| “ | Seven to one, I'll be teeing off at LaCosta Wednesday morning. | „ |
| ~ Masucci bragging that he will beat the charges against him. |
Frank Masucci is the main antagonist of the two-part Law & Order episode "The Torrents of Greed". He is the Don of the Masucci crime family, and the mastermind of a cigarette bootlegging operation and the murder of a corrupt union boss.
He was portrayed by Charles Cioffi.
Early life[]
Masucci was born into his father's crime family, and "made his bones" in 1973 by murdering a bookie while disguised as a police officer, the first of seven homicides he personally committed. He took over the Masucci crime family after his father died, and ran its multiple rackets, including drugs, prostitution, extortion, and racketeering.
Masucci soon became the most powerful crime lord in New York City, with several police and city government officials in his pocket. After his sister Katherine married corrupt real estate magnate Harv Biegal, Masucci put him in charge of the various front companies through which he laundered the proceeds of his crimes.
Masucci was adept at charming the media with his flashy, expensive lifestyle and easy charm, and was often referred to in newspapers as "Big Frankie" and "The Dandy Don". He was also feared throughout the city's criminal underworld for his violent reprisals; when his son was killed in a car accident, he had the other driver drowned in Atlantic City. He and his wife, Connie, had two other children, also boys.
In Law & Order[]
Masucci is first mentioned in the pilot episode, "Everybody's Favorite Bagman", as the brains behind a money laundering scheme involving corrupt NYPD Deputy Commander William Jefferson that results in the murder of City Councilman Charles Halsey, who was also involved. When the murderer, Masucci's personal assassin Anthony Scalisi, is arrested, he makes a deal to wear a wire during a meeting with the other conspirators in return for a reduced prison sentence. Scalisi manages to implicate Jefferson, who is arrested, but another of Masucci's assassins kills him before he can implicate the Don.
He appears for the first time in the two-part episode "The Torrents of Greed". While investigating the attempted murder of shopkeeper Isaac Skolnick, NYPD Homicide Sergeant Max Greevey and Detective Mike Logan discover that one of Masucci's soldiers, Joe Pilefsky, tried to kill Skolnick because he refused to buy bootleg cigarettes smuggled into the U.S. by Masucci's caporegime Mario Zalta, all on orders from Biegal. They also find evidence connecting Pilefsky to the murder of corrupt transportation union president Russell Mackey.
After Greevey and Logan arrest Pilefsky and Zalta, Executive Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone and Assistant District Attorney Paul Robinette make a deal with the former to testify against Masucci. Greevey and Logan then arrest Masucci for Mackey's murder. During the trial, Pilefsky admits to killing Mackey on Masucci's order, but Masucci's lawyer reveals that Pilefsky had been in the hospital with appendicitis on the day when Mackey was murdered, meaning that he committed perjury. Masucci is found not guilty and released; Stone suspects, but cannot prove, that he planned all along to steer the investigation toward Pilefsky and have him to perjure himself in order to win an acquittal should he be arrested.
Stone manages to convict Pilesfky and Zalta of assaulting Skolnick, but he is determined to put Masucci and Biegal behind bars. Stone and Robinette arrest Biegal for bribing a building inspector and try to get him to testify against Masucci, but he refuses, fearing for his life. Thanks to information from Pilefsky, they identify Biegal as Masucci's right-hand man. Seeing Biegal as a liability, Masucci orders another of his assassins, Vincent Ruffo, to kill his brother-in-law, making his own sister a widow. Katherine knows immediately that her brother had Biegal killed and gets into a violent argument with him when he takes her to dinner in a vain effort to smooth things over, slapping him in the face.
Stone questions Katherine about her husband's disappearance and threatens to charge her as an accomplice, so she directs him to a desert plot in New Jersey where dozens of the Masucci family's victims, including Biegal, are buried. Stone charges Masucci with Biegal's murder, but before he can be tried, Katherine bribes a judge to have him released. That night, Masucci is gunned down in front of one of the high-priced restaurants he frequents; it is implied that Katherine had him killed to avenge her husband.
While Masucci himself is dead, however, his crime family remains a powerful force in New York's underworld; the Masucci family is consistently identified as being behind various crimes committed in the Law & Order universe, specifically in the original series and one of its spinoffs, Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
External links[]
- Frank Masucci on the Law & Order Wiki
