Former FBI supervisor testifies that Whitey Bulger was not a rat

Former FBI supervisor testifies that Whitey Bulger was not a rat

  July 29, 2013    Dapper_Don

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James "Whitey" Bulger is on trial for 32 counts of racketeering and extortion and has been implicated in 19 murders.

Lawyers for Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger kicked off his defense Monday by calling a former FBI supervisor to rebut claims that Bulger was an agency rat.

Robert Fitzpatrick, who used to work for the FBI’s Boston office, said he was given the task in 1981 of assessing Bulger to see if he was providing the FBI with useful information on the Mafia.

When the two met, Bulger “played the tough guy” and flat-out denied being an informant, Fitzpatrick said.

Standing in the kitchen of his condo in Quincy, Mass., wearing a Red Sox cap and sunglasses, Bulger refused to shake his hand, Fitzpatrick said.

Instead, the leader of the violent Winter Hill Gang closed his window shades and stood defiantly with his arms crossed over his chest.

Bulger talked of his time in Alcatraz rather than offering up any information, like most other informants that Fitzpatrick had met in the past.

Fitzpatrick said he remembered Bulger telling him he wasn't a paid informant, “that he paid others.”

During their half-hour chat, Fitzpatrick said, fellow FBI agent John Connolly showed up, much to Fitzpatrick's surprise.

Connolly was later arrested and thrown in jail for his corrupt ties to Bulger and his criminal activities, but at the time Fitzpatrick didn’t know his colleague was in cahoots with the criminal.

“I was angry when I left,” Fitzpatrick said, recalling that he immediately decided to “close” Bulger as an informant.

J.W. Carney, defense attorney for former mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger. The defense says FBI agents provided Bulger with information in exchange for money and gifts.

Fitzpatrick said he tried relentlessly to get the mobster dropped as an FBI informant but was stymied by other corrupt agents and his supervisors.

He got the same response when he asked his supervisors to put a Bulger crime associate into the witness protection program.

The criminal, Brian Halloran, had agreed to cooperate with the FBI in a murder investigation involving Bulger.

“We thought (Halloran) was going to be whacked, murdered,” Fitzpatrick told the court.

His fears soon became reality.

Less than two days after Fitzpatrick complained to the U.S. attorney that his superiors were “stonewalling,” Halloran was dead.

He and an innocent victim, Michael Donahue, were shot to death along Boston's waterfront.

Fitzpatrick resigned from the FBI three years before retirement because he felt the agency was corrupt.

He’s currently engaged in a dispute with the agency over his pension, defense lawyers told the court.

Former FBI agent Robert Fitzpatrick said he left his meeting with Bulger angry, deciding immediately to “close” him as an informant.

Bulger, 83, is on trial for 32 counts of racketeering and extortion and has been implicated in 19 murders.

The one-time leader of Boston’s criminal underworld pleaded not guilty to all charges. He also denied the prosecution’s claim that he was an FBI informant.

Connolly and other corrupt law enforcement officials worked as informants for Bulger in exchange for money and gifts, his lawyers have said.

Bulger’s trial, about to start its second month, has featured a rogues gallery of his former crime buddies, including John "The Executioner" Martorano and Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, who both cut deals with federal prosecutors in exchange for their testimony.

There’s also been a mysterious death of one would-be witness.

Stephen "Stippo" Rakes, 59, who said Bulger forced him to sell his south Boston liquor store at gunpoint in 1984, turned up dead a few days before he hoped to take the stand.

Authorities are treating it as a suspicious death. Rakes was found on a remote walking path in Lincoln, Mass., quite a distance from his Quincy home and 7 miles from where his car was parked.

Police suspect he died elsewhere and his body dumped in the woods. No wallet or phone was found with him, family members said.

An autopsy yielded no immediate cause of death, and there were no obvious signs of trauma.

A police source told the Daily News cops are looking into every angle, including the possibility Rakes was killed with poison.

Detectives in the case have instructed the medical examiner to look for certain chemicals, including poisons, that may have caused his sudden death.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/james-whitey-bulger-defense-kicks-article-1.1411905#ixzz2aTxYHHpk

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Bronx man indicted in $4.6 million dollar Ponzi scheme

Bronx man indicted in $4.6 million dollar Ponzi scheme

  July 28, 2013    Dapper_Don

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Robert "Bob" Van Zandt was indicted Monday for running a $4.6 million Ponzi scheme in the Bronx.

Eddie Marrero has had a tough few years. He lost half his 401K in the 2008 stock market crash,
his job at Stella D'oro when the bakery closed and then the rest of his 401K to Bronx fraudster Robert "Bob" Van Zandt.

Van Zandt, owner of The Van Zandt Agency, a Westchester Square tax preparation firm, was indicted Monday on fraud, money laundering and grand larceny charges for running a $4.6 million Ponzi scheme that swindled dozens of innocent local investors.
His son and business partner, Robert Van Zandt Jr. - an ex-con with ties to former Mafia boss Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano - was found floating in his Yonkers swimming pool last fall with a bullet in his head, soon after state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman began to investigate the company.
His death was ruled a suicide and his father, 68, now faces a maximum sentence of up to 25 years. Van Zandt Sr. is blaming the scam on his son but Marrero believes the father was in on it.
"He destroyed lives," said Marrero, 52. "He should get life in prison without parole and rot in hell."
Marrero became a Van Zandt tax prep customer in 2002 when a co-worker recommended the firm. In 2008, the pal suggested he invest with the agency. Marrero said it sounded like a swell deal.
"I never had a problem with my taxes there," he said. "I spoke to [Van Zandt Sr.] and he laid it out for me. He said he had 200 funds all over the world. He said I could make half a million in 10 years."
Marrero handed over $37,000 and was told he would start to earn interest after two years. But the investment never paid off and now the money is gone. The loss forced Marrero to find a new job rather than retire.
"That was pretty much my life savings," he said sadly. "Now I have to start all over again."
Van Zandt Sr. began to take investments from tax prep clients
in 2007, prosecutors said.
He guaranteed high rates of return but instead used the cash to pay previous investors and personal expenses, they said. He stole more than $4.6 million from February 2008 to January 2011.
Victims who invested up to $900,000 were bankrupted and some now rely on welfare, Schneiderman said.
"The perpetrator…will be brought to justice,” he vowed.
Van Zandt Sr.'s lawyer said he "at all times acted in an honest fashion and with integrity."
"We believe the evidence will show he was taken advantage of by others ...close to him, including his son," said Michael Bachner.
Van Zandt Jr. complained to Basciano about mob associate Randolph Pizzolo before Basciano had Pizzolo murdered and asked Basciano for help with a prison beef, according to testimony during Basciano's recent trial.
Van Zandt Sr. is being held on $500,000 bail.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bronx/bronx-fraudster-lost-son-suspicious-death-year-charged-4-6-million-ponzi-scheme-article-1.1079366#ixzz2aMEEmGe5

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A Life in the Mafia

A Life in the Mafia

  July 28, 2013    Dapper_Don

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Michael Franzese, a former Colombo capo who left the mob, has found that the fascination with the mob is worldwide.

It was a meal to remember — or else.

Over calamari, eggplant rollatini, linguine and a few glasses of red, a group of America’s most notorious former Mafia figures gathered at Umberto’s Clam House in Little Italy on Thursday to have a sit-down about NatGeo’s new six-part series, “Inside the American Mob.” It debuts Sunday at 9 p.m.


Sal Polisi during his crime days.

Among the one-time wisguys at the table Thursday, was former Colombo capo Michael Franzese and Sal (Ubatz) Polisi (a former Colombo and Gambino associate), who shed light on the “good old bad days” (as Franzese calls it) and why mob movies and shows continue to enthrall audiences.

“The fascination with this stuff is all over the world,” Franzese said, adding that he’s in demand to speak everywhere from Bulgaria to Israel. “I’d go to the Midwest and hundreds of people showed up just to see the ‘mob guy.’ There’s just a fascination with this life — plain and simple. It’s something I never understood when I was in this because it was my life.”

Joe Pistone, aka Donny Brasco, is included in the 'American Mob' documentary.

The documentary series deep-dives into the world of the modern Mafia as told by those who lived that life — and those who sought to take them down.

Beginning in the 1970s, a time when violence ruled NYC streets, the series introduces viewers to the Five Families and goes behind the scenes with FBI agent Joe Pistone (aka Donnie Brasco), who successfully and famously infiltrated the Bonanno crime family. Because Polisi had entered “the program,” he and Franzese hadn’t seen each other since 1975, around the time Franzese got made. Oddly enough, both live in Southern California today. Their lives are undoubtedly simpler and both feel fortunate for a second chance.

“It’s an interesting life,” Polisi said. “You never know what's gonna happen when you do the right thing.”

The only high-ranking official of a major crime family to publicly walk away, Franzese is now a man of faith, a public speaker, and author of a number of Mafia-related books, including his biography, “Blood Covenant.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/mob-scene-umberto-article-1.1410297#ixzz2aM7FSU3Z

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Dead Whitey Bulger trial witness may have been poisoned

Dead Whitey Bulger trial witness may have been poisoned

  July 28, 2013    Dapper_Don

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Stephen (Stippo) Rakes (left), once a potential witness who waited decades to testify against the notorious Bulger, was found dead in the middle of the trial. Investigators are now looking into his death.

