A chilling FBI wiretap captured the moment a hulking reputed Bonanno soldier nicknamed “The Maniac” threatened to pound a mob turncoat if he ratted him out to the feds.
“I’ll slap the s–t out of you, you’re gonna tell on me?” wiseguy John Ragano screamed at mob informant Vincent Martino, according to the recording played for the jury in Brooklyn federal court on Wednesday. “You f–ing scumbag. I’ll see you when I get out.”
The July 2023 tape was made just five days before Ragano was shipped off to prison on a racketeering rap — and after the hulking hood forced Martino to strip naked to prove he wasn’t wearing a wire.
The strip search failed to find the microphone, which was attached to Martino’s clothes, prosecutors said.
Martino, a Mafia associate who was $275K in the hole to the mob, is one of the key witnesses at Ragano’s new trial on federal extortion, harassing a witness and witness tampering charges.
In his second day on the witness stand, Marino testified that as he was berated by Ragano while in the nude, two other goons stood behind him wielding a tire iron and a crowbar.
“I was anxious, scared,” Martino told the jurors. “I knew that at the end of the day, somewhere along the line, two weeks, two years, five years…someone was coming to collect that money.”
Martino began cooperating with the feds after getting deeply in debt to the mob.
He first started taking mob money after his construction company failed in the midst of the COVID pandemic, taking on $125,000 in loans from the Columbo crime family, prosecutors said.
After falling behind, Martino turned to the Bonannos for another $150,000 in illegal loans — and was eventually summoned by Ragano to make good on the debt.
During the July 5, 2023 meeting at the rear of A&G Auto Dismantlers in Ridgewood, Martino tried to throw Ragano off by accusing him of being a rat, according to the wiretap.
“I gotta get out of this thing,” Martino said. “You f–king snitching on me, bro?”
“Get the f–k out of here,” Ragano shot back. “You getting stupid on me?
“I don’t want to get retarded, because I’m going to jail,” he said. “You don’t really know me. I don’t want to be tough. I’m not trying to be tough. When I get out, you put a f–king wire on me, I’m going to come out and show you what kind of guy I am.”
Ragano’s trial continued on Wednesday.