Updated news on the Gambino, Genovese, Bonanno, Lucchese and Colombo Organized Crime Families of New York City.

Friday, September 30, 2011

Deported Bonanno boss murders his way to power in new Canadian mafia


The new mafia

Nearly a year after the assassination of the sponsor Nicolo Rizzuto, the Italian Mafia is still trying to reorganize. So qu'attentats, murders and disappearances are increasing in the tumult of a change of guard, a new sponsor should come. Names are already on their radar screens.

If, for some thirty years, Rizzuto's name is synonymous with power and respect to the head of the famiglia , Quebecers will now be an ear to another name.

One year after the assassination of the old godfather in his kitchen, November 11, 2010, and five years after the operation who placed Coliseum in jail the leaders of the organization, it is time for renewal. The reign of the Sicilians and the Rizzuto clan is long gone.

Who takes over? Who will become the new sponsor? Who has enough power, influence and contacts to become the strongman of the Italian Mafia? That's the big question.

While the underworld done its homework and is restructuring the police trying to identify the new sponsor. A daunting task, given the proverbial omerta that prevails in this environment. The police had also been a few years before finding that Rizzuto led the way in the 1980s.

We want names

But the names of potential candidates to succeed flow (see box on page 2). Among them, one of Raynald Desjardins, a former drug dealer and associate of Vito Rizzuto now recycled building contractor. A man who has money and influence to the star according to our sources.

But even if he wanted, Desjardins, a native of Quebec, however, could become the official sponsor, a role reserved for the Italian original.

This title, however, could fall to his former brother-Joe Di Maulo, a Calabrian who have gravitated to the bosom of Cotroni during the 1970s, told police officers in the ranks.

And throughout this portrait, the name of a Sicilian resort and intrigue: Salvatore Montagna.

Montreal-born Montagna is the former acting chief of the Clan Bonanno of New York. He was deported by the United States and returned to Montreal in April 2009. Soon after, the Sicilians began to fall.

Gone are the sponsors?

One year after the murder of Nicolo Rizzuto, the police did not rule out that the function of sponsor be abolished and replaced by that of "wise". The latter mediate conflicts and would report the Mafia families in Toronto, Hamilton and New York, according to a police expert in organized crime, now exert a major influence on what is happening in Montreal.

"The Sicilians have died with the old. The habits and customs will change. These families have given their consent to the group that wiped out the Rizzuto. The main criminal activities are no longer centered in Montreal and a larger part is now controlled in Toronto and New York, "he said.

According to our sources, since the fall of Rizzuto, the Montreal organized crime is composed of three or four cells that form a sort of consortium.

But after a relative lull and a coexistence of "tolerance" would be important disagreements emerged among all these people and have come to light with the failed attack against Raynald Desjardins recently Laval. Now the police apprehend the worst.

The discovery in February, about forty of weapons and explosives from a warehouse in the street Pascal-Gagnon is linked with the conflict that is emerging.

The perfect sponsor

Qualities that the future leader should have in 2011

Gatherer
Respected
Discrete
Be well off
Have a roofing company apparently legal
Have contact and influence
Be over 40 years
Raising Families of Ontario or New York

http://fr.canoe.ca/infos/societe/archives/2011/09/20110930-041500.html

Two alleged Rhode Island mobsters ordered held without bail


The aging alleged boss of the Rhode Island branch of the New England mob and one of his foot soldiers were ordered detained on Thursday in an extortion case involving Providence-area strip clubs.
Edward "Eddy" Lato, 64, and his alleged soldier, Alfred "Chippy" Scivola, 70, were held following separate hearings in U.S. District Court in Providence. Lato's defense attorney, Mark L. Smith, said making a case for freedom would be "futile" given his client's 1999 conviction for racketeering conspiracy.
Scivola, however, did make a bid for release, prompting federal prosecutors to reveal some of the evidence from cooperating mob members and secretly recorded conversations.
Assistant U.S. Attorney William J. Ferland said the recorded conversations show Scivola "throwing his weight around as a member of the mob."
He read portions of a conversation he said Scivola had on July 12 outside a cafe in Providence with a cooperating witness. The witness was delivering $2,000 in government money that was presented as an extortion payment from the Cadillac Lounge. Ferland said Scivola delivered the money to Lato.
Lato and Scivola are accused of conspiring to continue the extortion of several strip clubs even after alleged former mob boss Luigi "Baby Shacks" Manocchio, 83, and mob associate Thomas Iafrate, 70, were arrested in January.
Scivola and Lato deny the charges. Manocchio has pleaded not guilty and is behind bars awaiting trial. Iafrate pleaded guilty in July to racketeering conspiracy and will be sentenced next month.
In another conversation recorded in August, Scivola discussed with the informant where to retrieve another extortion payment, Ferland said. He said that 40 minutes after the phone conversation, Lato was observed picking up the purported Cadillac Lounge payment from a mailbox at a Rhode Island home.
Defense attorney Victor Beretta Jr. portrayed Scivola as lifelong Rhode Island resident in declining health who lives on Social Security and his wife's $350 weekly earnings. He said the couple lives in a rented home in Johnston. Scivola's criminal record, which goes back three decades, has no "extreme violence," Beretta said.
Beretta said Scivola has never missed a court date and sat in a Nevada jail for 21 days earlier this year while waiting for Rhode Island authorities to pick him up after he was arrested on state racketeering and extortion charges while on vacation.
"Mr. Scivola clearly presents no risk of flight," Beretta said.
He also detailed Scivola's health problems, including heart trouble, diabetes, hypertension and blood-borne illnesses. Beretta said Scivola has been hospitalized repeatedly during the last eight months for respiratory problems. He took a puff from an inhaler at his arraignment on Friday.
Beretta described the evidence against Scivola as "weak," amounting to him delivering a payment and explaining where another could be picked up over the summer.
Scivola blew a kiss to his wife before being escorted from the courtroom after Magistrate Judge David L. Martin announced he would detain him.
Earlier in the day, Lato's attorney said he didn't think he could win a bail fight.
"You don't try to fight the battles you can't win," Smith said.
Lato, Scivola and two alleged mob associates -- Raymond "Scarface" Jenkins, 47, and Albino "Albi" Folcarelli, 53 -- were arrested last week. They are being held at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls.
Jenkins and Folcarelli are charged in the extortion scheme on an unidentified debtor. They deny the charges.
Mob associates Richard Bonafiglia, 57, and Theodore Cardillo, 67, were indicted earlier this year in the case and have pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors say Bonafiglia and Cardillo kept Manocchio informed of the goings-on at the Cadillac Lounge, where they worked as a bouncer and manager, respectively.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/09/29/2_alleged_ri_mob_members_ordered_held/