Authorities are investigating whether a potential witness who died in the middle of the notorious James "Whitey" Bulger trial was poisoned, a source told the Daily News.

“They’re looking into everything,” the source said Friday, adding that detectives in the case have instructed the medical examiner to look for certain chemicals, including poisons, that may have caused the sudden death of Stephen "Stippo" Rakes.
Rakes, 59, a fixture in the gallery at Bulger’s murder and racketeering trial, was last seen outside Boston Federal Court on July 16. His body was found off a road in Lincoln, Mass., the next day. Investigators later said it appeared his body had been dumped in the area. Rakes’ car was found about eight miles away in a McDonald’s parking lot.

Rakes had long claimed that he was strong-armed into selling his South Boston liquor store to Bulger and had waited decades to testify against him. But the day before his body was found, prosecutors told Rakes that he was not needed as a witness in the case.
Stephen Davis, whose sister, Debbie, was allegedly murdered by Bulger and who had become friendly with Rakes in the last two years, said his pal was upset that he would not get to testify against Bulger but was not depressed enough to commit suicide.
“I know it wasn’t suicide,” said Davis. “He was full of life, explosive with happiness.”

Other friends recalled how Rakes was a well-liked, happy-go-lucky guy whose brightly colored shirts reflected his personality.
“He was always upbeat, always happy, always in a good mood,” said Shawn Donahue, whose father was killed when Bulger allegedly opened fire on another man outside a waterfront restaurant in 1982.
But Donahue, who met Rakes about 13 years ago when they began attending court hearings on Bulger while the mobster was still on the lam, said he doesn’t believe the Winter Hill Gang boss was behind his pal’s death.
If it turns out Rakes was in fact murdered, it was likely done by someone who would “get something out of it,” Donahue said.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/witness-bulger-trial-poisoned-article-1.1410884#ixzz2aM6kQkGl

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Prosecution rests its case against Whitey Bulger

Prosecution rests its case against Whitey Bulger

  July 27, 2013    Dapper_Don

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As prosecutors rest their case against most-wanted mobster James “Whitey” Bulger, the case now hinges on one key element: credibility.
The government called its final witnesses Friday in a 32-count racketeering trial that has so far featured graphic testimony from a parade of killers, drug dealers, bookies and corrupt FBI agents. Sixty-three witnesses have testified over 30 days.
From the start, three assistant U.S. attorneys painted Bulger as a “hands-on killer” who made millions shaking down criminals for cash and routinely used violence to eliminate threats. He’s charged with participating in 19 killings as well as extortion, money laundering and firearms violations.
Prosecutors have now delivered eyewitness testimony and corroborating accounts from gangsters who say they saw Bulger order murders, pull triggers and strangle women in the 1970s and ’80s.
“The government is winning at this point, but that can be expected because it’s still the government’s case in chief,” says Margaret McLean, a former Massachusetts district attorney who is now a law professor at Boston College.
McLean and other legal analysts agree that the battle isn’t over. That’s largely because key witnesses, such as Bulger associates Kevin Weeks and Stephen Flemmi, have admitted to lying in the past and have faced tough questioning about inconsistencies with prior testimonies. On cross-examination, defense attorneys alleged that these same figures are lying now in exchange for light sentences and other perks of sweetheart deals with the government.
“This is a very suspect group of witnesses,” says Chris Dearborn, a criminal law expert at Suffolk University Law School in Boston. “The more suspect witnesses that you put on the stand, the more likely it is that you’ll put on witnesses who are exaggerating or lying or both … I’m convinced that the defense is in the ballgame right now.”
Bulger’s attorneys, while maintaining that their client never killed women and wasn’t an FBI informant, have not disputed allegations that he was involved in 17 killings of men who either posed threats or went down as collateral damage. But they may not have to address such particulars, Dearborn says, as long as they successfully impeach witnesses — such as on grounds that they’re motivated by self-interest to lie.
Since the trial began June 12, the Department of Justice has held the stage, using it to spread out testimony from Bulger’s closest partners in crime.
Early on, confessed killer John Martorano implicated Bulger in 13 murders. He depicted Bulger as a key decision-maker in the notorious Winter Hill gang. Two weeks later, Weeks went further, naming Bulger as a shooter in the 1982 murders of Brian Halloran and Michael Donahue, as well the strangler in the 1981 slaying of Debra Davis.
This past week, in what McLean calls the government’s “finale,” Flemmi implicated Bulger in more than a dozen killings. He detailed how he and Bulger fired weapons side-by-side in the 1975 execution of bar owner Eddie Connors in a phone booth. Flemmi also gave gruesome accounts of killings carried out in a South Boston home, where, on one occasion, he arrived with his stepdaughter, Deborah Hussey, so that Bulger could strangle her according to Bulger’s own plan.
As the prosecution rests, it needs jurors to believe not only that Bulger is guilty, but also that he deserves to be convicted and sentenced, says R. Michael Cassidy, a former prosecutor who is now a professor at Boston College School of Law.
“One danger is that (jurors) could believe Whitey Bulger did all these horrible things but not care enough to convict,” Cassidy says. That could happen, he adds, “if they’re so mad at the government for harboring these folks for so many years and for being corrupt itself.”
Bulger’s trial is revisiting a painful quarter-century in Boston’s history and bringing victims’ family members to the courtroom daily. Palpable courtroom tensions have several times given rise to outbursts.
Sitting just a few feet from his accusers, Bulger has at least three times cursed witnesses on the stand. On one memorable day, Weeks cursed him back and also threatened defense attorney J.W. Carney Jr. This week, the brother of an alleged Bulger victim lashed out at Flemmi from the gallery in unprintable language as he questioned the accuracy of something Flemmi had said about him on the stand.
Strange twists have unfolded, too. Potential witness Stephen “Stippo” Rakes, who alleged that Bulger and his gang extorted him to take his South Boston liquor store, was found dead by a roadside about 30 miles from his Quincy home. He wasn’t expected to testify, but state police are investigating and awaiting a final autopsy report.
On Monday, defense attorneys will begin calling as many as 15 of their own witnesses. They’re expected to move through the lineup faster than prosecutors moved through theirs. The list includes more gangsters, including John Martorano’s brother, James, and Patrick Nee, whose name has already come up in connection with several killings.
It remains to be seen whether Bulger will testify and subject himself to cross-examination. Carney has been adamant that his client shouldn’t feel pressured to testify in his own defense.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/27/whitey-bulger-boston-flemmi-murder-trial/2591383/

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Joey Cigars cops plea to running timeshare resale fraud in Florida and agrees to cooperate

Joey Cigars cops plea to running timeshare resale fraud in Florida and agrees to cooperate

  July 26, 2013    Dapper_Don

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A convicted felon nicknamed "Joey Cigars" pleaded guilty Wednesday to running day-to-day operations at a Fort Lauderdale timeshare resale company that federal authorities say conned clients out of $5.5 million.

Joseph Crapella, 47, cut a deal with prosecutors that calls for him to spend no more than five years in federal prison in exchange for his cooperation in the Timeshare Mega Media and Marketing Group case. The plea agreement could mean that he will testify next month against his alleged business partner, Pasquale "Posh" Pappalardo, who authorities say boasted about having organized crime ties.

Crapella became the 32nd person involved with Timeshare Mega Media to take a plea deal. Even in a state once known as the center of the nation's timeshare resale fraud epidemic, the Timeshare Mega Media case stands out because of the sheer number of people arrested — a total of 41.

Federal prosecutors have alleged the company's telemarketers preyed on timeshare owners desperate to unload their costly vacation rentals. The telemarketers would lie to customers about having buyers for their timeshares, pressuring them to send up to $10,000 to secure deals that never existed, according to court records.

Crapella, who previously served seven years in prison for racketeering, admitted Wednesday he knew the telemarketers were lying and that he encouraged them to get clients to sign paperwork as quickly as possible. He pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge.

Pappalardo is set to stand trial Aug. 12 to face charges of conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Pappalardo, 60, is accused of twice meetings with a representative of the Gambino organized crime family to discuss timeshare resale operations.

Pappalardo's attorney has said his client has never been a member of organized crime and was merely a passive investor in Timeshare Mega Media.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-fort-lauderdale-timeshare-plea-20130724,0,4187516.story

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New TV series on Nat Geo explores the mob's mentality

New TV series on Nat Geo explores the mob's mentality

  July 23, 2013    Dapper_Don

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If timing is everything, Nat Geo’s new series, “Inside the American Mob,” is a ticking metronome.

Over the past month, the death of James Gandolfini, who played North Jersey mobster Tony Soprano in “The Sopranos” — coupled with the ongoing, headline-grabbing trial of Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger — has brewed a perfect storm of interest for Nat Geo’s six-part series (premiering Sunday night).

“I think it’s probably both of those things,” says series executive producer Banks Tarver. “People are interested in this world, and even the passing of [Gandolfini] may register in their minds. And the Whitey Bulger trial has certainly taken on a life of its own — and people are talking about it.”

POINT AND SHOOT: “Inside the American Mob” features re-enactments of gunfights between mobsters and cops.

Bulger, though, isn’t the focus of “Inside the American Mob,” which documents the criminal history of New York’s infamous “Five Families” (Gambino, Lucchese, Bonanno, Genovese and Colombo), with 1974 as its jumping-off point.

