Dominick Cirillo - Early Life

Early Life

Cirillo was born in East Harlem on July 4, 1929 to Colombo crime family caporegime of Neapolitan-Italian Alphonse Cirillo who served as a made man under Joseph Magliocco when it was the Profaci crime family. Alphonse was a first generation Italian-American immigrant from Potenza, Basilicate, Italy. In 1961, his father Alphonse was implicated in the attempted murder of Lawrence Gallo, a brother of fellow Profaci crime family soldier Joseph Gallo. Alphonse, Carmine Persico and Salvatore D'Ambrosio were the suspected attempted murderers, but Gallo refused to cooperate and no one was charged in the attack. His father died of unknown causes sometime before 1963 when Dominick was very young but was later made infamous after he was one of the hundreds of organized crime figures named in the testimony of mob turncoat Joseph Valachi. His father Alphonse through his lifetime had succeeded in never being arrested for a single criminal act except for "criminally receiving" as an early 1960s era organized crime mob family chart had stated. He is the brother of Gaetano "Wheeg" Cirillo and the father-in-law to mob associate John Caggiano. Dominick grew up on East 117th Street in East Harlem and as a teenager dropped out of Benjamin Franklin High School. He was an amateur boxer who boxed at neighborhood youth clubs and briefly pursued a career as a professional middleweight boxer. He was a husky man who stands at 5'10" and grew to be almost 200 pounds by the 1990s. He was a close personal friend and criminal partner of Vincent Gigante from a young age, who would later become heir to the Genovese crime family of which Dominick served in. Mob soldier Frank "Frank California" Condo and Frederico Giovanelli often laughed at Dominick's choice of clothing attire that was said to be reminiscent of Emmett Kelly's clown suits.

In 1949, Dominick who at the time was a twenty-year-old welterweight was knocked out in three matches and had one match drawn before retiring. In 1953, at the age of twenty three he pled guilty to overlooking a clandestine heroin trafficking ring that was said to have grossed up to $20,000 a day. For his drug trafficking conviction he served nearly four years in Federal Correctional Institution, Milan in Milan, Michigan before returning to East Harlem. Between 1958 and 1965, he was arrested four times for consorting with known criminals, which were all later dismissed. He is married to an Italian-American woman named Bella who bore him two children, Nicholas Cirillo and Anne Marie. His son disappeared after leaving his home to buy compound. It is alleged that he was murdered by Vincent Basciano, Jr., the son of Vincent Basciano and Dominick Cacale at a real estate office in Pelham Bay. It was believed by law enforcement that Dominick would avenge the alleged murder and disappearance of his son, but The New York Daily News would later report that Dominick was unhappy with his son for being convicted of minor drug offenses over the years. On December 4, 2004 Randolph Pizzolo who allegedly bragged about his role in the murder and disappearance of Nicholas was found shot to death. Whenever fellow criminal associates would want to mention Cirillo's name they used an adapted clandestine sign language where they put put their finger to their lips which would mean that they were discussing Dominick. He claimed to be a retired construction worker and said to live off of $510 a month in social security checks. He lived in the Country Club section of the northeast Bronx, near Pelham Bay Park and Eastchester Bay.