Costabile Farace
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Costabile "Gus" Farace, Jr. (June 21, 1960 Bushwick, Brooklyn - November 17, 1989 Bensonhurst, Brooklyn) was a low-level criminal who murdered a teenage male prostitute and a federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) officer in New York City.
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[edit] Early years
Born in Bushwick, to Costabile Farace Sr. who was a first generation emigrant from Canastra, Italy and Mary Granato , he moved with his family to Prince's Bay, Staten Island in 1960. His father, Costabile "Gus" Farace Sr. (1935-1987), opened a small grocery store in the island's Great Kills neighborhood (the store closed in 1983). Farace's first name, "Costabile", means "constable" in Italian.
Costabile Gus Farace Jr. had a misshapen left forearm. The muscle had been torn away in a severe car crash. The missing muscle ligament kept his hand from ever completely unclenching. Despite years of bodybuilding it left him disfigured for his entire life. He was addicted to anabolic steroids.
Constabile was a paternal cousin of Dominick and Michael A Farace and Michael J Farace who was involved in drug trafficking with Gus, and a mob associate of the Colombo crime family. He is the son-in-law of Colombo crime family capo Gerardo Chilli and brother-in-law to mob associate Gerardo Chilli III and cousin by marriage to Joseph Chilli. Gerardo was married to Margaret "Babe" Scarpa who was a distant cousin of Farace's and maternal cousin Mark Granato. Margaret secreted Gus in the apartment of Barbara Sarnelli after the shooting. Her husband Alfred Scarpa had been murdered in a 1988 mob execution at a Manhattan bar. Gregory Scarpa Sr. and his son Gregory Scarpa Jr. as a distant relative of Alfred Scarpa, the husband of Margaret Scarpa.
[edit] Relationship with organized crime
It was in prison that Farace first met Gerald Chilli Sr. Chilli had unofficially "adopted" Farace who at that point was in his late twenties as a protegé and associate of his Bushwick crew. Farace took advantage of having ties to the Colombo crime family and Bonanno crime family, (his cousin Gregory Scarpa, Jr. was at the time an acting capo with the Colombos). At the time of his release, with the blessing of both organized crime families, he became heavily involved in the illicit narcotics trade.
By June 3, 1988 when Farace was paroled from Arthur Kill Correctional after serving a manslaughter sentence begun on September 11, 1980 he became partners with his friend Gregory Scarpa Jr. who worked out of his criminal headquarters at Wimpy Boys Athletic Club. His father Gregory Scarpa, Sr. had controlled a lucrative network of drug outlets in Brooklyn candy stores and on a Staten Island college campus. By September 11, though, the once lucrative racket was in shambles and most of the crew's members were in prison.
He was also a close friend of Joseph Sclafani, the owner of the Narrow Bar & Grill which Farace frequently habituated. By Sunday, following the murder of DEA Special Agent Everett Hatcher, Farace's ex-father-in-law Gregory Scarpa, Sr. told David Krajcek of the Daily News that the families of Farace and Scarpa were no longer close. Although he was the ex-father-in-law, that no one from his family had gone to Costabile's wedding a few months earlier to Toni Acierno. He feared that a strong connection would send his convicted drug dealer son, Gregory Jr., to a federal prison too far away to visit.
[edit] Hate crime in Greenwich Village
On October 8, 1979, Constabile was involved in the murder of an African-American after he, Robert DeLicio, David Spoto and cousin Mark Granato picked up the man and a companion of his on a Greenwich Village street, forced them into a car, and began a gang sex assault during the drive back to Staten Island. The assault continued on a beach. It did not end until Farace had bludgeoned the African-American to death with a piece of driftwood. The second victim survived his victim to testify, sending Farace and the others to prison. In June of 1985, Farace was released after serving seven years, the minimum sentence for manslaughter. The state had accepted his plea to the lesser charge of manslaughter rather than go through the uncertainty and expense of a capitol murder trial. The two teenage boys allegedly propositioned them. Enraged, Farace and his friends forced the two teenagers into their car and drove them to Wolfe's Pond Park in the Prince's Bay section of Staten Island (where both Farace and Granato resided). The four men then spent several hours punching, kicking, and beating their victims with driftwood. When they were finished, Farace and his pals left the two boys for dead. One victim, 17-year-old Steven Charles of Newark, New Jersey, died on the beach. The second victim, 16-year-old Thomas Moore of Brooklyn, was critically injured but managed to get help at a nearby residence. Farace, DeLicio, Spoto, and Granato were arrested later that day. — December 10, 1979 — Four days later, Moore identified all four men in a lineup. Farace ultimately pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and received a prison sentence of 7 to 21 years.