“It’s not a deep, long look back at the far past, although we do reference people like Lucky Luciano when introducing the concept of ‘The Commission’ and how it operated in the early ’70s,” Tarver says. “The mid-’70s are often referred to as the ‘Golden Age’ of the American mob, which was extraordinarily successful in making lots of money with little obvious concern about law enforcement getting in its way.

“They felt they could do almost anything, and the idea of ‘Omerta’ [a code of honor] and keeping quiet was a very effective tool,” he says. “Law enforcement didn’t know as much [then] about how the mob worked, and with ‘The Godfather’ movies coming out around that time, there was a sense that the mob was untouchable.

“I think it was such a big, dramatic story in New York that it made sense to set [the series] there,” he says. It felt like a grand, sweeping narrative, starting with the ‘Golden Age’ to the present — and that saga happens most dramatically in New York.

“Each episode tells part of a bigger story. People tend to talk about the ‘Five Families’ like a monolith but, in fact, they’re very different,” Tarver says. “We gave special attention to each ‘family’ and focus on their histories; each of them have moments when they’re more in a ‘command’ role. When one family gets beaten up by law enforcement that, in turn, gives another family the chance to do well — while giving that first family a chance to recover and get stronger.

“So you’re able to see the ups and downs of the mob in New York.”

Tarver also describes the series as having an “Upstairs, Downstairs”-type feel since both real-life mobsters and the FBI agents who busted them — in addition to informants — share their on-camera recollections.

“We found key people to put on camera, focusing on very personal and intimate stories,” he says. “We’re able to tell the Big Picture from key moments . . . where, in each instance, we can step inside the bigger stories and get a very personal point-of-view.”

And, Tarver says, “Inside the American Mob” will track organized crime’s ultimate decline. “Law enforcement was more clued-in and did a better job of tackling the mob. They were armed with better technology and laws and there was a willingness on the part of high command to go after the mob in a serious way,” he says. “And the traditions within the mob started to break down over time, including ‘Omerta’ and the idea of not ‘flipping.’”

(Think Sammy “The Bull” Gravano ratting on John Gotti.)

“People started stepping away from that code — which made it easier for law enforcement to infiltrate and attack the mob.”

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/mob_mentality_MRQ6NPY6Caox5BRXvhHHUK

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Undercover New Jersey cop writes book about infiltrating the mob

Undercover New Jersey cop writes book about infiltrating the mob

  July 21, 2013    Dapper_Don

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Mike Russell was a New Jersey State Police officer who went undercover to infiltrate a organized crime syndicate. He brought down the family with 54 arrests and 48 convictions.

Mike Russell has quite a story to tell in “Undercover Cop: How I Brought Down the Real-Life Sopranos.” The former New Jersey state trooper unleashed hell on the mob in the form of 200 cops who took down 45 wiseguys on Sept. 26, 1986.

They all pleaded guilty.

Along the way he took a bullet to the head, passed on info about a plan to whack Rudy Giuliani and had to strip down to his underwear in front of a gang of riled mobsters.

Russell, who wrote the book with Patrick Picciarelli, first went undercover to sniff around a Luchese crew in Newark. That didn’t work out so well for him.

He started out just hanging around, looking for ways to prove himself to the boys. One night, outside the King’s Court club, he boosted a briefcase from a mobster’s Mercedes-Benz. It yielded 2,000 pages of useful info. But the mob guys soon figured out whodunnit, and — thinking he was just another greedy wanna-be — ordered him to return it.

Thinking that he was proving his cojones, Russell said no.

Instead of a slap on the back and a welcome to the mob party, two guys took him for a ride. In an alley, Russell took a shot square in his skull. He came to with a wino fingering his wallet.

Russell once passed on information about a plan to whack Rudy Giuliani, pictured, then the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

But Russell could be a lucky man, too. In the hospital, his superiors told him to get back out there, just leave the Lucheses alone. Cruising along, looking for action, he saw a middle-aged white man about to be mugged on a Newark street. Russell, a pretty good fighter, saved the guy by taking out two attackers.

The guy turned out to be Andy Gerardo, head of the powerful Genovese crew working northern New Jersey.

And they sure worked it. Gambling, toxic dumping, carting operations, loan collecting, protection rackets, armed robberies and murders, among other felonies. Gerardo’s crew also did business with the big boys in Manhattan — including family boss Vincent “The Chin” Gigante’s right hand man, Bobby Manna.

Russell’s cover story was that he was a disgruntled former cop, fired for excessive force, looking for new opportunities beyond the small oil delivery business he was currently running. He liked to be known as Mikey Ga-Ga.

Gerardo was a good save. The big man brought him into the family business, step by step. Russell began by doing simple runs, delivering diesel fuel concocted from kerosene and a mix of heating oil thieved from major office buildings like the Empire State Building. Mob trucks, mostly used for garbage disposal or illegal toxic dumping, ran on the homemade brew.

Soon enough, Russell was “invited” to rent the front office of the building that housed Gerardo’s social club on Davenport Ave. in Newark, known as the Cage. It was a scene that all the local wiseguys from all the families made.

Vincent "The Chin" Gigante’s right hand man, Bobby Manna, at one time planned to assasinate Giuliani, according to undercover cop Russell.

Russell soon installed wires, and with a peephole, was able to supply the visual testimony that would make the wire evidence that much stronger in court. At this point, the probe had grown into the most in-depth investigation the New Jersey State Police had ever staged, and 50 detectives were following the boys.

To get keys made to the Cage, Russell pretended his arm was broken. While he was coming in and out of the club on “social” visits, he applied putty to the locks. He hid the forms in his cast.

It wasn’t all easy going. This was the mob, after all.

On what he thought was a routine loan-sharking collection call to a bar on Route 1 in Hudson County, he stepped away to use the men’s room. He came back to find the bar owner sprawled face-up on the floor in a pool of blood.

Sal Cetrulo, the made man Russell made the call with, said some guy had run in and shot the guy in the head. “Prick ran down the block. F------ neighborhood’s going to s---,” he complained.

Nobody higher up bought that story, and for a while it looked like Russell was going to take the heat for the kill. Nobody liked to see a source of income murdered.

Vincent "The Chin" Gigante was one of the wiseguys Russell helped to take down.

But the mobsters called a meeting and decided to let it rest.

Another job assigned to Russell was intimidating the managers of local Home Depot and Crazy Eddie stores into using the gangsters’ carting companies. Garbage was big business.

On one call, a burly wiseguy sent to accompany Russell and Cetrulo, hurled a chair into the manager’s aquarium. It was either the fish flopping on the floor or the use of the terms “accidental death” and “wood chipper” that convinced Home Depot to stay with Jersey Carting.

But it was Russell’s superiors who put him at real risk. The state police decided to raid a Genovese bar, The Finish Line, purely to “stir up some action.” The only arrests that came out of it were three detectives later convicted of stealing $70,000 from the bar and a gold Rolex from the trunk of a mob boss’ car.

The raid made no sense and put Russell at risk. Russell, who hadn’t been warned it was coming, walked into the Cage, to be confronted by a table of spooked and angry mobsters. He was ordered to strip down to his underwear to prove he wasn’t wearing a wire.

Some fast-talking got him out of that one, but it was a close call — too close. Russell walked out on the operation and quit the force.

Albert "Tiny" Manzo had been the biggest mob enforcer in New Jersey, and is the father-in-law of Caroline Manzo, one of the 'Real Housewives of New Jersey.'

He was furious.

After a standoff, he was talked back in as an independent contractor — with a considerable pay raise, a house in Connecticut and a new car.

Resuming his duties, Russell accompanied Cetrulo to break down a casino that top soldier Joe Zarra was improperly running in Luchese territory in the heart of Paterson. They were gathering the liquor bottles when a black Lincoln pulled out front, and Albert "Tiny" Manzo, “the biggest enforcer in Jersey,” stepped out. Manzo, the father-in-law of one of “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” Caroline Manzo, weighed 400 pounds.

Meanwhile, another mobster strode toward the bar with a Browning automatic rifle in hand. Inside the casino, the guys hit the floor while the machine gun repeatedly strafed the building.

The fallout led to a meeting between the two families attended by Gigante’s right hand man, Bobby Manna. Fat Tiny Manzo made the mistake of constantly needling Zarra, humiliating him.

About six months later, Manzo was found dead, stuffed into the trunk of his car. His already large body had expanded with gas and it took the medical examiner two days to extract it.

Russell speculates that Zarra had just waited awhile for the heat to die down before clipping him as payback.

'Since John Gotti’s [pictured] ascension to Gambino boss, I was seeing more and more new faces, a new breed of wiseguys who were smarter, more ruthless, bigger earners and schooled in the ways of keeping more of the money they were supposed to turn over to the mob,' Mike Russell writes in his new book.

One day Cetrulo came out of a meeting with Manna visibly shaking.

“He wants to whack Rudy Giuliani. Can you f-----g believe it? You know what kind of heat that will bring down? What it’ll do to business? Whack the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District? F-----g insane.”

Russell phoned the information in.

Newark, and pretty much all of Northern New Jersey, was split three ways among the Luchese, Gambino and Genovese families. John Gotti had just come to power after whacking Paul Castellano. He sent Sammy “Sammy Bull” Gravano to a sit-down to explain just how much of the Genovese territory Gotti would be invading.

