Sammy “the Bull” Gravano, the former Gambino crime family underboss, has described a heated confrontation with Colombo crime family acting boss Andrew “Mush” Russo during the mid-1980s over the killing of a Gravano associate. Gravano said the beef began after Joseph “Stimy” D’Angelo, an associate of Gravano’s, was shot and killed by Anthony Frezza, an associate of the Colombo family. Gravano wanted Frezza dead. According to Gravano, the dispute led to a sit-down.
Gambino boss Paul Castellano sent Gravano and Frankie DeCicco to meet with Russo, who was acting boss of the Colombo family at the time while his cousin, official boss Carmine Persico, was incarcerated. During the meeting, Russo asked Gravano to hold off on the hit because Frezza owed him $90,000 and he wanted to collect the debt first. Gravano recalled losing his temper despite instructions to let DeCicco do the talking. “You’re worried about the 90 [expletive] thousand dollars?
I lost my brother. This scumbag killed my brother,” Gravano said he told Russo. Gravano then offered a deal: “Give me him, and I’ll give you the 90,000. ” When Russo asked what Gravano planned to do, Gravano said he would kill Frezza and chop his body into pieces to scatter across Brooklyn as a warning about killing one of his people.
Russo pushed back, saying Frezza was staying in a house with legitimate people. Gravano said he did not care who Frezza was with, and that he would kill him wherever he found him. Russo then turned to DeCicco, asking if he was hearing the same threats, noting Frezza could be with “a friend of ours. ” DeCicco backed Gravano, saying they would kill Frezza and anyone with him.
DeCicco then left the meeting. Gravano said Frezza was later killed “on a sneak” and buried on a beach in Staten Island. He said he later served time with men involved in the killing, who told him what happened. According to Gravano, Greg Scarpa Sr.
, a Colombo family hit man, lured Frezza out of a house where the occupants were not home, shot him in the chest, and another man, Mario Parrow Greco, strangled him to finish him off. Greco and others buried the body. Gravano said the men told him the Colombo family deliberately killed Frezza in a way that denied him the satisfaction of carrying out the brutal revenge he had threatened. Gravano also discussed Russo’s ties to the entertainment industry, claiming Russo brought actor James Caan to meet Carmine Persico so that Persico could give his blessing for Caan to land the role of Sonny Corleone in “The Godfather.
”
Gravano said the meeting was largely a formality, as Caan was going to get the part anyway, but Russo made it seem as if the favor was owed to him. He added that Russo became godfather to Scott Caan, James Caan’s son, and that the family used connections to exert pressure on the production. Russo, who was inducted into the Colombo family in early 1976 at age 41, served as acting boss during the 1980s and was considered by some sources to be the official boss of the family by the time he died in 2022.