Background
Richard DiNome was born to Italian-American emigrants in Pigtown, Brooklyn.
Richard DiNome was born to Italian-American emigrants in Pigtown, Brooklyn.
He was involved in stealing cars and worked at a chop shop in Staten Island, stripping cars for automobile parts. On an average day DiNome stole 6-7 cars from the rich neighborhoods in Brooklyn. He was known among criminal associates as an expert auto mechanic.
Anthony, Joseph, DiNome, and Vito Arena centered on the Jewish-populated neighborhood of Borough Park because the cars in the vicinity of that neighborhood were least likely to have non-leather upholstered seats due to religious practices.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, DiNome started adopting a wardrobe that consisted of New York City Police Department-style shirts, gold chains around his neck and a dungaree jacket. In Machine, authors Jerry Capeci and Gene Mustain described him as a "stumblebum".
He managed to successfully manage a Flatlands, Brooklyn automotive repair shop on Glenwood Road in Flatlands located directly around the corner from his brother"s gasoline station, body shop and auto repair center. Scorney would slim jim and slap hammer the cars whereupon DiNome would drive the stolen cars away to the many chop shops in Canarsie, Brooklyn.
Between DiNome and Scorney, they were making $1,000–2,500 a week for their stolen car parts of luxury vehicles.
He owned three cars, including a Porsche 935, and lived in a newly furnished Bensonhurst, Brooklyn highrise apartment building where he kept $25,000 hidden underneath the hollow bottom of an artificial plant, for "in case I have to buy a cop off" as he would tell his associates. In the summer of 1978, Scorney, Arena and DiNome stole between four to seven cars a night.