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

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Feds hope to nix Gambino soldier's wedding to Ramona Rizzo from Mob Wives



U.S. prosecutors are trying to keep slinky 'Mob Wife' Ramona Rizzo from marrying Gambino bigshot Joseph Sclafani before he starts a 15-year stint in federal prison.

The feds are trying to prevent a “shotgun” wedding between a convicted Gambino gangster and his “Mob Wives” moll before he goes off to serve a 15-year-sentence for cocaine trafficking.

Reputed mob soldier Joseph Sclafani is seeking a furlough from New York's Metropolitan Detention Center to visit his 73-year-old father, Augustus, who is gravely ill with liver cancer.

But federal prosecutors oppose the home visit because they suspect Sclafani, 47, and his beautiful fiancĂ©e Ramona Rizzo, 41, are plotting to get hitched to benefit the reality TV show’s storyline.

“Recent episodes center around whether [Sclafani] will be released from custody for a short period of time so that he can attend his wedding,” Assistant U.S. attorneys Allon Lifshitz and Robert Polemini wrote in documents filed in Brooklyn, N.Y., federal court.

“[Rizzo] emphasizes that the wedding plans need to be flexible because if the defendant were to be released from custody, he would be given only 48 hours notice of his release ... as a result she and the defendant are planning a ‘shotgun’ wedding that needs to come together within a short period of time,” the party-pooping prosecutors said.

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons could grant a 16-hour furlough for humanitarian reasons, which could include an overnight stay, at the Staten Island, N.Y., home of Sclafani’s parents.

Joseph Sclafani, set to do 15 years in federal prison, wants to visit his gravely ill father — but prosecutors worry the convicted mobster and 'Mob Wife' Ramona Rizzo plan to get married instead.

U.S. District Judge John Gleeson, who slammed Sclafani with the stiff sentence Aug. 17, told prosecutors he was not interested in how the “Mob Wives” show factored into the request, and prodded them to reach an accommodation for the father and son.

After consulting with U.S. marshals and prison officials, prosecutors have suggested an “extended” farewell meeting in the visiting room of the prison or the courthouse cell block. They noted Augustus Sclafani has visited his son 42 times at the MDC, most recently on Aug. 20.

Defense lawyer Tim Parlatore told the Daily News that offer was unacceptable.

“With a 15-year sentence, he’s never going to see his father again on the outside and the visiting room is not conducive to say goodbye to his father with some sense of dignity,” the mobster’s mouthpiece said.

Parlatore said there was no wedding planned and that the rules governing prison furloughs specifically prohibit inmates from getting married while they are on the emergency release. He also said there’s a provision for inmates to exchange vows in a prison ceremony, but Sclafani and Rizzo have not made that request.

Rizzo is the granddaughter of late Bonanno mobster Benjamin “Lefty Guns” Ruggiero, who lives in Mafia infamy for welcoming undercover FBI agent Joseph “Donnie Brasco” Pistone into the crime family.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/feds-target-gambino-soldier-alleged-mob-wife-nuptials-article-1.1440016#ixzz2dMqYZqcb


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