Daily News from New York, New York • 113

5 Tuesday. June 5, 1990 DAILY NEWS wl LaJ By RUBEN ROSARIO Daily News Staff Writer A Brooklyn man whose library included manuals on murder was charged yesterday with leading a Mafia dope ring that killed at least seven people, including an informant who snitched on mob boss John Gotti. Thomas (Tommy Karate) slayings. Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Andrew Maloney said the gang specialized in ripping off dealers under the pretense of arranging transactions.

"We believe they sold more than 100 kilos of cocaine, multi-kilos of heroin and hundreds of pounds of marijuana" since 1986, Maloney said. Pitera, 35, a reputed soldier in the Bonanno crime family, dispatched the remains of some of his victims to a Stat-en Island nature preserve, according to a federal racketeering complaint filed in Brooklyn. Although he was formally charged in seven killings, informants have told lawmen that Pitera and his drug gang are responsible for up to 30 U.IUW!llKail!UlllUlIH Also scattered throughout the apartment were more than 20 manuals and pamphlets with such titles as "Killer," "How to Kill" and "Torture, Interrogation and Execution." One book dealt with dismembering corpses. "We believe he got the most of the books through the black market, but other military-type of publications were purchased at a bookstore on W. 10th said Robert Bryden, the Drug Enforcement Administration's chief agent in New York.

Thirty-one others were charges in the indictment; 21 of them had been rounded up by late yesterday in citywide raids. Among the other suspects was Thomas Carbone, .55, who was arrested with former New York Yankees first baseman Joe Pepitone in 1985 on a drug possession rap. Pitera and his co-defendants were held without bail last night after they were arraigned in Brooklyn Federal Court. The defendants would face life in prison if convicted, Maloney said. i iplilliiiil SI! fire outside his Brooklyn home.

Pitera's wife died of an overdose three years ago, and authorities charge he killed the woman who supplied her with the drugs. The woman, Phyllis Burdi, was lured to an apartment, drugged and then shot several times by Pitera and an underling, the complaint states. Burdi's body was dismembered and later buried in a near the William R. Davis Wildlife Refuge in Staten Island. Authorities believe more victims are buried at the site and plan to excavate the remains next week.

Weapons cache Pitera, a martial arts expert with no prior criminal record, was arrested by fed--eral drug agents Sunday afternoon outside his residence on E. 12th St. in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Agents who searched Pitera's fourth-floor apartment found a cache of automatic weapons, including an AK-47 Soviet-made attack rifle, shotguns and handguns equipped with silencers. Library By RUBEN ROSARIO Daily News Staff Writer Reputed mob assassin Thomas Pitera's reading list: a "How to Kill," Volumes I to 5, by John Minnery.

II "Assassinations: Theory and Practice," by Richard Camellion. "The Hitman's Handbook," by "Mousie." "Torture, Interrogation and Execution," author unknown. Those were among the hundreds of manuals and pamphlets found by federal drug agents who raided Pitera's Brooklyn apartment over the weekend. The "library of death," as one lawman put it, filled five suitcases. An arsenal of powerful weapons, videotapes on si- lencers, a bulletproof vest, nylon stocking masks and a fingertip saw used to cut through bone were also found scattered through-out the two-bedroom apartment Authorities say Pitera's knowledge was put to use three years -ago-at the -ex- The complaint alleges Pitera and two cronies killed long-time mob informant Wilfred (Willie Boy) Johnson in 1988 "as a favor" to Gotti, the Gambino crime boss.

Johnson, a long-time Gambino associate, had ratted on Gotti to the feds but refused to testify when the Dapper Don went on trial in 1986 on racketeering charges. Johnson died in a barrage of gun- 5 bum OAVID HANDSCHUH DAILY MEWS if r9 i I of death alleged drug dealer who had crossed him. According to court papers filed yesterday, Pitera shot Siksik several times in a Kings Highway apartment and "cut the body up into pieces in the bathtub." Pitera revealed his technique in a 1988 conversation secretly recorded by federal drug agents: "As long as you got them, cut his lungs don't float Cut his stomach, cut both lungs." Pitera also draws the line on how far he's willing to go. "I never hurt anybody innocent For me to go and rip off an old lady's change, I couldn't do it" Little is known of Pitera's background. At age 17, he went to Japan and studied karate for three years.

He also owned several bars in Brooklyn and obtained a license to carry a gun. He also kept two Doberman pinschers in his home. "He's a self-taught hit man," said Robert Bryderv a federal drug officiaL- DISPLACED woman and child vacate their East gutted a fourth-floor apartment at 118th St. and Harlem building yesterday afternoon as Second Ave. One firefighter suffereda-knee firefighters rush to tackleaLSuspiciouslilaze that pense of Talal Hi) Hi 'u 1 I-'-'.