It began with an affair with the boss’ wife - and ended with him becoming a mafia hit man.
One of the Colombo family’s most prolific assassins has spoken about the 25 murder plots he took part in, four of them where he pulled the trigger.
Larry Mazza revealed how he blasted rivals at point blank range with a shotgun before calmly going home to babysit a friend’s daughter and watch episodes of Seinfeld.
He also told how he began an affair with the wife of a notorious mafioso - who incredibly let them carry on even though he knew about it.
Mazza’s introduction to the mob began in 1979 when he began a relationship with Linda Schiro, who was married to Gregory ‘The Grim Reaper’ Scarpa.
Scarpa famously bragged that after killing 50 people he ‘stopped counting’ during his bloody time as a capo in the Colombo family.
Mazza was the straight-laced 18-year-old son of a fire lieutenant and working as a delivery boy in Brooklyn, New York.
The boss’s wife was 32, wealthy, powerful and an adviser to her husband on his criminal activities.
She invited him over with the words: ‘Do you fool around?’
Mazza told the
New York Post: ‘She had beautiful eyes, very Italian looking. She put a bottle of wine out and some M&M’s. We had a few glasses. The next thing you know we were on the couch getting hot and heavy.’
His new lover introduced him to her husband and got him a job collecting debts from a racing track. Soon he became an enforcer forcing people to pay up.
Mazza told the newspaper: ‘One got a truck driven through their storefront. Another got visits from us and we’d walk out without paying.’
Murder followed soon after, he added. ‘The first one, it’s drop me off. Next one, I’d pick him up. Next time, bring a shovel. Baby steps.’
One of Scarpa’s drivers was badly beaten and then killed for trying to kiss his 14-year-old daughter as he took her to school.
Then in 1991 a civil war erupted in the Colombo family between underboss Victor Orena and patriarch Carmine Persico, who had been jailed.
Persico loyalist Mazza said that ‘for eight months, that’s all we did: wake up and go looking for people to kill’
One of his most bloody executions was in Christmas 1991, that of Orena loyalist Vinnie Fusaro.
Mazza said: ‘We were passing by the social clubs where Vic’s guys would hang out.
‘This day we spotted Vinnie’s car, so we came around the block again. He was in his driveway, hanging Christmas lights on the garage. He never seen us. He was facing the garage.