Anthony Conigliaro aka former Genovese Mobster Tony Cakes decapitated by DOT Truck in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, NYC.
Karma…? An 86 year old man who was decapitated by a truck that plowed into him at a Brooklyn crosswalk earlier this month has been identified as a former Italian mob boss.
Anthony Conigliaro according to reports was a former acting captain for the Genovese crime family with the one-time mafioso going by the alias of ‘Tony Cakes,’ along with ‘Tony the Dessert Man.’
The former crime boss died June 12 in an accidental hit by a NYC Department of Transportation truck, the nypost reported.
Living a quiet life incognito
Grisly footage from the crash showed Conigliaro’s head severed several yards from his crumbled body — and a DOT driver, who was behind the wheel of a city truck when the elderly man walked against a traffic light to cross the street, looking teary-eyed and devastated.
‘He spent his life looking over his shoulder but he forgot to look both ways before crossing the street,’ a police source told the outlet.
Prior to Conigliaro’s death, the former crime boss lived a quiet life by himself in a small Bay Ridge apartment building on Dahlgren Place.
The father of two according to a neighbor always looked out for others.
‘We miss him. Everybody misses him,’ the neighbor told the nypost.
Nevertheless the neighbor didn’t know about Conigliaro’s past — which not only included a connection to the mafia, but also a nearly two-decade-old racketeering case.
Brooklyn federal prosecutors in 2005 accused Conigliaro — who worked for years in the wholesale cake business, selling sweets across the New York City area and running an Italian ice and gelato stand in Little Italy, according to court documents — of being a soldier in the Genovese crime family.
Conigliaro worked as a loan shark for the Genovese, the feds said in a four-count indictment.
‼️GOODFELLA GOON SLEEPS WITH THE FISHES! 😱
86yo Anthony Conigliaro was DECAPITATED by a DOT truck that PLOWED into him at a crosswalk 🚷
Anthony Conigliaro was a former acting captain for the Genovese crime family a one-time mafioso known as “Tony Cakes,” and “Tony the Dessert… pic.twitter.com/DcSrj50mTW
— i Expose Racist & Pedos (@iSeeRacist) June 22, 2024
Redemption? Karma?
He eventually copped a guilty plea to a racketeering conspiracy charge, for which he received a 13-month sentence, court records state.
Conigliaro was also arrested in 1999 for criminal usury and in 2006 in a grand larceny case, which has since been sealed, sources said.
Mathew Mari, a longtime mob lawyer who counted Conigliaro as a friend and client, said the man he knew as ‘Tony Cheesecake’ successfully delved into the dessert business after his time behind bars.
‘Later on in life he became known as Tony the Dessert Man,’ Mari told the nypost.
‘He was a kind gentle soft spoken very quiet guy. Always trying to help people.’
A small memorial for the former mobster— four bouquets of flowers and two candles — was set up Friday at 92nd Street and Dahlgren Place, where he was fatally struck.
