On April 14, 1979, for instance, the FBI picked up a conversation at Masselli's Bronx warehouse between Masselli and a colleague named Joseph Ippolito about how Ippolito "had obtained the contract for dumping on Riker's Island" several years earlier.

According to the FBI summary, Ippolito was told by "a third party" to contact Rep. Mario Biaggi (D-N.Y.). Ippolito said he met with Biaggi and then later received a telephone call from "this third party" who "stated that Biaggi wanted $5,000" in order to secure the contract for Ippolito. Ippolito related to Masselli that he wrote a check to Biaggi and on the face of the check he wrote "annual retainer" and that he gave this check to Biaggi on the steps of an unidentified "Administration Building."

But that problem paled in comparison to the job he allegedly botched on December 9, 1997. Authorities accuse him of trying to murder then-31-year-old Samuel Ippolito. Samuel's older and much-better-known brother Joseph Ippolito, 47, is serving a ten-year sentence for a federal narcotics offense. According to the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation, "Joey Ipp," as he is known, had ties to the Lucchese and DeCavalcante crime families. But then in 1997, word came out that Joey Ipp had decided to cooperate with the authorities in a drug probe.