Whitey’s girlfriend to go on trial in April


The longtime moll of James “Whitey” Bulger is tentatively scheduled to go on trial April 23 on charges of harboring the former FBI Most Wanted fugitive for 16 years — but federal prosecutors are powering up to hit her with a whole new slew of charges that could keep her in prison for years.
Attorney Kevin Reddington declined to comment today on whether a pending superseding indictment could be retribution for Catherine Greig’s refusal to cooperate with the ongoing investigation into how the 60-year-old Quincy dental hygienist and the 82-year-old mobster managed to elude an international manhunt while openly living as a couple in Santa Monica, Calif.
“The government’s going to do what the government feels it has to do. That’s the way it works, right? That’s why we have juries,” Reddington said at U.S. District Court in Boston, where a perfunctory status hearing on Greig’s case was held before Magistrate Judge Jennifer C. Boal.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack W. Pirozzolo did not say when additional charges might be filed.
Greig, who is being held without bail at a women’s prison in Rhode Island, did not attend. Reddington also declined to say if Greig and Bulger, who remains in solitary confinement at the Plymouth County House of Correction awaiting trial for the murders of 19 men and women, have been able to write to each other.
Boal is still considering Greig’s request to be released on a GPS bracelet to live with her twin sister, Margaret McCusker, in South Boston.
McCusker left the courthouse today without commenting. Reddington said Greig is “a very strong woman, a wonderful client and a very, very nice person.”

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/2011_0929whiteys_girlfriend_to_go_on_trial_in_april/srvc=home&position=also

Colombo consigliere Richard Fusco admits trying to shake down rival Gambinos


Richard Fusco leaves court after pleading guilty.
Richard Fusco leaves court after pleading guilty.
 
The reputed consigliere of the Colombo crime family pleaded guilty Thursday to a scheme to shake down the rival Gambinos because he wanted them to pay the medical expenses of a mob stabbing victim.
Richard Fusco, 75, met on Staten Island with his captains to discuss how to proceed after a thug affiliated with the Gambinos stabbed Colombo associate Walter Samperi in May 2010.
The Colombos wanted $150,000 - $100,000 of which would come from the Gambinos' cut from the 18th Ave. feast in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.
Fusco admitted there was an "implied" threat of retaliation and "I did nothing to dispel it." The meeting was secretly taped by Colombo turncoat Paul Bevacqua, who was wearing a wire.
Meanwhile, if Fusco is hoping to get time shaved off his projected sentence of 18 to 24 months, he better correct his courtroom behavior. A courtroom clerk admonished the geezer gangster for making a nasty remark about the prosecutor before Magistrate Judge Ramon Reyes took the bench.
Fusco, who is hard-of-hearing, was angry because the prosecutor wouldn't consent to removing his electronic monitoring device.
He wished the prosecutor ill health in a voice loud enough to be heard all over the courtroom.
"Keep your negative comments to yourself!" the clerk scolded him.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Manuel Pinero, Mob Wives pal charged with stabbing man to death, turns himself in: cops


A suspected killer who was photographed with stars from the reality show "Mob Wives" has turned himself in, cops said Thursday.

Manuel "Stax" Pinero, 41, is charged with stabbing Christopher Adames to death outside the Juliet Supper Club in Chelsea early Sunday in a fight over a woman, cops said.

As police launched a manhunt, a photo emerged of Pinero with his arms draped around Karen Gravano and Jennifer Graziano at Mr. Chow's just days before the killing.

Gravano, whose father, Sammy "Bull" Gravano, admitted to 19 slayings for the Gambino crime family, insisted she is not friends with Pinero.

"I know him to be a club promoter," she told the Daily News. "I have no personal relationship with him. He was with people I know at a party to promote a liquor.

"He asked me to take a picture," she said.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly had personally urged the public to come forward with information about Pinero's whereabouts. The suspect surrendered Wednesday, cops said.

Adames, 23, was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital. He had gone alone to the high-end nightspot on W. 21st St. where Jay-Z and Leonardo DiCaprio are among celebrities spotted there in the past.

"He was my only son. He was my everything," said Adames' mother, Marisol De Leon, 43. "They must catch this man."

Adames worked as a security guard at a hospital in Westchester and a barber in Manhattan.

Federal prosecutors want to pull mobster's bail


For a wiseguy, he ain’t too smart.
Federal prosecutors have moved to yank the $2.5 million bail of longtime Gambino crime-family associate Robert “Cousin Bobby” Napolitano, saying he “quickly reverted to his criminal ways” days after being sprung from the slammer last week.
In papers filed in Manhattan federal court yesterday, the feds said Napolitano, a longtime enforcer and collector for the mob, ignored a judge’s order and started fraternizing with convicted felons, asking them to help identify anyone cooperating with the government in the case against him.
Napolitano was arrested Sept. 20 on a slew of charges.

