John Gotti and the Crazy Refrigerator Mechanic: The Start of the "Teflon Don" Era

It all started harmlessly enough. A refrigerator mechanic trying to navigate his work van through a crowded and congested Brooklyn, New York, side street, Romuel Piecyk - pronounced "pie-check" - was a New York native who was used to the less-than stellar New York traffic flow. But this was different. Some knucklehead had double-parked in front of a small curbside diner, blocking Piecyk's forward advancement. It was late in the day; he was tired after a long day's work and eager to get home. Piecyk leaned on his horn and kept at it until a man emerged from the diner. "Just hold on," the unidentified man said. But Piecyk was tired of waiting. "Move this car," Piecyk insisted. And he blew the horn some more. Piecyk, all six-foot-two inches and two-hundred-plus pounds of him, thought himself something of a tough guy, and he wasn't about to let some jerk with poor parking skills impede his forward direction. And that's when the trouble started!

Annoyed by this horn-blowing van driver who had the nerve to protest his parking style, the unidentified man - later identified as one Frank Colletta - rushed towards Piecyk's van and slapped him across the face through the open driver's side window. And, to add further insult, Colletta, spying a wad of money protruding from Piecyk's front shirt pocket, reached in and swiped it; apparently a form of "tax" for being aggravated and inconvenienced! Piecyk was furious. He exited his van and he and Colletta started to tussle. Colletta, much smaller than Piecyk but quite handy with his fists, more than held his own, and as a second man exited the storefront diner to investigate the brewing commotion out on the street, the "incident" took a new turn that would have a far-reaching effect not only on Piecyk, but for all parties involved.

The second man to enter the picture was none other than John Gotti who, at the time, was not the well-known Mafia Don he would later become and was just another two-bit punk as far as Piecyk could tell. Frank Colletta was a personal friend of Gotti's, and Gotti didn't take kindly to seeing his friend embroiled in a street-side fracas, regardless of the cause. Apparently not satisfied with the boxing lesson that his friend had given the brazen refrigerator mechanic, Gotti smacked Piecyk across the face for good measure and then made a menacing gesture with his hand towards his coat pocket, as if he were reaching for a possible weapon. "You better get the f**k outta here," Gotti allegedly bellowed. And Piecyk, brave but not entirely without good judgment, heeded Gotti's advice. The incident appeared over. Gotti and Colletta retreated back inside the diner to enjoy their meal. But Piecyk, with his puffy lip and bruised ego, wasn't about to let a couple of seemingly two-bit punks muscle him and take his money. He found a local police officer walking a nearby beat and quickly apprised him of his situation. Returning to the scene of his altercation with Gotti and Co., Piecyk identified his two assailants through the diner window facing the street. Gotti and Colletta were arrested for assault and robbery, and Piecyk seemingly had the last laugh! Seemingly.

Between the time that the incident took place until the time that a grand jury decided to indict John Gotti and Frank Colletta on assault and robbery charges, much had changed in the life of John Gotti. He had gone from being an up-and-coming and little-known gangster to being the "Boss of Bosses" of the entire New York Mafia. With the assassination of his predecessor, Paul Castellano, a crime that Gotti was later convicted of orchestrating, Gotti became boss of the Gambino crime family, the largest of the fabled five organized crime families in New York. Gotti's name and picture were splashed all over the television news and the newspapers. On the day of his run-in with Piecyk, Gotti was a virtual unknown to the outside world, but now, as the trial date was approaching, his "underworld" status had elevated Gotti to public attention. It soon became apparent to Piecyk that John Gotti was not some two-bit street punk who had assaulted him as he had originally believed; Piecyk soon realized that the man he was accusing and set to testify against was The Godfather!

As a trial date was set and the court date approaching, Piecyk's misgivings about testifying against John Gotti and his friend Colletta were increasing. He had been receiving strange phone calls in the middle of the night from callers who would linger on the line in silence and then hang up. He would drive around town and notice strange faces and cars following him. The brakes on his mechanic's van were cut. There were death threats. Piecyk was scared, and he wasn't about to risk his life or that of his family over a puffy lip, a bruised ego, and the loss of some chump change. He decided it was time to swallow his pride and ensure that he continued to live a long, prosperous, and healthy life. On the day of Piecyk's testimony, the prosecution team fully expected him to fulfill his earlier intentions of identifying both John Gotti and Frank Colletta as the men who had assaulted him. But it was not to be.

On the witness stand, Romuel Piecyk developed a strange case of amnesia. When asked by the prosecutor if the men who had assaulted him were in fact sitting in the courtroom, Piecyk hemmed and hawed and then outright lied. "You know, it was so long ago, I really can't recall what the men looked like who assaulted me," was Piecyk's lame response. He had no recollection of ever meeting either Gotti or Colletta; his memory became painstakingly fuzzy in regards to the day that he was assaulted. The prosecution was stunned. With no eyewitness to testify, the case collapsed! John Gotti and Frank Colletta walked. The day after the stunning courtroom drama, the New York Post ran a bold, eye-catching headline alluding to Piecyk's memory difficulties on the stand that had allowed John Gotti to walk: "I Forgotti"!

The "I Forgotti" case was the beginning of a spectacular winning streak that John Gotti would have against both state and federal prosecutors trying to lock him up; he would beat two state prosecutions and one federal prosecution that moved the press to label him the "Teflon Don" for his ability to endure repeated prosecutions unscathed.