Trial and Terror: A victim’s memory is mugged

When Romual Piecyk, a refrigeration mechanic in New York City, found a double-parked car blocking his way on Sept. 11, 1984, he honked his horn. Two beefy men got out of the offending car, slapped him around and grabbed the $325 he was carrying. Piecyk telephoned police, who picked up his attackers in a nearby restaurant.

Justifiably indignant, Piecyk filed charges and told a grand jury what had happened. The jury indicted the arrested pair, John Gotti and Frank Colletta, for assault and robbery. Soon, however, Piecyk was wishing he had just forgotten about the whole episode.

First he got threatening telephone calls. Then he found the brakes on his van had been tampered with. That was scary enough, but the chiller came last December when Piecyk read about the Manhattan sidewalk slaying of Paul Castellano, head of the Gambino crime family, one of the nation’s most powerful Mafia groups. Newspapers identified Gotti, 45, who has served six years for attempted manslaughter and other crimes, as the probable successor to Castellano; some reports suggested that he might have been involved in the killing. Piecyk also read that after Gotti’s son Frank, 12, was killed in 1979 when struck by a car driven by Gotti’s neighbor John Favara, the neighbor mysteriously vanished; Favara has never been found and is believed to have been murdered.

Piecyk, understandably, got scared. He wrote to Queens District Attorney John J. Santucci that after he read that Gotti was not merely one of the “punks in the Mob” but “was next in line for Godfather, naturally, my idea of pursuing this matter dropped. I can’t and will not live the rest of my life in fear.” When Piecyk was finally put on the witness stand, he lost his memory. He could not recall having been robbed by anyone. Wearing dark glasses, he pointedly avoided looking at Gotti, who lounged at the defense table, nattily dressed in a dark suit and flashing a gold watch and diamond ring. Asked if he could see anyone in the courtroom who had been involved in the parking dispute, Piecyk still looked away from Gotti and replied, “I do not.” Complained one of the prosecutors: “His memory is missing or dead.”

Next day the charges were dropped and Gotti, who could have received a 15-year sentence if convicted, walked out of the court joking and laughing. Gotti is scheduled to go back on trial next week as one of the main defendants in a racketeering and conspiracy case against members of the Gambino crime family. While he can hardly consider that a welcome prospect, he may find it more seemly to stand trial as a would-be Godfather than as a common street mugger.