‘RHONJ’ alum Dina Manzo’s ex-husband, Tommy, sentenced to 7 years in prison

Dina Manzo’s ex-husband was sentenced Tuesday to seven years in prison after being convicted of hiring a mobster to attack the “Real Housewives of New Jersey” alum’s new spouse.

The US Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey announced in a press release that Thomas “Tommy” Manzo was ordered to serve “84 months in prison for hiring, then assisting, a soldier in the Lucchese Crime Family to assault his ex-wife’s current husband.”

A jury convicted Tommy, 59, on June 4 of one count of committing a violent crime in aid of racketeering, one count of conspiracy to commit a violent crime in aid of racketeering and one count of falsifying and concealing documents related to a federal investigation.

Dina Manzo’s ex-husband, Tommy Manzo, was sentenced Tuesday to seven years in prison. VH1 Tommy, seen here in jail in 2021, was convicted of “hiring, then assisting, a soldier in the Lucchese Crime Family to assault his ex-wife’s current husband,” according to the US Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey. Thomas P. Costello via NJ Courts via Imagn Content Services, LLC

In addition to prison time, Judge Susan D. Wigenton sentenced Tommy to three years of supervised release.

“Whether you’re actually in the Mafia or not, hiring the mob to assault someone because of your marital problems is abhorrent,” US Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said in a statement Tuesday. “Covering up the role you played only makes it worse. The jury’s verdict, and today’s sentence, make clear that this office will spare no resources to hold accountable anyone who commits such crimes.”

Dina, 52, has not publicly commented on her ex’s sentencing, but she did post a cryptic quote to her Instagram Story on Tuesday.

Tommy was found guilty on June 4. VH1 He was accused of hiring a mobster to assault Dina’s then-boyfriend, Dave Cantin. @dina

“Because at the end of the day, the right people fight for you. The right people show up. The right people care, not only when life is convenient, but when it is difficult and messy and it aches all over,” the quote read.

Tommy was accused of hiring Lucchese crime family member John Perna to physically assault Cantin, who Dina’s boyfriend at the time, at a strip mall parking lot in New Jersey in 2015.

Prosecutors claimed Tommy had hired Perna because he was “outraged that his former wife became romantically involved with another man.”

Dina has yet to comment on her ex-husband’s sentencing. dina/Instagram She and Cantin, pictured above, wed in 2017. Instagram/@dina

Perna was also convicted after pleading guilty in 2020 to committing a violent crime in aid of racketeering activity. He was released from prison in 2023.

“The facts and circumstances in this case read like something from a bad TV crime drama, but the evidence and testimony presented in court prove it was reality,” James E. Dennehy, the head of FBI’s Newark field office, said in a statement in June after Tommy’s guilty verdict.

Dina, who has not starred on “RHONJ” since 2014, married Cantin in 2017. They recently moved to Montecito, Calif.