Former The Real Housewives of New Jersey stars Dina and Caroline Manzo have a long history of drama that dates back to at least 2012.
Dina married her ex-husband, Tommy Manzo — the brother of her sister Caroline’s husband, Albert Manzo — in 2007. The former pair separated in 2012 and divorced in 2016. Tommy is currently in jail after being found guilty of “hiring, then assisting, a soldier in the Lucchese Crime Family to assault” Dina’s second husband, David Cantin, in 2015.
The crime caused a major rift — and Caroline’s daughter, Lauren Manzo, recently revealed that they avoid speaking about it because of its impact on multiple branches of the family tree. However, Lauren was forced to address elements of the story after her cousin Lexi Ioannou told Gia Giudice that her stepfather, Tommy, allegedly forced her and her mom, Dina, to move out of their home.
Keep scrolling for a deeper look at the long-running feud and how it’s impacted the Manzo family:
Caroline Defends Tommy
Dina and Caroline experienced their own disconnect after it was revealed during the trial that Caroline wrote a letter of defense in support of Tommy. Caroline’s son Albie Manzo later defended his mother’s decision to offer her written support.
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“This is why I respect my mother so much. She made a choice that she knew going in was going to be extraordinarily unpopular — that could’ve been easily twisted into something that it isn’t — but she made it anyway because she felt it was the right thing to do,” Albie said on his “Dear Albie” podcast in June 2021.
“Put yourself in my mother’s shoes,” Albie continued. “Knowing full well this is going to happen, do you know how much you got to believe in what you’re doing, knowing this is going to be the blowback? That’s why I admire my mother and the courage she had, doing what she did.”
Tommy’s Trial
“I went to the trial last year and I sat there for a week, and I listened to everybody testify,” Lexi told Giudice during her May 2025 podcast appearance. “My mom and I are so different like that. She couldn’t even stomach being there for, like, 30 minutes. I went every day, all day, for seven days. I needed to know everything. The word that came up a lot was ‘obsessive.’ There was some kind of obsessive disorder going on there with the fact that he lost his ‘family’ — my mom and I — and he just lost control.”
Tommy’s Conviction
The conclusion of the trial saw Tommy sentenced to seven years for his role in the attempted assault against Cantin. He was convicted by a jury in June 2024, after a two-and-a-half week-long trial held in Newark. He was found guilty on 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.
One day after Tommy was found guilty, Dina shared a social media photo of herself raising her hands up to the sky as the sun shone down on a large monument. When one of her followers commented on the image, “Light always wins!!!!! 
,” Dina replied, “ALWAYS .”
Lexi Speaks Out
Lexi first detailed the family dynamic in October 2024 when she blogged about Tommy allegedly kicking her and her mom out of the house.
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“Don’t poke the bear,’” Ioannou shared via Instagram at the time. “For the last decade I have stayed silent in fear of poking the bears in my life. With clarity I now can share this truth not only for myself, but for my mother, and for all of those who quietly endure their pain. My story is now available for you to read at the link in my bio.”
A lengthy post shared via Substack offered more details.
“For over a decade, I have kept silent in fear of poking Tommy Manzo, my stepfather of 15 years — a proven to be dangerous man, who won the loyalty of my blood family,” she wrote. “I could write a novel as to what made Tommy such a complicated man to be raised by, but instead I’ll speak to how I came to fear a man who promised to keep me safe and what it feels like to lose the love of my extended family. Many of these family members were also figures I feared to confront, leaving me emotionally stranded.”
She also accused Tommy of being “an unavailable husband, a notorious cheater and a workaholic.”
Tommy’s Alleged ‘Obsession’ With Lexi
While speaking on Giudice’s podcast in May 2025, Ioannou said of Tommy, “He had this, this, like, weird obsession with me. For years, people would tell me that he kept my room exactly the same because he thought I was going to come back. I can’t even begin to understand why he would think I would ever come back there.”
Ioannou added that Tommy kept her belongings for a decade after he and her mom separated.
“He never had children of his own and I was the closest thing he had to it. So, he really loved me,” she continued. “He was never inappropriate, but he definitely was very affectionate. And that was something I was very uncomfortable with because neither of my parents are that way. To receive it from a stepfather is kind of, like, extra strange when you don’t receive it from your actual father.”
