The Goomba
January 28, 2009
By An Unknown Staff Writer
PALM BOTTOM
Like most people, Dick Whiney thought a mistake on a food order would be corrected and his takeout calzone replaced when he called to complain. But instead of a new calzone, Whiney got a trip to the emergency room and a bloodied head after the owner of Goomba's pizzeria pistol-whipped and beat him, according to a County sheriff's report. The appropriately named pizzeria turned out to be owned by a real-life Goomba and homicidal maniac named Joseph "Crazy Joe" Milano, a reputed hit man for the Mafia.
"You can't even go out to a fast food place nowadays because you don't know what to expect," Whiney said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "You just want a meatball sub and some clown tries to kill you."
Goomba's Pizzeria owner Joseph Milano, 40, "seemed really nice" when he invited Whiney and his roommate Richard Tupie into the restaurant on Friday night , Whiney said. Whiney and Tupie were having a cookout at their Palm Bottom home that night but Tupie's 11-year-old daughter didn't like what was on the menu. So the pair ordered her a calzone, just the way she likes it -- no sauce and no feta cheese.
But when they got the food home, it was dressed with both, Whiney said.
So he called Goomba's to have the order replaced but was told the grills were shut down for the night and the order couldn't be replaced until the next day. He asked for a refund instead and the manager said to come on down.
Whiney, 44, and Tupie, 35, stupidly went to the restaurant to get the refund and were standing outside talking with the manager when Milano and a woman pulled up in a black Humvee, with gun ports on both sides. Milano invited the men into the restaurant to discuss their complaint at the counter and, again, they stupidly agreed to go inside.
"The next thing we know, we heard a gun pop," Whiney said. But it wasn't because any gun had been discharged. It was the sound of a 9mm pistol hitting Whiney's skull.
When deputies arrived at Goomba's that night, Milano and his girlfriend, Kalinda Unreal, 32, told an elaborate story that had Whiney punching Milano and pulling him over the countertop at the restaurant. While the pair were tussling, Unreal claimed Tupie punched her in her privates and stole from her a gun she'd pulled from her purse to stop the fight before "the stupid customer messed up her man's face. I mean look at the guy, said Unreal, he's really a handsome man....he's hot." (See photo above)
The pair told deputies all surveillance devices in the business had been turned off for the night and there was no film of the attack on Milano by the customers.
Deputies later learned the surveillance system was on and viewed the silent footage.
What they saw on the tape was Tupie and Whiney "standing calmly at the counter" with Milano on the other side speaking with "animated body language and making some obscene Italian gestures at the customers."
Then Milano suddenly hit Whiney in the head with a gun he pulled from behind the counter. The gun fell as Milano jumped over the counter and began assaulting both Tupie and Whiney, kicking both men in the groin repeatedly and attempting to gouge their eyes out with a spoon. The hooker girl friend also joined in kicking the men in their groins. Their groins were almost turned into mush meal.
Tupie eventually grabbed the gun so it couldn't be used against him and his roommate and both drug themselves outside, holding their crotches in pain. When confronted with the surveillance video Milano began to kick his hooker girl friend in the crotch and blame her for not checking to make sure the surveillance system was turned off before they concocted their story for the cops. Milano retracted his initial story and said he was goaded into the behavior that was caught on tape, by the men questioning his manhood and threatenig to screw his girl friend while he watched.
Milano did not return phone calls. He and his girl friend, the hooker with an STD, were reportedly hiding in a moldy cellar Milano built when he was being sought four years ago in connection with a triple homocide over an overcooked order of manicotti. Murder charges were dropped when two eye witnesses to the triple homocide accidentally drowned while trying to swim with heavy weights attached to their legs. The local sheriff said the pair were stupid to try to swim with concrete weights chained to their legs. "Some people will try almost anything," he said.
Whiney was treated at a local hospital for his injuries and both men were given pain killers for their aching groins. Milano was captured and arrested when he stupidly made a cell phone call from his hideout, which was traced immediately, and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and released the next day after posting $40,000 bail. The hooker was charged with filing a false police report and failure to declare more than $50,000 in earnings from her employment at a local brothel.
Milano, in a conciliatory gesture, offerred to replace the calzone at no charge if all charges against him were dropped. "I think I'm bending over backwards here to try to make things right with these customers. I hope they'll continue to patronize the restaurant. The vast majority of customers at Goomba's have never been pistol whipped," said Milano. "How many other restaurants owned by members of the Cosa Nostra can make that same claim? Customers are usually safe here, and if they aren't it's because they did something stupid, like complain about the food."
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