Ex-mobster charged in 1980 cop murder
HACKENSACK, New Jersey (AP) -- Former Mafia turncoat Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano has been charged in the 1980 murder of a New York City police detective.
Gravano, serving a 20-year sentence in Arizona for running an Ecstasy ring, pleaded innocent Thursday to the murder of Det. Peter Calabro in Saddle River.
Earlier this year, convicted murderer Richard "The Iceman" Kuklinski told authorities that he shot Calabro on orders from Gravano, 57. The highly decorated officer was suspected of having damaging information about an auto theft ring run by the Gambino crime family.
Kuklinski, 67, told investigators that he and Gravano drove around northwest Bergen on the night of March 14, 1980, waiting for the 36-year-old detective to return home from work in Queens.
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Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said Gravano supplied the murder weapon and three or four accomplices.
Gravano confessed to 19 murders nearly 10 years ago as part of a deal with federal prosecutors to implicate his longtime friend and mentor, mob boss John Gotti, and more than three dozen other mobsters.
He was freed from prison in 1995 and entered a witness protection program in Arizona. A few years later, he was convicted of running an Ecstasy network with his wife, children, and a group of white supremacists.
Two months ago, reputed hit man Thomas "Huck" Carbonaro was convicted in Brooklyn of trying to kill Gravano with a remote-control bomb. Authorities have accused Gotti's brother, Peter, of ordering the hit.
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