"Chas Esposito" (January 5, 1925 – July 18, 2017) was a New York City mobster and capo in the Colombo crime family with a brutal reputation as a hitman.
[1] On August 11, 1972, Albert Gallo, brother of the late rogue Profaci crime family capo Crazy Joe Gallo (killed on April 7, 1972), had pinpointed Joseph (The Yack) Yacovelli, Alphonse (Allie the Snake) Persico Sr., Gennaro Langella and at least one other Colombo hood (thought to be Panarella) at the bar of the Neapolitan Noodle located at 320 East 79th Street in Midtown Manhattan.
As this party moved to a table, led by the wives, the shooter, dressed in casual clothes and wearing dark glasses and a long black shoulder length wig, opened up with two guns killing Sheldon Epstein and Max Tekelch and wounding two other men.
For a period of time, he was shuttling back to Brooklyn to oversee the Colombo family's interests in Locals 14 and 15 of the International Union of Operating Engineers.
Unfortunately for Panarella, the meeting location was bugged and law enforcement picked up clear evidence that he was acting as a member of the Colombo family.
On December 4, 2003, Panarella was indicted in New York on a federal racketeering charge in connection with alleged labor law violations and construction payoffs.
[4] In December 2012, a federal judge granted Panarella permission to travel to Long Island City, Queens in April 2013 to receive an award from his former union.