The plan was to open a social club on Sanford Ave. in East Orange, and nightclubs in Newark and West Orange. It was a bold move, but the Genovese crew was too intimidated to go to war.

“Since Gotti’s ascension to Gambino boss, I was seeing more and more new faces, a new breed of wiseguys who were smarter, more ruthless, bigger earners, and schooled in the ways of keeping more of the money they were supposed to turn over to the mob,” Russell writes. “I knew that I was playing with the big guys now, the heavy hitters, and I was concerned. I had to be careful.”

When the final raid came, Russell brought along a television news reporter, Frank Grimes. He could do that as an independent contractor. The two produced a show for HBO documenting the takedown of 45 Genovese members and associates, all charged with felonies.

And now, Russell’s story is slated for the big screen. Dreamworks bought the rights to his life story. The movie will be titled “Undercover Cop” and Jason Segal is attached. The book is out Aug. 6.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/real-life-sopranos-exposed-undercover-article-1.1404744#ixzz2ZhfPAAxn

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Bulger's former crime partner testifies about multiple murders Whitey was involved in

Bulger's former crime partner testifies about multiple murders Whitey was involved in

  July 20, 2013    Dapper_Don

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This courtroom sketch depicts Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi testifying Friday about a string of murders in the 1970s and ‘80s. He says reputed mobster James "Whitey" Bulger was involved in each.

The once-loyal partner of accused Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger took the stand Friday and rattled off details of multiple murders he said Bulger was involved in, either planning them, ordering them or committing them himself.

Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, 79, gave a rapid-fire recounting of Bulger’s alleged role in a string of killings in the 1970s and ‘80s when the two men were leaders of the violent Winter Hill Gang.


Bulger is seen looking away as Flemmi testifies in court on Thursday.

Flemmi, who is serving three life terms for 10 murders, choked up while describing how Bulger murdered Deborah Davis, a striking 26-year-old blonde that Flemmi said he “loved but was not in love with.”

The murder occurred in Flemmi’s mother’s house. Flemmi lured his girlfriend there, he said.


Flemmi, upper right, testified that Bulger murdered his girlfriend Deborah Davis, a woman who Flemmi said he loved.

“Bulger was holding her, strangling her down to the basement,” Flemmi. "When he got to the basement, she was dead. I laid her down and he went upstairs and laid down,” he said.

He later wrapped Davis's body in a tarp and buried it near the Neponset River on the Boston and Quincy line near the spot where the pair had buried another murder victim, he testified.


Evidence from the Whitey Bulger Trial.

Bulger wanted Davis dead because he worried about her impact on their business, Flemmi said.

She was also aware the two mobsters were working closely with corrupt FBI agent John Connelly, who took bribes in exchange for sharing information with the two mobsters.


This blood-stained front seat was presented as evidence against Bulger, the reputed former head of the mostly Irish-American Winter Hill.

“It affected me and it will affect me until the day I die,” Flemmi said of his girlfriend’s murder.

Flemmi said Connolly was important to their criminal activities. He provided the mobsters with tips about fellow criminals, investigations and indictments, even helping them avoid indictment in a race-fixing case by persuading his superiors at the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office that the two men were key to a federal investigation into the Mafia.


Revere, Mass., bar owner Eddie Connors is shown lying dead in a phone booth in this photo used as evidence during the trial of accused mob boss Bulger.

In return, the mob pals gave Connolly gifts. When he went on vacation, they dropped him an envelope filled with $5,000 in cash. At Christmas he got a similar present.

Over time, Connolly was paid an estimated $230,000, all of which came from a special “Ex Fund” set up by the mobsters to pay for guns and other equipment and take care of payoffs and bribes, Flemmi said.


Beginning second from left, Bulger, witness Richard O’Brien and attorney J.W. Carney, with, seated outside the bar, Steve Davis, brother of an alleged victim of Bulger, and Bulger's brother Jackie Bulger at trial.

But Connolly was careless: He began dressing better than other FBI agents in his office, drove a nicer car, owned two homes and bought a boat, all on a salary that didn't afford him such luxuries.

When Bulger found out about the boat, he became angry and told Connolly that he would have to sell it, Flemmi said.


Hitman-turned-government witness John Martorano testified during Bulger's trial at the Moakley Federal Courthouse in Boston.

“[Bulger] said, ‘You are being too ostentatious and you are drawing attention to us,’” Flemmi recalled.

Yet Connolly wasn't the only one taking payoffs. Flemmi said at least five other agents and a Massachusetts state trooper were also on the mobsters’ payroll, including two of Connolly's supervisors, John Morris and H. Paul Rico.

The mobsters paid them handsomely and in return got information that helped in their criminal enterprise, Flemmi explained.

On one occasion, however, the pair got something more — a case of plastic explosives delivered by an FBI agent who received a $2,500 payout.

“It was a surprise when we got it,” said Flemmi, adding that half of the case was sent to the Irish Republican Army in Ireland while the remainder went to another associate in Charlestown, Mass.

Bulger, 83, has been implicated in 19 murders and faces 32 counts of racketeering and extortion. He’s pleaded not guilty to all charges.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/bulger-witness-death-considered-suspicious-police-article-1.1403468#ixzz2ZcqpG3ol

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How an infamous Chicago hitman rebuilt his identity

How an infamous Chicago hitman rebuilt his identity

  July 18, 2013    Dapper_Don

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How difficult would it be to assume a different name, create a new Social Security number and rebuild a new identity from scratch? How would banks, landlords, utilities, neighbors and others react to a man or woman without a past?

Frank Cullotta knows. A former mob hit man in Las Vegas, he was portrayed in the 1995 film Casino as the link between the Chicago bosses and Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal and Tony Spilotro, the men who inspired the movie’s Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci characters. In 1982 he had a falling out with his friend Spilotro and agreed to provide evidence against his former associates. The federal government entered him into the witness protection program.

Although he still lives under an assumed name, he agreed to talk to me last week about how he built a new identity. He created a basic backstory to explain his sudden arrival in a new town that would also deflect too many questions. “They asked me why I came there and I would say I was married and my wife got killed in an automobile accident, and I didn’t want to stay where I was at anymore because of the memories and all that bulls—,” Cullotta said.

The U.S. Marshals Service running the program set down some basic rules that run very much counter to our current era of constant sharing on social media.

“First of all, they don’t want you to take any pictures and send them to anybody because it will show, even if you got a town over or two town over from where you are at, it will show that you are in that vicinity,” he said. “And in the pictures they say there is always something that will show in the picture. Like a phonebook will be in the background.”

Cullotta received a new Social Security number and birth certificate. He then went to the department of motor vehicles to take the test and receive a driver’s license. The next step in rebuilding a life is buying a used car and finding a place to live (the feds provide the money for both). “Once you have located an apartment, it is very difficult to get an apartment because you have no past. You have no banking account. You don’t exist,” he said.

“You are going to lie on the form, and you are going to say that you are from out of state and nine times out of 10, even if they check, you are going to give a bad phone number, it’s not going to come back right. They ain’t going to get no history on you.”

Next comes banking. “Very difficult to do because you have no credit history, and with no credit history, banks are a little hesitant,” Cullotta said. “They think you are illegal, actually.”

How did a middle-aged man explain that he had no previous banking relationships? “I said I deal with strictly cash. If I paid my bill, everything was by cash. I would go to the power company, I would go to the water company, you know, whatever it was, or the landlord, I always paid by cash,” he said. “I don’t believe in banks but now that I am getting older, I think this is the way I should do it, you know. After a little while, you bulls— with them, they want your money. They give you a little static at first but they’ll take your money.”

The feds advise people taking on new identities to end all communications with family, although many do not follow the advice. “I found a way to do it. I just used to call a certain party in my family at a certain date and month or a certain day of the week and he’d be at a payphone,” he said. “I didn’t call the house in case the Outfit had lines bugged, which they can.”

In the years since he moved from Las Vegas, Cullotta took on new identities in Texas; in Estes Park, Colorado; Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi; and Mobile, Alabama. As the mob was believed to have ordered a hit on his life, he moved from time to time for his safety. One time he ran into a friend of his sister at a Mardi Gras celebration in Mobile. He moved to Mississippi the next day as a precaution.

He took different jobs. For a short while, he drove a truck. Eventually he bought a used car lot, funded by money he had squirreled away outside the government’s view. For all the new names, identity cards and backstory, Cullotta could not alter his basic demeanor.

“You hear my voice? Can you imagine me living in Biloxi, Mississippi? Do you think I would fit there or Texas? Of course, people would look at me and they would say, ‘you’re a Yankee, you’re a gangster, you sound like a gangster,’” he said in a strong Chicago accent. “So I tried to dress down. I wore ball caps, jeans, tennis shoes, s— I never wore in my life to try to fit in, but I still had that accent.”

“And the demeanor, how I walk and carry myself which is almost impossible to change. It is impossible for me to change.”

Cullotta still uses a different name and did not want to say where he resides today. But he says his former adversaries are all dead or serving life prison sentences, so he lives more openly than before. He had a cameo role as a killer in Casino, wrote a 2007 memoir, and is now working on a second book about untold stories about his Hole in the Wall Gang, a now notorious Las Vegas gang.

