Daniel (Danny Wagons) Fatico – An Early Mentor to John Gotti

In 1946, Danny Wagons Fatico was charged along with an accomplice for repeatedly stabbing a man named John Minutella in the chest and abdomen and then striking him in the head with a baseball bat after a vicious argument at a card game.

Daniel (Danny Wagons) Fatico - aka “Danny Wagons” “Danny the Head” “Donato Fatico” (TN) - was the younger brother of the notorious Carmine (Charlie Wagon Wheels) Fatico . Danny was born in 1920 in the East New York section of Brooklyn. Early on, the Faticos resided at 160 Mac Dougal Street.

Donato (Danny Wagons) Fatico

Danny was married by 21 years old, and by the mid-1950s they had migrated a few miles east to nearby Queens County. There he bought a home for his young wife and three kids at 85-06 102nd Street in the Ozone Park section, right over the Brooklyn-Queens County border.

Later, they moved again back to a two-family home in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn that they shared with their married daughter and son-in-law.

Over the years, Fatico would always maintain close ties to the old neighborhood, always keeping residences in both areas. Another regular Brooklyn address he resided at was at 92 Schenk Avenue.

The Fatico brothers' faction, led by Carmine, became a major presence in the Brownsville/East New York and Canarsie sections of the borough.

Danny Fatico would eventually become an inducted mafia member as had his brother.

He served as a “soldier” within the Albert Anastasia Family. Years later after Carlo Gambino became boss, Carmine became a “Capo di decina.” With this elevation, Carmine soon also elevated his beloved brother Danny to an “acting captain” in order to watch his back.

The Fatico Regime was to become a very large and active crew that was into nearly everything:

‑ Bookmaking (horses and sports)

‑ Policy numbers

‑ Card and crap games

‑ Shylocking

‑ Truck hijacking

‑ Fencing stolen goods

‑ Armed heists and burglaries

‑ Strong-arm tactics, contract murder

‑ Extortion and shakedowns

‑ Labor union infiltration-corruption

‑ Counterfeit money and credit cards

‑ Narcotics...etc., the list went on and on.

There wasn’t much that this bunch wouldn’t indulge themselves in if there was a handy buck to be made in it.

The Fatico crew would groom and nurture such future top well-known mafiosi as

● Anthony (Fat Andy) Ruggiano Sr.

● John (Johnny Boy) Gotti Sr.

● Eugene (Gene) Gotti

● Angelo (Angie) Ruggiero Sr.

● Salvatore Ruggiero

● John (Johnny Caneg) Carneglia

● Charles (Charlie Caneg) Carneglia

● Anthony (Roach) Rampino

● Wilfred (Willy Boy) Johnson

● Anthony (Tony Lee) Guerrieri

● Michael (Mikey Gal) Guerrieri

● Anthony (Tony Pep) Trentacosta

● Albert Maione

● Salvatore (Sonny Black) Montella

● Lawrence (Baccala) Abbandando

There were many, many other top hoods not named. The reader needs to remember that back in that era the East New York area matched, pound for pound, nearly any other section of the city for density of Italian hoodlums.

They operated out of the notorious Bergin Hunt & Fish Club, a private members-only mob social club the brothers ran in East New York, and by the mid-1960s a second satellite club by the same name they also operated after Carmine bought a home out in West Islip in Suffolk County, Long Island.

Danny, Angelo Ruggiero and the guys

Side Note: With the migration to Queens of so many crew members after their Brooklyn neighborhood’s ethnicity changed, Fatico and John Gotti decided to relocate the original Brooklyn clubhouse to 101st Avenue in the Ozone Park section of Queens as well.

Daniel Fatico’s lengthy arrest record dated to 1941 and included such charges as felonious assault, burglary, bookmaking (13 times), operating dice games, policy, illegal manufacture of alcohol (operating a still), vagrancy, running a disorderly house (prostitution activities), and hijacking.