Mob Wives stars Karen Gravano, Jennifer Graziano seen in picture getting comfy with slay suspect


The "Mob Wives" aren't particular about the company they keep.

Karen Gravano - the daughter of ex-Gambino underboss Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano - and Bonanno crime family princess Jennifer Graziano were caught partying last week with a thug who is being hunted for a slaying outside a Chelsea club.
Gravano and Graziano, who appear in the VH1 reality series "Mob Wives," were photographed snuggling up against Manuel (Stax) Pinero at Mr. Chow's last Wednesday.
That was four days before Pinero allegedly stabbed Christopher Adames in the chest and groin outside the Juliet Supper Club in Chelsea early Sunday morning. Police said the men were involved in a dispute over a woman.
The Twitter photo was provided to the Daily News before it was removed from Graziano's account yesterday.
Gravano, whose father admitting killing 19 people before turning rat against the late Gambino boss John Gotti, insisted that Pinero is no friend of hers.
"I know him to be a club promoter," Gravano told The News. "I have no personal relationship with him. He was with people I know at a party to promote a liquor.
"He asked me to take a picture," she said.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly held up a mug shot of Pinero yesterday and urged the public to come forward with information about his whereabouts.
"The individual that was stabbed, they were arguing and he tried to get a cab or he was in the process of getting a cab, and he was stabbed," Kelly said.
Adames, 23, was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital. He had gone alone to the high-end nightspot on W. 21st St. where Jay-Z and Leonardo DiCaprio are among celebrities spotted there in the past.
"He was my only son, he was my everything," said Adames' mother Marisol De Leon, 43. "They must catch this man."
Adames worked two jobs, as a security guard at a hospital in Westchester and a barber in Manhattan, to help support his 5-year-old daughter, De Leon said.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Accused mobster says he's a bit player and asks to be released on bail


A reputed member of the Patriarca crime family is downplaying his role in the mob, claiming he is an “order-taker.”
According to a filing made in federal court Wednesday, Alfred “Chippy” Scivola’s lawyer said the aging and ailing defendant is not a risk to the community and should be released on bail.
“It is clear that after the governments presentation to the grand-jury, it was determined that Alfred Scivola was an order-taker and not an order-giver,” wrote attorney Victor Beretta. “It should also be noted that at no time during the governments alleged activity regarding Mr. Scivola did he engage in any behavior resulting in injury to any person, any threats or intimidation.”
In the filing, Beretta said his client is not a risk of flight because he has family ties to the Rhode Island and is suffering from a myriad of health problems.
As Target 12 first reported, Scivola, 70 of Johnston was arrested with three others on Friday. They are accused of shaking down strip clubs for protection money. Scivola is also accused of attempting to collect a $25,000 “debt,” according to the indictment. In court documents, investigators said Scivola’s attempts intimidated the alleged victim’s wife enough for her to cash in on a retirement account and pay off a majority of what was owed.
Also arrested was reputed cape regime Edward “Eddie” Lato and alleged mob associates Raymond “Scarface” Jenkins and Albino Folcarelli. Both Jenkins and Folcarelli were ordered held without bail.
Lato and Scivola go before U.S. Magistrate Judge David Martin on Thursday for a detention hearing.
The recent arrests are part of a federal investigation into organized crime that burst onto the public scene in January with the high-profile arrest of the reputed former boss of the New England crime family Luigi “Baby Shacks” Manocchio.
Manocchio has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is scheduled to appear again in court on Friday for an arraignment on the superseding indictment.

http://www.wpri.com/dpp/target_12/inside_mafia/accused-mobster-says-he%27s-a-bit-player

Former cop sentenced to federal prison for role in mob racketeering crew



A longtime Cicero Police officer was sentenced to federal prison Tuesday for his role in a mob racketeering crew.
In this Intelligence Report: Two sharply different portraits of former officer Dino Vitalo were presented in court.
This is the epitome of good cop, bad cop, all within one cop. Forty-two-year-old Dino Vitalo was variously described Tuesday at his federal sentencing hearing as either the world's greatest policeman or the world's worst.
Vitalo was sentenced to two years in prison. He had pleaded guilty to providing police information to top members of the Chicago Outfit, most notably Mike "The Large Guy" Sarno.
It was Sarno who led a mob racketeering crew and was convicted of blowing up a Berwyn video gaming company that was in competition with organized crime.
In court Tuesday afternoon, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu said that Vitalo's moonlighting with the mob -- and leaking sensitive information -- had a negative impact on the government's ability to investigate organized crime. In 18 years with Cicero Police, Bhachu said, Vitalo had "a pattern of not following the rules, "does not care about the rules," and "followed the rules he wanted to follow."
The Town of Cicero has long been dogged by organized crime connections, going back to Prohibition, when Al Capone established his gangland headquarters there.
But, in court Tuesday, Dino Vitalo's lawyer suggested it was unfair to paint him "with a broad brush of a corrupt officer." Attorney Todd Pugh said he hoped that "a man's life isn't judged by his mistakes."
Pugh offered several letters applauding Vitalo, including one written by Cicero Police Commander Raul Perez, who praised Vitalo's years of dedication and service.
The prosecutor responded to those letters of support for ex-Cicero Patrolman Vitalo and said that "you have to have a screw loose in your head to think he is a top shelf officer."
Raul Perez himself is no stranger to discipline. He was suspended for misconduct while working as state police bodyguard to Governor Rod Blagojevich.
In handing down Tuesday's sentence, Judge Ronald Guzman observed that Vitalo was "very much at home with these people," members of the outfit, and that he was in cahoots with other cops.
One of the other outfit-connected cops, James Formato from Berwyn, was to be sentenced Tuesday but it was put off until late November.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/iteam&id=8370236

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Douglas LaChance, Newspaper Union Racketeer, Dies at 69


Douglas LaChance, who led the powerful union that represented New York City newspaper deliverers in the 1980s and ’90s and whose crafty, two-fisted approach led to a prison term on racketeering and extortion charges, died on Wednesday, in Long Beach, N.Y. He was 69.
Douglas LaChance in 1980.

