Galante, 24, had been on the lam since the April 4, 1999 stabbing of…
By Betsy Scheinbart
Carmine Galante, one of the Police Department’s 10 most wanted fugitives, was arrested Monday and charged with murder in the 1999 death of a St. John’s University freshman, police said.
Galante, 24, had been on the lam since the April 4, 1999 stabbing of William Manolis at a Brooklyn bar, said Officer Joseph Cavitolo, a police spokesman.
A day after his photo appeared with two of the other most wanted suspects on the cover of the New York Daily News, the Brooklyn South Homicide Squad and the Suffolk County Police Department arrested Galante at 33 Pole Drive in Mastic, L.I., where he was living under the name Vinestro Bono, Cavitolo said.
Galante’s photo appeared in the top-left corner of the paper Monday, above a photo of suspected murderers Roddy Singletary and Danny Liggett. A two-page spread inside the paper gave the details of each of the city’s most wanted fugitives.
The News said it many tips on Galante’s whereabouts after the story appeared.
Galante’s uncle and namesake, the infamous gangster and head of the Bonanno crime family, was murdered on the patio of Joe and Mary’s Restaurant in Brooklyn in 1979.
The elder Galante’s criminal record dates back to 1926, when he was charged with murder, assault, robbery, grand larceny, alcohol tax violation and narcotics, according to FBI reports.
The mob boss, whose nickname was “The Cigar,” died with a cigar in his mouth after he was shot execution-style.
Manolis was in his first semester of college when he was killed, said Jody Fisher, a spokesman for St. John’s University.
According to the Daily News, a friend of Galante told him Manolis was talking with Galante’s girlfriend at a Bay Ridge, Brooklyn bar. Galante showed up at the bar, allegedly stabbed Manolis in the chest, and fled.
Galante was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday night at Brooklyn Criminal Court. He faces charges of murder in the second degree and criminal possession of a weapon, said Orlando Rivera, a spokesman for the Brooklyn district attorney’s office.
Reach reporter Betsy Scheinbart by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300 Ext. 138.
