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NY Gambino family’s crime boss shot dead on Staten Island

The reported crime boss of the New York Mafia’s Gambino family, Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali, was gunned down in front of his Staten Island home late Wednesday

Thursday, 14th March 2019

The reported crime boss of the New York Mafia’s Gambino family, Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali, was gunned down in front of his Staten Island home late Wednesday, police, and media said.

Cali, 53, was found with multiple gunshot wounds at his home in the borough's ritzy Todt Hill section just after 9 p.m.

There was also a report of a blue pickup truck leaving the scene around the time of the shooting.

Cali was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. There have been no arrests.

Media reported that Cali was shot at least six or seven times and also run over by a blue pickup truck driven by the shooter, citing unidentified police sources.

The Gambino crime operation is one of the five historic Italian-American Mafia families in New York.

Charges against members of Mafia operations, including Gambino family operatives, have included murder, loan sharking, gambling and illegal drug distribution.

Multiple press accounts since 2015 said Cali had ascended to the top spot in the gang, although he never faced a criminal charge saying so.

His only mob-related criminal conviction came a decade ago when Cali pleaded guilty in an extortion conspiracy involving a failed attempt to build a NASCAR track on Staten Island. He was sentenced to 16 months in federal prison and was released in 2009.

The last crime family boss to be shot in New York City was Paul "Big Paul" Castellano. The Gambino crime boss was assassinated outside Sparks Steakhouse in Manhattan in 1985.

The Gambino Family was once among the most powerful criminal organizations in the U.S., but federal prosecutions in the 1980s and 1990s sent its top leaders to prison and diminished its reach.

“There are no arrests and the investigation is ongoing,” police said in a statement.