Costabile "Gus" Farace, Jr. (June 21, 1960 Bushwick, Brooklyn – November 17, 1989 Bensonhurst, Brooklyn) was an Italian American criminal and mobster. He was an associate of the Bonanno crime family who murdered a teenage male prostitute and a federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent in New York City. He was shot and killed by an unknown assailant in 1989.
Biography
Early years
Farace was born on June 21, 1960, in Bushwick, to Mary and Costabile "Gus" Farace, Sr., a first-generation immigrant from Camastra, Agrigento province Sicily. At the age of five he moved with his family from Bushwick to Tottenville, Staten Island. He sometimes used the name "Nicholas" as an alias while a fugitive and gave several alternate dates of birth: August 20, 1959, January 1, 1960, and June 20, 1960. He stood at 6'3", weighed 220 pounds, and sported a tattoo of a girl on his lower calf, another girl tattoo on his right leg, and a butterfly on his stomach. Later that year, Farace's family moved to Prince's Bay, Staten Island.
His father Gus opened a small grocery store, G&S, in the island's Great Kills neighborhood on Hylan Boulevard. The store closed in 1983.
Costabile, Sr. and his brother Frank were fringe members of a Colombo crime family illegal gambling ring. Farace was a paternal first cousin of Dominick Farace, the son of Frank Farace. He also was a cousin to Michael A. Farace, Michael J. Farace, and Vincent Farace. Vincent Farace is a recognized made man in the Bronx faction of the Bonanno crime family.
Costabile attended Totten Intermediate School 34 in Tottenville (the former site of Tottenville High School until it moved to its present location in 1972), where he was considered the class flirt in eighth grade. As a child he was considered the class clown, a poor student, popular, and gregarious. He played Peewee football in Wolfe's Pond Park. In 1975, he entered Tottenville High School and joined a street gang of adolescent delinquents called "the Bay Boys", named after the Upper New York Bay near Tottenville. The gang liked to intimidate people and start fights. In January 1977, he was pulled over for reckless driving and, after searching him, the police found a gun on his person. Three weeks later, he was arrested for forgery, but he avoided a jail sentence because he was a youth. He listed his occupation as a grocer.
Assaults and Killing in Greenwich Village
On October 7, 1979, Farace murdered a 17-year-old boy and brutally beat the victim's 16-year-old companion. Farace and three friends were on a street in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan when the two boys allegedly propositioned them. Enraged, Farace and his accomplices — later identified , David Spoto, and Robert DeLicio — forced the two teenagers into the Farace group's car and drove them to the beach at Wolfe's Pond Park in Prince's Bay, Staten Island. Once there, the men beat the boys using driftwood and other objects, then left them for dead. The 17-year-old, Steven Charles of Newark, New Jersey, died on the beach. The 16-year-old, Thomas Moore of Brooklyn, was critically injured, but dove into the pond and managed to elude his attackers. Moore then walked to a nearby residence for assistance. Later on October 8, the police arrested Farace, DeLicio, and Spoto. Four days later, Moore identified Farace and the other suspects from a police lineup.
On December 10, 1979, Farace pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter. The state had accepted his manslaughter plea rather than go through the uncertainty and expense of a trial, and of even winning a conviction in virulently anti-gay Staten Island (they particularly feared that Farace and his co-defendants would use the "gay panic defense"). Farace was sentenced to 7 to 21 years in prison.