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Frank Fiala 1946 - 1982

Frank Fiala of Kings County, New York United States was born on June 23, 1946 in Věšín, Příbram District County, Central Bohemian Region Czechia, and died at age 36 years old on June 27, 1982 at Gravesend 2937 86th Street, in Brooklyn, New York United States. Frank Fiala was buried at St. Charles / Resurrection Cemeteries in East Farmingdale, Suffolk County.

Frank Fiala

Frank Joe Fiala

Kings County, New York United States

June 23, 1946

Věšín, Příbram District County, Central Bohemian Region, Czechia

June 27, 1982

Gravesend 2937 86th Street, in Brooklyn, New York, United States

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Frank Fiala Frank Fiala (1946 - 1982)

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Frank Fiala's History: 1946 - 1982

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Introduction

Frank Fiala was a high rolling drug trafficker who was in the process of purchasing one of Gambino family mobster Sammy Gravano's nightclubs in June 1982 - the Plaza Suite. Gravano was reluctant to sell the club at first, but Fiala had offered him a whopping one million dollars which was five times the value of the Plaza Suite. Sammy accepted a one hundred thousand dollar down payment from Fiala, but the problems started almost immediately. Fiala right away moved in and began exerting his power in the club, before the deal had been completed. When Gravano became annoyed and confronted him, Fiala pulled out an Uzi. Sammy played it cool and talked Fiala down, knowing he was going to kill him at the first opportunity. Gravano was genuinely disgusted and outraged by the arrogance of Fiala and gathered his team of hitmen after leaving the club that day. Gravano, Louie Milito and another crew member Michael DeBatt then ambushed Fiala outside of the club that night. Sammy stepped in front of Fiala distracting him as Milito dropped him with a shot from behind. Louie Milito then shot Fiala once in both eyeballs. this was a message to others about the danger of disrespecting Sammy Gravano. Although more than a dozen people were close by, none stepped forward as witnesses. See Fiala Murder to read about some of the details of his life as well as a contemporary report of the murder and a look back at what happened. There is also an article A sea of blue couldn't avert Gravesend red written in 1982 that details the irregularities of the 2 am murder of Frank Fiala. Specifically, how the police were out in significant force during this time of the morning, in the area of Avenue X, and prevented the Guardian Angels from entering this location as the murder occurred.
06/23

1946

Birthday

June 23, 1946

Birthdate

Věšín, Příbram District County, Central Bohemian Region Czechia

Birthplace

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Ethnicity & Family History

Caucasian. Frank Fiala was of Czechoslovakian extraction and had immigrated to the United States several years prior to his death. His father was Filla Tilla Lillla Sr.
Nationality & Locations

Born in Czechoslovakia, Frank immigrated to the United States when he was 14, but only became a United States citizen in 1980. He lived in Virginia Beach Virginia, but spent much of his time in Manhattan New York, and he owned an apartment in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn.
Professional Career

A successful businessman, and a reputed drug trafficker, Fiala's first job was as an apprentice at a ship parts firm in Greenpoint Brooklyn called the Patterson Machine Company. He eventually bought the company and had various business interests including agreeing to pay up to $500,000 for "Plato's Retreat" in Manhattan. At the time of his death authorities said "On the surface, he is a 'legit' guy, but we are not sure. HE DID something wrong to somebody" - Detective Paul Frommer was quoted as saying shortly after his death in the Daily News 1982.
Personal Life & Family

According to a June 29, 1982 report in Newsday, Fiala had a wife and 2 daughters ages 9 and 5 who lived in an apartment in Virginia Beach VA at the time of his death. Fialia lived a lavish lifestyle, and owned a Rolls-Royce, Mercedes-Benz, an Audi, a Cadillac limousine, a 41-foot yacht that cost $180,000 (in 1982), and two Cessna airplanes, and had plans to purchase a helicopter. A Daily News article also June 29th 1982 describes him as: "Fiala owned the Patterson Machine Co., a ship parts firm in Greenpoint Brooklyn, where he had worked as an apprentice after immigrating to the United States from Czechoslovakia. He also owned a small fleet of airplanes and luxury cars and had an office filled with pornographic movies, books, magazines and other sexual paraphernalia, police said. A semiautomatic .30 caliber Army carbine with a laser scope reportedly was found in the rear of the building. Detectives met with Fiala's lawyers yesterday in an effort to decipher his varied business interests. However, there was no evidence of illegal activity by Fiala."
06/27

