Thomas “Tommy” Dono, a little-known, one-armed Gambino soldier who reduce his mob enamel as a financial institution burglar and stole a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars} within the Nineties, nonetheless has the Midas contact, prosecutors say.
The gangster has been credited with pulling off a spectacular $1.7 million housebreaking of the Chanel boutique in Manhattan, the corporate’s largest and most important within the nation, in keeping with the Manhattan District Lawyer’s workplace.
The blockbuster ripoff passed off almost two years in the past. That’s when Dono and a crew of 10 stole a whole lot of things value $1,776,7000 from Chanel’s flagship retailer at 15 East 57th Road throughout a well-planned, three-hour caper that started Saturday, July 13, 2024 at 10:14 p.m., in keeping with the court docket information.
Dono, 52, is alleged to have supervised the scheme from a white minivan parked on the retailer till 1:25 a.m. Sunday, July 14. That’s when he drove away from the scene of the crime adopted by a white Sprinter van full of 10 giant laundry and trash luggage containing 300 Chanel objects lifted out of a stockroom ceiling hatch, the prosecutors say.
In response to surveillance video obtained by the NYPD, the baggage of loot have been carried down a rear hearth escape exit by 5 crew members into an alleyway behind the shop.
Then they took them into an East 58th Road constructing that was beneath development on the time, lugged them onto the road and into the van.
A number of of the burglars have been dressed “as development staff,” the information say, they usually gained entry to the Chanel retailer by breaking via a stockroom ceiling hatch.
Not one of the stolen merchandise has been recovered, the information state.
Solely Dono, who pleaded not responsible to grand larceny on Might 19, has been arrested within the case. He was launched on $300,000 bond by Decide Felicia Mennin, half of what the DA’s workplace sought. The investigation continues to be persevering with, and extra arrests are anticipated.
Based mostly on data within the court docket information and sources within the NYPD and DA’s workplaces, Dono was rapidly tabbed as a key participant within the caper — as a result of his left arm was amputated on the shoulder a number of years in the past. Sources say the arm was injured in a automobile accident.
“Given his distinctive bodily traits,” the information state, he was “recognized comparatively early.”
Investigators additionally discovered surveillance movies of Dono and the 2 white automobiles concerned within the housebreaking parked outdoors a three-family house on Bay tenth Road within the Bathtub Seaside part of Brooklyn on the identical days they have been allegedly used within the Chanel heist.
Sources say Dono, a nephew of Thomas “Huck” Carbonaro, the late Gambino soldier who was convicted of racketeering and the tried homicide of a turncoat underboss, Salvatore “Sammy Bull” Gravano, was inducted into the crime household 5 years in the past following his launch from jail for participating within the 1998 homicide of FBI informer Frank Hydell. Hydell was shot and killed outdoors a Staten Island strip membership.
In 2008, Dono’s racketeering indictment alleged that in 2001 he was proposed for membership within the crime household, “as a reward for crimes [he] dedicated on behalf of the household, together with the homicide of Hydell.”
Sources say Dono, who resolved his Hydell case by taking a plea deal calling for a 15-year jail time period, was launched in 2021, and till final month had averted any entanglements with the legislation. The wiseguy, the sources say, is at the moment a mobster in good standing beneath the octogenarian capo who took over Gravano’s Brooklyn crew when he flipped, Louis “Massive Lou” Vallario.
From Jerry Capeci’s on-line column, ganglandnews.com.
