Federal prosecutor: New York couple rubbed out for disrespecting the mob

NEW YORK -- A husband and wife who robbed gangland social clubs -- sometimes forcing their victims to drop their pants -- were rubbed out for humiliating the mob, a prosecutor said Wednesday at closing arguments at a racketeering trial.

"This was not just murder; this was a public execution," assistant U.S. attorney Paige Petersen said.

During the trial, the jury heard testimony that in the early 1990s, the couple enraged the defendant, Dominick "Skinny Dom" Pizzonia, then a reputed soldier with the Gambino organized crime family, by ripping off card games at his club in Queens and others in Little Italy and elsewhere.

Rosemarie Uva, 31, took the wheel of the getaway car and Thomas Uva, 28, armed with an Uzi submachine gun, stripped patrons of money and jewelry and made the men drop their pants, witnesses said. Their brazenness earned them the nicknames Bonnie and Clyde and made them the target of a hit prosecutors claim was orchestrated by Pizzonia.

Pizzonia "was very angry, as everybody else was, that these guys had the nerve to go around robbing clubs, like committing suicide," turncoat Gambino capo Michael "Mikey Scars" DiLeonardo testified during the trial.

Defense attorney Joseph R. Corozzo Jr. attacked the government for building its case on the word of admitted killers like DiLeonardo, who got his nickname because of a childhood dog-bite scar on his face. Lacking eyewitnesses and solid evidence, prosecutors also relied on rumors in Pizzonia's neighborhood, Corozzo said.

"There's a heck of a lot of gossip there," he said during his closing argument. "It doesn't mean anything."

On Dec. 24, 1992, the Uvas were sitting in their car at an intersection in Queens when they were shot in the back of the head. The car rolled through the intersection and collided with another vehicle before it stopped; police officers found a stash of jewelry with the bloody corpses.

"The Uvas' bodies were left in the street like garbage as a message: Don't disrespect the Gambinos," Petersen told the jury Wednesday.

If convicted, Pizzonia, 65, faces life in prison.

On Tuesday, the jury was shown an FBI report that then-acting Gambino boss John A. "Junior" Gotti was determined that his family get sole credit for eliminating the Uvas.

"We did that," a captain in the Bonanno organized crime family asserted during a meeting.

"No, we did it," Gotti responded, according to the FBI report.

Gotti has publicly denied involvement.