Tom Kapatos

Thomas Kapatos (January 1, 1915 – January 22, 1977), nicknamed as "Tommy the Greek", was a Greek-American gangster who was associated with the Irish mob in New York City. A convicted armed robber, Kapatos was an enforcer for Hell's Kitchen crime boss Mickey Spillane during his war against Jimmy Coonan in the 1970s. He was murdered in 1977 as a result of a conflict between Spillane's gang and the Genovese crime family.

Early life Born in New Jersey on January 1, 1915, to Florence (née Kalais) and Gregory Kapatos, Greek immigrants from Karpathos, his surname derived from the Dodecanese island. Kapatos, who was also known as Thomas Russo, lived in Fort Lee, Union City and West New York in New Jersey and was employed as a shoreman on the West Side of Manhattan, New York. He was described by New York Daily News writer Joseph McNamara as a muscular man standing five feet, nine inches tall with an "explosive temper".

Criminal career Murder conviction and exoneration On October 6, 1937, Kapatos was arrested in possession of two handguns – a .32 caliber revolver and a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson police revolver – shortly after the fatal shooting of Albert DiLlulio on 48th Street in Manhattan. He claimed to have unwittingly picked up the guns after finding them on a stoop as he made his way to the elevated train after finishing work at the 48th Street pier. Discovering DiLlulio's body nearby, he became frightened that he might be framed as the killer and started running away from the scene when he was apprehended by police. Kapatos was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of DiLlulio and sentenced to twenty-years-to-life in prison on November 29, 1938.

Years after his murder conviction, Kapatos learned that there had been a witness, Michael Danise, who had seen two individuals fleeing from the scene of DiLlulio's killing immediately after the gunshots were fired, and that Danise had stated that Kapatos was not one of these two individuals. Danise had also said that after the two persons fled the scene, he had then seen Kapatos walk upon the scene of the crime. This statement by Danise was consistent with Kapatos’ version of events. The existence of Danise had never been disclosed to the defense by the prosecution. Kapatos' attorney, Joseph Aronstein, filed a habeas corpus petition on his behalf based on this new information. On July 9, 1962, judge Edmund L. Palmieri granted the writ of habeas corpus on the basis that the Manhattan district attorney's office had prejudiced his case in failing to disclose the existence of the witness, thus depriving him of the due process of law at his trial in 1938. The heist failed, however, as the robbers were unable to drive the station wagon because it had a standard gear shift which they did not know how to operate. After two attempts were abandoned, Roberts and Campbell quit the planned robbery due to Kapatos' objectionable temper, and Campbell died from a heart attack on October 4, 1964. The robbery was the largest ever to occur in Paterson and the largest in the New York metropolitan area since the theft of $3 million in cash and securities from a Manhattan bank in 1878. Spillane himself was ultimately shot dead outside his apartment in Woodside, Queens on May 13, 1977, allowing the Gambino-backed Jimmy Coonan to assume control of the Hell's Kitchen Irish mob.