The cause was a heart attack, his son Ricky Lonergan said.
Mr. LaChance was president of the Newspaper and Mail Deliverers’ Union when it represented drivers for 16 principal newspaper distributors in the New York metropolitan region as well as for New York City’s three principal newspapers: The New York Post, The Daily News and The New York Times. The competition for territory was bitter among the distributors, often infiltrated by professional criminals.
After the failure of many New York newspapers in the preceding decades, Mr. LaChance focused on job security, including his own as a well-paid truck driver for The Times. His willingness to trade concessions in work rules for better wages and benefits and to make long-term deals won praise in 1992 from The Times’s publisher, Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr.
Some of his union’s members, however, criticized Mr. LaChance’s willingness to sacrifice driver routes and jobs for financial security for those still employed.
The deliverers’ union had more power than other newspaper unions because it controlled the only way the newspaper companies could get daily papers to readers quickly. Other unions had been weakened when newspaper managements figured out how to mechanize many tasks and assign managers to take over production jobs during strikes.
Mr. LaChance, a big, man, used his negotiating skills to help himself as much as his members. In 1980, he was convicted on 124 counts of extortion and racketeering for demanding and receiving payoffs from newspapers and distributors. One count involved a concession he won from companies in which they would give $3,000 to each worker they laid off. He was convicted of keeping the money for himself.
Mr. LaChance was also convicted of accepting payments from bigger distributors to foment labor unrest at smaller competitors. Still other counts detailed how he had demanded and received regular monthly payments from distributors. In all, he was convicted of accepting $330,000 in payoffs.
Mr. LaChance was union president from 1976 to 1980, when he resigned to go to prison on extortion, racketeering and other charges. After serving 55 months, he returned to driving his truck and working in the union. He was again elected president in 1991 and held the job until 1993, though he returned to prison for four months during that time after violating his parole by testing positive for cocaine.
When Mr. LaChance was sentenced to 5 to 12 years in 1980, the judge said his offenses could have earned him a prison term of 1,200 years.
Douglas Edmond LaChance was born on Feb. 3, 1942, in Queens, where he grew up in the Richmond Hill section. His father was a police officer. In an interview with The Village Voice in 2001, Mr. LaChance said he knew gangsters as a teenager, recalling that the former mob boss Joseph A. (Socks) Lanza, had left him with some useful advice: “Hey, kid, keep your eyes open.”
Mr. LaChance began driving for The Times in 1959 and became union business agent in 1969. In 1985, a truck he was driving skidded off a bridge in Connecticut and fell 60 feet. His seat belt saved his life, he said, but he lost his spleen in surgery.
In 1995, Mr. LaChance was acquitted of charges that he had threatened The New York Post with labor unrest if it did not hire Pelham News, a nonunion company, to deliver The Post to retail outlets. Mr. LaChance was alleged to have been a hidden owner of Pelham.
In addition to his son Ricky, Mr. LaChance is survived by his longtime companion, Elizabeth Guarnieri; his daughters Sheri Ralph and Suzanne McCrosson; his sons Glenn LaChance and Corey Lonergan; a sister, Eileen Young; a brother, Gerald; and 12 grandchildren.
Enemies may survive him as well. He told The Voice about the time the police asked him if he had any. “Try the Manhattan phone book,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/nyregion/douglas-lachance-who-led-newspaper-deliverers-union-dies-at-69.html?_r=1

Monday, September 26, 2011

Man who went on the run from the mob for 30 years found guilty in ID case



Arthur Jones of Highland Park -- missing and presumed dead by his family for more than three decades -- turned up a few months ago in Las Vegas. Jones was living under a false identity. He was arrested, and Monday we learned his fate.
One May morning in 1979, Jones said goodbye to his wife and three children up in Highland Park. He told them he was going to a meeting. They never saw him again. Jones was declared legally dead a few years later.
But Arthur Jones wasn't dead. He was just scared of the Chicago mob after running up an outfit gambling tab that he couldn't pay. And so he abandoned his family. Monday morning in Clark County, Nevada, district court, the odyssey of Arthur Jones officially came to an end.
The one-time trader pleaded guilty to felony fraud for seeking an application for a driver's license under a false name.
Jones, who was in his early 40s when he left Chicago, is now 73. He had used several aliases over the years. Nevada authorities found him working at the Rampart Casino under the alias Joseph R. Sandelli. He was working in the sports book section of the casino.
According to Jones' Nevada plea agreement obtained by the I-Team, "The defendant will receive probation as mandated by law...the state retains the right to argue terms and conditions of probation."
The sentence would require Jones pay restitution to the Social Security administration and potentially to victims whose identies was stolen.
Despite his plea deal, the judge Monday reminded Jones that she has the final say. She said "the actual sentence is always up to the court. He still has to qualify, even though this is a mandatory probation case...He has to qualify for that. So it is always at the discretion of the court."
For Jones, the punishment would be far less than what he may have escaped by exiting Chicago 32 years ago. At the time, there was a ferocious bookie war under way in the outfit, with gangland bookmakers and bettors ending up dead. In 1979, Jones was said to owe a giant juice loan debt and was trying to work it off as a mob messenger.
If the judge for some reason didn't accept Jones' plea agreement with prosecutors, he could be handed a sentence of up to six years. It is more likely that he will receive five years of probation and have to repay up to $75,000 for ill-gotten Social Security benefits.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/iteam&id=8368736

