Lawyers for a Genovese bookmaker on trial for fatally stabbing his mobster brother-in-law painted the dead man yesterday as an out-of-control maniac – and playing an X-rated answering machine tape to prove it.
“You f-in’ little f-in’ lowlife. . . . I’m gonna cripple you,” the victim, Genovese associate Preston Geritano, rants on the answering machine of a Brooklyn nightclub owner whose son had brawled with Geritano’s kid.
The threats are directed at Dennis Saleeby Sr., who testified they were made four days before Geritano was killed on April 22, 2004.
The tape contains no threats against the man charged with murdering Geritano, brother-in-law Andrew Gargiulo , 67.
But defense lawyers hope the tirade will help jurors understand why Gargiulo had to use deadly force after Geritano attacked him with a stickball bat.
Prosecutors contend that, whatever his faults, Geritano, 57, was unarmed and helpless, sitting in his Lincoln Town Car when Gargiulo stabbed him five times.