The Real Housewives of New Jersey alum Dina Manzo’s daughter is speaking out after her stepfather, Thomas Manzo, was sentenced.
“‘Don’t poke the bear,’” Ioannu, 28, wrote via Instagram on Wednesday, October 23. “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.”
Ionnau’s upload comes days after Thomas, 59, was sentenced to 84 months in prison for “hiring, then assisting, a soldier in the Lucchese Crime Family to assault” Dina’s now-husband, David Cantin, in 2015. The decision was announced by U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger in a press release issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of New Jersey.
The document added Thomas was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and “ordered him immediately remanded.”
In a lengthy post on her Substack website, Ionnau began by reflecting on the “don’t poke the bear” expression.
“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.”
Ionnau explained that Thomas has known her since birth as her mom’s sister, Caroline, is married to his brother, Albert. Ionnau was 6 years old when her mom began a romantic relationship with Thomas, whom she wed in 2007. The pair separated in 2012 and finalized their divorce four years later. She tied the knot with Cantin in 2017.
“The long history of these relationships created a deeply embedded belief in the connection of our modern family,” Ionnau wrote. “We had trust in who Tommy was as a man.”
“Tommy was an enigma—an extravagantly generous and charismatic figure who captured the affection of everyone around him, earning the loyalty of church members, politicians, and law enforcement alike,” she continued. “To know Tommy was to love him. Yet beneath this veneer of charm lay a complexity of darker undercurrents, raising questions about the true intentions of his relationships and the reality behind the façade.”
Ionnau went on to allege that Thomas “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,” she claimed. “The hope of a single mother lies in finding a partner that loves their child. I now recognize these heartbreaks as sacrifices that my mother endured in loving me more than she loved herself.”
Ionnau claimed that her relationship with Thomas “only ever scratched the surface,” alleging that “his dysfunctions prevented any real understanding between us.”
“To me, he was a shadowy figure of a father who expressed love through transactional gestures. A forced seat on his lap and an awkward kiss on the cheek earned me a crisp $100 bill — a currency of affection I never asked for,” she alleged. “He objectified me in his own strange ways as his beloved ‘daughter.’ Tommy did love me, but his love for me was about himself. He was a financial provider, restoring some comforts lost after my parents’ divorce, but he wielded that power with a knowledge of what he could take away.”
After Dina, 52, left Thomas in 2012, Ionnau recalled their divorce being “amicable” before claiming her step-father engaged in “psychological warfare” when he realized the Bravo star had “begun to move on.”
“Forcibly removing me from our home without notice,” she wrote. “‘Forced out’ barely captures the reality; he violently shook me awake on a sleepy winter morning, giving me just thirty minutes to ‘get the f— out.’”
Ioannu claimed that Thomas’ “rage” manifested 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.”
In the years that followed, Ioannu alleged that Thomas “would insistently try to contact me, wielding me as a pawn in his twisted games and holding me emotionally hostage.”
“These incidents were terrifying and involved the people closest to me,” she continued. “The memories of them cast a long, daunting shadow over our lives, each of us carrying our own experience of trauma and pain.”
Ioannu recalled sitting in court and listening to Thomas’ attorneys plead not guilty in April. She claimed that “they painted his actions as misguided attempts to protect me.”
“As I listened to the testimonies from mob associates, friends, and law enforcement, the magnitude of his obsessive rage became painfully clear,” she wrote. “His reach was unnerving, employing private investigators and violent men to track our movements over the course of many years. I found myself covered in a veil of shock and shame, struggling to reconcile how I could be raised by a person capable of such harm. Tommy’s guilt was ultimately established in the court of law, leading him to a prison cell.”
While noting that Caroline, 63, was “more than an aunt” to her, Ioannu claimed that she chose “the side of my mother’s abuser and go as far as writing a character letter in defense of Tommy.” (Us Weekly reached out to Caroline for comment.)
“What could compel someone to form an alliance with a felon over their own blood?” Ioannu added. “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.”
Ioannu also claimed that some of her family members have chosen “the path of silence.” While noting that she “felt trapped within the layers of my own story,” Ioannu said that she realized Thomas “was never the bear” — instead she is.
“This piece is a declaration, a refusal to live in accordance to those who I once perceived to hold power over me,” she concluded. “I share this truth not only for myself but for my mother and for all of those who quietly endure their pain. I invite you to reclaim your power if you feel you’ve lost it. Be the bear.”
Following the upload, Dina reshared the post via her Instagram Story and praised her daughter. “What a beautiful bear she is,” Dina wrote. “My heart broke in a million pieces when I read this but I couldn’t be more proud of the woman behind these profound words.”