Feds say 'made' men to testify in mob case


A court filing reveals federal prosecutors say they have "made" members of the New England mob willing to testify against other alleged wiseguys.
The details came to light in a motion filed in U.S. District Court in which prosecutors asked a judge to keep reputed capo regime Edward "Eddie" Lato behind bars.
"During the course of this investigation, the FBI has developed additional witnesses, including formally initiated or ‘made’ members of the [New England La Cosa Nostra], who will testify that the NELCN exists and further testify about the activities of its members," Assistant U.S. Attorney William Ferland and U.S. Justice Department trial attorney Sam Nazzaro wrote in the filing.
"These witnesses will testify to the secret initiation ceremony at which newly inducted members of the LCN swear a blood oath of loyalty to enforce 'omerta,' the code of silence," they wrote.
As Target 12 first reported, Lato, 64, of Johnston, and Alfred "Chippy" Scivola, an alleged member of the Patriarca crime family, were arrested Friday and charged with shaking down Rhode Island strip clubs for protection money.
Also arrested were reputed mob associates Raymond "Scarface" Jenkins and Albino Folcarelli. All four are being held at the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls pending a detention hearing later this week.
Details of the superseding indictment were released last week in a case that has already busted the reputed former boss of the New England crime family, Luigi "Baby Shacks" Manocchio.
As Target 12 reported earlier this year, admitted Mafia captain Anthony "The Saint" St. Laurent agreed to identify Manocchio as the former boss and admit to the existence of the New England mob. Those pledges were made in a plea agreement he signed with the U.S. Attorney’s office.
St. Laurent was sentenced last week to serve seven years in a federal prison for a separate extortion case.
The detention filing in Lato's case states there is more than one member of the crime family willing to testify.
At a news confernce last week, U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island Peter Neronha was asked if others including Robert "Bobby" DeLuca - a reputed high-ranking member of the New England mob - were cooperating with the government. He said he would no comment on anyone not named in the indictment.
Manocchio has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is being held without bail.

http://www.wpri.com/dpp/target_12/inside_mafia/feds-made-men-to-testify-in-mob-case

Ex-associate rips Travolta, other Gotti movie casting choices


A once-trusted associate of mob boss John Gotti is giving a thumbs-down to having John Travolta portray the late “Dapper Don” in an upcoming biopic.
Mob rat Lewis Kasman -- whom Gotti once considered like an “adopted son” -- told The Post that picking the “Pulp Fiction” star probably has the notorious Gambino crime-family godfather spinning in his grave.
“I think if he was asked, he would not be pleased at Travolta playing him,” said Kasman, who entered the witness-protection program after cutting a deal with the feds.
Speaking by phone from his current hiding spot, Kasman said that while Travolta is a “great actor,” the part should have gone to a “tougher guy.”
DANCING FOOL: A mob rat  who once was close to John Gotti says that actor John Travolta isn’t tough enough to play the Gambino crime boss.
DANCING FOOL: A mob rat who once was close to John Gotti says that actor John Travolta isn’t tough enough to play the Gambino crime boss.
 
“For John Gotti Sr., you need a man’s man to play that role,” Kasman said.
“John Gotti Sr. never danced a dance in his life,” he said, taking a jab at the “Saturday Night Fever” hoofer Travolta.
A better choice, he said, would have been “Godfather” veterans Robert De Niro or Al Pacino, who’s set to play a supporting role as Gambino family underboss Aniello “Neil” Dellacroce.
Kasman -- whose undercover work for the feds helped him avoid an 11-year prison term -- also said that “X-Men” star Ben Foster had been “miscast” as John “Junior” Gotti.
“He’s a thug, so you need someone who’s a thug . . . a guy who grew up in that life,” Kasman said of Junior, offering “The Fighter” star Mark Wahlberg as a better pick for the role.
He plans to time the publication of his memoir, “The Last Son,” to compete with the release of Junior’s movie, “Gotti: In the Shadow of My Father.”
Kasman maintains that the elder Gotti died “hating” Junior.
Kasman, who gave the eulogy at Gotti’s funeral, also said he’ll disclose the murderous mobster’s secret relationships with “the millionaires and billionaires of New York.”
Those movers-and-shakers allegedly include the late hotelier Leona Helmsley, with whom Kasman claims he was carrying on an affair when he arranged Junior’s lavish 1990 wedding at the former Helmsley Palace Hotel.
A publicist for Fiore Films, which is producing Junior’s movie, said, “I think we’ll stick with the decisions made by our Academy Award-winning team of filmmakers, instead of taking casting advice from someone who has never made a movie.”
Gotti’s widow, Victoria -- who last week gave her blessing to having Travolta play her late hubby -- called Kasman a “rattlesnake personified” and said he “becomes an authority only when he has a diary of lies to sell.”
Travolta was summoned to Victoria’s home in Howard Beach, Queens, on Thursday to get Mamma Gotti’s blessing for the role. He spent more than two hours at the house screening family movies.
The actor -- who was still making his bones playing “Sweathog” Vinnie Barbarino on “Welcome Back, Kotter” when John Gotti Sr. was being made as a Gambino family capo in the late ’70s -- mimicked the boss of bosses’ sprightly strut as he left the mob matron’s house with Junior.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Meet the Sopranos of Afghanistan targeting the U.S.


A ruthless crime family reminiscent of a mafia film is emerging as the driving force behind large scale attacks throughout Afghanistan.