Very few people go through the process of creating a new identity with government help. According to the U.S. Marshall’s Service, 8,500 witnesses have taken on new identities since the witness protection program begin in 1971. For the rest of us, the program shows how difficult it would be to undo the personal data from our commercial dossiers collected by data brokers and private companies about almost all Americans and make a fresh start. The personal data collected about us lives forever.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2013/07/17/infamous-mafia-hit-man-tells-how-he-rebuilt-identity-in-witness-protection-program/

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Franky Boy turns down offer to become boss of the Gambino crime family according to sources

Franky Boy turns down offer to become boss of the Gambino crime family according to sources

  July 18, 2013    Dapper_Don

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They made him an offer — but he refused.

Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali, the heir apparent to the Gambino Crime Family throne, turned down the honor to become “Godfather” of the nation’s largest Mafia organization, sources told “On The Inside.”

At a stunning, secret mob summit on June 29, the powerful, 49-year-old Brooklyn-based capo shocked his Gambino bosses and fellow captains by telling them that he would eschew position.

Four days before the meeting, “On The Inside” reported that Cali was the choice among his comrades, who respected Cali’s strong low-key, old-world approach to doing business successfully without attracting fanfare or agita.

But Cali told his brothers that while he was moved by their support, he would not accept the promotion to run the family’s billion-dollar concerns.

“I don’t need the money, the headaches. I am OK with things and I am below the radar and not an attention-seeker,” Cali told his Gambino brethren, according to sources.

And, one source said, the Gambinos understood — or at least that’s the party line.

After all, along with receiving vastly lucrative cash tribute from every corner of the sprawling crime family, there are headaches that would make Tony Soprano’s head spin, including having to accept an outsized bulls-eye on one’s back from law enforcement, if not from gangsters upset with his decision to pass up the job.

One thing is certain: Cali would not be kidding about his wealth. Sources say he practically runs the city’s food industry and is worth an estimated $30 million from those businesses, real estate holdings and cafés he owns.

But some law enforcement sources are not so quick to believe the talk that Cali turned down the job. They say it may be a Mafia “disinformation” campaign designed to throw off law enforcement.

“Why would he turn down a job where all the other captains want him?” a skeptical veteran mob hunter asked. “If they thought he would not take it, they would not have picked him.”

Cali — a native New Yorker who traces his roots firmly to Sicily — was set to take over the Gambinos because the current boss, Domenico “Greaseball” Cefalu, 76, who is also a native Sicilian, indicated he wanted to step aside to allow his younger protégé to take the reins of the family’s lucrative gambling, loansharking and construction rackets.

Cefalu, who has a long history of heroin smuggling and has done several stints in prison, took over a family once ruled by John “The Dapper Don” Gotti and the group’s infamous namesake, Carlo Gambino. Cefalu reduced the public profile and broke with the flashy, headline-grabbing era marked by Gotti, whose visage once graced the cover of Time magazine.

Gotti died of throat cancer in prison in 2002.

Sources say Cefalu wanted Cali to take his place, and so did the other captains who were looking to Cali to breathe some money-making life back into their ranks.

Cali’s parents immigrated to Brooklyn from Palermo, Italy, and he got his start in the mob by running a fruit store on 18th Avenue in Brooklyn called Arcobaleno, which means “rainbow” in Italian. The feds say it doubled as a front for criminal activities.

Cali made his bones under the Gottis while operating in Manhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey. According to the FBI, he officially became the Gambino “ambassador to the Sicilian Mafia” and a rising star when Gotti and Salvatore “Sammy Bull” Gravano roamed the city, ruling rackets and murdering dozens of people.

He eventually married into mob royalty when he wed the daughter of one of the Inzerillos, who are known as one of the Mafia powerhouses in Italy. He is also a nephew of John and Joseph Gambino, who are influential hoods connected to the famous “Pizza Connection” drug trafficking case of the 1980s.

If the Gambinos are forced back to the Godfather drawing board, sources say they may go out of town for a successor, and are considering a top hood in the Connecticut faction of the family.

It remains to be seen on surveillance video, or heard on wiretaps, precisely what the truth is.

Over the past several decades, and thanks to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, the feds have severely reduced the influence of the Gambinos and the other four crime families, breaking their grip on the billion-dollar labor union and construction industries.

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20130718/little-italy/mob-pick-for-gambino-godfather-turns-down-job

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Body of witness set to testify against Whitey Bulger found on side of Massachusetts road

Body of witness set to testify against Whitey Bulger found on side of Massachusetts road

  July 18, 2013    Dapper_Don

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Stephen Rakes arrives for the first day of accused mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger's trial at the US Federal Courthouse in Boston.

A key witness in the trial of notorious Boston gangster 'Whitey' Bulger has been found dead by the side of a road in Lincoln, Mass., according to a report.

ABC News says police believe the corpse on Mill Road is likely that of Stephen "Stippo" Rakes.

Rakes was due to testify that Bulger and an associate threatened his daughter at gunpoint and forced Rakes to hand over his Boston liquor store, which later became a headquarters for the mob boss.

James "Whitey" Bulger

Police have told the Rakes family the death appeared to be suicide, according to ABC. But a family source told the network "he had no phone, no wallet, and police are still looking for his car."

"Stippo would not kill himself. Absolutely not,'' Rakes' friend Steve Davis told ABC News.

"He was looking forward to taking the stand. He told me over and over he had a big bombshell to drop. He had everything to live for and was looking forward to his day in court."

"It doesn't make sense.''

Meanwhile, another witness and former Bulger associate, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, was scheduled to take the stand today.

The two men haven't seen each other in almost 20 years. Flemmi will sit just 10 feet away from Bulger in what promises to be a tense meeting as Flemmi is asked to name Bulger as a killer, an FBI informant and the man who he watched strangle two 26-year-old women.

Bulger has already had two profanity-laced outbursts during the trial, one directed at his former protege, Kevin Weeks, and the other at a former FBI agent who admitted taking payoffs from Bulger.

Investigators say Flemmi's testimony will be the ultimate betrayal to Bulger, given their long relationship as criminal partners and friends.

"These guys were equal partners. One was not subservient to the other," said Michael Kendall, a former federal prosecutor who investigated several of Bulger's associates.

"Now, with Flemmi testifying against him, I think it's going to be like when Dracula fights Frankenstein — the two personifications of evil at each other's throats," he said.

Bulger, 83, is accused in a 32-count racketeering indictment of playing a role in 19 killings in the 1970s and '80s while he allegedly led the Winter Hill Gang. He is also charged with money laundering and extortion.

ttp://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/corpse_found_bulger_side_due_road_aG0x60F0kiNMFiieAie1DN

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Lady busted for DWI after taking wrong turn linked to slain restaurateur

Lady busted for DWI after taking wrong turn linked to slain restaurateur

  July 18, 2013    Dapper_Don

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She drank herself into an early grave — and lived to tell about it.

Kelly Catapano, 35, of Staten Island, was busted for drunken driving Sunday at the Moravian Cemetery in New Dorp when she drove her Chrysler Sebring into a freshly dug grave.

Catapano had a blood-alcohol count triple the legal limit, law-enforcement sources said yesterday. Her car — which had dropped four feet below ground — had to be hauled out by an NYPD tow truck, the sources said.

Catapano told cemetery workers she was visiting the mausoleum of her late boyfriend Frank Fresca, who was gunned down in a July 2008 mob-style execution at his eatery, Fresca’s on the Bay, sources said.

Fresca, 66, was hit in the head and chest nine times behind his upscale Italian eatery — a known hangout for gangster wannabes, cops said.

She made a wrong turn, and instead of turning onto a driveway to the street turned onto a footpath that led to the open grave, she told the workers, who called cops.

Catapano, of Staten Island, reeked of booze, could barely stand up and refused a field-sobriety test, sources said.

But cops performed a chemical test that showed a BAC reading of .247 — more than three times the legal limit of .08, sources said. She was being held at Rikers on $5,000 bond or cash bail.

Catapano has two DWI convictions from a pair of busts in November and December 2008.

She was also arrested in 2009 for breaking into the late Fresca’s Tottenville home after she’d been evicted by his ex-wife.

The ex showed up and found beer cans littering the floor and Catapano hiding in a bedroom closet, cops said at the time.

She was sentenced to 30 days in jail in a plea deal on the trespassing and DWI charges in April 2009.

Fresca was gunned down July 30, 2008 in a Mafia-style execution that the FBI believes could be linked to the Bonanno crime family, law-enforcement sources said at the time.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/staten_island/dwi_gal_grave_turn_Mu62CGfOyO1YXY7I6txozH

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Bonanno mobster pleads guilty to filing false tax return

Bonanno mobster pleads guilty to filing false tax return

  July 18, 2013    Dapper_Don

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Reputed New York mob figure Vincent Faraci, left, walks into the federal courthouse in Las Vegas on Wednesday morning with his lawyer, David Chesnoff. Faraci pleaded guilty to filing a false 2006 tax return.

Vincent Faraci, a mob-connected player in the racketeering days of the old Crazy Horse Too strip club, pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to filing a false 2006 tax return.

Faraci, 58, a reputed Bonanno crime family member now running a nightclub in Brooklyn, admitted in his plea agreement that he failed to report $134,904 in income on the tax return when he filed it in 2008. He also admitted he did not pay $46,869 in additional taxes.

