Update: Lucchese Family Arrests
Updated stories following yesterday's busts involving unrelated indictments targeting the Lucchese crime family by the Manhattan DA and the United States Attorney which netted 47 individuals:
Jose Martinez and Brian Kates for the Daily News:
Forty-nine people, including top gangsters and three mobsters working as city building inspectors, were indicted Thursday in two separate bribery and racketeering schemes. The Manhattan district attorney's office charged 29 people, including three ranking members of the Lucchese crime family and the mob-tied building inspectors, with soliciting bribes to overlook violations or speed up permits. Prosecutors said acting Lucchese capo Anthony Croce, 76, and gangsters Joseph DiNapoli, 74, and Matthew Madonna, 73, were key players in a far-flung operation that pulled in some $400 million from gambling, loansharking, gun trafficking and extortion. * * * In a separate indictment, the feds charged 12 more reputed Lucchese gangsters and seven others in a gambling, loansharking and extortion scheme. Prosecutors said the ring paid $222,000 in bribes to an NYPD detective and sergeant posing as crooked cops to protect city poker parlors. Acting Lucchese capo Andrew DiSimone and crime family soldier Dominic (Nicky Pepsi) Capelli ran the ring, said Chief Brian Conroy of the NYPD vice division, who headed up the sting, dubbed Operation Open House.
Laura Italiano and Murray Weiss for the New York Post:
Three Luchese crime-family associates infiltrated the city Department of Buildings, climbing to mid-level inspection jobs and pocketing tens of thousands of dollars a pop in bribes -- even as they continued their underworld trade in guns, drugs and gambling, officials said yesterday. They had developed a small beachfront into this agency," Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau said in announcing 29 arrests -- most of them of reputed Luchese gangsters, including two of the organization's top three men. Luchese "ruling panel" honchos Matthew Madonna and Joseph DiNapoli were the biggest trophies. * * * But most startling among the arrests are those of the three accused mobsters who rose to supervisory positions in the scandal-plagued department: brothers Frank and Carmine Francomano and Thomas Masucci. * * * Authorities also rounded up 18 reputed mobsters on federal charges connected to gambling and loan-sharking for the Luchese crime family -- a case that began when one of them offered cops bribes to turn a blind eye to his illegal poker room in New York and to raid competing games. The vice-squad cops -- who collected $220,000 from defendant Steven Mayer after the initial bribe offer allegedly was made in April 2006 -- actually were working undercover and ended up gathering evidence against him.
Christine Hauser for The New York Times:
Manhattan prosecutors on Thursday accused the Lucchese crime family of infiltrating the Buildings Department, saying that three of the family’s associates found jobs as building inspectors and that others in the family, including top bosses, committed a wide range of crimes. In all, six building inspectors were accused of taking bribes to grant building permits, expedite inspections and overlook building violations. The three inspectors said to be Luchese associates were also accused of more traditional mob-related offenses, including bribery, gambling, drug trafficking, extortion and loan sharking. * * * Those indicted include bosses and associates of the Luchese family, officials of four corporations, real estate officials and the six building inspectors. * * * In an unrelated gambling indictment announced almost simultaneously on Thursday, a dozen other people connected to the Luchese family were among 19 people charged. * * * The indictment charges that in 2006 and 2007, nine of the defendants tried to bribe a sergeant and a detective in the Police Department who were posing as corrupt officers. The defendants were trying to protect illegal gambling operations around the city, said the indictment, which gives the names and addresses of a half-dozen gambling operations.
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