Known as the Haqqani network, the group has reportedly built its reputation on drug smuggling, extortion and kidnapping for years.

In the 1980s, the Haqqanis weren’t enemies of the U.S., but allies, as they fired CIA-provided missiles to strike Soviet planes over Afghanistan.
Crime family: Jalaluddin Haqqani, right, formed the Haqqani networkin the 80s to combat Soviet forces in Afghanistan
Crime family: Jalaluddin Haqqani, right, formed the Haqqani networkin the 80s to combat Soviet forces in Afghanistan
The group was founded by Jalaluddin Haqqani as a force designed to fight against the Soviets.

Today, the 'family' is under the control of his son Sirajuddin, and is in the business of roadside bombs and deadly attacks on the U.S.

Most recently, the network was responsible for a 22-hour attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, officials said.

A Nato officer responsible for tracking the group told The New York Times that their brutal ways have picked up in recent years.

He said: 'They will execute you at a checkpoint, or stop you and go through your phone, and, if they find you’re connected to the government, you'll turn up in the morgue. And that sends a message.
Wanted: Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the Haqqani network, moves easily across the border to areas of eastern Afghanistan where his forces are entrenched
Wanted: Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the Haqqani network, moves easily across the border to areas of eastern Afghanistan where his forces are entrenched
The Haqqani network is a 'veritable arm' of Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency, which was in contact with the group of assailants in the Kabul embassy attack, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a U.S. Senate committee on Thursday.

Senior Pakistani officials rejected Mullen’s allegations, and accused the U.S. of trying to make Pakistan a scapegoat for the war in Afghanistan.

The public confrontation has plunged the already troubled U.S.-Pakistan alliance to new lows.

Pakistan's leaders have shown no indication that they plan to act on American demands to attack the Haqqani network in its main base in Pakistan, even at the risk of further conflict with Washington.

The U.S. has given Pakistan billions of dollars in military and economic aid, but the relationship has been sullied by mistrust.

On Thursday, Sirajuddin Haqqani spoke to Reuters from an undisclosed location on Thursday, hours before Washington, ever more strident, accused Pakistan's shadowy but powerful ISI intelligence agency of working with the enemy.
Dangerous partnership: The United States has accused Pakistan of working with the Haqqani network, and supporting the group during an attack on the U.S. embassy last week
Dangerous partnership: The United States has accused Pakistan of working with the Haqqani network, and supporting the group during an attack on the U.S. embassy last week
Pakistan's interior minister Rehman Malik rejected the accusations and warned against a unilateral U.S. ground attack on the Haqqanis, believed to be based in the mountains of North Waziristan.

Malik said: 'The Pakistan nation will not allow the boots on our ground, never.

‘Our government is already cooperating with the U.S. ... but they also must respect our sovereignty.'

Haqqani, the head of a group his father Jalaluddin founded in the 1980s, says he'd look forward to a U.S. ground attack.

He said: 'The United States will suffer more losses [in North Waziristan] than they suffered in Afghanistan.’

Still, he doesn't take chances, especially with drones overhead a constant worry - 57 drone strikes have peppered the region so far this year, according the New American Foundation, a think tank that keeps a database of such attacks.

Some 55 members of his family, including his brother, have been killed in such attacks.
According to the New American database, at least a quarter of drone attacks since 2008 have targeted the Haqqanis.

'I always avoid traveling in a motorcade of armed fighters, as it puts your life in danger,'
Accusation: Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the Haqqani network the 'veritable arm' of Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency, which was in contact with the group of assailants in the Kabul embassy attack
Accusation: Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the Haqqani network the 'veritable arm' of Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency, which was in contact with the group of assailants in the Kabul embassy attack
He said that’s why he doesn't wear a turban - standard head-dress for all male Afghans - or carry a gun.

Yet he is far from being a desperate fugitive on the run.
This map and profile of the Haqqani militant group provides detail on their operation
This map and profile of the Haqqani militant group provides detail on their operation
He acknowledges that Haqqani fighters now number around 15,000, making it probably the largest force among the Taliban warlords.

He also moves easily across the border to areas of eastern Afghanistan where the Haqqanis are entrenched.

He even mediates disputes among the Taliban and takes part in their meetings in Afghanistan.

‘His word is enough,' said Mahmood Shah, a former Pakistan intelligence official who monitored militants for years.

The forbidding terrain of Waziristan, which forms an ill-defined border with Afghanistan, is also his ally.

'There are certain houses and villages where the bathroom is in Afghanistan and the bedroom is in Pakistan and this creates some issues,' Malik said.

'That no-man's land there is not [in the] control of Pakistani forces or Afghan authorities or the U.S. forces.'

Reputed mob boss loses out on a job


Anthony Staino had receiveda court
Anthony Staino had receiveda court's permission to accept a job at a South Jersey sugar plant.

