Chris Paciello

Chris Paciello (born Christian Ludwigsen, September 7, 1971, Brooklyn, New York) is a former Cosa Nostra associate, member of The Untouchables car-theft ring, and government informant who was convicted of murder. During the 1990s, and again in 2012, he became a prominent night club owner in the South Beach section of Miami Beach, Florida.

Paciello was born Christian Ludwigsen in 1971 in Borough Park, Brooklyn and spent his childhood there. His father was a heroin addict and a small-time criminal who was arrested for burglary, auto theft, and drug charges in the 1980s. By age 15, Paciello was himself stealing car radios, and then cars.

When he was 16, his mother left the family and Paciello moved to Staten Island. Three years later, Paciello left home and changed his last name from Ludwigsen to Paciello, which is his mother's maiden name. His elder brother, George Ludwigsen, was convicted of bank robberies in Hallandale, Florida and Gulfport, Mississippi in the 1990s.

Paciello had connections to the New York Cosa Nostra crime families. On Staten Island, Paciello joined the New Springville (LUSS) Boys, a gang with affiliations to the Bonanno crime family. In December 1992, he participated in a $300,000 bank robbery at a Chemical Bank in the Staten Island Mall.

In February 1993, Paciello was charged with murder. He had planned a home invasion on Staten Island and served as a driver. Paciello had information that the target, Sami Shemtov, who owned several adult entertainment stores, kept large amounts of cash at his house. An accomplice, Thomas Reynolds, who in 2004 was sentenced to 42 years in prison, shot Sami's wife, Judith, in the head, killing her, when she answered her door. In February 1994, Paciello and his gang robbed a Westminster Bank in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, stealing $300,000.

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