FRANK "CHICKIE" FABIO - Reputed Chilli crew associate. Masterminded the Chase Manhattan robbery first with Salvatore Arena and then with Brian Giannolla in an attempt to rob a safe believed to have contained jewelry and $300,000. Faced with four counts, two conspiracy and two of attempted bank robbery, carrying maximum penalties of 50 years and $500,000, Fabio took a plea bargain and received five years.    SALVATORE ARENA - Fabio's first choice. Fabio and Arena were to enter the bank with Arena to pose as Donald Mann, the ficticious owner of the safe. When that failed, Arena went back to Miami and Fabio took another shot with Brian Giannolla.    BRIAN GIANNOLLA - Fabio's second choice. After Sal Arena went back to Florida, Fabio tried his luck in Jersey by teaming up with Giannolla with a new plot: a full fledged smash and grab bank robbery. Every bank robbery needs a getaway driver and Giannolla had just the man in mind for the job.    STEVE LENEHAN - The driver. A low level associate fallen on hard times. After being put on the shelf by Nicky O and Scoops Licata in the Bruno-Scarfo mob, Lenehan was more than happy to ride Giannolla's tail until he got busted. Being a twice convicted loser, faced with a 250,000 fine and 25 years in prison, Lenehan decided to cooperate and participate in a marginal coup to trip up real mobsters in a series of low level crimes.

    They exited Chase Manhattan Federal Bank on the fifth day of March 1992 to find themselves encircled by the cross flow of pedestrian traffic. One of the men- a tall lanky man with horn rimmed eye glasses, Salvatore Arena, looked slightly startled while the other man who usually carried himself with a silent don't-fuck-with-me expression looked upset this particular day. His name was Frank Fabio, but on the streets and to his friends he was known as Chickie.

    Chickie knew what Sal was going to say before Sal even said it, which was that he was out, he was cutting his losses and going back to Miami. Chickie knew it was probably the smart move. Moments before, the bank teller read his identification cards which listed him as Donald Mann, which should have allowed him access to a safe in the same name which contained $1 million in gems and $294,000 in cash. Instead they were confiscated and he was told to immediately leave the premises. Arena knew his face was fresh in the mind of the teller and was captured on camera and security was now alerted, he decided that if Chickie were to rob that safe, it was best if he put as much distance between that bank and him as possible.

    Arena could cut and run, he was a freelance streetguy whose only superior was the man standing in the mirror. Chickie Fabio was another matter. As an associate of the Gerry Chilli crew, he enjoyed the prestige of being “with” the crew, and by extension the mafia, mob, la cosa nostra, whatever you wanted to call it. It was a position that generated respect; got doors opened, both figuratively and literally, and separated him from the regular street husler. But that position had a price.

    As an associate, Chickie Fabio was required to kick up a percentage of his income to the top leaders of the Chilli crew and ultimately to Gerry Chilli himself. You get what you put in the saying goes. The more you kicked up, the more the bosses were aware of you and the more they looked out for you. Fabio was a great earner but hadn't yet attracted the attention of ''the administration,'' or those who Chilli ultimately answered to. Anthony Spero who for the last several years served as the street boss over every crew of what was known as the old Bonanno family was sentenced to a lengthy prison term. Salvatore Vitale had stepped up but was more or less regarded as the caretaker for his brother-in-law, Big Joseph Massino, the family underboss and ultimate heir to the position of boss with the death of longtime family boss Rusty Rastelli. Big Joey was the man to impress, Chilli was a great yarn, but Big Joey ultimately controlled the books on who got straightened out and who stayed an associate working under the wiseguys. At 50 years old, Chickie wasn't getting any younger and getting his button was his ultimate goal. And buttons cost money.

    All that stood between that button and Chickie was his ability to generate cash, a shitload of it. But the plot to uneventfully deprive Chase of the contents of that safe failed and for Chickie, failure was not an option. So it was time for a plan B, and if that didn't work then plan C, then D all the way to fucking Z if he had to. He needed that cash.

    He returned to Hackettstown, NJ and eventually met up with a fellow street hustler, Brian Giannolla, who was another mob hanger on who associated with several wiseguys operating in New Jersey. Together they formed a new plan.

    The new plan involved having someone rent a safe for them in the same room as the safe they intended to rob and then return with a stun gun and zap the guard, grab his keys and access the safe and walk out and drive away. It wasn't the most sophisticated plan but Fabio's obsession over the safe's contents and drive for cash outweighed everything else. It didn't matter that bank had metal detectors and walking in with a stun gun would have alerted the police in seconds, it also didn't matter that there were video cameras and had they managed to bypass the metal detectors, stun the guard and get access to the master key, their faces would have been caught on camera. All they needed was a driver and Brian Giannolla said he knew the perfect man for the job who would be more than comfortable with accepting a small share and could even be relied upon to sell the gems on the street. His name was Steve Lenehan.

