Gerard Pappa - As A Legitimate Businessman

As A Legitimate Businessman

As an adult he was a ruthless businessman, he would murder someone for being late in paying back borrowed money just to teach a lesson to enhance his reputation. He became involved with the Local 580 of the Architectural and Ornamental Ironworkers Union and began working on construction and renovation jobs. It was later discovered by federal investigators that Arista Windows was one of the companies that dominated the public sector of the industry from 1978 to 1990, after Pappa was murdered and the ring was dismantled, that the New York Housing Authority (NYCHA) alone granted $191 million in window replacement contracts. Along with the other mobsters involved, he imposed a $1 to $2 per window charge on most public and some private window replacement contracts in the city. He forced competitors to employ 580 local members at the highest rate, while members involved in the cartel were allowed to use non-union members to whom he paid low wages to. He was treacherous and paranoid, Pappa was a particularly dangerous man. Gerard owned many businesses including a window repair and installing firm, Arista Windows with mob associate and Lucchese crime family stool pigeon Peter Savino located at 99 Scott Avenue at the corner of Randolph Street and Scott Avenue in English Kills, Brooklyn. He later became involved in the extortion of public housing construction firms. While his company's building was being renovated in the Spring of 1980, Pappa murdered two men there and buried their corpses in the cement foundation. The two men were Ralph Spero, the uncle of Angelo Sepe who was a capo in the Colombo crime family and mob associate Richard Scarcella, a hoodlum who had insulted and bullied everyone he came in contact with, including Gerard. Pappa had such disdain for Scarcella that he made sure he was buried in concrete just below where the toilet bowl was installed, so that every time someone urinated or emptied their bowels it would be directly on his face.

The Gambino, Colombo, Genovese and Lucchese families had together created a cartel in 1978, which eventually controlled over $150 million in contracts from the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). The cartel monopolized the industry through Local 580, a Lucchese crime family controlled local of the Iron Workers Union. Through the union, Gerard could solicit bribes, extort payoffs and enforce their monopoly. The cartel worked their controlled industry by charging a tax of approximately $1.00 to $2.00 for almost every window replacement, public and private, sold in New York City.

The extortion and bid rigging of window replacement and renovation contracts in New York City would continue until his Genovese crime family mob associate Peter Savino turned state's evidence and testified against Victor Amuso, Venero Mangano and many other powerful mobsters.