by Thomas Moriarty | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

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(Clockwise from top left) John Lardiere, Edwin Helfant, Peter Calabro and Anthony Russo are just some of those believed to have been killed as a result of mob disputes in the Garden State. (Star-Ledger photos)

After the Soprano crime family made its debut on HBO 19 years ago, Tony and company's malicious streak drew rebukes from some critics who argued the show was too violent.

In the Garden State, however, the reality of organized crime has often been just as gruesome as fiction.

While recent organized crime prosecutions in New Jersey have largely focused on offenses like loansharking, fraud and drug dealing, killings linked by authorities to mob activity have long captured headlines throughout the state.

As recently as 2015, FBI wiretaps and recordings by an undercover agent captured members of the Elizabeth-grown DeCavalcante crime family discussing a plot to kill a rival.

Here are some of the most notorious instances where organized crime has been blamed for bloodshed in the Garden State:

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The killing of mobster Dutch Schultz in Newark captured headlines across the country in 1935. (Star-Ledger archive photos)

Dutch Schultz

An early Jewish organized crime figure, Schultz ran afoul of his criminal associates in 1935 when he asked the mob for permission to kill Thomas Dewey, a famed prosecutor who later would be elected governor of New York.

Schultz had taken up residence at the Robert Treat Hotel in Newark in an attempt to avoid Dewey's scrutiny, and wanted the prosecutor out of his way. Mob leaders feared Dewey's killing would make them all targets and decided to remove Schultz from the picture instead.

In a brazen attack at the Palace Chop House that October, which made headlines nationwide, gunmen fatally wounded Schultz and three other men. Pictures of a fallen Schultz in a Newark hospital were widely circulated in the national press.

Charlie "Bug" Workman was convicted of the fatal shooting in 1941 on what the Trenton Evening Times reported was largely the testimony of two former mob enforcers. He was released from prison in 1964 after serving 23 years.

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The Jersey Journal prominently displayed Associated Press coverage of Willie Moretti's slaying in its Oct. 4, 1951 edition. (The Jersey Journal)

Willie Moretti

In the early 1950s, Morretti was a top member of the Genovese crime family well known for his rumored affiliation with Hoboken-born crooner Frank Sinatra.

His fatal fall from power came in 1951, after Moretti’s criminal associates became worried about his chattiness during an appearance before a U.S. Senate committee investigating organized crime.

While Moretti told the Senate he made his living legally, he admitted being acquainted with other organized crime figures whom he said were not “bad people.”

Fearing his declining mental state would lead him to say too much, Moretti's associates ultimately silenced him with gunfire on Oct. 4, 1951, as he dined at Joe's Elbow Room in Cliffside Park.

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John "Johnny Coca-Cola" Lardiere, shown at left in this newspaper clipping, was gunned down on Easter morning in 1977 in the parking lot of a motel in Bridgewater. (Times of Trenton)

John Lardiere

A longtime mob associate with reputed ties to both the Genovese family in New Jersey and the Patriarcha family in New England, Lardiere — known as "Johnny Coca-Cola" — was gunned down in the parking lot of a motel in Bridgewater early Easter morning in 1977 by a killer who sped off in a waiting car, authorities said at the time.

Lardiere, a Maplewood resident, had been sent to prison in 1971 along with several other alleged organized crime figures after refusing to testify before the State Commission of Investigation about mob union racketeering.

An alleged Genovese family boss, Michael Coppola, was arrested in Lardiere's murder more than 30 years later. Coppola had fled his Spring Lake home in 1996 when investigators sought to take a DNA sample from him after an informant reported Coppola bragging of Lardiere's killing.

Comparisons of DNA samples collected from Coppola after his arrest and evidence from the scene proved inconclusive, and a Superior Court judge in 2009 dismissed the murder complaint against him after state prosecutors took too long to obtain an indictment.

Coppola was sentenced later that year to 16 years in federal prison after a jury convicted him of racketeering charges.

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Municipal Judge Edwin Helfant was on trial in Trenton on case-fixing allegations when he was gunned down in the cocktail lounge of Atlantic City's Flamingo Hotel in 1978. (The Star-Ledger)

Edwin Helfant

Helfant, a municipal judge in Somers Point, became a target of the Philadelphia crime family in 1978 after he failed to deliver on a bribe he accepted to arrange a light sentence for a mob associate.