When Senior U.S. District Judge Lloyd George asked him how he wanted to plead to the tax charge, he replied, “Guilty, your honor.”

George set an Oct. 28 sentencing. Faraci faces 15 to 21 months in prison on the charge under the terms of his plea agreement.

Faraci was allowed to remain free on his own recognizance, but ordered to surrender his passport. He has agreed to pay the $46,869 as restitution to the Internal Revenue Service.

Afterward, Faraci declined comment. But his Las Vegas lawyer, David Chesnoff, said, “We’re very pleased with a fair resolution to an old tax dispute.”

The tax case is not related to a massive FBI-IRS investigation of the Crazy Horse Too several years ago.

Faraci, a former shift manager at the Crazy Horse Too, was one of 16 of the club’s employees who pleaded guilty in 2006 to a conspiracy charge of failing to pay taxes on tips and other income. He was sentenced in 2007 to 10 months behind bars, but was allowed to serve five months under home detention.

The group deal, which also included a guilty plea from Crazy Horse Too owner Rick Rizzolo, brought an end to a decade-long federal racketeering investigation that uncovered a pattern of lawlessness at the strip club, once regularly visited by mobsters, politicians and celebrities.

Agents investigating a series of beatings at the club, including one involving Kansas City-area man Kirk Henry, who was paralyzed in a fight over a bar tab at the club in 2001.

Following his plea, Rizzolo spent a year in prison and lost his club, which was closed for several years until it re-opened this year under a new name and ownership.

Rizzolo, who was last reported to be selling cars, is still mired in civil litigation with Henry. As part of his deal in the racketeering case, Rizzolo was ordered to pay Henry $10 million, but has been slow to make good on the promise.

For years, Rizzolo was linked to a series of organized crime figures, including Joseph Cusumano, once a lieutenant for Anthony Spilotro, the Chicago mob’s slain overseer of street rackets in Las Vegas.

Rocco Lombardo, the brother of onetime reputed Chicago mob boss Joseph Lombardo, worked with Faraci as a doorman at the Crazy Horse Too. Lombardo also pleaded guilty in the racketeering investigation, receiving 60 months of probation.

In recent months, suspected Bonanno mob associate John Venizelos, the manager of Faraci’s Brooklyn nightclub, Jaguars 3, has attracted headlines in the New York media for his alleged involvement in a major marijuana trafficking organization tied to a Canadian drug lord.

The New York Post reported in April that Venizelos had a deal to plead guilty in the federal investigation into the drug organization, which is suspected of operating through alliances with the Hells Angels and a Mexican cartel.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/crime-courts/accused-mob-figure-pleads-guilty-filing-false-tax-return

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92nd Street Y executive linked to mafia pump and dump stock scheme

92nd Street Y executive linked to mafia pump and dump stock scheme

  July 18, 2013    Dapper_Don

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In 1997. Salvatore Taddeo, right, was busted along with Genovese and Bonanno crime family members for participating in a pump and dump stock scheme. He left prison in December 2000, then went to work for the 92nd Street Y, rising to become head of facilities operations in 2005. Now he's the center of a kickback probe by the institution.

An ex-con busted for his role in a Mafia-run Wall Street scam is a central figure in an unfolding scandal at the 92nd Street Y, the Daily News has learned.Salvatore Taddeo, who for years ran the Y’s contracting operations, is the focus of a kickback investigation by the prestigious upper East Side cultural institution, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

Taddeo left the organization in February, shortly before it received allegations that he was involved in a scheme to demand kickbacks from Y 92nd Street Yvendors, the sources said.

One area of inquiry is Taddeo’s role in overseeing bids on an abandoned taxpayer-funded project to build a Tribeca branch of the Y, according to the sources.

In 1997 Taddeo, then a stockbroker, was busted along with members of the Genovese and Bonanno crime families.

They were all charged with participating in a pump and dump scheme in which the mob would pay off corrupt brokers to hype stock in phantom companies in which gangsters secretly held stock.

The brokers would sell enough stock to unsuspecting investors to drive up its value. When it peaked, the gangsters would sell all their shares at once, sending the stocks off the cliff and leaving the dupes with nothing.

Taddeo pleaded guilty in January 1999 to fraud conspiracy and was sentenced to 18 months in prison, records show.

He paid $10,000 restitution and left prison in December 2000, then went to work for the Y, rising to become head of facilities operations in 2005, sources say.

Y officials would not discuss if they knew about his past.

When the Y got the tip about kickbacks after Taddeo’s departure, an internal investigation uncovered evidence that Taddeo engaged in “improper conduct,” sources said.

In an email to supporters, the Y — without naming Taddeo — said the evidence was “disclosed to the appropriate authorities.” A spokeswoman declined to elaborate.

The state-run Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which gave the Y $1.2 million in federal funds to build the Tribeca branch, questioned Y director Sol Adler about Taddeo’s role in that project.

Adler is currently on medical leave.

David Emil, director of the development corporation, said Y officials claimed Taddeo was not directly involved in the project. But Taddeo is listed on documents as the recipient of bids for a $250,000 HVAC system at the Tribeca Y, as well as $800,000 in audio-visual equipment installed there.

The Tribeca project fell apart when the Y decided not to stay in its renovated space in lower Manhattan. Emil said the nonprofit had agreed to refund a “significant portion” of the money it received for the project.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/92nd-street-y-exec-ex-con-focus-kickback-probe-article-1.1401711#ixzz2ZPINycbD

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Sentencing delayed for Hells Angels member charged in drug ring

Sentencing delayed for Hells Angels member charged in drug ring

  July 18, 2013    Dapper_Don

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Sentencing has been delayed for the last man charged in connection with a large-scale Danbury-area drug ring because he was on probation when the new charges were filed.

Kevin Lubic, one of four men arrested on federal drug charges two years ago and a reputed member of the Hell's Angels, was expected to face up to 36 months in prison during his sentencing scheduled for Wednesday in federal court.

Lubic pleaded guilty April 29 to the original charge of conspiracy to distribute marijuana after accepting a deal for a sentence of up to 37 months in prison and fines up to $50,000. The plea agreement came as jury selection for Lubic's trial was scheduled to start the next day in Hartford.

His sentencing was put off indefinitely, however, until he completes a five-year probation he was serving at the time of his arrest for a previous drug conviction, court documents state.

Lubic's attorney, Jeffrey Chartier, declined to comment Monday.

According to court records, Lubic served a 77-month prison sentence beginning in 2002 for a marijuana-trafficking charge out of New York. He was released from prison in 2007, about the same time the Danbury-area drug ring became active.

According to federal prosecutors, the local drug ring was responsible for selling as much as 1,000 pounds, or about $7 million worth of marijuana in 2010, the year before the men were arrested.

His co-defendants in the current case, including Bethel businessman Mark Mansa, were sentenced last year after accepting plea deals from federal prosecutors.

Mansa, who was accused of distributing steroids, was sentenced in June 2012 to 46 months in prison after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute 100 kilograms or more of marijuana from 2007 to 2011.

Glenn Wagner, of Brookfield, was sentenced in July 2012 to 62 months in prison for his role in the ring.

Florida resident Richard Sciaccetano, the fourth man arrested as part of the drug ring, reportedly has ties to the Bonanno organized crime family. Sciaccetano was sentenced to 36 months in prison in June 2012 after pleading guilty to a conspiracy charge.

The relationship between Mansa, Wagner and Lubic began when they were teenagers in the Mahopac, N.Y., area, Wagner has said. Sciacchetano, who lived in Brooklyn, N.Y., at the time, was their marijuana connection, according to Wagner.

http://www.newstimes.com/local/article/Sentencing-delayed-for-drug-dealer-4666981.php

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Philadelphia mob captain is sentenced to 8 years for racketeering and extortion

Philadelphia mob captain is sentenced to 8 years for racketeering and extortion

  July 17, 2013    Dapper_Don

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Federal Judge Eduardo Robreno had to consider the two faces of Anthony Staino this morning before sentencing the convicted mobster to 97 months on racketeering and extortion charges.

Friends and family members who crowded the 15th floor courtroom described him as a "loving" father and husband; a "funny, good-hearted, kind and outgoing" neighbor, and a "man of integrity."

The testimonials came from friends and family members, including his wife, his son and his ex-wife, who appeared before Robreno during a three-hour sentencing hearing.

Prosecutors offered a different view of the 56-year-old mob leader who was picked up on one FBI tape bragging that he was the "CFO" and a "member of the board of directors" of the Philadelphia organized crime family.

That comment, along with others played during the racketeering trial that ended in February, helped Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Labor offer a decidedly different picture of Staino.

Robreno ultimately came down somewhere in the middle, noting that the extortion charges for which Staino was found guilty and the conspiracy and gambling charges to which he later pleaded guilty warranted a substantial prison term.

"The question is, who is Anthony Staino Jr.?" Robreno asked before imposing sentence. Was he, the judge asked rhetorically, the loyal family man and friend described by his supporters? Or was he "the violent mobster" that the government alleged?

"Perhaps he's both," said Robreno in a remark that appeared to be supported by the defendant himself.

In brief comments at the end of the lengthy hearing, Staino apologized to his family and friends; said he alone was responsible for his actions, and quoted Thomas Jefferson.