    Alcoholic, hustler, armed robber, wife-beater and bully, Steve Lenehan was the complete package, the ultimate lowlife wannabe. At age 37, he had a sizable rap sheet and had spent time behind bars.

    He had finished his last stint in 1987 after serving a little more than a year for attempting to rob a bank courier en route to the bank. It was in Annendale prison that Brian Giannolla became acquainted with Steve through Brian's brother John and it was a relationship that continued after both men were released. Giannolla went back into the underwold with relative ease, Lenehan had fallen on hard times.

    Lenehan wasn't a wiseguy, but he pretended to be. He first got his start running numbers for Jersey mobster Jimmy Higgins Palmieri fresh out of high school who was a friend of Lenehan's father. Those that remember Lenehan remember him as a gravitational loser, always anxious to impress ''the Italians.'' He would constantly boast of his mob connections, perhaps a little too much which didn't sit well with many of them. One of them happened to be Nick Olivieri, known on the streets of Nicky O. Like Lenehan, Nicky O had gotten his start under Palmieri and for a time he was on good terms with Lenehan until the act wore thin and they went their separate ways.

    Lenehan would always boast that he was a man's man, and that even though he would never be made, he was regarded by the Palmieris with the respect of one, and was even schooled as if he could have been. Since the Palmieris are dead, the truth died with them, the fact of the matter remains that if Lenehan was so heavily regarded by the Palmieris, and by extension the Gambino family, why didn't that respect carry over to the rest of the Gambinos Jersey crew?

    The truth is that Lenehan's only relationship was with the Palmieris which was out of respect for Lenehan's father Bill, and when the Palmieris aged and died off, Lenehan's mob ties died on the vine. And Lenehan was left on his own.

    On his own, Lenehan was just another street hustler anxious to do anything for a buck. Like most street wannabes, he was always looking to do some work with the wiseguys and their associates, even though they tended to take far more than their fair share. What mattered was that Lenehan could call himself an associate of the mob.

    But by the late 80's and early 90's he couldn't even call himself that. For reasons nobody will ever know Nicky O had a hard-on for Lenehan and beefed to his direct boss, the capo of the Bruno-Scarfo family's Jersey crew- Joe Scoops Licata. Together, they issued a decree heard throughout Jersey that Lenehan was on the shelf. Wiseguys were advised not to do business with the man. Lenehan had no choice but to gravitate towards someone like Brian Giannolla with his New York ties. It didn't matter that the bank robbery plan was poorly devised. All that mattered was that he was mobbed up again, the deal was made that instead of receiving any of the estimated $300,000 in cash, he would be entrusted with ''getting rid'' of the $1 million in gems, all Fabio wanted was 25%. It sounded like a helluva deal.

    Of course Lenehan didn't know that he was getting conned by Fabio and Giannolla because gems and jewelry at street value, while it sounds promising at the beginning, is hardly worth the effort. Someone is lucky if they receive 10% of the overall value. Assuming Lenehan stayed on the street long enough to fence off a million dollars with of jewelry and gems and by some miracle managed to sell them at 10% the price, he would have made about $100,000, about $75,000 after Fabio took his cut. Lenehan never pondered the idea of possibly selling to an undercover cop, he never pondered getting caught and the gems being tied to the bank plot which would get him charged with the entire unsolved robbery itself, had it managed to go off. No, Lenehan wasn't known as a smart guy. What mattered was that he was involved with a plot with associates of the Chilli crew, and by extension, Gerry Chilli himself.

    After several days of planning, Brian Giannolla and Chickie Fabio decided it was a go, after having John Giannolla go to Chase and rent a safe in the same room as the safe in question, it was time to go to work. The next day would be the big day.

    March 12, 1992 wasn't the big day as expected, but it was interesting none the less. Chickie and Brian Giannolla had the stun gun ready and drove to West 57th street and waited, waited for Lenehan to arrive and wait to be the getaway driver. One has to wonder if either Brian or Chickie gazed out on West 57th and noted the traffic and its 15 mph ascension rate.

    The two men stood outside the bank and waited? Where the fuck was Steve Lenehan?

    Steve was on the Jersey side of the Lincoln tunnel, he had been pulled over by a state cruiser and was arrested. He was notified that they knew about the plot and he was going to be charged with yet another federal crime.

