Robert Perrino - Botched Execution

Botched Execution

Richard Cantarella told Perrino that he needed to attend a meeting and discuss the case against the Bonanno crime family and the investigation of their infiltration of The New York Post. He accompanied Michael "Mickey Bats" Cardella to a Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, social club owned by Bonanno mob associate Anthony Basile, a relative of Long Island discothèque owner and Lucchese crime family associate Phillip Basile.

As Perrino entered the club, Baldassare Amato, waiting inside the social club, shot Perrino several times in the back of the skull and immediately left with Cardello. Frank Lino was then notified of the completion of the execution and sent over a "clean up team" that consisted of his cousin Robert Lino, Frank Ambrosiano and Anthony Basile. Upon entering the club, the trio were shocked to discover that Perrino was still alive, and one of the team stabbed Perrino to death with an ice pick to the chest. Frank Lino, angered at the botched execution, would later tell Salvatore Vitale in Joey Massino: The Rise and Fall of the Last Godfather, "Tell the guy that did the shooting to make sure that next time that the victim was dead". Perrino's car was later recovered nearby with a parking ticket in the windshield.

According to The Last Godfather, the men wrapped Perrino's corpse in a carpet and drove to a construction company, Commercial Brick, located at 98 Jewett Avenue in Port Richmond, Staten Island owned by Anthony Basile and buried him underneath the cement floor of the store. Several weeks later, one of his limbs was said to have risen up from the floor making the mobsters dig a deeper grave. Years later, Anthony Basile was indicted on drug trafficking charges; Salvatore Vitale and Joseph Massino feared Anthony would become an informant and reveal Perrino's gravesite. His remains were removed from the cement floor and buried again.