It’s sufficient to make you wish to gulp a “Actual Housewives”-size glass of pinot grigio.
Due to the twisted love story between former “Actual Housewives of New Jersey” star Dina Manzo, 47, and ex-husband Tommy Manzo, historical past is repeating itself for considered one of northern New Jersey’s extra notorious households. The Manzos have been compelled to disclaim mob ties as soon as once more.
On Tuesday, Tommy, 55, pleaded not guilty to federal fees of hiring a Lucchese crime family soldier to beat up Dina’s new husband, David Cantin, whom she wed in 2017, a yr after divorcing Tommy.
Though Dina and Tommy, who don’t have any kids collectively, break up up in 2012, they didn’t formally divorce till 2016. Throughout the years in between, she started courting entrepreneur Cantin.
However Tommy wasn’t out of her life.
In accordance with federal fees revealed Monday, Tommy allegedly deliberate and carried out “an assault” on Cantin in 2015. On the time, Cantin and Dina had been courting and Tommy, based on the indictment, was “upset” about it.
Tommy and Dina married in 2005, in an over-the-top occasion that performed out on the VH1 actuality sequence “My Huge Fabulous Marriage ceremony.” This was 4 years earlier than Dina joined “Actual Housewives of New Jersey.” It was a household affair, as her castmates included Dina’s older sister Caroline Manzo and Jacqueline Laurita, who’s wed to the sisters’ brother Chris.
Caroline, 58 and a former “RHONJ” solid member herself, is infamous for saying, “Let me inform you about my household, we’re thick as thieves.”
She’s not kidding. Tommy’s brother Albert Manzo is married to Caroline, making sisters Dina and Caroline additionally sisters-in-law at one level.
“I grew up with Dina, I knew her since she was 7,” Albert instructed The Publish, “We don’t desire a hair on her head harmed. She remains to be my sister-in-law. She all the time might be.”
It’s unclear why the indictment is going on now, 5 years after the occasion. However Caroline instructed “Further” TV her household was “heartbroken” over the costs.
“That is household on either side,” she mentioned. “I wish to know the reality and my allegiance will lie with the reality. We don’t run from issues like this, we handle them, and I really feel snug with that as a result of we’re being painted with a brush that doesn’t replicate who we’re as individuals.”
As Tommy’s lawyer, Michael Critchley, put it: “The allegations are proper out of a fictional plot of a reality-TV present.”
Accusations that the Manzos had been mobbed up date again to 1983 when the paterfamilias, 400-pound Albert “Tiny” Manzo Sr., was executed gangland-style in August 1983. Tiny, the daddy of Albert and Tommy, was discovered within the trunk of his Lincoln Continental outdoors a grocery store in Hillside, NJ: bare, his legs and arms tied with plastic, with 4 bullet holes in his torso.
He and Gambino household soldier Peter A. Campisi had reportedly skimmed cash from a Mafia-connected on line casino on Staten Island. In a e book known as “” by Mike Russell, Tiny Manzo was described as “the most important enforcer in Jersey.”
Tiny Manzo was so heavy, it took police a number of hours to extract his physique from the Lincoln.
A longtime criminal-defense lawyer who represented among the Mafia figures Albert Sr. was mentioned to be concerned with instructed The Publish that the traces between “made guys and the goombas they frolicked with” may be blurry.
“That’s sort of how they do enterprise in Paterson,” the lawyer mentioned. “These persons are not precisely Boston Brahmins.”
However Albert Sr.’s son says it was all a misunderstanding.
“My father was no gangster,” Albert mentioned. “He was a beautiful, hardworking man. He was by no means accused of anything pertaining to being a gangster. The disgrace of it’s that our household had been the victims of a homicide which was by no means solved, and it was spun as a mob hit.”
Albert mentioned his brother Tommy isn’t responsible of something however arduous work as nicely.
“I imagine my brother is harmless. My father was, too,” Albert mentioned. “It’s terrible what occurred to Dina’s husband. We simply need to hope that whoever actually did that is discovered and goes to jail.” Albert added that Tommy is out on bail and again at his aspect working The Brownstone — the restaurant and catering corridor in Paterson that the brothers run.
The Manzos’ present troubles stem from the risky marriage of Dina and Tommy, a union doomed from the beginning — on “My Huge Fabulous Marriage ceremony,” she admitted she married him realizing he had already cheated on her.
Household and buddies say it was a case of a girl who beloved an excessive amount of and a person who didn’t respect her.
