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Sicilian mobster: great-uncle slew NY cop in ’09

By WTOP Staff

ROME (AP) — Idle Mafia boasting or cold case solved?

Police said a suspected Mafioso, one of 91 people arrested in a raid Monday in Palermo, had boasted his great-uncle killed a New York City police officer dispatched to that city in 1909 to investigate the Sicilian Mafia.

Domenico Palazzotto, 28, was heard bragging in a recent intercepted phone conversation with another suspected mobster that the ancestor, Paolo Palazzotto, had slain Police Lt. Giuseppe (Joe) Petrosino on a Mafia boss’s orders. Police described the boast as an attempt by Palazzotto to establish his Mafia “pedigree.”

The police noted that Paolo Palazzotto and the alleged murder mastermind were acquitted of Petrosino’s slaying for lack of evidence.

The Italian-born Petrosino was investigating a prostitution racket sending women to the United States.

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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