William (Billy) Ricchiuti: Mob Thief and Narcotics Dealer

William (Billy) Ricchiuti was a Colombo Family associate affiliated with the Sonny Franzese regime. He was active in mail cargo thefts and gambling.

William (Billy) Ricchiuti was born in 1925 in NYC and lived at 99 Round Tree Drive in Plainview, Nassau County, for many years.

Billy Ricchiuti started out as a short-order cook at a Westbury diner and later owned an area coffee shop. His activities included mail cargo thefts, narcotics, and gambling.

During the 1960s, he initially befriended several Nassau mob figures who frequented his diner. These included associates of the Franzese regime such as John (Sonny) Franzese, Robert (Bobby Blue Eyes) Mauro, Louis (Lou Curry) Arcuri, Ralph (The Beak) Jacobson, John Malizia, George Papageorge , and Dominick Santoro, but he eventually gravitated to several Brooklyn-based members.

William (Billy) Ricchiuti

Ricchiuti had a terrible habit as a lifelong degenerate gambler who doubled as a small-time bookie. Somewhere along the line, to make ends meet or to pay his own gambling debts, he became involved in thefts.

It soon graduated to larger scores, and he soon became acquainted with several larcenous young men who worked as baggage handlers at JFK Airport in Jamaica, Queens. In 1967, he tied up with them and started robbing the airport.

They would eventually start snatching U.S. postal mailbags. Inside these pouches were often a treasure trove of valuables, including gold, jewelry, diamonds, negotiable stocks, bonds, and securities, stacks of blank credit cards, furs, etc.

It was almost too easy to steal and too good to be true. This went on for several years, enabling the robbery gang to steal over a whopping $100,000,000 in assets.

Side Note: In addition to the cash taken, Ricchiuti was the gang’s main conduit to mafia “fences” to dispose of other goods.

By 1971, the shit started to hit the fan.

A gang member was caught on mail theft and was indicted, convicted, and jailed. Robert F. Cudak started spilling his guts on the gang. The others had also been previously caught and jailed for similar mail thefts.

Senate hearings were convened in Washington by Senator John McClellan about this plague of massive airport thefts across the country.

Brought hooded and under heavy police guard before the Senate panel, Cudak testified under a grant of immunity about all he knew and implicated his two main confederates who had been previously jailed on other charges.

Testifying before Congress under a grant of immunity, former airport mailbag thieves Jimmy Schaefer and Bobby Cudak spoke of two Nassau County-based Colombo hoodlums that they and Ricchiuti dealt with over the years named John Malizia and Robert (Bobby Blue Eyes) Mauro.

Malizia, aka “Jack Molitz” lived in Westbury. He was a former professional prizefighter whom Cudak and Ricchiuti had fenced several loads of stolen watches through.

Malizia was also said to have sold them counterfeit currency. He allegedly supplied them with counterfeit $10 notes at the going rate of 20% of the face value of the money on several occasions. In other words, Malizia charged $200 real money, for every $1000 of counterfeit currency purchased.

Another associate of Ricchiuti’s was Harvey Sapperstein, who was a local bookmaker Ricchiuti used to bet with. Sapperstein put him in touch with Bobby Blue Eyes, alleged to have been Sapperstein’s boss in the bookmaking operation.

During the first year that Ricchiuti, Cudak, and their gang operated at JFK Airport, Sapperstein became the conduit through which the gang sold Bobby Mauro most of their stolen loot; furs, jewelry, diamonds, precious metals, and other heisted goods.

On one occasion, Cudak remembered they fenced a carload of full-length fur coats to Mauro for $3000 cash.

Soon, Ricchiuti and James V. Schaefer were also subpoenaed to testify.

The 29-year-old Schaefer immediately agreed to testify if he was granted immunity from prosecution... and confessed...implicating Ricchiuti as well.