The mobster, Nicholas Virgilio, was angered by the 12- to 15-year sentence he ultimately received, and shot Helfant multiple times as the 51-year-old judge sat with his wife in the cocktail lounge of Atlantic City's Flamingo Hotel.

Helfant himself was on trial in Trenton at the time on charges he had accepted $700 to fix an assault and battery case a decade earlier, The Star-Ledger reported.

Virgilio later received a 40-year federal prison sentence on racketeering charges for Helfant’s killing and two extortion cases. He died in prison in 1995.

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Nine years before he was gunned down at a resort in Monmouth County, Genovese crime family member Anthony Russo had refused to testify about mob activity before the State Commission of Investigation. (The Jersey Journal)

Anthony Russo

Like the late John Lardiere, Genovese family member Anthony "Little Pussy" Russo had spent time behind bars for refusing to testify before the State Commission of Investigation.

Nine years later, four bullets ensured Russo — then the target of a state grand jury probe — would never say a word to anyone.

Wire services reported Russo's lawyer and staff at the Harbor Island Spa in Long Branch found the 62-year-old covered in blood and surrounded by stuffed cats and pictures of real ones when they entered his room on April 26, 1979.

A year later, imprisoned mob informer Patrick Pizuto told The Star-Ledger that Russo — his mentor — had been killed because of "indiscretions" recorded by telephone taps and listening devices.

New Jersey State Police wiretap recordings later played in state Superior Court revealed Russo had been captured discussing a scheme to shake down Monmouth County restaurant owners by creating a threat to unionize their employees.

Thirty nine years later, no one has been charged in Russo's killing.

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Peter Calabro's 1980 slaying in Saddle River was linked years later to an infamous hitman for the Gambino crime family. (The Star-Ledger)

Peter Calabro

Calabro, a New York Police Department detective, was fatally shot near his home in Saddle River in 1980 in what authorities alleged was a hit ordered by Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, an underboss in the Gambino crime family.

Law enforcement officials later told reporters that Calabro, a former member of an auto theft unit in Queens, had been among NYPD officers who sold information to organized crime figures.

The Bergen County Prosecutor's Office eventually fingered notorious Gambino hitman Richard "The Iceman" Kuklinski for Calabro's slaying after HBO in May 2001 aired a documentary special in which Kuklinski admitted to killing the officer.

In February 2003, Kuklinski — who was already serving 60 years to life for other killings — pleaded guilty to murder under a deal with the prosecutor’s office that saw him receive a 30-year prison term.

Kuklinski died in prison before he could testify against Gravano, who was then serving a 20-year sentence for prior drug convictions. Bergen County authorities later dropped their case against Gravano in the Calabro slaying, and the former mobster was released from prison last year.

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(The Star-Ledger)

Albert ('Tiny') Manzo

Manzo — a large man who bore the nickname "Tiny" — was a politically active businessman who owned both a popular banquet hall and a restaurant in Paterson.

Four days after he disappeared in 1983, police in Hillside discovered his bullet-riddled body wrapped in plastic inside the trunk of his Lincoln Continental parked of Route 22. Law enforcement officials investigating the killing intimated Manzo had been associated with organized crime figures, and formed a special task force to probe the case.

Police later told reporters they believed Manzo's killing may have been related to illegal business activities separate from his two restaurants, The Star-Ledger reported.

No one has ever been charged in the case.

Manzo's daughter-in-law, Caroline Manzo — known to television audiences from "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" — has said she takes offense at the suggestion her father-in-law had ties to organized crime, arguing nobody knows the "hows and whys" of his killing.

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Vincent Craparotta was beaten to death with golf clubs at a car dealership in Toms River after he tried to protect his nephews from a mob extortion scheme. (The Star-Ledger)

Vincent Craparotta

When Craparotta was beaten to death in June 1984 in the garage bay of a Toms River car dealership, State Police told reporters they had a pretty good idea why.

Nicknamed "Jimmy Sinatra," Craparotta had been a "prominent gambling operative" with connections to the Lucchese crime family, investigators said.

Four Lucchese family members ultimately were charged with racketeering offenses related to Craparotta's killing.

At trial in 1993, prosecutors produced evidence that Craparotta had tried to protect his nephews from being forced to pay extortion money to the mob from their video machine business.

