No Mercy for Irish Gangster

Sidewalks with Tom Deignan

No Mercy for Irish Gangster

June 26, 2008

HE’S already in federal prison. But the charges just keep piling up for Brooklyn Irish gangster Edmund Boyle.

Last week, Boyle, along with two other men aligned with the Gambino organized crime family, were hit with charges related to a 1998 killing outside a Staten Island strip club. If that sounds like a scene straight out of The Sopranos or Goodfellas, well, that makes sense. Boyle, after all, has regularly been compared to Jimmy “the Gent” Burke, the Irish gangster who served as the basis for Robert DeNiro’s character in the classic Martin Scorsese movie.

“Given his Irish heritage, Gambino associate Edmund (Eddie) Boyle always knew he could never become a powerful made guy,” mob-chronicler Jerry Capeci has written on his authoritative website gangland-news.com.

“But that hasn’t stopped him from earning a reputation in mob circles as a clever, resourceful money maker who won’t buckle under pressure.”

In fact, if you take a closer look at Boyle and his alleged crimes, they probably would not make for good movie material. In some ways, they are too outlandish to believe.

The 43 year-old Boyle has gotten himself mixed up with the infamous NYPD detectives who performed mob killings, an ex-boyfriend of Madonna’s and a victim who was killed because (allegedly) he was mad that he actually had to work at a construction job which was supposed to be a “no show” gig.

The latest charges against Boyle stem from an incident which happened outside Scarlet’s strip club on Staten Island in April of 1998.

Boyle, along with fellow reputed Gambino associates Thomas Dono and Lenny DeCarlo, have been accused of conspiring to kill Frank Hydell outside the strip joint, according to authorities and press reports.

Prosecutors have said that the gangsters feared Hydell was going to talk to cops about a separate killing , the 1997 Super Bowl Sunday murder of Frank Parasole at a Brooklyn social club.

It was Parasole, according to testimony and published reports, who supposedly forced one of Boyle’s pals to do construction labor on what had initially been understood to be a no-show job.

Boyle’s pal felt disrespected. So they (allegedly) whacked the guy.

The recent charges against Boyle interrupted what was, according to mob watchers, a lucrative career.

“He’s intelligent, cool under pressure and most important, a stand up guy,” one law enforcement source told ganglandnews.com, referring to Boyle, who was described as a “trusted and capable” member of a Brooklyn-based Gambino crew.

The Gambino family, of course, was made famous by former boss John Gotti.

How did Eddie Boyle get mixed up with the infamous “mafia cops”?

Well, Frank Hydell, that guy killed in the parking lot of a Staten Island strip club? It turns out he had a brother named James who, uh, simply vanished in October of 1986.

Law enforcement officials believe James Hydell was abducted by Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, the NYPD detectives who – it was later revealed – were also performing missions for the mob.

Now, how did Boyle get mixed up with Madonna’s boy toy?

Well, you may remember the name Chris Paciello, from the days when the tabloids were interested in Madonna they way they, today, are interested in Britney and Amy Winehouse. For a brief spell, Paciello became king of Miami night life. His clubs attracted supermodels and superstars like Madonna, to whom Paciello was romantically linked. Before all that, however, Paciello was a bank robber who worked for (at least according to prosecutors) Edmund Boyle. Originally known as the “Night Drop Crew,” the Irish American thief apparently played such a prominent role in the robbery crew that prosecutors simply began calling it the “Boyle crew.”

All in all, during the 1990s, Boyle was accused of stealing nearly $900,000 from National Westminster Bank on Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn, and taking part in almost ten other bank and home robberies.

Paciello himself is a long way from Madonna and the night club scene. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for taking part in a 1992 robbery which led to the deaths of the home residents.

As for Boyle, well, maybe he too could rat out some of his pals and write a book or screenplay.

Trouble is, no one would probably believe it.

Contact Tom at tomdeignan@verizon.net

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