But when Ricchiuti, who was 46 at the time, was brought before the panel, he chain‐smoked and cited the Fifth Amendment 88 times in refusing to answer questions about the syndicate.

Both witnesses, who were serving terms for mail theft, had been identified by Cudak as the men who started him on a 4‐year career as a mail thief stealing more than $100,000,000 in jewels, furs, stocks and other valuables from 17 major airports across the country.

First Under A New Law

Cudak, who testified before the subcommittee for several hours secretly and publicly, was the first congressional witness ever to be granted immunity under a provision of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970.

Ricchiuti monotonously recited his Constitutional protection against self‐incrimination in response to questions about his skill at playing gin rummy, whether he even knew he existed, and about Cudak's allegation that he had “very good connections with the principal mob people in New York and New Jersey”.

During his 45 minutes under questioning, Ricchiuti refused to say a word about his suspected links with the underworld “Family” of Joseph Colombo of Brooklyn.

Side Note: Billy’s alleged principal “fences” and contacts within the Colombo Family were Gregory Scarpa, Hy Sands, and Frank and Cosmo “Gus” Cangiano.

After serving his federal prison term, Ricchiuti returned to his Plainview home and got readjusted to life outside prison walls.

But times had changed!

Many of the mob guys he knew were not around or had gotten jailed themselves. He no longer had his “theft crew” to make the big scores he had become accustomed to!

The only thing that had stayed the same..... the one constant in his life.... was his gambling addiction! But only now he had no way to afford it!

It was the late 1970s to early 1980s, and drugs were more popular than ever.

He soon dove headfirst into pushing large amounts of marijuana! I mean bales and bales of marijuana! Hundreds of pounds at a time!

He also employed his children, who had become young adults by this time. The Ricchiuti Family soon became a “Crime Family” in the most literal sense of the word! All his kids were involved...his three boys and daughter too!

Operating directly from their own home, which was used as their base,.....week after week, month after month, for years, they moved massive amounts of weed!

Before long, he also started dabbling in the heroin trade. It was just way too lucrative to pass up. Within a short time he was moving several kilo loads of “junk” at a time.

Despite losing his mail-theft racket, which had been a “golden goose” for him, Billy seemed to have bounced back financially quite nicely!

He was making tons of cash ...it’s almost scary to think of how much he was earning. The problem was of course, that every single penny he schemed, he’d blow immediately at the racetrack, a football game, dice game, or casino!

During those years, from the airport rackets and narcotics trafficking, he had made millions! Yet he didn’t have two cents to rub together!

Constantly broke despite rolling in the dough, he was like a mouse on a wheel, constantly running as fast as he could to keep the ball rolling!

Then one day, it all came crashing down!

Nassau County Narcotics Squad, the DEA, the FBI, and the NYPD Narcotics Division, raided his home and arrested every single member of his family....he, his wife, and all his children!

They were all charged with operating a major marijuana trafficking ring.

They were tried and convicted, and he and most of his boys went to jail!..... but as this case was being handled, Billy was again indicted.

But this time around, it was for the sale of several kilo’s of heroin!

The feds had infiltrated his distribution network and had him dead to rights with direct sales. He was again tried and convicted. But as a three-time loser, ex-convict, and multiple felon, he received a life term!

Billy Ricchiuti stood up like a man! He was shipped off to Terre Haute, Indiana....one of the toughest joints in the nation to serve his time.

I do not remember when he died, but it was at Terre Haute, I believe, that he passed away.

In his lifetime, this man stole, schemed, and earned many millions. He should have been a millionaire and quit while he was ahead!

But that gambling “bug” had bit him very hard as a young man. It had became a lifelong albatross and impediment to a happy life... for him and more importantly, his wife and family!

This is just another mob tale!

Until next time..."The Other Guy"

William (Billy) Ricchiuti: Mob Thief and Narcotics Dealer

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William (Billy) Ricchiuti: Mob Thief and Narcotics Dealer

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