With the unemployment rate hovering around 10 percent, hundreds of thousands of Americans are facing the nearly insurmountable challenge of finding a job.
Reputed South Jersey mob leader Anthony Staino is apparently one of them.
Of course, Staino has the added baggage of a 50-count racketeering indictment, an electronic ankle bracelet, and court-ordered home confinement.
The Gloucester County resident's luck appeared to have changed this month when he received court permission to leave his home to work at a sugar plant in the nearby Pureland Industrial Park.
But Friday, after being contacted by The Inquirer, Royal Sugar L.L.C. rescinded its job offer, according to one of the company's owners.
"The work schedule and his skill set didn't fit," Lawrence Toscano said.
Staino would have been paid an hourly wage for working shifts and would have been required to operate machinery, including a forklift.
Royal Sugar processes and refines sugar for distribution to wholesale and retail companies, Toscano said. Sales last year exceeded $14 million.
Staino is a longtime friend of co-owner William Fawley's, Toscano said, and the company had hoped to give him an opportunity.
"But it just wasn't the right fit," he said.
Staino's lawyer blamed The Inquirer for the change of heart by Royal Sugar, which was identified in the court's order, made public Aug. 30. He said the company rescinded its offer because it had been contacted by a reporter.
Staino will "never be able to find work" if a potential employer gets calls from the media, attorney Gregory Pagano said angrily, while proposing that Royal Sugar's name not appear in any article.
Staino - who, according to investigators, has described himself as the mob's "CFO" and a "member of the board of directors" - had expected to begin work this week. The Pureland industrial complex is just a few miles from his home, near Swedesboro.
"No one wants to stay home 24-7," Pagano had said in an earlier interview. "Anybody who is at all motivated would be interested in going to work."
Since his release on $900,000 bail in May, Staino, 54, has been confined to the house he shares with his wife and 3-year-old daughter in the Westbrook at Weatherby development of Woolwich Township.
The house, valued at more than $300,000, is on a corner lot and has a two-car garage and a fenced-in yard with a patio, grill, and in-ground pool.
Staino is charged along with reputed mob boss Joseph Ligambi and 11 others in a case involving illegal gambling, loansharking, and extortion.
He is the only major defendant free on bail. That he had no previous arrests figured in the court decision to permit home confinement.
Staino, who wears an electronic ankle bracelet that allows authorities to monitor his movements, also is allowed to accompany his lawyer to the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia for strategy sessions with co-defendants and their lawyers.
Other trips have to be cleared with authorities.
This month, for example, Staino attended his son's wedding and reception in Atlantic County. According to court documents, he had a noon-to-midnight pass.
Staino is charged with playing a major role in the mob's gambling and loansharking businesses since 2001, when Ligambi allegedly began to run the crime family.
Investigators have described him as one of Ligambi's closest associates.
Nearly 10 years in the making, the case is based on recorded conversations from wiretaps and body wires and from information provided by cooperating witnesses and, in Staino's case, from an undercover FBI agent who befriended him.
Unlike the last two mob racketeering cases in Philadelphia, this case does not include charges of murder or attempted murder.
The only violence mentioned in the indictment are threats allegedly made by Staino, Ligambi, and others that were picked up on tape.
"If the threats work, then the violence doesn't have to occur," Assistant U.S. Attorney David Troyer argued in a bail hearing for Ligambi.
Authorities allege that during Ligambi's reign, the threats usually worked.
Staino is heard on one tape threatening to "hurt" the undercover agent if he didn't repay a $20,000 debt, according to the indictment. The agent, posing as a shady Mount Laurel financial planner named Dino, began associating with Staino in 2002. The relationship extended into 2004.
Sources say Dino, who has been identified as FBI Agent David Sebastiani, recorded dozens of conversations in which he and Staino discussed and often joked about Staino's reputed mob connections.
Before a court order prohibiting the defense from commenting was issued, Pagano called the charges against his client "a whole lot of nothing."
Ligambi's lawyer, Edwin Jacobs Jr., has called the charges "racketeering lite."
Jurors, however, are likely to hear tapes made by Sebastiani in which Staino brags about being on the local mob's "board of directors" and serving as its chief financial officer.
On other tapes, Staino allegedly threatens to send "two gorillas" to "chop . . . up" a man who owed him money, according to the indictment.
The trial is tentatively set for next September.
In an "it's a small underworld" twist, Sebastiani testified in court in a Russian organized-crime case at the same time he worked undercover and befriended Staino, court records show. In June 2003, the FBI agent was a witness at the trial of Evgueni Pojilenko, an enforcer for a Russian gang based in Northeast Philadelphia that called itself "KGB."
At that trial, which ended in Pojilenko's conviction, Sebastiani was cross-examined by the Russian mobster's lawyer, Gregory Pagano.
It was only after discovering Dino's real name, Pagano said, that he realized Staino was not the first of his clients to come under the FBI agent's scrutiny.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20110925_Reputed_mob_leader_loses_out_on_a_job_opportunity.html?viewAll=y

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Friday, September 23, 2011

Four Rhode Island mobsters arrested


Longtime reputed Mafia captain Edward "Eddie" Lato, alleged mob soldier Alfred "Chippy" Scivola and two reputed mob associates were arrested by Rhode Island’s FBI-led Organized Crime Task Force, the Target 12 Investigators have learned.
Lato, Scivola, Raymond "Scarface" Jenkins and Albino "Albi" Folcarelli are named as defendants in a second superseding indictment filed Thursday as part of the federal government's case against Luigi "Baby Shacks" Manocchio. Theodore "Teddy" Cardillo and Richard Bonafiglia are also defendants.
All four men are being held at the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls pending a detention hearing next week.
"In simple terms the Providence Organized Crime Task Force has shattered 'omerta,' the New England [La Cosa Nostra's] code of silence,” said Jeffrey Sallet, head of the Providence office of the FBI.
Sallet said the men were arrested early Friday morning without incident.


Lato was charged with five counts, including RICO conspiracy and extortion conspiracy. His name is now one of seven linked to a far-reaching crackdown into organized crime that began with Manocchio's arrest in January.
“Specifically they conspired and agreed to the use of threats of force to induce owners and operators of certain adult entertainment businesses in Providence to provide monthly protection payments in cash," said U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island Peter Neronha.
According to the indictment, the strip clubs allegedly shaken down were the Cadillac Lounge, the Satin Doll, Desire, Cheaters, the Foxy Lady and several others in Connecticut.
Court documents reveal Lato attempted to continue to collect the payments -- up to $6,000 a month -- even after Manocchio was taken into custody.



