The 'Psycho' New York City 'Bistro Bandits' Pt#3 (An AngryMan 'True' Story)

When you personally know a psycho like Randy Caggione, you always feel like you need to be on guard; and it’s a smart thing to do. If you’re kind of forced to be in situations and places (like at work, in jail, in school) you really can’t escape them if they’re there; but, never…ever…let your guard down.

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Sociopaths like Sandy and Gloves are a little safer to be around, cause they usually won’t kill you on purpose; maybe by accident though…I’m no Shrink, but I don’t think these two guys were psychos. Sandy might have been borderline psycho, possibly switching back and forth; I’m not sure.

You see…Sandy was the type of guy who was the neighborhood petty criminal type. He was one of those that you might have or had in your neighborhood that was always in and out of jail. He’d be the car thief, the purse snatcher, the con artist and generally an all around scumbag.

Everybody knew of him, including the cops who he evaded ten or twenty times before they caught him, over and over again…This kind of low-life dirt-bag always seems to be quick on their feet, nimble and agile as hell. Maybe it had something to do with their drug of choice which was often cocaine, meth, crank of other type amphetamine.

As unhealthy as they were, they could still run like the wind, hop fences like a gazelle, climb fire escapes like monkeys and jump across roof tops to escape. That…was Sandy ‘the Sandman’ Sebok…

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Now ‘Gloves’…he was the shy, unimposing type; probably just a common sociopath, with unusual, bizarre traits I mentioned earlier. Gloves was the kind of ‘little mama’s boy’ who never really grew into manhood.  You could easily picture him in private, reading comic books, flipping pages of his baseball card collection and having sex with a cantaloupe…

That might sound funny, but some people do have unusual sexual perversions…and what about those ‘gloves’ he always wore? Probably had sex with them on too, even when he was by himself…maybe he just changed them to sexy ‘lace’ type; the kind that came halfway up the forearm? Not such a pretty picture in my mind…that’s for sure.

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When I was in the Army, I knew a farm boy from somewhere down South who would tell us how to have sex with different farm animals…(like we really wanted to know?) Maybe the guy was just joking, but he seemed pretty serious…He also liked to drink aftershave lotion…??? So, ‘you’ decide.

Listen…If you care to know the difference between a sociopath and psychopath, here’s a quote below from a Doctor Black, at some university in Iowa. I included a link to the article as well. 

“It’s a syndrome characterized by lifelong misbehavior,” says Donald W. Black, MD, professor of psychiatry at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. “People with an antisocial personality disorder tend to be deceitful, impulsive. They ignore responsibilities and, in the worst cases, they have no conscience.” 

While we tend to use the terms "sociopath" and "psychopath" interchangeably, they mean different things. Whereas most sociopaths are prone to impulsive behavior and often seen as disturbed or unhinged, a psychopath is cold and calculating...”

 http://www.health.com/mind-body/sociopath-traits   

Randy, Sandy and Gloves most ‘known’ notorious robbery was at the high end Vera Wang Bridal Boutique in uptown Manhattan, as I mentioned in this stories introduction. I say “known” because who knows what other shootings they did elsewhere? Randy ‘bragged’ about killing other people to the cops…He said, “They were drug dealers, so they deserved to die.”

The woman and man they shot were husband and wife, shopping for a wedding dress, for one of their daughters. The daughters were ‘with’ them at the time…Imagine the horror of it all for those poor, innocent people? Randy shot the woman who was having trouble getting the large carat diamond ring off her finger. She claims that she was unbuttoning her blouse to give him her diamond necklace at the time.

He shot her in the gut, then began kicking at her ribs…breaking them… What a fucking heartless, psycho…Her husband had been shot too, supposedly by Sandy and was crawling towards his wife trying to stop Randy’s attack on her; the daughters went screaming out onto the street. All three of the “Bistro Bandits” got away that day.

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It was Manhattan, and in Manhattan, it isn’t difficult to get away by blending into the crowd and heavy traffic…just like the ‘Mob’ hit-men do after a rub-out. They got caught sometime later, after Randy robbed a lady in the lobby of her building in the same neighborhood, which had video surveillance.

He had used the same ‘silver’ plated gun as in the Bridal Shoppe robbery, and the cops recognized him in the video. All the cops needed to find his cohorts, was canvass Randy’s known haunts and find out who he hung out with…I don’t think Randy would have flipped on his boys; he even tried to protect them at trial by saying they weren’t even there…

Imagine Gloves in prison, with his germ phobia...? He probably went nuts…and he was an easy ‘mark’ too because of his weakness. Sandy and Randy were already jail smart having been there before; they just were probably never getting out now (hopefully, for you and me) 

The Golden Cue in Queens, N.Y. where I knew these guys from was a hotbed of nefarious characters; I knew so many. I used to bring my kid there for the video games and play a little pocket billiards until all the shootings and fights started to happen.

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He liked it there…it was a nice father and son thing while it lasted. I’d still take him there as a little boy sometimes when he asked; but, only in the daytime when it was safe. The afternoons had mostly the tired, old men hanging out, with a sprinkling of other people coming and going.

The nights…well…that was a whole different ballgame. That’s when the ghouls and goblins awoke; masked as every day people…You couldn’t tell who was just an average Joe by how they dressed; but how they spoke might give you a clue; how they moved, their facial expressions…who they interacted with, and how.

There were the common, low to mid-level Italian Mobsters or associates of every description, rubbing elbows, gambling on games being played in the back section. The back two tables were reserved for ‘special’ players, and always were money games. It was a place for Pros and Semi-Pros to play their hustle, and regulars like me…

Chinese gang members from Chinatown liked the joint too; mostly the 'Flying Dragons' (FD) They had taken over, and run out the 'Ghost Shadows'…At some point, the ‘new’ Flushing gang ‘Green Dragons’ began edging their  way in, and it caused problems. 

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That is a story I can tell you about some other time. How the Chinatown youth gangs were connected to the Uncles, who were connected to the Chinese Businessmen Association, who were connected to the Tongs in China…who were connected to ‘Government’…

But, maybe I shouldn’t…it might be a little dangerous to talk too much about…what I know…seen…heard…experienced? Screw it…I’m gonna do it. I’m old now anyway; we all gotta die sometime, and we might as well go out with a good story having been told.

Here’s hoping that you enjoyed another ‘true’ exposé by AngryMan; there’s more to come.

Link to Part #1 Bistro Bandits         

Ciao...my friends.

Image Credits *1  **2  ***3  ****4  *****5  ******6