    How law enforcement came to know of the plot is still an open question, what isn't is that someone knew about it and decided to share that information. Someone involved, probably Lenehan, shared what should have been need-to-know information with the wrong person and was now in custody for it.

    Steve Lenehan was read the riot act. Under federal law, conspiracy to commit bank robbery merits a $250,000 fine and a standard 25 year sentence with a mandatory 85% term of that sentence that must be served. Lenehan was 37, if convicted the earliest he would see sunshine would be after his 58th birthday.

    Back in New York, Giannolla and Fabio waited, waited, waited. They finally said fuck it and entered the bank where they were immediately arrested by authorities waiting inside.

   Due to Lenehan's ''subsequent'' offer to turn informant, the case would be dismissed for several years to come. Lenehan convinced the New Jersey state police and the FBI that he would be a good asset on the street wired up. And they consented. Lenehan would go on to become one of “hundreds” of informants on the streets trying to trip up mobsters into saying or ordering the wrong thing which would lead to an indictment.

   Later on Lenehan would reveal his decision to turn informant was due to the extensive dirt the police had on him, and typical Lenehan braggadocio, he felt the need to embellish it a bit:

   ''The feds were on me for a year big time before they arrested me... I was the main suspect in the Larry Day murder. I committed crimes every day. When I got pinched it was because of Brian and John Gianola, two brothers I met in jail. They were facing time with Chick Fabio on a score and gave me up to the feds... The feds had me for a piece of work I did for Chilli upstate New York...They also had me on a bank robbery case with Fabio and Brian. ..They had me on gambling, loansharking, extortion, arson, and money laundering charges. They already had indicted me in the Sally Dogs Genovese family case along with Joe the Indian Polverino and Lenny Macaluso. Joe died in November 1989 but they knew I was his right hand guy so I got thrown into that mess. They also had me on a swag beef with Beesh Taccetta that Nicky O set up... I later found out that they had my phone bugged for a year... They arrested me and I knew I was looking at a RICO conviction, maybe 50 years, 20 at best. I learned all those years that to be a successful wiseguy you fuck everyone else...Before most of you condemn me ask yourself what you would have done? I'm not proud of what I did, but it's to late to change any of it now.''

   But all bullshit aside, Lenehan was busted for taking part in a half ass bank robbery as a driver. That, combined with a previous bank robbery conviction, would guarantee Lenehan would spend the next 20 behind bars. Period. The remaining barage of charges he claims to have been chared with are pure and utter bullshit to justify to the world wide web his decision to turn informant. The truth is found in the Star Ledger:

   ''The day of the robbery,'' he said, ''I was arrested before I even got to New York City.'' Lenehan was picked up outside the Lincoln Tunnel and brought to a State Police barracks near Newark International Airport. ''I knew my goose was cooked,'' Lenehan said. He signed a contract to work for the FBI."

   Twenty years was the essence. 240 months or 7300 days sitting in an eight by nine cell, all for just for wanting to play the part of a mafioso he would never be. He didn't have rackets which could be looked after by a crew he didn't have, his family would not be taken care of or given a greeting when seen by a capo he wasn't under. In the end, it must have become clear to him that he was on his own. All his life he had idolized and respected the mobsters and their way of life. He had wanted to fuck with the eagles but didn't have wings to fly.

   Before most of you condemn me ask yourself what you would have done? I'm not proud of what I did, but it's to late to change any of it now.

   The only condemnation is towards Lenehan's lies and embellishment. His gambling, loansharking, extortion, arson, and money laundering charges didn't exist on paper until Lenehan sought to prove his importance to the feds which would allow him to return to the streets, so he named off every crime he was involved in, knew of or heard. The only innitial charge was taking part in a bank robbery. Period. No ifs ands or buts.

   The rest is history. In the end, indictments against Arena, Fabio and Giannolla would be suspended for several more years until Lenehan's "undercover" operation was considered exhausted and formal charges could be brought supplied with Lenehan's firsthand account of the Chase attempt. Giannolla would also decide to cooperate before sentencing.

   This was Lenehan at the height of his criminal career- a driver in a mob backed bank robbery. He always desparately wanted to be part of the action but could never cut it. So he came to terms with it by going online and faking it under his Picasso moniker long after he vanished into Witness Protection. His exploits far exceed reality and for claiming not to be Lenehan but to have not known him, knew of him, knew him well, was related to him through marriage, then knew him well, why hasn't he ever mentioned the main central focal point behind the reasons he flipped? The reasons behind it was lack thereof: lack of drama, lack of bravado, lack of intellience, hardly worthy of the faux-internet reputation he and Scott Deitche tried to build up and sell. Had Lenehan been a success in "the life," Picasso would have never been seen or heard of on the world wide web.