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On Feb. 6,2001 Gus Boulis left his
office in Fort Lauderdale about 9:30
p.m. and took a shortcut on his way
home to Hollywood, FL. A car stopped
in front
of him, and then a black Ford
Mustang with temporary tags pulled
up next to Boulis, and someone in
the car shot him at least three
times with a semi-automatic weapon.
Handcuffed, in leg chains, and
wearing gray and white striped
prison jumpsuits, “Big Tony”
Moscatiello and accused triggerman
James “Pudgy” Fiorello sat and
listened Friday as prosecutors revealed
some of the evidence against them in
the slaying of casino gambling ship
czar Boulis.
The men charged, and those still
blissfully un-indicted, have been
quick to protest—not just their
innocence, as might be
expected—but also their
intelligence.
When police arrived to arrest
Anthony “Big Tony” Moscatiello in
Howard’s Beach, NY, for example, he
was at pains to remind them of his
status as a Wise Guy.
"I
have a 152 IQ," he boasted to
arresting officers.
Don't
ask if you don't want to know
When asked why he’d written checks
totaling a quarter million dollars
to Gambino hit men alleged to have
committed the murder, Adam Kidan,
whose status as a former National
College Republican official seems to
have served as a shield against
hostile questioning by the
authorities,
angrily protested to The Miami Herald
that he weren't no
dunsky,
neither...
"Now,
you need to ask yourself a couple of
questions. If I'm going to pay to
have Gus killed, am I going to be
writing checks to the killers? I
don't think so. Why would I leave a
paper trail? It's crazy... Do I look
stupid to you?”
(According to court filings the
checks were recorded on Sun Cruz’s
books as 'donations' or 'site
development' to disguise the true
nature of the transactions, so,
should he ever be charged in the
case Mr. Kidan may, sadly, be in for
something of a surprise.)
The reason for this
sensitivity about the ability to chew gum
while walking became clear during a bail
reduction hearing in a Fort
Lauderdale FL. courtroom last
Friday, when we caught our first
glimpse of the "dog-walking,
food-fetching, car-washing,
baby-sitting" wannabe
gangster sitting slack-jawed and
droopy-eyed while being accused of
gunning down Gus Boulis.
Pudgy is as Pudgy
does
James “Pudgy” Fiorello comes by
his nickname honest, as they say in
the South. He could easily be taken
for a character straight out of one
of Elmore Leonard's funnier crime
novels, except he can’t be presumed to be
any more of a sap than we are,
if we accept the official
story offered so far in the
case, which is an insult to the
intelligence of the American people.
Were it not for the fact that it is
emblematic of the unsound methods
utilized so widely during the
recent Mob-aided GOP take-over
of our once-proud Republic, one
might be able to appreciate it as
yet-another colorful example of
the Sunshine State’s penchant for over-the top scandals
once described as being “just
too Cuban for words.”
Just how are we
being taken for a ride
this time?
Let’s take a look.
Listen up Mr.
Green, Mr. Black... and you too,
Mr. Pink

Hardly anything about the official
explanation offered so far of the
Gus Boulis murder
stands up to close scrutiny…
Adam Kidan, for example, was a
disbarred lawyer and proud owner of
a bankrupt Washington, D.C. mattress
company... Do these seem the
credentials of a man who's just
received a $60 million dollar
loan?
No one in authority seems
ready to ask.
This gaping anomaly has been
skated over as if it were thin ice
covering murky depths no one is
interested in plumbing.
When a reporter inquired of a
Foothill Capital executive about
their seemingly lax loan criteria,
he replied, "You would have had to
be there."
But wait. There's more...
According to testimony during the
bail hearing, within just 24 hours of the murder
a man
involved in the plot to kill the
casino czar had come forward and
contacted police with details of the
crime.
Yet for more than four years no one
was charged with murdering Gus
Boulis.
Maybe they were just waiting for the
right moment, do y'think?
The FBI dropped
the ball? Now that is
a surprise.
In
fact, testimony at the hearing
offered indications that—had it not
been for the adverse publicity
accorded Republican lobbyist Casino
Jack Abramoff during John McCain’s
Indian gambling hearings
recently—the murder might have gone
straight to video, as they say out
West.
Cops could tell without even asking
that it belonged in the
already-bursting South Florida Cold
Case File labeled Too Hot to Touch.
The judge would not allow the media
to take photos or video of Dwayne
Nicholson, a beefy 40ish black man
wearing glasses and a suit with
matching shiny tie, after prosecutors said he
feared for his life.
"I phoned an FBI agent
up in Baltimore," testified the state's key witness,
Dwayne Nicholson, who had worked as
a bodyguard for Anthony “Little
Tony” Ferrari..."I must have
left six messages for her. My wife
called a bunch of times too.
No one ever called back.”

“He owned a bunch of night clubs in
South Beach, and I would follow him
aound as he made his rounds, doing
security work, you know, watching
his back. Three months after I met
him I started collecting money for
him, too, from people who owed him
money, and talking to people he had
a problem with.”
“Little
Tony” Ferrari talked a lot about
‘The Family’ up in New York,”
Nicholson testified. “He was always
mentioning his Uncle John (Gotti)
and Uncle Peter (Gotti.)”
An arm of leg,
sure. That I can do.
“Several months before Boulis'
murder Ferrari began telling me
about the big contract my security
company was going to get to do
security work for Sun Cruz Casino
Lines,” stated Nicholson.
“We would have to get someone,
Jennifer Moscatiello, to front for
me, because I had felonies up in
Baltimore,” explained Nicholson, who
has a gun conviction in Maryland.
“Then Tony began talking about
problems he was having with one of
the old owners. He told me there
were problems with the deal. The old
owner wasn’t cooperating, wouldn’t
step out of the way.”
