The Frank Fiala Murder
Gravano stationed Nicholas in a car parked around the corner from the Plaza Suite. He had a shotgun. If anyone in the group that normally accompanied Fiala drew a gun, he was to start shooting. His friend Michael DeBatt was positioned by his usual post as bouncer by the front door of the night club. After Frank Faila was murdered and pandemonium erupted out front of The Plaza Suite, Sammy had a getaway car stationed up the street. Down at the corner Nicholas had his shotgun ready but Fiala's people were in total shock. They did nothing. After the shooting, Nicholas and the other trigger men assembled at Joseph (Stymie) D'Angelo's bar, Doc's. Gravano congratulated Mormando, his friend DeBatt and the others on a "beautiful piece of work." Since this was not a sanctioned murder by their boss Paul Castellano, it could not go down that Mormando could be eligible to become a "made man" in the Gambino crime family for his involvement.
He was never indicted or convicted for being accessory to the murder of James Faila. After the murder of Faila, Castellano was angry. He had Mormando, DeBatt and the others stay up at his New Jersey farm to lie low. After hearing the news that Castellano might order their executions over the unsanctioned murder, when given the chance by Sammy to leave, Mormando said, "Sammy, we'll load up. We're ready." He earned the nickname "Cowboy" because he was known to perform criminal acts on his own without knowledge of Sammy Gravano or the Gambino crime family which was against the regulations.
Read more about this topic: Nicholas Mormando
Famous quotes containing the words frank and/or murder:
“Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks;
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.”
—Anonymous. Late 19th century ballad.
The quatrain refers to the famous case of Lizzie Borden, tried for the murder of her father and stepmother on Aug. 4, 1892, in Fall River, Massachusetts. Though she was found innocent, there were many who contested the verdict, occasioning a prodigious output of articles and books, including, most recently, Frank Spiering’s Lizzie (1985)
“One can endure everything except hunger. If I were a man, maybe I would have committed murder to fill my stomach. But as a woman, I became a prostitute.”
—“Manju” (b. c. 1973)