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Editor's Note: OK, we pride ourselves at being fearless here at
DRO - we tell it like it is, call 'em the way we see 'em, and tell the
Emperor that he has no clothes. Then Martin got this idea for a story.
Well, after the Italian Anti-Defamation League lodged a protest with
HBO and the producers of "The Sopranos" we must admit to some second
thoughts about the wisdom of running this piece. So, let us just say
that we here at DRO love Italian food and wine…. some of our best friends
are Italians … we all have made some Italian hand gestures in public
on occasion, and … ah, f'gettaboudit. Martin, you're on your own with
this one.
Yo. Ever watch "The Sopranos?" You know da one, the HBO mob family
soap opera? La Cosa Nostra, the Syndicate, the Mob, Organized Crime,
whatever you call it.
Well, drag racing, crummy little drag racing, had a reportedly "made"
guy who earned some fame behind the wheel of a Top Fuel car and Funny
Car. His racing name was "Broadway Freddy" DeName (real name: Frederick
DiNome), and in the annals of this sport there may have been no one
who led a wilder life. How could it be otherwise? In addition to being
a racer, he was a member of Roy DeMeo's Brooklyn, New York crew, which
was a unit of the well-known and deservedly feared Gambino crime family.
The DeMeo crew technically was the automotive wing. Put simpler, they
stole cars, according to Gene Mustain and Jerry Capeci's "Murder Machine"
book. Freddy, his brother Richard, and Brooklyn king car thief Peter
LaFroscia were said to nail as many as five to ten cars every night
in the early 1970s when they were in their heyday.
However, there was another side to the crew which was far darker: They
killed people, lots of them. DeMeo, "the Gemini Twins" Joey Testa and
Anthony Senter, Henry Borelli, Chris Rosenberg, Vito Arena, and "Broadway
Freddy" were a part of the DeMeo group that dealt out the ultimate paybacks,
which numbered in the dozens and maybe over a hundred.
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