Thomas Pitera

Thomas Pitera (born December 2, 1954) is an American mobster in the Bonanno crime family.

Pitera, a soldier and later on a captain of his own crew, was suspected by law enforcement of as many as 60 murders.

Pitera was well known for his use of karate and other martial arts when fighting, a skill he had learned at a young age and which earned him nicknames like "Tommy Karate", and "The Karate Guy".

Pitera is serving a life sentence at USP Big Sandy in Inez, Kentucky.

Thomas Pitera grew up in the Gravesend neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Joseph "Joe" Pitera, an Italian-American from Campagna in Province of Salerno, and Catherine Bugowski, of German and Polish descent from Rhineland-Palatinate.

His father was an independent concession stand wholesale candy salesman who sold Mary Jane, Pixy Stix, Ferrara Candy Company's Red Hots, lemon drops and Bazooka chewing gum.

Pitera attended the David A. Boody Junior High School at 228 Avenue S in Gravesend, where he left little impression with his teachers, daydreamed a lot and was bullied by his peers because of his high-pitched voice.

Before he became interested in martial arts he wanted to become involved in professional baseball but was too ostracized by fellow students to join the varsity baseball team.

He later broke into Boody and stole the school baseball team's equipment as an act of revenge and sold it to "fences" in the neighborhood.

He was later arrested and charged for the burglary but was convicted as a juvenile and his record was sealed.

He attended a Dojo in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn and quickly rose to the top of his class.

He had a daily regimen of working out, lifting weights, reading about Kyokushin fighting strategies and tactics and watching violent films, mostly kung fu films.

At the age of 12, Pitera had been a huge fan of the 1966 The Green Hornet television show and actor Bruce Lee starring alongside Van Williams, triggering his lifelong interest in martial arts.

The hit was reportedly delegated to Pitera and fellow gunman Vincent "Kojak" Giattino after Gotti had discovered that Johnson had been a government informant since 1966.

Pitera was charged with the Johnson murder but acquitted at trial.

Pitera was close to Spero, whose Bath Beach crew were involved in extortion, loan sharking, drug dealing and murder, as well as robbing drug dealers and then reselling their product.

Pitera's associates, Lloyd Modell and Frank Martini, murdered two Colombian dealers and stole sixteen kilograms of cocaine.

The killers intended to drive their car to Staten Island to bury the bodies, but as they could not drive a stick shift, they left the car – with the bodies inside the trunk – in a Brooklyn parking garage.

Martini moved back to Sicily and continued his relationship with the Bonanno crime family while Pitera killed Tala Siksik, a Middle Eastern drug supplier, in his Brooklyn apartment.

Pitera shot Siksik four times in the back, chopped the body up into six pieces, and then buried it at a secret dumping ground.

Investigators eventually found six of Pitera's victims in a mob graveyard in Staten Island near the William T. Davis Wildlife Refuge.

Pitera had decapitated the bodies and buried the heads separately to impede their identification using dental records.

It was later solidified in 1969 with the release of the film Marlowe starring James Garner and Lee as "Lee Wong".

He let his thick, straight, black hair grow down past his ears despite disapproval by his parents for not wanting him to look like a "hippie", started eating sushi as a regular part of his diet and immersed himself in Eastern philosophy.

After winning an arduous kumite competition in Sheepshead Bay, Pitera spent 27 months in Tokyo, Japan training assiduously under the revered Japanese martial arts Shihan Hiroshi Masumi in the ways of the Ko-ryū Ninjutsu.

While there he ate mostly fish, rice and edible seaweed and read books about war and fighting becoming a martial artist and academic on the subject.

He began to think of himself as invincible.

His mother and aunt Angelina Bugowski went to visit him and were impressed with the change to his physical appearance, maturity, sensibility and understanding of the Japanese culture and people.

He was trained to use the tonfa, nunchucks and katanas.

While in Japan, he grew his hair down to his shoulders to adopt the Bruce Lee image.

After his scholarship ended, he sought work in a chopsticks factory to underwrite his stay and earn more money.

This led him to acquire the nickname "Tommy Karate" by friends and fellow mobsters, despite that he specialized in Togakure-ryū and not karate.

Upon returning to Brooklyn, Pitera joined the Bonanno crime family and quickly became one of their most feared soldiers.

He belonged to a Bonanno faction headed by caporegimes Alphonse "Sonny Red" Indelicato, Frank Lino, Dominick Trinchera and Philip Giaccone.

This group opposed the current leadership under boss Philip Rastelli and his leading capos Joseph Massino and Dominick Napolitano.

During the 1980s, Pitera became a "made man" of the Bonanno family and was assigned to Lino's crew by Bonanno consigliere Anthony Spero.

In 1981, Massino and Napolitano set up the murders of the three rival capos in a Gravesend club co-owned by Sammy Gravano.

After their deaths, Massino made peace with the rest of the leaderless faction, including Pitera.

On August 29, 1988, Pitera allegedly ambushed and murdered Wilfred "Willie Boy" Johnson as he walked ahead to their car.

Johnson had been a longtime associate and driver for Gambino family boss John Gotti.