A tip for all the Tony Sopranos out there: If you decide to flip, testify to the feds, and then enjoy every mobster's retirement dream -- running a pizza shop named "Goomba's" in Florida, naturally -- try to keep your temper under control behind the front counter. All your hard work setting up a new life in the Sunshine State goes out the window when you pistol-whip an angry customer half to death on video.
Joey Calco, a former hitman for the Bonano crime family, has learned this lesson the hard way. He just got whacked with six months in federal prison for beating the hell out of a customer at his Palm City shop who had complained about a calzone.
The attack above went down on Jan. 23, 2009 inside Calco's shop -- yeah, it was really called Goomba's Pizza -- south of Jacksonville.
The customer had been angrily complaining about a calzone, the New York Daily News reports, when Calco's mobster instincts kicked in and he destroyed the guy with a gun he was definitely not supposed to own as a former mobster under witness protection.
Prosecutors last Thursday told a judge that Calco deserved serious prison time over the beat-down considering what a gift of a second chance he'd already gotten.
"He was allowed to have a second chance," U.S. Attorney Nicole Argentieri said, according to the Daily News. "A dispute about food? Come on. It was a horrible beating."
Indeed, Calco was indicted back in 1999 on federal charges of racketeering, distributing cocaine and pot, and conspiring to murder another mobster named Dino Serracino.
He agreed to help the feds convict dozens of his associates -- including goons nicknamed "Little Joey" and "Gonzo" and Bonano boss Anthony Spero.
In exchange, they set him up in Palm City with the new name "Joseph Milano" and a small pizza shop to run.
Now, Calco's headed to the federal pen, where he'll presumably need solitary quarters to avoid a knife in the back.
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