A mafia killer who struck other members of his own Colombo Crime family struck the crew – and pushed the penis cut of a murder in the mouth of the dead man – will not obtain a compassion liberation, judged a federal judge of Brooklyn.
John Pappa, 50, will not have a break on his two sorrows for life over 65 years for four gangland murders in the 1990s, the Judge of the Federal Court of Brooklyn, Pamela Chen, said that her crimes as “brutal and insane” and suggesting the remorse he showed during a hearing last year was a cynical act.
“The court cannot shake the impression, after having observed and listening to the defendant during the procedure in April of two hours, that he does not feel any remorse as to commit the four murders or empathy for the victims or their families,” wrote Chen. “The declarations of the defendant … felt covered and performative.”
Pappa, who has the creed “Dead Prima di Disonore” – meaning “dead before dishonor” – tattooed on the back, committed the 12th and last murder of the bloody civil war of Colombo in the early 1990s, then killed another button man because he wanted the merit of the killing.
The whole sordid affair was established in Chen’s decision, filed on May 30.
Pappa and another gangster, John Sparacino, were part of a “successful team” of three men assembled by Eric Curcio, and on October 20, 1993, they rubbed Colombo Underboss Joseph Scopo, making him ambush while he was approaching his Queens house in Ozone Park.
Sparacino sprayed Scopo’s car with bullets, but Scopo managed to get out of his car and run away.
Pappa ran after him, pulled him three times and killed him.
Sparacino began to attribute the mechanism, which angry Pappa and Curcio, so the two began to plot to kill it. But first, they continued one of Sparacino’s friends, Rolando Rivera. Because he told his girlfriend that the Curcio warned him to stay far from Sparacino.
The loose lips of Rivera wanted him. On June 7, 1994, Curcio and Pappa led with Rivera to a stolen van at Staten Island, and when they crossed the forgotten borough, they pulled it four times and pushed it out of the van while it was moving.
A cop on leave found Rivera alive, but he died shortly after.
Their attention turned to Sparacino after learning that he had dissected Curcio and Pappa in a nightclub. They therefore enlisted a friend in the drug trade, Calvin Hennigar, to attract Sparacino to his house in Staten Island. There, Hennigar shot him at the back of the head.
Pappa and Hennigar led Sparacino’s body to another place on Staten Island in a stolen car and lit the vehicle on fire, their victim still inside.
An autopsy revealed that the horrible spell of Sparacinio – it had been hidden and mutilated, with a shutter of skin cut with his face and his coupped penis pressed into his mouth.
Finally, Pappa lit Curcio, who, according to him, does not grant him the Scopo, and who may have killed one of his close friends.
“I killed Joe Scopo, I did all the work,” complained Pappa with Joseph Iborti, who testified during the Pappa trial in 1999.
No one could help Pappa with the blow, so he went solo, kicking the Curcio outside his workplace on October 4, 1994 – pulling him more than 10 times.
Pappa was found guilty of the four murders in 1999, while Hennigar was found guilty of the Sparacino killer.
Pappa made a compassionate release in 2022, arguing that his story which led in the arms of the Cosa Nostra. His father was a Genovese gangster murdered by the Colombo family crime in retaliation for having committed two killings – a story told to Pappa as a child – and his stepfather was locked up for accusations of drug and tax escape.
“Pappa was raised in a life of organized crime and drug trafficking, and after the death of his father and that his stepfather was imprisoned, he
Begun to consult the members of the organized crime to fill the paternity gap, “wrote his lawyer, Shon Hopwood.
During a tense hearing last year, the relatives of the victims of Pappa spoke, asking Chen to keep him locked up forever.
“You are a false, you are a false, you are a loser, and you are a killer, and that’s all you will ever be. Remember. You have taken lives. YOU
had this taste. Do not act as if you deserve anyone. You deserve only to suffer as we have suffered, “said Michelle Gedz, who was five months’ daughter of Rivera at her death.” You are pure evil and you are the frai of evil, and there is nothing else you will ever be. “”
During the April 2024 hearing, Pappa told Chen that he had found his humanity in prison.
“It’s productive. It was transformer. I completely changed my way of thinking, my belief system. I learned that working as hard as possible, being honest and helping others, that these are the three keys to a significant life,” he said. “I now see things clearly, act correctly and my actions are positive, effective and completely disinterested.”
Sparacino’s brother Salvadore interrupted Pappa while he was talking, declaring: “And the Oscar goes to you.”
https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/06/08/colombo-killer-john-pappa-jaled-for-life-in-4-nyc-rubouts-denied-compassionate-release/