“It was Dina who determined she needed them to separate,” Albert mentioned. “It was by no means Tommy. Tommy needed her. He needed them to remain collectively.”
In accordance with the indictment, Tommy enlisted the assistance of John Perna, 45, an alleged member of the Lucchese crime household, to assault Cantin in July 2015. Perna and one other alleged Lucchese crew member adopted Cantin to a strip mall in Passaic County the place they attacked him with a slapjack, a small membership that’s swung at somebody to inflict harm, the indictment mentioned. Perna pled not responsible.
Cantin suffered “critical bodily harm” and a “everlasting facial scar.”
“She leaves him and goes off with a brand new, youthful man? His ego couldn’t take it.”
– Former “RHONJ” solid member Kim DePaola, on Tommy Manzo allegedly going after ex-wife Dina’s new husband
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Perna did this in alternate for a “deeply discounted” marriage ceremony reception at The Brownstone, which occurred a couple of month later and was attended by about 330 individuals, together with members of the Lucchese household, based on the feds.
“RHONJ” star Kim DePaola says there’s a motive Dina determined to depart her husband. “[The divorce] will not be on Dina, it’s all on Tommy,” DePaola instructed The Publish. “Dina was head over heels in love with him and he or she sat residence each evening ready for him. She was a very good spouse. He was off at The Brownstone doing his factor, in case you catch what I’m saying.”
Tommy Manzo allegedly “did his factor” with so many ladies that Dina as soon as confronted considered one of them, who instructed her to “take it up along with your husband,” DePaola mentioned.
So what occurred to make Tommy go after Dina’s new man, because the feds imagine?
“Right here’s the factor, Tommy is definitely not a foul man,” DePaola mentioned. “He’s mild-mannered, very beautiful to individuals at The Brownstone. I believe it was a person factor. They need what they’ll’t have. He didn’t need Dina when she was ravenous for consideration and was dying for his love however when she leaves him and goes off with a brand new, youthful man? His ego couldn’t take it. He obtained too wrapped up, that’s my take.
“It’s arduous to not discover that her new man appears like a youthful model of Tommy. I’ll go away it at that.”
As for mob ties, DePaola added that neither Albert nor Tommy are “within the life.” She additionally mentioned their dad was not a “full-on gangster” however was killed after he “did one thing the full-ons didn’t like.”
“While you’re a full-on it’s important to abide by some guidelines and laws of the life,” DePaola mentioned. “From what I do know, [Tiny] perhaps did one thing that was not following the foundations the full-ons needed to comply with and so they needed to ship a message.”
Now persons are questioning if a 2017 home invasion on Dina and Cantin’s Holmdel, NJ, residence might have been linked to the 2015 assault on Cantin.
Manzo and Cantin, now 39, instructed Holmdel police on the time that, once they walked into their home, they had been confronted by two males already inside. One man struck Cantin a number of instances with a baseball bat whereas Manzo was punched a number of instances by the opposite man. They had been then sure collectively whereas the thieves made off with money and jewellery. Cantin, a father of two, ultimately was in a position to free himself and name 911. They had been taken to a neighborhood hospital and obtained therapy for facial accidents.
On the time, Manzo and Cantin had been dwelling in California, the place they at the moment reside, however had been visiting their residence state for the First Communion social gathering for Dina’s goddaughter Audriana Giudice — the daughter of “RHONJ” castmate Teresa Giudice.
The weird assault featured, according to the affidavit, “an Italian man with a North Jersey accent” telling the pair: “That is what occurs while you f–ok with individuals from Paterson.”
James “Jimmy Balls” Mainello, 52, of Bayonne, was indicted on charges associated to the house invasion final summer season. His lawyer Marco Laracca instructed The Publish his consumer is harmless and is trying to be “totally exonerated.”
DePaola figures it needed to have been ordered by somebody who is aware of Dina. “They had been solely residence from California for 2 days for the christening. Isn’t it sort of a coincidence that the house invasion occurred then? Who else however individuals in Dina’s circle knew they might even be residence?” mentioned DePaola. “That sort of burglar does just a little homework. That home had been empty.”
Dina and Cantin obtained on a airplane proper after the 2017 assault and so far as DePaola is aware of, haven’t been again to Jersey since.
“Dina’s been via so much and I believe she’s been scared s–tless by all the pieces that’s occurred,” DePaola mentioned. “You realize what? She was a lady on the lookout for love and he or she lastly discovered it.
“Tommy didn’t need her till she was gone. It’s his loss. She got here out forward.”