Thomas Ricciardi was convicted of beating Craparotta to death, but later took a plea deal in a federal case that saw him cooperate with investigators who ultimately dismantled the Lucchese family's operations in the state. In exchange, Ricciardi received a 10-year sentence for each case.

"The murder was an unplanned accident arising from a idea to give Craparotta a physical beating as a means of sending him a message," Ricciardi said in an affidavit filed in Superior Court in 2005.

Ricciardi later won early release from prison in 2001 by working as a police informant, providing information about cases, including a case involving a fire at Seton Hall University that killed three students.

He entered the federal witness protection program after his release from prison.

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(The Star-Ledger)

Edward Potcher

When a gunman walked into Jack's Pizzas in Maplewood in August 1986 and shot the store's 37-year-old owner four times, police told The Star-Ledger it was the township's first homicide in 20 years.

From the beginning, police questioned robbery as a motive for Edward Potcher's killing. For one thing, there was still cash in the register when officers arrived.

A year later, the Essex County Prosecutor's Office charged Anthony DiFrisco with murder in Potcher's killing, alleging he had confessed to accepting $2,500 from a New York organized crime associate named Anthony Franciotti to carry out the shooting.

Franciotti, a prison acquaintence of DiFrisco's, feared Potcher was going to inform law enforcement about his drug dealing activities, DiFrisco told investigators.

When his case was called for trial in Newark, DiFrisco pleaded guilty to murder and opted to face the judge alone — rather than a jury — for the penalty phase of his capital case. The judge sentenced him to death.

After 18 years on death row, the state Supreme Court vacated DiFrisco's death sentence because of what prosecutors described as changes in the appeals process. He was re-sentenced in 2007 to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 30 years.

Investigators said DiFrisco refused to help them bring charges against Franciotti, and they were unable to obtain enough evidence to secure an indictment against the alleged mobster.

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John DiGilio had recently been acquitted of federal racketeering charges when he was killed in May 1988 and dumped in the Hackensack River. (The Star-Ledger)

John DiGilio

Genovese family soldier John DiGilio had just beaten a federal racketeering rap but was facing sentencing in a state loansharking case when he dropped off the face of the earth in May 1988.

Authorities quickly feared the worst, and weeks later, the former boxer was found floating in a bag in the Hackensack River with gunshot wounds to the back of his head.

While DiGilio’s defense attorney questioned law enforcement’s description of his 55-year-old client as a mobster, investigators publicly linked him to a long string of assaults and alleged mob killings.

In 1993, the state Attorney General’s Office obtained an indictment against Louis Auricchio, a Genovese family member, accusing him of killing DiGilio to increase his own stature in the organization.

Auricchio pleaded guilty the following year to aggravated manslaughter and racketeering, admitting he fatally shot DiGilio from the back seat of DiGilio’s own car as part of a conspiracy investigators said involved more than a dozen criminal associates. He was sentenced in 1994 to 30 years in prison.

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Lawrence Ricci, an alleged associate of the Genovese family, disappeared in 2005 amid his trial in Brooklyn on a federal racketeering indictment. His decomposing body was later found in the trunk of a car. (Star-Ledger photo and U.S. District Court records)

Lawrence Ricci

A reputed capo, or captain, of a northern New Jersey crew of the Genovese crime family, Ricci was indicted along with three longshoremen on allegations they had steered contracts from longshoremen’s health care and welfare funds to companies that benefited mob associates.

During their trial in Brooklyn federal court, however, Ricci went missing. While Ricci's three co-defendants ultimately walked away free men, his decomposing body turned up in November 2005 in the trunk of a car in a Union Township, Union County, diner's parking lot.

Sources later told the Jersey Journal and The New York Times that Ricci may have been killed at the direction of a Genovese boss in New Jersey for refusing to take a plea deal in the case.

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Former mob hitman Richard "The Iceman" Kuklinski is shown in this February 2003 file photo in state Superior Court during a hearing to enter a guilty plea in the 1980 killing of NYPD Detective Peter Calabro in Upper Saddle River. (Amanda Brown/The Star-Ledger)

Related stories:

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FBI agents escort one of more than 100 suspects arrested in New Jersey, New York and other locations on the East Coast in January 2011 as part of the largest national-level organized crime takedown in the bureau's history. (FBI photo)

Thomas Moriarty may be reached at tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ThomasDMoriarty. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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