Lexi Ioannou is finally ready to share her story. In an essay titled “Don’t Poke the Bear,” the daughter of The Real Housewives of New Jersey star Dina Cantin (formerly Dina Manzo) opened up about the heartbreak she has felt about what happened to her mother and new stepfather at the behest of her former stepfather Tommy Manzo and the resulting dissolution of the relationship between Dina and sister Caroline Manzo after the latter spoke in support of him.
Tommy Manzo was recently sentenced to seven years in prison after being convicted of hiring a mafia enforcer to attack Dina’s new husband, Dave Cantin. Manzo’s specific charges included 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. He was convicted in June of this year in a Newark federal court.
According to the charges, Manzo hired a member of the Lucchese Crime Family to assault Dave Cantin, who was then Dina’s boyfriend, with payment being a free wedding reception at his catering hall. The assault was then carried out in July 2015.
Caroline Manzo appeared as a written character witness for her brother-in-law, who she was related to through both her own husband, Tommy’s brother Albert Manzo, and Dina’s marriage. Though Ioannou has previously shown her disdain for her aunt Caroline’s decision to support her former stepfather in the trial, including helping him get released, she wrote that she has silenced herself for “over a decade” out of “fear of poking Tommy Manzo.”
Ioannou’s essay revealed that while Tommy Manzo was charming on the surface, “Behind closed doors, he was an unavailable husband, a notorious cheater, and a workaholic.”
“I watched as he dangled the promise of a better future in front of my mother while stripping away her confidence, breaking her down, and using me as leverage in his manipulations. The hope of a single mother lies in finding a partner that loves their child,” her post continues. “I now recognize these heartbreaks and sacrifices that my mother endured in loving me more than she loved herself.”
Ioannou went on to write that she and her former stepfather had a “surface”-level relationship and that when her mother first broke up with Manzo, it was “amicable as he was accepting of his failures as a husband.”
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Once she formed a relationship with Cantin, however, Ioannou wrote that he turned to “psychological warfare,” including forcing her out of their family home without time to collect her prized belongings and family heirlooms.
“Tommy’s rage continued to manifest into acts of unspeakable violence, beginning with a calculated physical attack in 2015, aimed squarely at my mother’s new husband. A spineless act of jealousy and retaliation. This was followed by a harrowing home invasion in 2017, an attempt to instill terror in both my mother and her husband,” Ioannou wrote.
She then reflected on Manzo’s trial in April 2024 and the fact that her aunt Caroline decided to speak out on his behalf, writing, “I find myself at a perpetual loss to understand how the man who tormented my mother garnered the support of my own family.”
“Caroline was more than an aunt to me,” the essay continued. “Yet, in a staggering betrayal, she would later choose the side of my mother’s abuser and go as far as writing a character letter in defense of Tommy. What could compel someone to form an alliance with a felon over their own blood? Some might describe it as, ‘thick as thieves.’ Meanwhile, my mother’s sister Cookie continued to be employed by him and even appeared in court in his support. A troubling lack of loyalty despite having once shared a home with us and bearing witness to Tommy’s darkness.”
Ioannou added that while she spent the nearly 10 years since the attack in silence for fear of retribution from her former stepfather, she is no longer letting that stop her. As a reference to the title of the piece, she wrote, “I realized that Tommy was never the bear; I am. A devoted daughter coming to the defense of her mother and a keeper of the truth who has been poked for far too long.”
After Tommy Manzo serves his 84 months in prison, he will also be subject to three years of supervised release.
If you or someone you know is the victim of domestic abuse, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233.
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