FBI Informant Convicted of O.C. Murder Attempt

Joseph Angelo Grosso, a longtime FBI informant with ties to organized crime, was convicted Wednesday of attempted first-degree murder and conspiracy in the 1987 shooting of Mustang Club financier William Carroll, who had resisted mob efforts to take over the topless bar’s operation.

Southern California law enforcement officials were excited about the verdict in the closely watched Grosso trial because of its implications for Los Angeles racketeer Michael Anthony Rizzitello. Rizzitello, Grosso’s co-defendant, is scheduled to go on trial Dec. 11 for the shooting of Carroll.

Rizzitello, listed by the state attorney general’s office as an underboss in the Los Angeles-based Milano crime family, has a long history of fraud and racketeering convictions. But if convicted in the attack on Carroll, he could face the most serious sentence of his life. Rizzitello has denied participation in the shooting.

Carroll, left permanently blind in the May 1, 1987, shooting in a Costa Mesa parking garage, identified Rizzitello, 62, as the gunman, and Grosso, 46, as the driver who held him down to prevent his escape.

Jury foreman Kathleen Bruck of Costa Mesa said jurors hearing Grosso’s trial in Orange County Superior Court believed the victim’s testimony that Rizzitello was the man who shot him, and that Grosso was a participant.

“This is a very good sign for the Rizzitello trial,” said one law enforcement official. “He has to be worried that Carroll’s testimony held up here.”

Grosso, wearing the same chocolate brown shirt he has worn throughout his trial, showed no emotion when the verdicts were read. He has predicted “I will be killed” for telling jurors that Rizzitello was the shooter.

Grosso, who faces an automatic sentence of 25 years to life in prison, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, attempted first-degree murder and mayhem for leaving Carroll permanently blind. The jurors also found use of a firearm during the commission of a crime--because they believe Rizzitello was armed--which could add one more year to Grosso’s sentence.

Superior Court Judge John L. Flynn Jr. set a Dec. 12 sentencing date for Grosso and ordered him to cooperate with a probation officer for a pre-sentencing report.

Grosso has denied any ties to Rizzitello, or that he knew a shooting was about to take place. But his testimony is considered important at the Rizzitello trial, because he corroborates Carroll’s claim that Rizzitello was the gunman.

Jurors said they found Grosso’s denial of his involvement difficult to believe because he had told too many different stories about what happened before his trial began.

“If he had told just one story throughout, we could possibly have come to a different conclusion,” Bruck said. “But from the first day of our deliberations, we believed he was involved.”

Before the trial, Grosso had told a Times reporter that Rizzitello was not even in the car at the time, and that the shooter had been “Big George” Yudzevich, a bouncer at the Mustang who has since been murdered. Grosso also admitted on the witness stand that he had told “probably more than 25” different versions of what happened while he was at Orange County Jail awaiting trial.

But within a week of testimony in the trial, Grosso met with law enforcement officials in an attempt to plea bargain, and made numerous other inconsistent statements about his activities that day. Grosso has a long history of informing to the FBI, and told jurors that he had provided the agency considerable details about Carroll’s activities.

Grosso claimed he had to lie because Rizzitello had threatened to kill him if he didn’t deny Rizzitello’s involvement.

“We tried to show the jurors that Mr. Grosso had to tell different stories about what happened to protect himself from being killed,” said Grosso’s attorney, William Yacobozzi Jr. of Newport Beach. “But obviously they did not accept that.”

Jurors deliberated five full days and part of a sixth, but Bruck said there was little disagreement that Grosso was involved in the Carroll shooting. The number of charges, and some difficulty with the legal definition of mayhem accounted for the lengthy deliberations, she said.

Carroll, 56, is one of three people involved in the operation of the now-defunct Mustang Club on Harbor Boulevard who were targets of gunmen. Murdered just four months before the Carroll shooting was club operator Jimmy Casino, who borrowed money from Carroll to start the club. Also murdered nearly a year after the Carroll shooting was Yudzevich.

Law enforcement officials are tight-lipped about whether Rizzitello is a suspect in either of those shootings. But Grosso told jurors that Carroll had admitted responsibility for both murders. Law enforcement sources say privately, however, that Carroll has never been a serious suspect in those shootings, which remain under investigation.

Foreman Bruck said jurors were convinced that Carroll had not been honest with them about all his business activities. But she declined to say which parts of Carroll’s testimony raised skepticism among the jurors.

Despite Grosso’s claims that he was only Carroll’s driver, prosecutors had a strong witness to corroborate Carroll’s testimony that Grosso was more deeply involved.

Gene Lesher, a banker who took over the club’s operation while Carroll was recuperating, testified that he had caved in to Rizzitello’s demands to muscle in on the bar’s profits after the racketeer threatened him. Lesher testified that Grosso was the one who set up his meeting with Rizzitello.

Carroll was found bleeding and left for dead shortly after midnight in a deserted parking garage. Police investigators at his hospital bedside urged him to name his assailants, convinced they were taking a dying statement.

Although he pulled through, Carroll refused for 18 months to talk about the shooting. A year ago, shortly after bank fraud charges pending against him resulted only in a misdemeanor conviction, Carroll agreed to cooperate.

He explained to jurors that he was afraid to talk before his own case was resolved for fear that if he had to serve time in Orange County Jail, Rizzitello would have arranged for him to be killed.

Carroll said he was first approached by Rizzitello--through Grosso--shortly after the Casino murder. Because Carroll had not been repaid most of $250,000 he had loaned Casino, he became the unofficial overseer of the club’s operation.

Rizzitello never made any overt attempts with the financier to muscle in on the club, according to Carroll’s testimony. But he said Rizzitello did pressure him into giving him a $10,000 loan, and that friction developed between them after that.

Prosecutors contend that Rizzitello realized he would get nowhere muscling Carroll and decided to eliminate him to get to Lesher.

Carroll said Grosso arranged a meeting between Rizzitello and him at Emilia’s restaurant in Santa Ana on April 30, 1987. Someone had taken a shot at Carroll 10 days earlier, and he thought Rizzitello could tell him who it was.

After dinner, Carroll said, Grosso and Rizzitello asked him to drive them to the Costa Mesa parking garage, where Grosso’s wife had left his car. Grosso drove Carroll’s rented car for him, he said.

Carroll told jurors that once he saw that the parking garage was deserted, he knew something was wrong. By then, he said, Rizzitello had grabbed him around the neck and had a gun pointed at his head.