Jail Time For Mobster Will Halt His Dealings At Wife’s Bronx Eatery

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Published on September 06, 2017, 11:55 am
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They were not just breaking bread at Pasquale’s Rigoletto in Bronx, federal prosecutors claim in court papers.

Genovese capo Pasquale Parrello, who is accused of ordering his soldiers to smash a panhandler’s knees, worked as an “unofficial maître d” at his wife’s Italian restaurant — conducting much of his brutal business from the Bronx eatery, prosecutors say.

Parrello, 73, copped to three counts of conspiracy to commit extortion in May.

Parrello is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday. Under his plea deal, he is expected to spend 5 1/4 to 6 1/2 years in federal lockup.

Parrello was one of 46 East Coast wiseguys slapped with rackets charges in August 2016.

While Parrello’s lawyer is pushing for leniency, prosecutors want Manhattan Federal Judge Richard Sullivan to sentence him within the plea deal’s guidelines — claiming that all of the time he spends at his wife’s Arthur Avenue restaurant, Pasquale’s Rigoletto, speaks to how dangerous he is.

Pasquale’s Rigoletto, prosecutors said in an August 31 court filing, is “located in a building owned and operated by Parrello’s wife where Parrello is the ‘unofficial maître d.’ ”

“The defendant has shown that he poses a grave threat even from the confines of Rigoletto — where many of the meetings in the instant investigation occurred — or his home,” prosecutors said.

Parrello instructed his enforcers to violently collect gambling debts, the feds alleged. During a March 12, 2012, Parrello instructed a soldier to “actually choke the motherf—-r … and tell him, ‘Listen to me … next time I’m not gonna stop choking … I’m gonna kill you.’ ”

During an October 10 meeting that year at Rigoletto, Parrello allegedly told a soldier to destroy another debtor’s tires with an ice pick, explaining “(C)ut his f—-n’ tire. That way he has to change the tire. So then you know you can catch up with him. Give him a flat. Take the air out of the tire, whatever the f–k you got to do. Then you catch up with him because then he’s there, ya know, he’s got to get it fixed, he can’t go nowhere, and then you surround the mother f—-r. That’s how yous(e) do it.”

“Parrello used his co-conspirators to exert influence and collect debts on his behalf without ever having to leave Rigoletto. Rather, his name in and of itself carried sufficient weight that his victims complied to his demands without ever seeing Parrello in person,” prosecutors said in arguing for a hefty sentence.

“When Parrello’s subordinates appeared on his behalf and threatened violence in Parrello’s name, the victims knew that those threats had teeth and would be carried out. Faced with the very real potential of violence, the victims had no choice but to pay their gambling debts. In this way, Parrello was able to terrorize debtors by proxy.”

Parrello’s lawyers declined to comment.

 

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