Ex-husband of ‘Real Housewives’ star gets seven years for hiring mobster to assault her boyfriend

By The Associated Press on October 15, 2024.

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) – The ex-husband of “Real Housewives of New Jersey” cast member Dina Manzo was sentenced Tuesday to seven years in prison for hiring a reputed mobster to assault her boyfriend in exchange for the defendant hosting a lavish wedding reception for the attacker.

Thomas Manzo, 59, of Franklin Lakes, will also have to serve three years of supervised release once he’s freed under the sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton. A federal jury in June convicted him of conspiracy, falsifying and concealing documents, and committing a violent crime in aid of racketeering activity.

According to federal prosecutors, Manzo hired John Perna, whom they described as a soldier in the Lucchese Crime Family, to commit the July 2015 attack in which the boyfriend was beaten with a weapon. Perna’s wedding reception was held the following month at a restaurant in Paterson that Thomas Manzo partly owned, prosecutors said.

Perna pleaded guilty in December 2020 to committing a violent crime in aid of racketeering activity and received a 2 1/2-year sentence. He was freed in August 2023. Dina Manzo’s boyfriend is now her husband.

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