"I was not the person I should have been," Staino said in describing how he had gotten involved with organized crime in the 1990s while going through a divorce and battling a drinking problem. After he met his current wife Terry in 2003, he said, he began to turn things around. And when their daughter was born five years ago, he added, he was back on the right path.

"But my efforts (to change) could no escape my past," he said. "That's why I'm here today."

Back then he had the "wrong mental attitude." Now, he said, his goals are to be a "productive citizen" and "loving husband and father."

"Thomas Jefferson once said, `Nothing can stop the man with the right attitude from achieving his goals.'"

Staino will have about seven more years to ponder those words of wisdom from a founding father who helped created America over two hundreds years ago in a building less than two blocks from the courthouse where Staino was sentenced.

The South Jersey mob figure was described by prosecutors as the "right hand man" of mob boss Joseph Ligambi who quickly rose through the ranks of the organization, first as an associate and ultimately as a capo who was the confidante of the mob boss.

"He rose through the ranks because he's a nasty, bruttish, effective mobster," said Labor in citing one of several tapes played for the jury in which Staino was recorded extorting an FBI undercover agent who had posed as a corrupt businessman and gambler.

After lending the agent, posing as a man named Dino, $30,000, Staino was recorded saying, "Please. On my life, I like you. I don't want to have to fuckin' hurt you."

The message, Labor said, was clear mob speak for you better pay me back.

"He could have been a law abiding citizen," Labor said after Staino's lawyer, Gregory Pagano, had detailed a history that included a stellar high school career, one year of college and years of legitimate employment. "He chose to be a gangster."

Pagano conceded as much, but argued with some success that his client was "not the person who personifies...the LCN member."

"Unlike other people, he gets it," Pagano said, an apparent reference to other defendants who had been sentenced earlier, who had long arrest records and who showed little remorse.

Staino has no prior arrests.

"And he's not gonna be back," said Pagano who successfully argued for a slight departure from the sentencing guidelines Robreno has originally set. Pagano argued that his client deserved credit for pleading guilty to a racketeering conspiracy charge and two gambling charges on which the jury had hung during the trial.

Staino was convicted of two extortion counts tied to the secret FBI/Dino tapes.

Robreno, who had set a guideline range of 87 to 108 months, agreed, lowering the range to 74 to 97 months. He then sentenced Staino to the top of the new range. Staino, who was jailed after his conviction in February, has about six months prison credit toward the sentence.

Under standard federal prison procedure -- there is no longer any parole in the federal system -- Staino will have to serve about 85 percent of the sentence which means he has about seven more years of prison time.

The mob capo was the fourth defendant convicted at trial to be sentenced. One other defendant was acquitted and Ligambi, 73, and his nephew, George Borgesi, 50, are to be retried in October after a jury hung on conspiracy charges against both of them. Ligambi also faces gambling and obstruction of justice counts.

In addition to the extortion of Dino, Staino was linked to gambling and loansharking charges, but the jury acquitted him on 23 of the 28 counts he faced. He, Ligambi and mob underboss Joseph "Mousie" Massimino, who was sentenced to 188 months last week, were accused of forcibly taking control of an illegal video poker machine operation and with running bookmaking and loansharking businesses.

To date, 12 of the 16 defendants named in the case have either been convicted or pleaded guilty. One defendant, mob capo Joseph "Scoops" Licata, 72, was acquitted, and three others, Ligambi, Borgesi and mob associate Eric Esposito (who faces gambling charges) are awaiting trial.


http://www.bigtrial.net/2013/07/two-faces-of-anthony-staino-assessed-at.html#EEJRxrsTMAy4ectS.99

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South Jersey mob soldier gets 11 years in prison

South Jersey mob soldier gets 11 years in prison

  July 16, 2013    Dapper_Don

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Damion Canalichio, described by a federal prosecutor as a mob "enforcer" who abused people, was sentenced this morning to 137 months in prison for his conviction on racketeering conspiracy charges.

Judge Eduardo Robreno rejected a government request for a 20-year sentence.

But Robreno said nothing in Canalichio's criminal history, including two convictions for drug dealing and a series of arrests for assault, drug use and solicitation of a prostitute, "has shown the slightest respect for the law."

Robreno had set a sentencing guideline range of 110 to 137 months and, following a two-hour hearing, sentenced the 43-year-old mobster to the top of that range.

After Canalichio apologized to his wife, their three daughters and family members and friends for his actions, Robreno told him it appeared that "you are beginning to recognize that life is passing you by."

But Assistant U.S. Attorney John Han, who argued repeatedly for a higher sentence, didn't see it that way.

"His allegiance is not to family, his children, his wife," Han said, "but to La Cosa Nostra."

The prosecutor said Canalichio was a "career criminal...who will keep his mouth shut and do his time."

In fact, Canalichio will have to serve about eight more years before he is eligible for release.

"He had a reputation on the street for being a very violent person," Han said. "He was an enforcer for the mob...He's the muscle behind all these operations."

Pointing to tapes played as evidence during the racketeering trial that ended in February, Han said Canalichio in his own words had described his role in the organization headed by acting mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi.

"I'm into collections," Canalichio said on a tape recorded by an undercover FBI agent posing as a gambler.

On wiretaps and other tapes, Canalichio was heard threatening individuals who owed the mob money. On one he said,. "I'm gonna go crack his fuckin' head."

Canalichio's court-appointed lawyer Margaret Grasso had argued for a sentence at the lower end of the guidelines set by Robreno, an argument the judge rejected. But Grasso did convince the judge not to designate Canalichio a career criminal for guideline purposes, a designation that would have increased the top range of his sentence.

Canalichio, of Turnersville, is the third of four defendants convicted in the racketeering trial that ended in February. Anthony Staino, 55, is scheduled to be sentenced this morning. Last week mob underboss Joseph "Mousie" Massimino, 62, was sentenced to nearly 16 years and mob associate Gary Battaglini, 52, was sentenced to eight years.

Ligambi, 73, and his nephew, George Borgesi, 50, are to be retried on conspiracy charges in October after the jury hung on those counts against them. Ligambi also faces gambling and obstruction of justice charges.

Joseph "Scoops" Licata, 72, the seventh defendant in the case, was acquitted.

Canalichio, dressed in a green prison jump suit, showed little emotion when the sentence was finally imposed in a courtroom crowded with family and friends. The stocky, dark-haired wiseguy nodded to his wife and several others as he was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs.

He was denied bail after his indictment in May 2011. Some of that time will go toward the current sentence. He was finishing a 58-month term for drug dealing, however, when the indictment came down and was required to complete that term first.

Han said Canalichio had spent most of his adult life earning money illegally and, in most cases, for or with the mob. He said the defendant owned a $235,000 home in South Jersey despite the fact that he never claimed more than $5,000-a-year in legitimate income.

"Where does that money come from?" the prosecutor asked of the finances used to buy the home.

He then answered his own question: "Loansharking, bookmaking and threatening people with violence."

In addition to about two dozens friends and family members of the defendant, there were nearly a dozen law enforcement officials in the courtroom for the sentencing. Several took note of Han's description of Canalichio as someone who would go to jail and "keep his mouth shut."

"We'll see," said one investigator.

While Canalichio's lawyer said he just wanted to complete his sentence and return to his family, leaving the life of crime behind, those who have tracked Canalichio's career predicted, like Han, that that was unlikely. They also noted that Canalichio remains a suspect in at least one unsolved gangland murder and that Anthony Nicodemo, a suspect in the same case, is currently in jail on a separate city homicide charge.

"We'll see who gets on the bus first," a law enforcement source said of speculation that someone would cut a deal with the government to avoid a murder prosecution.


http://www.bigtrial.net/2013/07/canalichio-sentenced-in-mob-conspiracy.html#rByVkSKfpVAUP4Mt.99

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Philadelphia mobsters argue for light sentences

Philadelphia mobsters argue for light sentences

  July 15, 2013    Dapper_Don

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Damion Canalichio (right) with George Borgesi

They were both in the gambling business, but this time the odds don't appear to be in their favor.

Mobsters Damion Canalichio and Anthony Staino go in front of Judge Eduardo Robreno this week to find out how to plan the next several years of their lives. Both are going to be inmates in federal prisons.

The only question is for how long.

Canalichio, 43, was convicted of racketeering conspiracy in the big mob trial that ended in February. Staino, 53, was convicted of extortion and shortly afterward pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge on which the jury had hung.

Lawyers for both defendants have filed lengthy motions challenging prosecution requests for lengthy sentences. For Canalichio, a brash-talking mob soldier with two prior federal convictions for drug dealing and tape recordings in which he boasted about being an enforcer, the government wants from 17 to 21 years.

For Staino, a mob lieutenant and close associate of acting boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi, the government is looking for about 10 years. Staino, unlike the other defendants in the case, has no prior convictions. But he was recorded on tape boasting about being the "CFO" and a "member of the board of directors" of the crime family. Those comments would seem to support prosecutors' arguments that he was a leader of organized crime, a designation that enhances federal sentencing guidelines.

Canalichio, of Turnversillbe, goes before Robreno tomorrow at 9 a.m.

Staino, who lived in Woolwich Township outside of Swedesboro, has a date with the judge at the same time on Wednesday.