1982

Death

June 27, 1982

Death date

Shooting

Cause of death

Gravesend 2937 86th Street, in Brooklyn, New York United States
Death location

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Gravesite & Burial

mm/dd/yyyy
Funeral date
St. Charles / Resurrection Cemeteries in East Farmingdale, Suffolk County, New York 11735, United States
Burial location
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6 Memories, Stories & Photos about Frank

Daniel Pinna

9.26k+ favorites

10/06/2023

Frank Fiala's wife - Bova Fiala

This photo of 33 year old Bova Fiala appeared in the June 28th 1982 Daily News newspaper. In the article it says:
She told police her husband said little to her about his work. "All he would say is, 'When I die, you'll be a rich widow,".

Date & Place: June 28, 1982 in New York, New York United States

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Daniel Pinna

9.26k+ favorites

07/07/2022

A sea of blue couldn't avert Gravesend red

The following appeared in the Daily News New York on Wednesday June 30th 1982:

INCREDIBLE. On Saturday night in all of the City of New York, there was no neighborhood that had more cops on patrol in it than Gravesend, in Brooklyn, and even the police themselves boasted about how safe the neighborhood was that night. "Anybody as much as spits on the street is going to be in trouble," a cop said. The first time the cops started boasting about how much police protection there was in Gravesend was at 9 o'clock that evening and that was when a Guardian Angel patrol they didn't want around showed up trying to get into the neighborhood.

At 2 o'clock Sunday morning the Angels were sprawled on the steps to the elevated subway station and cops were still with them and saying the same thing and that was when the No. 1 crime of the week took place right there, on 86th and Lake sts. in Gravesend, in Brooklyn.

It was the killing of Frank Fiala and the way it was done it might have been the murder of the year. There were at least 12 witnesses to the killing that happened on what was supposed to be the safest street in the city. The way the witnesses tell it, a gunman who wore a ski mask knocked Fiala to the ground and then stood on his chest and shot his eyes out, and that done, shot him in the mouth.

And this was no hurried-up job. It was done with a machine gun with no silencer, no more than four blocks from the center of the huge police presence that was massed in the neighborhood. It was incredible. "We;ve got police in there (the Avenue X neighborhood) from everywhere, from the Bronx, Queens, from all over Brooklyn. Nothing is going to happen in that area, not tonight."

The cops were running all of this down to the Guardian Angels early on Saturday night as a way of telling the Angels, who were headed for Avenue X, that they weren't needed and that it would be best if they just went on home. "We can help, we can do some good over there," the Angels insisted.

The Angel Patrol that wanted to get to Avenue X was one that often patrols in Marlboro Houses, the public housing projects just a few blocks up 86th St. from Avenue X and the bagel shop where a gang of young whites had beaten a black transit worker to death a few days before.

The Angels had gone two blocks up 86th St., from the projects to the overpass at the railroad tracks, which is at W. Seventh St., and the cops stopped them there. As if to demonstrate more fully for the Angels the extent of the police power that was in the area, cops from everywhere rushed to the overpass where the Angels were stopped. There were at least a half dozen blue and white cruisers, a big blue and white truck, an ambulance and a good number of unmarked cars.

The cops argued about it with the Angels for a good three hours. "No way is there going to be any trouble tonight," the cops said. "We're going to talk," the Angels said.

At 2 o'clock in the morning the cops were still saying impossible, that there was no way that anything was going to happen in Gravesend, and that was when Frank Fiala, who was 37, was machine-gunned on the street. And it was incredible that Fiala was killed the way that he was because the neighborhood was crawling with cops. The killing of the transit worker had race as its motive and the fear was that blacks from the projects, the Marlboro Houses, would come to Avenue X to try and retaliate. The plan was to saturate the area with cops. "That's not a solution," the Guardian Angels had said. And because they are an integrated group, they decided to go to Avenue X and talk. "You're not needed," the cops said. "Nothing is going to happen here, not now."

