27 Facts About Carmen Barillaro

Carmen Barillaro was an Italian-Canadian mobster who served as the right-hand man to Johnny Papalia of the Papalia crime family based in Hamilton, Ontario.

Carmen Barillaro was born in Italy and immigrated to Canada with parents at the age of nine.

Carmen Barillaro grew up in Niagara Falls, and joined the Papalia family.

Carmen Barillaro became a "made man" in the Magaddino family of Buffalo.

In 1978, Carmen Barillaro was convicted of conspiracy to import heroin and sentenced to two years in prison.

Carmen Barillaro was never charged, but remains the prime suspect in the presumed murder of Iannuzzelli.

One police officer told the journalist Adrien Humphreys that it was universally accepted that Carmen Barillaro had killed Iannuzzelli for Papalia, but there was insufficient evidence to charge him with first-degree murder.

In December 1985, Carmen Barillaro was arrested and charged with extortion of the gambling houses in Greektown as part of Operation Outhouse, a crackdown by the Ontario Provincial Police on the Papalia family.

Ultimately, the Crown dropped the charges, and Carmen Barillaro never went to trial.

On 24 December 1986, Carmen Barillaro filed for bankruptcy, claiming he had no assets and his only source of income was his weekly salary of $245 at Murphy's Restaurant, while at the same time he allowed a friend to use his credit card as much as he wanted, saying that the costs of paying off the credit card bill was not an issue for him.

Carmen Barillaro was an exacting and tyrannical manager who beat up a cook who tried to defrost a chicken with cold water instead of a microwave as he had ordered.

Carmen Barillaro owned the restaurant-bar via a convoluted ownership structure that was meant to pass himself off as a silent partner as his criminal record made him ineligible to have a liquor license in Ontario.

In 1987, Carmen Barillaro hired a woman, Faye Fontaine, to serve as an assassin, saying he wanted Roy Caja, a drug dealer who had once belonged to the Outlaws biker gang, killed for not paying a drug debt.

On 24 January 1989, Carmen Barillaro was sentenced to three years in prison for conspiracy to commit murder.

Shortly after his release, Carmen Barillaro was charged in May 1992 with conspiracy to import several kilograms of cocaine and 900 kilograms of marijuana from the United States.

Carmen Barillaro ended up pleading guilty to conspiracy to import cocaine and was fined $10,000.

Carmen Barillaro was married with two daughters and always had dinner with his brother every Sunday.

Carmen Barillaro was a devout Catholic who was a close friend of his priest, Father Malachy Smith, who called him a model family man.

Carmen Barillaro was considered to be friendly man by his neighbors who always greeted others on the street and loved to barbeque in his backyard with his family.

Mora borrowed $7.2 million from Vito Rizzuto of Montreal's Rizzuto family and gave the majority of the money to Papalia and Carmen Barillaro, who used some of it to open nightclubs and restaurants while the rest just vanished.

Two days after Papalia's murder, Carmen Barillaro met with Pat Musitano, a meeting which unknown to both men was secretly recorded by the police.

At a meeting in Buffalo in June 1997 attended by senior Magaddino family leaders, Carmen Barillaro received permission to kill Pat Musitano.

Murdock testified that the Musitano brothers were greatly afraid of Carmen Barillaro and wanted him killed before he could kill them.

Two months later, on 23 July 1997, Murdock killed Carmen Barillaro with a 9mm handgun after making the comment, "This is a message from Pat".

The murder occurred in Carmen Barillaro's Niagara Falls home after the victim's wife and children had left.

Murdock and Carmen Barillaro struggled for several minutes before Murdock was able to shoot him.

Carmen Barillaro's time as the Papalia family boss was very brief, lasting less than two months, but the Canadian journalist Jerry Langton wrote that everything indicated Carmen Barillaro was a formidable Mafiosi who was more than capable of leading the Papalia family and with his murder, the family went into decline.