The son and grandson of Joseph T. Tomasello, a notorious Colombo crime family capo, have been arrested on federal weapons charges after a raid on their Staten Island home turned up a huge arsenal, including a large stash of “ghost guns” and equipment used to produce them.
Joseph Orapallo, 57, and his son Frank, 22, were arrested in the early hours of Wednesday, February 5, at their home in New Dorp, a neighborhood on the South Shore of Staten Island, New York City. It was the NYPD Financial Crimes Task Force that carried out the raid that led to the discovery of a cache of weapons that includes rifles, shotguns and “ghost guns,” a made-up term for firearms that can be built at home with no serial numbers, a practice that has been legal since the founding of America but that has been given boogie man status by leftists in recent years. Ammunition was also found in the raid, as was 3D firearm-making equipment, according to law enforcement sources.
While there is no indication as of yet as to why the raid was being conducted by a financial crimes unit, father and son were arraigned in a Staten Island Criminal Court specifically for “ghost gun” possession. The two face federal weapons charges and were ordered to be held on bail after the arraignment hearing. Family members of the father and son duo who attended the hearing declined to speak with reporters, though one of them used a hand gesture to let a New York Post photographer know he was number one.
It is not clear if the Orapallos are themselves involved in organized crime, as Joseph tried to distance himself and his family from his mob boss father years ago by taking his mother’s maiden name. In fact, it was Joseph Jr. who tipped off authorities as to his father’s whereabouts the night before his wedding in 1998 while Tomasello hid out in the Catskills after six years on the run from racketeering and murder charges. Tomasello went away for racketeering and his complicity in five New York murders between 1991 and 1992, passing quietly in 2016 at the age of 84.
