Former Los Angeles mobster and assassin Anthony “The Animal” Fiato claimed in 2006 that James Caan ordered him to administer a “mafia-style hit” to actor Joe Pesci for failing to pay a hotel bill of $ 8,000. Fiato says Caan ordered the beating in 1982. A spokesman for the late Caan claimed this did not happen, but Fiato says the incriminating conversation was recorded by the FBI.
From The Guardian:
When his brother Ronnie was arrested at gunpoint by gangsters, Caan enlisted the help of his mafia friend Anthony “the Animal” Fiato. Caan arranged to meet and pay for the kidnappers, then arrived with Fiato and his crew with pistols and baseball bats. On another occasion, the FBI intercepted a telephone conversation between Fiato and Caan about actor Joe Pesci. Caan asked his friend to “take care” of Pesci after learning of an unpaid $ 8,000 bill from Pesci’s stay at a friend’s hotel in Miami.
From the radar:
“Jimmy can say he’s a friend of Pesci now. But he can’t deny that at one point he tried to hurt him. He’s recorded,” Fiato said, referring to alleged recordings he made of Caan asking him to beat Pesci. .
“We will get there [Pesci]”says Fiato in the recording, which was handed over to the FBI and occurred later in the 1990s when Fiato was forced to testify during a murder trial.
“Well, well,” Caan seems to reply. “We’ll make him pay.”