By Monday, it was being said that the killers of Frank Fiala were well-trained hit men and that the murder was linked to organized crime, which meant that it was a message killing. It was a way of saying "We'll get you and it doesn't matter how many cops are around." It was saying, "We'll go into Fort Knox if we want you and we'll carry the killing out in a way that everybody will get the message."

On Saturday night, the police of the City of New York put on a show of force in Gravesend. In the area of Avenue X, cops stood in clusters near the subway station. In the blue and white cruisers, cops rode three and four to a car. And unmarked cars were everywhere.

But still, the rubout of Frank Fiala went off as though the cops weren't there. And in the neighborhood where the residents had been asked to keep a lookout, the killers walked away. "We've never been removed from the streets anywhere in the country." Curtis Silwa, who is the leader of the Guardian Angels, said yesterday. The question now is why were the Angels removed? The streets obviously were not as safe as the cops had inssted. They did the No. 1 murder of the week and did it right there, right in the midst of the biggest police buildup in the city that night and walked away clean.

"It was the first time the city cops have ever given us a hassle," Sliwa said. This was 2 o'clock in the morning, Sunday, in Gravesend, and all of it was incredible.

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Kathy Pinna

31.2k+ favorites

11/22/2021

Fiala Murder

From Wikiwand

[external link]

By the early 1980s, the Plaza Suite was a thriving establishment. Patrons often had to wait an hour to get in and the club featured high-profile live acts such as singers Chubby Checker and the Four Tops.

In 1982, Frank Fiala, a wealthy businessman and drug trafficker, paid Gravano $40,000 to rent the Plaza Suite for a birthday party he was throwing himself. Two days after the party, Gravano accepted a $1,000,000 offer from Fiala to buy the establishment, which Gravano had only valued at $200,000. The deal was structured to include $100,000 cash as a down payment, $650,000 in gold bullion under the table, and a $250,000 payment at the real estate closing.

Before the transaction was completed, Fiala began acting like he already owned the club. Upon leaving the Plaza Suite, Gravano called Garafola and set up an ambush outside the club, involving Garafola, Milito, D'Angelo, Nicholas Mormando, and Michael DeBatt in the plan. Later that night, Gravano confronted Fiala on the street as he exited the Plaza Suite among a group of people, asking, "Hey, Frank, how you doing?" As Fiala turned around, surprised to see Gravano, Milito came up behind him and shot him in the head. Milito stood over the body and fired a shot into each of Fiala's eyes as Fiala's entourage and the crowd of people on the street dispersed, screaming. Gravano then walked up to Fiala's body and spat on him.

Gravano was never charged for the crime; he had made a $5,000 payoff to the lead New York Police Department homicide detective Louis Eppolito to ensure that the investigation yielded no leads

Although Gravano evaded criminal charges, he incurred Castellano's wrath over the unsanctioned killing. Gravano attempted to lie low for nearly three weeks afterwards, during which time he called his crew together and made the decision to kill Castellano if necessary. Gravano and Milito were then summoned to a meeting with Castellano at a Manhattan restaurant. Castellano had been given the details of what Fiala had done, but he was still livid that Gravano had not come to him for permission to kill Fiala first. Gravano, however, was spared execution when he convinced Castellano that the reason he had kept him in the dark was to protect the boss in case something went wrong with the hit.

Fiala's murder posed one final problem for Gravano in the form of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The high publicity generated by the incident triggered an IRS investigation into Gravano and Fiala's deal for the sale of the Plaza Suite and Gravano was subsequently charged with tax evasion. Gravano was represented by Gerald Shargel and acquitted at trial.

D'Angelo was later killed by a Colombo family associate celebrating his having been proposed for membership. The killer was then murdered, himself, on orders from the Colombo family.

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