OCEAN COUNTY, NEW JERSEY: A real-life Tony Soprano, who has spent decades behind bars in connection with the 1984 golf club beating to death of a Toms River used car salesman, is now apparently alleging that he was at the dentist at the time of the murder and his dental records were switched to frame him, Yahoo news reports.
Martin Taccetta, 72, of Florham Park, made the surprising claim, pointing fingers at the prosecutors for any evil deeds related to the rub-out of Toms River auto dealer Vincent “Jimmy Sinatra” Craparotta, the Asbury Park Press reported.
Why was Vincent “Jimmy Sinatra” Craparotta murdered?
Craparotta, 56, was beaten to death by men with golf clubs at his Route 9 car lot on June 12, 1984, reportedly to scare his nephews into paying tributes to the Lucchese crime family from earnings on their video poker machines, the report said.
Taccetta was a capo in the Lucchese crime family running the gang’s NJ operations.
Iconic TV mob boss Tony Soprano closely resembled Martin Tacetta
In a 2000 New York Post story about “Goodfellas Who Might Be Role Models", mob experts, who formerly worked with New Jersey’s Organized Crime Task Force, claimed that the iconic TV mob boss Tony Soprano, played by the late James Gandolfini, closely resembled the charismatic Taccetta.
Taccetta and two other reputed members of the Lucchese crime family were charged with Craparotta’s murder.
In 1993, they stood trial in Superior Court in Ocean County in 1993 alongside two other alleged mob associates charged with racketeering and extortion offenses.
Taccetta beat the murder rap, but the jury found him guilty of racketeering, conspiracy, and extortion. He received the harshest penalty of all the defendants, life imprisonment plus 10 years.
The government presented testimony of former mafia underbosses
The government presented testimony from former mafia underbosses that Taccetta told them he and an associate “whacked” the victim “over some Joker Pokers” and used golf clubs rather than baseball bats to do the job because “bats break,” the media outlet reported.
What did Martin Taccetta say?
Taccetta claims the assistant attorney general who prosecuted him in 1993 hid from him an FBI report that concluded his dental records, which he claims proved he was at his dentist’s office an hour away when Craparotta was killed, but was secretly altered.
Taccetta claimed he learned of the FBI report in the recent years through a Freedom of Information Act request and he deserves a new trial.
According to NJ Appellate Division court papers, "the evidence at trial included testimony that co-defendant Thomas Ricciardi, another member of the Lucchese crime family, had beaten Craporatta to death with a golf club while yelling, 'pay your debts.'”
