Don't you hate it when you're about to start your honeymoon, and you get a phone call that the FBI is planning on arresting you during your romantic getaway? Nothing kills the mood like Feds! Alleged Bonanno crime family associate Vito Pipitone, and his wife Paula, lived through that scenario in October 2009. This would be the first of several failed attempts by the couple to take a honeymoon in the last year, while Pipitone was on trial and then house arrest for assault charges. The couple learned yesterday that they would finally get their honeymoon...in about three and a half years.
Pipitone, who the Post lovingly describes as a "29-year-old nightclub DJ and sometime union laborer," pleaded guilty to assault charges stemming from his involvement in the 2004 beating of two teens, and was sentenced to three and a half years in prison yesterday. It wasn't enough that Pipitone messed up his honeymoon plans—he even stabbed the wrong men. He incorrectly thought they were responsible for breaking the window of the Napa & Sonoma steakhouse in Whitestone, Queens, which was protected by the mob. Pipitone has been under house arrest since the aborted honeymoon last year, and his various requests for a stay to take the vacation have been denied each time.
Despite his dumbassery, Pipitone's family and wife submitted 14 letters to the judge to try to get leniency. Paula wrote in one, "This has not been the easiest first year of marriage, as you can imagine...I would love for nothing more than to have a normal marriage that most take for granted." Unfortunately for her, Pipitone's ego got in the way of any chance he had, since he refused to apologize for the beatdown: "It would have been helpful if there had been some demonstration of remorse on the part of the defendant. I just don't get it, Mr. Pipitone," said Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis.
