Ex-Colombo soldier Joseph Competiello, who helped authorities crack the long-unsolved murder case of the New York police officer, said at his sentencing Tuesday, ‘I feel like a horrible, heartless person up here admitting to all these crimes I committed, but I’m not that person anymore.’
BY JOHN MARZULLI
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
The family of slain NYPD cop Ralph Dols was a no-show Tuesday at the sentencing of a mob rat who received 12 years in prison for five gangland murders, including the rubout of the off-duty police officer.
Ex-Colombo soldier Joseph Competiello, who helped authorities crack the long-unsolved murder case, has maintained that he did not know Dols was a cop when he was given the contract by mob superiors in 1997.
No one from Dols’ family wrote the judge expressing a view on sentencing.
Dols was allegedly marked for death by then-acting Colombo boss Joel Cacace because Cacace’s ex-wife had married the policeman. Cacace and two other alleged participants in the plot, Thomas Gioeli and Dino Saracino, were acquitted by federal juries of Dols’ murder.
Brooklyn Federal Judge Brian Cogan said he believed Competiello testified truthfully, but added: “I don’t think he played well to either jury.”
Competiello, 43, has served more than six years in prison since he was arrested.
“I feel like a horrible, heartless person up here admitting to all these crimes I committed, but I’m not that person anymore,” he told the judge.
Rosa Gargano, the mother of victim Carmine Gargano, urged the judge to show no mercy to the “bloodthirsty” hit man.
“I still do not have my son’s body — and he wants to go home to his wife and family,” Gargano cried, holding a framed photo of her son who was fatally shot by Competiello and finished off with a sledgehammer.