The two South Jersey wiseguys already have a sense of where Robreno may be heading. On Thursday the judge sentenced mob underboss Joseph "Mousie" Massimino, 63, to 188 months (nearly 16 years). On Friday mob associate Gary Battaglini, 51, got eight years.

The smart money says that Canalichio and Staino will both draw sentences somewhere in between those two. Both are likely to receive double figures. Canalichio, however, already has two years and two months in. He and several other defendants in the case, including Ligambi, Massimino and George Borgesi, were denied bail after their indictment and arrest in May 2011.

That type of jail time is credited toward any sentence.


Anthony Staino (left) with his lawyer Gregory Pagano

Staino was free on bail until his conviction in February.

Canalichio's brash and arrogant manner during the trial and on the tapes that were played as evidence was in sharp contrast to the portrait painted of him by his court-appointed attorney Margaret Grasso in a pre-sentence memo filed last month.

She described him as a loving husband and father of three young daughters and said he had the support of family members and friends who have written letters to the court. The letters, she said, show that he "has learned from his incarceration that his family is the most important thing in his life and that he would not do anything in the future to jeopardize his freedom to be with his family once given the opportunity to do so."

Grasso, like lawyers for Massimino and Battaglini, argued that the conspiracy conviction was difficult to analyze since the same jury acquitted the defendants of more than 40 charges tied to gambling, loansharking and extortion that were part of the case.

Canalichio, for example, was found not guilty of bookmaking and dealing in electronic video poker machines. But he was found guilty of racketeering conspiracy.

Grasso said her client should be sentenced under a guideline range of 57 to 71 months, rather than the 210 to 262 months the government is suggesting.

Her plea for a lenient sentenced also included references to Canalichio's difficult childhood where he was raised by his mother after his father abandoned the family and his past problems with drug use.
Prosecutors, however, have identified Canalichio as a mob soldier who has two prior convictions for dealing drugs. One of the tapes played during the trial included Canalichio going on a rant about a "fucking junkie" who was causing problems at a social club that he ran with mobster Martin Angelina.

Canalichio's underworld arrogance, say law enforcement sources, was captured in that conversation. Canalichio, who made thousands dealing cocaine, complaining about a junkie was the height of underworld hypocrisy, they said.


Staino (left) with Uncle Joe Ligambi

Staino will also be hard pressed to overcome tapes in which he was heard extorting an undercover FBI agent while bragging about his position as the chief financial officer and member of the board of directors of the mob.

His lawyer, Gregory Pagano, argued that his background and his decision to plead guilty to the racketeering conspiracy charge should mitigate against the 10 to 11-year sentence the government is seeking. Instead, Pagano argued, Staino should receive a sentence similar to the terms Robreno meted out to mobsters Louis Fazzini (55 months) and Martin Angelina (57 months) who pleaded guilty prior to trial.

"The characteristics of the defendant are unlike any other defendant in this case and unlike most others associated with or connected to organized crime," Pagano wrote in a motion filed earlier this month.

"The defendant grew up in South Jersey," Pagano continued, "and was actively involved in his school and community. He was president of his class all four years in high school [Maple Shade]. He was captain of his football team and went to college for one year. The defendant has an excellent work ethic and work history. In 2010 he started a cleaning business. He and his wife personally cleaned homes to pay their bills. He has always paid his taxes."

Pagano also wrote that Staino had tried to enter a guilty plea prior to the start of the trial, but the government negotiated "in bad faith" and did not offer Staino the same option as others, like Fazzini and Angelina, both of whom have criminal records.

"Inexplicably, the government is asking this court to impose a harsher sentence on the defendant because he is a first-time offender," Pagano added.

http://www.bigtrial.net/2013/07/canalichio-staino-battle-for-lighter.html#Ufj7HhBXOphtHkdL.99

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An old timer laments Massino's release and RICO ending the mob life

An old timer laments Massino's release and RICO ending the mob life

  July 14, 2013    Dapper_Don

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“We got one guy who sends pictures in his Speedo bloomers leading the pack for mayor, yeah?” he says. “And a guy no different from the dirty old men sneakin’ outta the local massage parlors is ahead in the polls for controller, yeah? Maybe Massino becomes police commissioner because he knows from crime. Don’t laugh. It’s all over.”

He says it’s all over.
The old-time street guy thumped his cane in the Dunkin’ Donuts on 18th Ave. in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, reading a story in his morning Daily News about how mob boss-turned-rat Joseph Massino had two life sentences for eight murders commuted by a federal judge.
He says this storefront was once called Caffe Mille Luci, built with a half-million dollars worth of imported Italian marble and granite, where local knockaround guys elevated hairy pinkies glittering with diamond rings as they ate cannoli and sipped double espressos and compared parole officers.
Today, the chain store franchise serves Munchkins and coffee to an evolving city of yuppies, hipsters and a brilliant rainbow of new immigrants.

He jabs a wrinkled finger into the headline “Mafia rat flees trap.” All about ex-Bonanno crime boss Massino going into the witness program as a free man after ratting out dozens of fellow wiseguys.
“This here changed it all,” says the old street guy. “It’s all over. In 20, 30 years, our grandkids will be reading about ‘the life’ we knew around here the way we grew up readin’ about Billy the Kid and Jesse James. They’ll look at reruns of ‘The Sopranos’ the way we watched ‘Gunsmoke.’ They’ll say, ‘Did this stuff really happen in the old days or is it just Hollywood fantasy?’ ”
He waves his cane across 18th Ave. and says it all started to change when the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law was used as a mob-fighting weapon in the 1980s.
“It turned the town into one long perp walk,” he says. “Everyone spent whatever they had stashed on legal fees. Restaurants and upscale cafes like this died. Social clubs closed because, with modern technology, you couldn’t even whisper without a federal lipreader nailing you on secret cameras.”

The RICO law also turned simple three-year bookmaking pinches into life-sentence conspiracy raps. The traditional code of silence known as omerta morphed into a competition to squeal the best song of betrayal from the witness stand to stay out of prison.
“Italians started to flee the neighborhood and the city,” he says. “New immigrants flooded Brooklyn. Russians landed in Bensonhurst like 18th Ave. was an Aeroflot airstrip. At the local subway stations, you used to have your Italian shoeshine guy, your Italian newsstand, your Italian car service. Today it’s a Pakistani selling cotton candy from a 10-foot pole, an Asian lady selling DVDs, Mexican day laborers lined up at the parking meters, Russians running the ambulette business and a guy with a turban pulling up in the car service. The Italians are mostly gone — Staten Island, Jersey, Florida.”
Some were sentenced under RICO to federal pens.
The street guy gazes down 18th Ave., pointing out once-upon-a-time Italian fish and fruit stores now run by Asians.

“The pizza joints are falafel stands now,” he says. “Your Starbucks, that’s an international classroom where college students with Harold Lloyd glasses glom a chair at breakfast and sit at a computer over one coffee for nine hours. And this right here gotta be the most expensive Dunkin’ Donuts on the planet, marble like the Sistine Chapel, serving something called a Dunkaccino. Imagine this? Over. All over.”
He jabs his finger into the Massino story.
“Meanwhile, Massino the rat cakewalks from two life sentences, and Spitzer, the sheriff of Wall Street who banged hookers two at a time like Fredo in ‘The Godfather,’ runs to keep the city’s books,” he says, shaking bunched fingers. “This here while neighborhood street guys who fought in the Second World War, Korea, Vietnam can’t vote because they’re convicted bookmakers? O-ver.”
He ranted on, sipping his bland franchise store coffee in a once high-end cafe.
“And Massino rides off into the sunset with Tonto and the Lone Ranger to collect Social Security for a lifetime of fugazy no-show jobs involving government contracts,” he says. “And he collects rent from properties he bought with dirty mobbed-up money? This is American justice?”
The old street guy finished his coffee with a sour grimace and limped out into what was left of the Brooklyn he grew up in.
“We got one guy who sends pictures in his Speedo bloomers leading the pack for mayor, yeah?” he says. “And a guy no different from the dirty old men sneakin’ outta the local massage parlors is ahead in the polls for controller, yeah? Maybe Massino becomes police commissioner because he knows from crime. Don’t laugh. It’s all over.”

 http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/massino-prison-release-shows-shows-old-time-street-guy-rico-ended-life-article-1.1398122#ixzz2YzN7Swxi

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South Jersey mob associate gets 8 years for racketeering

South Jersey mob associate gets 8 years for racketeering

  July 13, 2013    Dapper_Don

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A South Jersey man convicted of racketeering with members of the Philadelphia mob was sentenced Friday to eight years in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno also ordered Gary Battaglini, 52, of Sewell, to pay a $1,000 fine. An alleged mob associate, Battaglini helped run bookmaking and loan-sharking operations, prosecutors said. He was one of four defendants convicted of racketeering or other crimes in February in the latest Philadelphia mob trial. On Thursday, Robreno ordered reputed underboss Joseph “Mousie” Massimino to serve 188 months in prison. Two more defendants, reputed captain Anthony Staino and alleged soldier Damon Canalichio, are scheduled to learn their fates next week. Joseph “Uncle Joe” Ligambi, described as the mob boss, and his nephew, George Borgesi, an alleged mob captain, await an October retrial after jurors deadlocked on the key conspiracy charge against them.

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/crime_and_punishment/Mob-associate-gets-8-years-for-racketeering.html#RgQ75ubUhujtO02c.99

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