December 11, 2019 — According to a deceased New Jersey mobster’s son, slain labor boss Jimmy Hoffa’s final resting place is near the same Carlstadt riverbed murdered Jersey mob capo John (The Count) DiGilio was found floating in a canvas bag on May 26, 1988. DiGilio, 56, was a brash power in the Genovese crime family who fell out favor with his superiors in New York over his behavior at a federal racketeering trial in which he represented himself at earlier that spring. Hoffa, the famous Teamsters union chieftain, disappeared on July 30, 1975 from a suburban Detroit restaurant parking lot en route to a lunch meeting with Detroit mob street boss Anthony (Tony Jack) Giacalone and New Jersey mafia capo Anthony (Tony Pro) Provenzano. The sit down was being held to resolve a dispute related to union affairs between the still-fiery 62-year old Hoffa and his friend-now-rival Provenzano. Hoffa’s body has never been found and nobody has ever faced charges in the case. Actor Al Pacino can be seen portraying Hoffa in the Netflix film The Irishman, a streaming event like no other last month, drawing in 26 million viewers in its first week of availability. Provenzano represented Genovese family interests in New Jersey and within the Teamsters union. Phil Moscato, Jr., whose dad was Phil (Brother) Moscato, a notorious Genovese family loanshark and Provenzano crew member linked to the Hoffa homicide conspiracy since the early days of the long-gestating investigation, recently pointed Fox News reporter Eric Shawn towards the borough of Carlstadt in Bergen County, his father’s former racket turf, to find Hoffa’s remains. In the final months of his life in 2014, Brother Moscato admitted to legendary Hoffa researcher Dan Moldea that he was responsible for the disposal of Hoffa’s body and the Teamsters icon was buried at his PJP Landfill in Jersey City. Moscato, Jr. told Shawn that in his dad’s last days his dad admitted to him that Hoffa was first laid to rest at the trash dump, but then moved to the Carlstadt location after Moscato mob associate Ralph (Little Ralphie) Picardo became a witness for the government and pointed authorities to Moscato’s property. The PJP Landfill was searched by the FBI in the 1970s. Little Ralphie Picardo was Tony Provenzano’s driver and was visited by Provenzano crew members in the days following Hoffa’s execution. Tony Pro and Brother Moscato both pleaded the Fifth Amendment when called in front of a federal grand jury in Detroit probing the Hoffa kidnapping and murder. In the months after Moscato, Jr. came forward with his claim, Frank Cappola, the son of Brother Moscato’s partner in the trash dump, Paul Cappola (d. 2012), told Moldea that his dad showed him the spot in the Jersey City landfill where Hoffa’s body was disposed of and that the body was in fact never moved. Moldea and the younger Cappola have identified a “little league baseball field sized” slice of property on the former PJP Landfill site they believe Hoffa’s remains lie. Tony Pro went to prison on murder and racketeering charges unrelated to the Hoffa case. He died of a heart attack in December 1988, outliving Johnny DiGilio, the man who had taken over much of his territory in the New Jersey mob landscape when he was locked up, by seven months. The colorful, broad-shouldered DiGilio was a pro boxer turned mob loanshark and labor–union racketeer mentored by notoriously cagey Genovese don Frank (Funzi) Tieri and known on the streets as an “earner” and a tough guy, a dangerous combination in the mafia. His infiltration of Local 1588 of the International Longshoremen’s Association, which gave him control of the entire Bayonne, New Jersey waterfront, put him in the government’s crosshairs and he was nailed for loan sharking in state court, however, beat a federal racketeering case at trial while acting as his own defense attorney. His combative, wisecracking courtroom antics worked wonders with the jury, but didn’t fare as well with his bosses in the crime family. They blamed him for the loss of power in the union and the convictions of his co-defendants. DiGilio was found not guilty on April 17, 1988. Still awaiting sentencing in his loansharking case, DiGilio tasted freedom for another 22 days and then went missing on May 7. DiGilio’s body was found afloat in the Hackensack River two and a half weeks later near the Carlstadt coastline .