He received three years probation for an unlawful entry conviction at age 20. Over the next forty years, he would pile up 20 more convictions that included assault, gambling, conspiracy to possess an unregistered still, conspiracy, armed truck hijackings, and fencing truckloads of stolen goods.

Danny Fatico’s 1960s mugshot

But in between all the arrests, the brothers successfully engaged in a veritable supermarket of organized crime.

1946 - Danny was charged along with an accomplice of repeatedly stabbing a man named John Minutella in the chest and abdomen, and then striking him in the head with a baseball bat after a vicious argument at a card game. Fatico was held on $2500 bail on a charge of felony assault.

Also in 1946 - he was nabbed on another attempted felonious assault count for attempting to run down a Michael Mintalli who accused Fatico of deliberately swerving his car and jumping the curb trying to hit Mintalli.

In the mid-1950s Fatico was charged along with several others for operating a 1,000-gallon alcohol still racket out of an abandoned warehouse at Review Avenue in L.I. City. Danny was indicted on federal alcohol tax violations; manufacture, possession, sale, and conspiracy. It was a lively little racket producing big profits until U.S. Treasury Agents crashed the premises and smashed all the liquor vats and Alky-making equipment.

1965 - the Nassau County Police vice squad and U.S. Treasury agents raided a deviant sex bar that catered to homosexuals named The Magic Touch Lounge on Austin Boulevard in Island Park. Nabbed at that time were two men who ran the club, Fatico and John Vignini.

Danny with Joey Scopo (white shirt)

Simultaneously agents swooped up a third suspect, Gambino soldier Eddie DeCurtis off a Lower Manhattan street corner.

They were each charged with multiple misdemeanor counts of keeping a disorderly house, conspiracy to keep a disorderly house, conspiracy to violate federal liquor laws, and disorderly conduct.

After an extremely lengthy criminal case that lasted several years to bring to fruition, all three defendants were convicted on all charges. DeCurtis received a one-year sentence (2 counts) to run concurrently. Danny received a sentence of six months in prison. They were convicted after what turned out to be the longest non-jury trial in Nassau County’s history up to that time. It took over five months to complete before Federal Judge John S. Lockman.

1967 - he was arrested with two others, the top mafioso Ettore (Eddie Dolls) DeCurtis, and an individual later identified as the “Queen Bee”, a term used to describe the popular homosexual man who is able to attract other “gays”, drawing them to an entertainment venue such as an underground bar, restaurant or nightclub.

John (Vicious Vivian) Vignini was that person. Viviani was the “draw” who popularized that location venue.

In a multi-pronged follow-up undercover investigation, the three were indicted on perjury charges in regard to an arson probe after the torching of two competing cocktail lounges that also catered to sexual deviates. The Tradewinds Lounge and the Flame, both located in the nearby town of Oceanside were badly damaged by Molotov cocktails thrown through the business's windows to eliminate them as competition to Fatico and DeCurtis’ own Island Park club.

Side Note: In the late 1970s the Fatico brothers were involved in another major federal case that would later lead to the creation of a very controversial law (named for them), placed on the federal books the government aptly named a “Fatico Charge.”

Mugshot of Carmine Fatico

The crux of this new law was that if prosecutors deemed it appropriate, to apply in certain criminal cases where if was felt that a defendant could be proven to be an “inducted” mafia member, after conviction but before sentencing before the judge, prosecutors could then submit to the court an application to hold a “Fatico Hearing.”

This was a potentially dangerous charge for a defendant to face, because, upon conviction of such a charge, the sentencing judge was then compelled to increase penalties of up to 10 years added to any original sentence he would have handed down...dangerous indeed!

If granted, prosecutors would then use physical surveillance and audiotapes if available, the testimony of mob informers, FBI Agents and police intelligence experts, and rackets squads to get on the witness stand and testify as to a defendant's mafia membership...at that point, it was a complete kangaroo court and a stacked deck against any defendant. These “expert” witnesses were typically taken at their word, and it was usually “curtains” after that when standing before the judge.