Ferrari asked Nicholson if he would
"take him out."
"I told him, straight up, I can't
kill someone," Nicholson testified. “I
might break an arm or a leg, though.
If you want me to break his leg or
arm, I could do that.”
Don’t worry about it, Little Tony
told him. “I’ll take care of it.”
The very next day, he and Ferrari
drove to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood
International Airport, to pick up
“Big Tony” Moscatiello, who had
flown in from New York on a Learjet,
accompanied by Adam Kidan and his
brother-in-law, Nicholson said.
Nicholson joined Moscatiello and
Ferrari in the “big car,” a long
Mercedes. Pudgy Fiorello followed in
a the tail car, a Cadillac.
The three men discussed
"taking care of Gus,"
Nicholson said. “Big Tony said,
‘Everything has to be done right.
There’s too much at stake.’”
To
his surprise, Nicholson heard Little
Tony reply, “Don’t worry, Dwayne
will take care of it.”
In
the back seat, Nicholson rode in
silence. He played along, he said.
Nicholson told the court, “Big Tony
turned around and said, 'The only
reason we are talking in front of
you is because Little Tony said I
can trust you, he trusts you with
his life. He trusts you with his
family's life. I trust him,
therefore, I have to trust you. If
this conversation goes anywhere else
or is heard anywhere else, I have to
take care of you.'"
After talking with Moscatiello,
Nicholson said he immediately began
fearing for his life.
“What were you thinking?” the
prosecutor asked.
“I
was thinking, ‘oh shit. I’m all
fucked up now,’” confessed
Nicholson.
Three months later Boulis was
killed.
Adam takes care
of a little problem with the police
Before dropping Big Tony at his
beachfront hotel, they swung by the
headquarters of Sun Cruz, where
Little Tony pointed out a black
Blazer which Gus Boulis drove, at
the back of the parking lot.
“He asked me to find out where Gus
hung out, to do surveillance,”
testified Nicholson. He said he was
shown a picture of Boulis. “It was
like a
real old picture. He was wearing
like a
leisure suit and a shirt with polka dots and shit.”
Several weeks later, Nicholson said
he was surveilling Boulis in the
parking lot outside Sun Cruz with
Pudgy Fiorello, sitting in a black
Mustang belonging to Fiorello,
when the two men were approached by
police, suspicious about what they
were doing.
“They ran our identifications, and
checked the car, and it all came
back clean” Nicholson said. “We told
the cops we were looking for a hotel
to stay at, and they believed us.”
When Little Tony heard about the
police stop, he immediately phoned Adam
Kidan, the new head of Sun Cruz, who
told him to tell us id we were
stopped again to say we were doing
security for him at Sun Cruz, and he
would back up our story,” Nicholson
testified.
A
week later, while watching a Sun
Cruz casino boat looking for Boulis,
the men were again stopped by Fort
Lauderdale police. “They got Adam on
the phone, and he vouched for us,”
Nicholson stated.
Keeping a safe
distance away from the Bada-Bing
Soon thereafter, Nicholson said he
began avoiding Little Tony,
attempting to shrink his way out of
participating in the hit. He told
detectives he was supposed to travel
to Fort Lauderdale the day of the
killing but purposefully had not
answered his phone to avoid getting
involved.
While watching the news on
television one evening, he learned
that Boulis had been gunned down,
gangland style, and that police were
looking for a black Mustang.
Nicholson immediately realized he
had exposure.
He
had been stopped in the same car by
police. They had his name. But he
was equally worried about his
companions. “I said, oh shit. I was
supposed to be there. Now they’re
going to come after me.”
His cell phone began ringing
insistently. He said he ignored it.
“I
sat on the edge of the bed in my
bedroom, feeling totally lost,”
Nicholson said. “Then I called
Crimestoppers and told them what I
knew. They said, we cant do
anything. You’ve got to call the
police.”
“I
said, I cant talk to the police,”
Nicholson testified. They asked why
not. I said, ‘Because I don’t trust
the police. For all I knew, they
might report anything I said back to
Little Tony.”
“So I finally called Fort Lauderdale
homicide. I figured, by that time, I
had nothing to lose.”
Then, a week after the murder, the
call he’d been dreading came
through. Little Tony wanted to see
him. Why hadn’t he been coming
around? Why wasn’t he returning his
calls?
What
Republicans mean by 'Family
Values'
“I
told him I was scared he was going
to kill me,” said Nicholson. “He
said, ‘I swear on my daughters’ life
nothing will happen to you.’”
Nicholson was talked into wearing a
wire by detectives. But Little Tony
was deliberately vague in
conversation with him, perhaps
mistrusting him already, he said.
Then one day Pudgy came by the
house, and told me Little Tony
wanted to see us, and that we should
drive up to Venice, where his mother
lived. In the car on the way,
Nicholson testified that Fiorello
admitted to shooting Boulis. Then
Pudgy turned to him and asked
plaintively,” Tell me the truth...
Are
you going to kill me?”
Nicholson replied he’s been
wondering the same thing.
When they arrived in Venus, FL.,
Little Tony came out of his mother’s
house, and motioned Nicholson to
move off a few feet while he talked
to Fiorello.
"He
said to Pudgy, ‘What the fuck, man,'"
testified Nicholson. "'What do you think you’re doing? Why
have you been running your mouth off
up in New York?'
"And
Pudgy replied, 'You got paid!
Everybody got paid. Except
me! And
I’m the one that did it! You’re all
fucking me out of my money!'”
"Little Tony pointed to me, and said,
'What, do you think he’s dumb?
I ought to bust you right here! He’s
standing right there and he heard
every word!'” |