[edit] Murder of DEA agent
After being released on parole on June 3, 1988, Farace soon got himself into trouble again. He began selling small amounts of cocaine and marijuana. In late February 1989, a cocaine deal was set up with Everett Hatcher, a DEA agent who had managed to infiltrate the ring. At approximately 10:00 p.m. on the evening of February 28, 1989, Farace was to meet Hatcher at a remote overpass of the West Shore Expressway in the Rossville section of Staten Island, New York, to complete the deal. He had met Farace before and had purchased cocaine from him on previous occasions. During the course of the undercover negotiation the agent got separated from the surveillance team. Shortly after that they found Hatcher seated in his unmarked Buick Regal. He was shot through the head three times. The window was rolled down and the Regal's engine was on, but Hatcher's foot was on the brake.
Police theorized that Farace shot Hatcher from a van as it passed Hatcher's car. The van was found abandoned three days later on a street about two miles northeast of the murder scene. Ihis location was less than half a mile from the Arthur Kill Correctional Facility, where Farace had spent the last two years of his manslaughter sentence.
[edit] Manhunt
Hatcher's death was the first murder of a DEA agent in New York City since 1972. He was also believed to have been the first law-enforcement officer killed in the line of duty on Staten Island.
After Hatcher's slaying, a nationwide manhunt commenced. Farace was placed on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ten Most Wanted list. Both federal and local law enforcement authorities were constantly pressuring Farace's mob superiors for information.
[edit] Shooting and death
A few months after the Hatcher murder, the manhunt for Farace would be over. At 11:08 p.m. on November 17, 1989, police dispatchers received a 911 emergency call about a car parked in front of 1814 81st Street in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn. The car contained one male occupant, with another male laying face down on the sidewalk, both of whom had just been shot (the call came in as "shots fired", no other specifics).
Police rushed to 81st Street and found the two men, one dead and the other seriouly wounded. The dead man was identified as Costabile Farace. According to witnesses, a van had driven alongside their car and shot the two men nine times. This was the same method Farace used to kill Agent Hatcher. The surviving man in the car was identified as Joseph Sclafani, a member of Farace's organization.
In a different version of this story, per the responding officer, Farace was still breathing when police arrived. They placed him in a trauma suite, but he died enroute to the hospital. Sclafani was outside of the vehicle, having been shot out of his shoes. Officers handcuffed him on the scene for weapons possession.
[edit] Aftermath
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York refused to grant Farace a public funeral mass, citing his notorious life and death. However, the Archdiocese did permit his remains to be buried in the church-owned Cemetery of the Resurrection in Pleasant Plains, Staten Island, the same area where Hatcher was murdered.
A few years later, a reputed Mafia "hit man," or hired assassin, with ties to the Lucchese crime family who was in jail while awaiting trial on unrelated charges, confessed to the killing and also implicated two others, one of whom was by that time deceased, himself the victim of a Mafia-style execution.
A 1991 made-for-TV movie, "Dead or Alive: The Race for Gus Farace" stared Tony Danza as Farace and alleged that the Mob was trying to get to Farace before the FBI could. [1]
[edit] References
- Suspect Still Hunted in Drug Agent Death by The New York Times March 3, 1989
- Farace's Wife Free On $250,000 Bail by The New York Times October 17, 1989
- Farace's Wife Is Held on Marijuana Charge by The New York Times October 15, 1989
[edit] Further reading
- Raab, Selwyn. Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2005. ISBN 0-312-30094-8
- Robert M. Stutman, Richard Esposito. Dead on Delivery: Inside the Drug Wars, Straight from the Street. Grand Central Publishing, May 1992. ISBN 9780446515580
