Thomas Pitera Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth, Family

Age, Biography and Wiki

Thomas Pitera was born in Brooklyn, New York, NY on December 2, 1954. He is an American mobster who was a member of the Bonanno crime family. He was known as "Tommy Karate" due to his proficiency in martial arts. Pitera was involved in drug trafficking, loan sharking, and murder. He was arrested in 1989 and convicted of six murders and sentenced to life in prison. Pitera is 66 years old. He stands at 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs approximately 160 pounds. There is no information available about Pitera's dating life or any affairs he may have had. Pitera's net worth is estimated to be around $1 million. He earned most of his wealth through his criminal activities.

We recommend you to check the complete list of Famous People born on 2 December. He is a member of famous with the age 69 years old group.

Thomas Pitera Height, Weight & Measurements

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Dating & Relationship status

He is currently single. He is not dating anyone. We don't have much information about He's past relationship and any previous engaged. According to our Database, He has no children.

Thomas Pitera Net Worth

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Timeline

Pitera was close to Spero, whose Bath Beach crew were involved in extortion, loan sharking, drug dealing and murder, as well as robbing drug dealers and then reselling their product. Pitera's associates, Lloyd Modell and Frank Martini, murdered two Colombian dealers and stole sixteen kilograms of cocaine. The killers intended to drive their car to Staten Island to bury the bodies, but as they could not drive a stick shift, they left the car – with the bodies inside the trunk – in a Brooklyn parking garage. Modell used one of Pitera's guns in the murder and threw it in the harbor, angering him.

Later in 1992, Judge Raggi again refused a motion to reduce Gangi's sentence. On April 3, 2012, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals denied Pitera's motion for DNA testing of the guns and other evidence in three of Pitera's murders. As of April 2017, Pitera is serving a life sentence at the United States Penitentiary, McCreary near Pine Knot, Kentucky. Pitera's inmate number is 29465-053.

On June 25, 1992, Pitera was convicted of murdering six people and supervising a massive drug dealing operation in Brooklyn. However, Pitera was acquitted in the 1988 Johnson murder. During the deliberation on sentencing, the jury rejected the death penalty for Pitera. In October 1992, alluding to evidence that Pitera brutally killed his victims and dismembered their bodies, Judge Reena Raggi sentenced him to life in prison, saying, "Mr. Pitera, nobody deserves to die as these people died."

On June 4, 1990, Pitera was indicted for heading a drug dealing crew and for his involvement in seven murders, including the 1988 Johnson murder. Investigators alleged that Pitera had been involved in as many as sixty murders. Pitera's crew sold about 220 pounds of cocaine per year, multiple kilos of heroin and hundreds of pounds of marijuana. FBI agents discovered more than sixty automatic weapons, knives, swords, and literature such as The Hitman's Handbook and Kill or Be Killed, which dealt primarily with assassination techniques as well as torture and the dismemberment of cadavers, in Pitera's apartment in Gravesend.

Pitera's defense lawyer, David A. Ruhnke, urged the jury to reject the death penalty on the grounds that Pitera had no prior criminal record and that other participants in the murders were allowed to plead guilty to lesser charges. Moreover, only two of the murder victims, Richard Leone and Solomon Stern, were killed on March 15, 1989, after the Federal death penalty law went into effect. The four other murders took place earlier, so those counts carried maximum sentences of life in prison. Pitera's aunt, sister-in-law and two cousins testified on Pitera's defense that he was a loving and caring family member.

On August 29, 1988, Pitera allegedly ambushed and murdered Wilfred "Willie Boy" Johnson as he walked ahead to their car. Johnson had been a longtime associate and driver for Gambino family boss John Gotti. The hit was reportedly delegated to Pitera and fellow gunman Vincent "Kojak" Giattino after Gotti had discovered that Johnson had been a government informant since 1966. Pitera was charged with the Johnson murder but acquitted at trial.

Upon returning to Brooklyn, Pitera joined the Bonanno crime family and quickly became one of their most feared soldiers. He belonged to a Bonnano faction headed by caporegimes Alphonse "Sonny Red" Indelicato, Frank Lino, Dominick Trinchera and Philip Giaccone. This group opposed the current leadership under boss Philip Rastelli and his leading capos Joseph Massino and Dominick Napolitano. In 1981, Massino and Napolitano set up the murders of the three rival capos in a Gravesend club co-owned by Sammy Gravano. After their deaths, Massino made peace with the rest of the leaderless faction, including Pitera. During the 1980s, Pitera became a "made man" of the Bonanno family and was assigned to Lino's crew by Bonnano consigliere Anthony Spero.

As a child, Pitera had been a huge fan of the 1966 The Green Hornet television show and actor Bruce Lee, triggering his lifelong interest in martial arts. After winning an arduous kumite competition in Sheepshead Bay, Pitera spent 27 months in Japan training assiduously under the revered Hiroshi Masumi. He was trained to use the tonfa, nunchucks and katanas. While in Japan, he grew his hair down to his shoulders to adopt the Bruce Lee image. After his scholarship ended, he sought work in a chopsticks factory to underwrite his stay and earn more money. This led him to acquire the nickname "Tommy Karate" by friends and fellow mobsters.

Thomas Pitera (/p ɪ ˈ t ɛər ə / ; born December 2, 1954) is a former Mafia hitman in the Bonanno crime family. Pitera, a vicious and sadistic killer who enjoyed murdering people, was suspected by law enforcement of as many as 100 murders. Pitera was well known for his use of karate and other martial arts when fighting, a skill he had learned at a young age; it earned him the nickname "Tommy Karate".