 Welcome to the original gangsters podcast I'm your host Scott Bernstein quick hitter edition we're going to New York for this there's been a lot of talk in the news over the last couple months about the smoking gun murder the infamous banana connected gangland slain from 1986 involving a button guy by the name of Stevie blue corto corto now is in the middle of an appeal process claiming that he had ineffective counsel during his trial for racketeering that included the murder count here tied to the smoking gun murder and Jerry Capace over at gangland news has been doing a lot of reporting on it some of the other major news outlets in New York have touched on it but nobody's really told the public what the smoking gun murder was like the specifics of it so I'm going to break it down real quick it's not that complicated but it's interesting so and then there's some questions of not questions but some double jeopardy angles here so Stevie blue was a young guy back in 1986 running around with a Brooklyn based banana crew was very close to Baldo a motto a guy that was you know an infamous member of the zip faction never rose above soldier but was a was a very very powerful button man you know started his career as a bodyguard for Carmine Galante you know partners and running buddies with Cheserey Bonaventure part of the assassination of Galante you know had a had a mob career all the way into the 2000s where he went down with Stevie blue reporter but back in 1986 there was the May 9th 1986 murder of a banana associate named Joe Platia and Platia had been buddies partners in crime with another guy named Bobby Capasio Capasio was murdered in late April of 86 and to cover up the tracks and the Capasio murder Locurto was given the contract on Platia killed him in the west side of Manhattan on 35th and 10th Avenue that evening of May 9 1986 they were sitting together in Platia's car and Locurto pulled out a 38 and unloaded the clip into Locurto unloaded the clip into Platia's head got out of the car started walking put the gun in his jacket pocket as he had carried out the execution a cab driver had driven past and saw it and flagged down a cop that was in the neighborhood on the block and within two or three minutes Locurto is apprehended by police and they find literally a smoking gun the 38 in his jacket pocket now he beats the case in state court in the 1980s and walks from it returns to the Bananos working under a motto had some ties to the Cafe Jeanini crew in Ridgewood Queens and eventually goes down with Baldo Amato in a 2006 case where he's convicted on racketeering but within the racketeering case they roll in the Platia murder as a predicate act so he wasn't charged with the murder but he was eventually convicted of a racketeering count tied to the murder and now he's trying to work his way out of that conviction he's been in he's been locked up now for going on 18 years and he's claiming that he got bad advice from counsel related to some of this double jeopardy questions of double jeopardy so we'll see what happens within within the court system I'm doubting he's gonna have much luck but you know the name Stevie blue has been back in the headlines people have been talking about the the smoking gun murder so I wanted to let people know what happened spring of 86 Stevie blue Locurto kills Joe Platia West 35th and 10th Avenue in a parking lot and within a couple minutes is arrested for for murder because the police you know happen happen stance based on a tip a tipster from a civilian find a smoking gun from a gangland slain in his pocket but he had been able to dodge you know real accountability for that for 20 years so we'll keep you updated that's the story of the smoking gun murder Scott Brunch in OG pod out