Charles Panarella

Charles Joseph Panarella a.k.a. "Moose" a.k.a. Len Conforti a.k.a. Chas Esposito (born January 5, 1925) is a New York City mobster and capo in the Colombo crime family with a brutal reputation as a hitman.

Charles was born in 1925 in Brooklyn, New York. He is also known to use January 5, 1922 as his birth date. He stands at 6 ft (1.8 m) tall, has brown eyes and a scar on his bottom lip. In 1940, Panarella was arrested for the first time. His criminal record includes assault, burglary, extortion and possession of a loaded firearm.

On August 11, 1972, Albert Gallo, brother of the late rogue Profaci crime family capo Crazy Joe Gallo (killed on April 7, 1972), had pinpointed Joseph (The Yack) Yacovelli, Alphonse (Allie the Snake) Persico Sr., Gennaro Langella and at least one other Colombo hood (thought to be Panarella) at the bar of the Neapolitan Noodle located at 320 East 79th Street in Midtown Manhattan. Minutes before the hit men arrived, however, the mobsters had moved to another table. In their place were five meat dealers from Chicago with their wives celebrating the engagement of one of their daughters to the restaurant's manager. As this party moved to a table, led by the wives, the shooter, dressed in casual clothes and wearing dark glasses and a long black shoulder length wig, opened up with two guns killing Sheldon Epstein and Max Tekelch and wounding two other men. The killer escaped and was never found. The public outrage was led by New York City Mayor John V. Lindsey who promised in running the gangsters out of town. Panarella was unharmed. Panarella once allegedly forced a man to eat his own testicles before killing him. Panarella has survived several feuds within the Colombo family that killed more than 100 people. He lives under house arrest at his home in Kunkletown, Pennsylvania.

While in New York, Panarella had a large profitable crew that included Gregory Scarpa Sr. The crew trafficked in narcotics, robbed banks, and controlled sheet metal and restaurant unions.

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