In 1977, the feds had brought the above-referenced truck hijacking case which was based out of JFK International Airport against the Fatico brothers. Charged as the leaders of an active hijack-theft ring operation preying on freight hauling companies working at the Queens County-based airport, Danny and Carmine were accused of having orchestrated a series of armed holdups of expensive cargo.

John Gotti and his mentor Carmine

Side Note: They were accused of stealing three truckloads of furs, and precious zinc alloy bars from freight trucks out of Kennedy.

After a lengthy trial that ended in a mistrial after a jury deadlock, Carmine and Danny pled guilty in a deal worked out with prosecutors, to one count of conspiracy to possess a load of furs from a foreign shipment.

The brothers faced a maximum of five years imprisonment and a $10,000 fine.

The main prosecution witness was a former Colombo Family associate named Salvatore Montella, better known as “Sonny Black”, who fancied himself a bit of a tough guy.

He was formerly loosely affiliated with Colombo capo Sonny Franzese and his Long Island regime. After Sonny was imprisoned for 50 years on a bank robbery conspiracy conviction, Montella quickly gravitated to Carmine Fatico and the Gambino Family. He started hanging around the Bergin Club and started bringing street deals to Charlie and Danny Wagons.

As soon as Montella got nabbed for operating an unrelated burglary heist ring, he turned rat and offered up the Fatico brothers on a platter to the FBI in the hopes of buying his freedom.

After he hung the mafiosi brothers with his courtroom testimony, he quickly disappeared forever into the newly formed Federal Witness Protection Program, the fledgling “singing rodent” relocation service started only a few years earlier and run by the U.S. Marshalls Service.

Prior to sentencing, the Faticos had objected to their presentence reports labeling them as “made” members of the Mafia, and upper echelon members at that. This court dispute and the subsequent hearings caused by it is what would later develop into what became the well-known court proceedings referred to as holding a “Fatico Hearing.”

In 1976-1977 Danny got nabbed by the feds a second time in New York’s Eastern District after a gambling raid on a major floating dice game he operated. Among all the other defendants arrested, Fatico was the only one charged with “maintaining” the game, which is a potentially heavy count.

It was a popular high-stakes crap game frequented by wiseguys across the city. Where it was not uncommon to see $50,000 and $100,000 wagered on a single roll. Backed by the hierarchy of the Family, top members of the borgata such as Neil Dellacroce and Carlo Gambino himself had been partnered.

Famed prosecutor Thomas Puccio oversaw this criminal case personally. Infamous defense attorney Roy Cohn led the team that represented Fatico. So it was the big guns out on both sides.

Fatico was convicted after a jury trial of operating a high-stakes crap game in federal court. He received three years imprisonment in this case.

After his release from the federal lockup, Fatico semi-retired. His protege Johnny Boy Gotti had since climbed the mob’s ladder under the further tutelage of their underboss Dellacroce, had been formally inducted, and had been elevated to become the capo over their old East New York “Bergin Crew.”

Gotti would go on to achieve mafia infamy as the boss of the entire borgata after he orchestrated the assassination of former boss Paul Castellano in December 1985.

Gotti also achieved a life sentence, where he died of cancer seven years later behind prison walls in a maximum-security penitentiary.

As for Daniel Fatico, he died in 2006 at age 86. He was mostly inactive in his last years, having backed up and retired, leaving the Bergin and all that came with it in the hands of his former protege John Gotti.

Until next time..."The Other Guy! "

Daniel (Danny Wagons) Fatico – An Early Mentor to John Gotti

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Daniel (Danny Wagons) Fatico – An Early Mentor to John Gotti

Unlock This Door to the Underworld

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Racketeer Snapshot: Lucchese Family Soldier Carlo Piccioli

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