. DiBernardo commissioned the production of much of the Golden Age of Porn's hardcore films made in New York, intimidating rivals out of business or co-opting them into his business. He reported and paid financial tribute directly to Don Paul Castellano, who despised the porn business, but Castellano took a hefty percentage of the returns nonetheless. DiBernardo would be one of the first Gambino mobsters to support Castellano's assassination by John Gotti, and Gotti made DiBernardo a caporegime as a reward.
Death[]
DiBernardo after being shot
By 1986, DiBernardo was being investigated by the federal government for his sale of child pornography, and Angelo Ruggiero claimed that DiBernardo was acting "subversive". Ruggiero claimed that DiBernardo wanted Sammy Gravano to be boss, and Gotti later heard from Gravano that DiBernardo and Gravano talked about hits rather than going to Gotti first. Gotti decided that DiBernardo was subversive and had to be whacked, lest he pose a threat to him. Gravano was tasked with carrying out the murder, but he did so reluctantly, as he could not understand how a powerless man like DiBernardo could pose a threat to Gotti. Ruggiero insisted that DiBernardo had to be killed, and he was lured to the basement offices of Gravano's drywall company on Stilwell Avenue in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Joseph Paruta was told to get DiBernardo a cup of coffee for their "meeting", but he instead retrieved a revolver from a cabinet and shot DiBernardo in the back of the head. DiBernardo's death was profitable for Gravano, who took over DiBernardo's control over Teamsters Local 282.