Tino Fimara was so feared in the criminal underworld that fellow mobsters reportedly refused to say his name out loud. They simply called him “T” or “the good-looking guy. ”
The Genovese crime family heavyweight built his terrifying reputation years before he became a top-ranked mobster. Born in New Jersey, Fimara began his criminal career as an associate of the Philadelphia Bruno crime family, and it was during that period that his reputation for ferocious violence took shape.
In 1959, at just 18 years old, Fimara was arrested after allegedly stabbing a motorist during an argument over double parking. The victim, 22-year-old Nicholas Berita, was stabbed twice and slashed after his car was boxed in by a vehicle parked on the wrong side of the street. Berita appeared to die at St. James’s Hospital, but after a 50-minute heart massage, his pulse returned.
Fimara was held on a charge of atrocious assault and battery. Four years later, in 1963, while out on parole, Fimara was charged with slashing a Weehawken man on the neck following a minor auto accident. The case was scheduled for November 10, according to police. Throughout the late 1960s, stories of Fimara’s killings circulated through the criminal underworld.
Undercover state trooper Bob Delaney later wrote that Fimara was reputed to have strangled a rival with piano wire in Paterson. In 1969, it was said that Fimara brutally battered Robert Harris with a baseball bat before shooting him to death. Mafia lore even claims that Fimara drove around with Harris’s corpse on display to rival criminals, sending a message that bookmaking in northern New Jersey belonged to the Italians. Journalist Jerry Capeci wrote that Harris, 49, was found shot to death with his feet tied to the back of his head in a garbage dump in Kearny three months after he disappeared.
His skull was crushed, his spine was broken, and nine ribs on his left side were fractured. A law enforcement source said confidential informants reported that Fimara had done it and drove the body around to make sure everyone knew the family was serious about controlling bookmaking in New Jersey. There were also rumors that Fimara once killed a man and cut out his heart. Federal prosecutors said Fimara was linked to four murders in the late 1960s, though he was never charged in any of those cases.
But it was a triple homicide in 1967 that perhaps cemented Fimara’s fearsome legend. On October 14, 1967, brothers Pasquale and Nicholas Cavicchi, along with Peter Martell, were gunned down in a Newark bar. Authorities believed the killings were connected to a labor union dispute. The three victims were each shot in the head at close range with a .
38 caliber pistol and found lying on the floor of the tavern early Saturday morning. Martell, 35, was co-owner of Club 309. Pasquale Cavicchi, a hiring agent for Mars Diving Inc. , and his brother Nicholas, 42, were both linked to longshoreman work.
Police speculated there was a connection between the slayings and a wildcat strike over longshoreman hiring practices that had ended the previous week. An autopsy showed Nicholas Cavicchi was shot once in the back of the head and once in the chest. Pasquale Cavicchi was shot twice in the left side of the head, and Martell was shot twice in the left side of the head and cut across the forehead, apparently by a gun butt, indicating a struggle. All three men appeared to have been shot with the same .
38 caliber pistol, pointing to a single shooter. Authorities quickly identified Fimara and another man, Richard Santos, as persons of interest. Santos later turned himself in to the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office along with his attorney. Both he and Fimara had been named in arrest warrants issued on October 20.
Santos was later killed himself, with many pointing the finger at Fimara. All of these shootings remain officially unsolved. However, in 1969, the FBI recorded a conversation in which Banano crime family mobster Joe Zicarelli and Bruno crime family mobster Joseph “Scoop” Lata discussed Fimara killing the three men. Lata allegedly linked Fimara to the murders of the Cavicchi brothers and Martell at the 309 club in Newark on October 14, 1967.
Lata referred to Fimara as “the kid” and “Tino” and said he whacked the three in a bar. One mobster shooting three individuals in a single hit is rare in mob history and solidified Fimara’s fearsome legend. Interesting twist: Vincent Cavicchi, brother of the slain Cavicchi brothers, was a powerful union figure. Despite rumors that Fimara had killed his brothers, Vincent Cavicchi would eventually work for Fimara and later stand trial with him for union corruption.
Fimara would go on to leave the Philadelphia crime family after a dispute with powerful mobster Anthony “Tony Bananas” Caponigro and move to the Genovese crime family, where he was inducted in 1976. He rose swiftly through the ranks and was later touted as a possible candidate for boss of the family.