“We better get that back," Lato is quoted as saying in the court documents. "I don’t [expletive] know how we are gonna get that back.”
Neronha declined to say if the comments were picked up on a wiretap.
The U.S. Attorney's office said they have seized "at least" $2 million in assets from the defendants, money that was allegedly obtained through criminal activities.
The court documents also reveal Lato allegedly travelled to Boston as recently as May to deliver a $5,000 cash payment to a "high-ranking" member of the Boston mob.
Folcarelli and Scivola are charged with threatening violence to collect $25,000 owed to them by another person. Neronha would not say if the money owed was from a gambling debt.
The indictment states the wife of the victim became scared after Scivola tried to visit the debtor at his workplace, and she withdrew $20,000 from a retirement account. Court documents say Folcarelli became concerned that a member of the family might go to police.
“Ray [Jenkins] turned us on to a family of stool pigeons," Folcarelli is quoted saying in the indictment. "If this kid talks, we got a headache.”
Lato has been in and out of prison over the past two decades for various arrests. He currently has a case pending with the attorney general's office for organized criminal gambling . Jenkins was arrested in 2006 as part of a sweep in which several individuals with alleged ties to organized crime were picked up on gambling charges.
Neronha was joined at Friday afternoon's press conference by Assistant U.S. Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer and John T. Foley, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston field division, as well as officials from the Rhode Island State Police, Attorney General Peter Kilmartin's office and the Providence Police Department.
The Organized Crime Task Force in Rhode Island is made up of investigators from the FBI, the U.S. Attorney's office, the IRS, the state police and the Providence Police Department.

http://www.wpri.com/dpp/target_12/inside_mafia/reputed-mobsters-busted-in-raid

John Travolta has sitdown with Gotti family to get blessing for new film


John Travolta channeled his inner goombah yesterday when he flew from Hollywood to Howard Beach to kiss the ring of John Gotti’s widow.
The sit-down was called to get Victoria Gotti’s “blessing” for her son’s planned biopic, which is scheduled to start shooting in January, a production source told The Post.
The pilgrimage brought Travolta to the Queens home where the late crime boss he’ll be portraying lived while ruthlessly running the Gambino crime family.
The “Pulp Fiction” star arrived bearing tribute -- a gold gift bag -- for his meeting with the mob matriarch and other key players involved in the movie.
FAMILY GUY: John Travolta joins “Junior” Gotti (left) and mob lawyer Charles Carnesi yesterday at the Howard Beach, Queens, home of the late don John Gotti.
FAMILY GUY: John Travolta joins “Junior” Gotti (left) and mob lawyer Charles Carnesi yesterday at the Howard Beach, Queens, home of the late don John Gotti.
 
He was greeted with handshakes and hugs from John “Junior” Gotti and several other men who were outside when he showed up at 4:30 p.m.
The group then disappeared inside Victoria’s white clapboard home for more than two hours.
The star summit must have gone well. At one point, two kids ran to a neighbor’s house to get more ice.
Travolta emerged from his first face-to-face meeting with the domineering Gambino queen, whose notorious hubby died in prison in 2002, shortly before 7 p.m.
Travolta showed he has a better sense of omerta than most of today’s wiseguys do -- he wouldn’t say nuttin’ when asked if Mamma Gotti gave him her OK.
All the star would give up was that he was at the home doing “research for the movie.”
He and his movie “son” Junior then took off together in a black Grand Cherokee Laredo. A source said they were headed to Long Island to have dinner with Junior’s sister, former reality-TV star Victoria Gotti.
Producer Marc Fiore was also at the confab.
“Gotti: In the Shadow of My Father,” which is being directed by Oscar winner Barry Levinson, is set to start shooting in New York City in January.
Travolta’s wife, Kelly Preston, is set to play the elder Victoria, and “X-Men” actor Ben Foster will play Junior.
The cast also includes “Godfather” star Al Pacino as Gambino family underboss Aniello “Neil” Dellacroce; Lindsay Lohan as Junior’s wife, Kim; and Chazz Palminteri as the late mob boss Paul Castellano, whose infamous 1985 rub-out in front of Sparks Steak House was believed orchestrated by the elder Gotti and paved the way for his takeover of the Gambino crime family.
Junior arrived early at his mom’s house yesterday and was joined there by defense lawyer Charles Carnesi, who brought a box of Italian pastries.
Carnesi -- who helped Junior win three of four racketeering mistrials by arguing the mob scion quit the Mafia in 1999 -- is being considered to play himself, a source said.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

"Gotti" movie director fires back at Joe Pesci


Joe PesciThe producer of "Gotti: In the Shadow of My Father" has lashed out at Joe Pesci, claiming he's a has-been who is desperately seeking attention by trying to force himself into the movie.

The flick -- which will star John Travolta -- is now the basis of a suit filed by Pesci, who claims he had an iron-clad, $3 million deal to play the role of Angelo Ruggiero, Gotti's close friend and enforcer. In fact, Pesci says the deal was so firm, he actually gained 30 pounds for the role, only to be 86'd from the film.

As we previously reported, Pesci has sued Fiore Films, and now the movie company is fighting back in its answer to the lawsuit, saying, "It has been over 20 years since Mr. Pesci has been able to gather the attention he has by merely interjecting his role in this film." 

Fiore claims it never had a deal with Joe ... there were discussions but no commitment. Fiore says sadly, "[Pesci] desperately wants to be part of this film project."

The mob has ways of dealing with these disputes, right?

http://www.tmz.com/2011/09/22/joe-pesci-gotti-in-the-shadow-of-my-father-lawsuit-suing-has-been-attention-seeking-john-travolta-marc-fiore-films-deal-contract-angelo-ruggiero/#.Tnvhe9SU9mU