Pittsburgh mobster 'Nick the Blade' dies in Florida

Once fodder for newspaper crime blotters and mob trial headlines, Eugene Gesuale made his way back into print for a final time in the same way as many of his former Pittsburgh gangster buddies — through death.

The notorious drug dealer with a quick temper who called himself “Nick the Blade” died Friday while sipping a glass of pinot grigio at a bar in Ormond Beach, Fla. Gesuale was 73.

“I don't think he was a wine guy when he was in Pittsburgh,” said Bob Garrity, a retired FBI agent who investigated organized crime in Western Pennsylvania in the 1980s and 1990s. “He seemed more like a shot guy.”

Gesuale, formerly of East Liberty and Highland Park, headed a marijuana and cocaine distribution network in the late 1970s and 1980s with ties to Western Pennsylvania's LaRocca/Genovese La Cosa Nostra family and the Pagans motorcycle gang, the Pennsylvania Crime Commission wrote in a 1990 report.

“He was as bad as it gets. He was the ultimate thug,” said Allegheny County Common Pleas President Judge Jeffrey A. Manning, who helped prosecute Gesuale in the 1980s while working as an assistant U.S. attorney. “He loved playing the role of the Mafia capo, the don, even though he wasn't one.”

Gesuale was not even a made member of the Pittsburgh mob, one of 24 original U.S. mob “families” that started in the 1920s.

However, he was a mob associate who was particularly close to the late Michael Genovese, the local Mafia's longtime boss.

Along with high-level drug dealing that controlled most of the cocaine market in the city of Pittsburgh, Gesuale was involved in bookmaking, loan sharking and extortion, the commission reported. He also ran a prostitution business in Manhattan's “Little Italy” section, with the apparent approval of New York City mob families, the commission said.

Police arrested Gesuale 13 times between 1959 and 1981, the commission noted. None of the cases resulted in a conviction.

“That's because witnesses would never testify,” Manning said.

None of Gesuale's relatives could be located.

The judge ticked off examples of Gesuale's violence: stabbing people over games of basketball and pool, including at the former Razzberry Rhinoceros club in Shadyside.

“Eugene Gesuale was a kilo-weight drug dealer, a thief and a violent criminal,” Manning said. “He was vicious. He was amoral. It wasn't about what was right and wrong. He did whatever he wanted.”

Between 1978 and 1982, Gesuale grossed well in excess of $1 million from his illegal operations, an Internal Revenue Service investigation determined. That equals roughly $3 million today.

That bankroll allowed Gesuale to live in a penthouse apartment on Bunkerhill Street in Highland Park, drive Cadillacs and Jaguars and pay cash for big losses at Las Vegas casinos, prosecutors said in court.

Most afternoons, Gesuale could be found making deals out of a bar in Swissvale, a former Gesuale cocaine dealer and bike gang member testified in court.

An FBI employee in 1985 tipped Gesuale off that agents were closing in on his drug ring. He fled the country. Agents caught him in Kingston, Jamaica, in July 1986.

Investigators knew he was a big basketball fan, and at that time, there were only two satellite dishes on the island, Manning said.

One was installed at a Montego Bay hotel.

“And the other was on the place Gesuale was staying,” Manning said.

Gesuale returned to Pittsburgh to face federal charges. His trial started, but he ended up pleading guilty to federal drug charges and conspiracy, income tax evasion and being part of a criminal enterprise. U.S. District Judge Donald Ziegler sentenced him to 45 years in prison.

Gesuale's original parole date was set for Dec. 25, 2017, Manning said.

Instead, he was released in October 2014. Gesuale was prohibited from returning to Pittsburgh, Manning said.

“He made threats against me and others,” he said.

Toppling Gesuale was one of the first major victories for feds fighting the mob in Western Pennsylvania, Manning said.

Though they never got Genovese, his leading the Pittsburgh mob into narcotics trafficking ultimately led to convictions of his top people and younger members and associates, crippling the group's line of ascension. Those convictions and old age proved to be the downfall of the Pittsburgh family.

“Whoever is left, organized crime doesn't exist in Western Pennsylvania anymore,” Manning said. “It's a bunch of old men, and that's a good thing.”

Jason Cato is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 412-320-7936 or jcato@tribweb.com.