Showing posts with label Frank Cali. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frank Cali. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 21, 2023
Judge releases two Gambino mobsters on bail for Thanksgiving holiday
A US federal judge will release two men accused of being part of the Gambino crime family ahead of Thanksgiving because the 'younger generation of mafiosos aren't killing anyone'.
Diego Tantillo, 48, and Angelo Gradilone, 57, appeared in Brooklyn Federal Court on Tuesday dressed in khaki prison clothing for their bail appeal.
The two men were arraigned on racketeering charges on November 8 and were denied bond over fears they could flee the country, threaten witnesses and use facilities of the crime syndicate to help with intimidation.
But Judge Frederic Block said he would release Tantillo, from Freehold, New Jersey, and Gradilone, from Staten Island, on Wednesday, in time for the Thanksgiving holiday.
He did not agree they posed a flight risk and said this generation of mafia members are not as violent as those in the past.
Tantillo and Gradilone were among 10 alleged mafia operatives arrested earlier this month, in a coordinated US-Italian operation. Six suspected mafia members were arrested in Italy.
At the time of their arrest, Breon Peace, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said they were ruthless and violent.
'As alleged, for years, the defendants committed violent extortions, assaults, arson, witness retaliation and other crimes in an attempt to dominate the New York carting and demolition industries,' said Peace.
'Today's arrests reflect the commitment of this Office and our law enforcement partners, both here and abroad, to keep our communities safe by the complete dismantling of organized crime.'
Yet on Tuesday, Judge Block questioned prosecutor Andrew Roddin on why Tantillo and Gradilone should not be released on bail like the five other men accused of being part of the Gambino crime family.
'This thing doesn't ring a bell with me,' he said. 'Posing significant conditions, they are not going anywhere.
'I don't see a risk of flight certainly that can't be cured by bail conditions.' He pointed to the fact that those accused of murder are sometimes granted bail.
'In the past we have let murderers go with bail,' Judge Block said. 'In this case there were no murders. The younger generation of mafiosos aren't killing anyone.'
Roddin, the prosecutor, argued that they should be kept in jail. 'I think the violence is to consider and the nature of the charges,' he said.
'It is a serious culmination of criminal history and a possession of weapons. 'There are numerous violent extortion attempts included in the indictment.'
But the judge said: 'Even if you have a very heavy case, it doesn't mean it's lights out.'
Gradilone's defense attorney Michael Schneider said: 'What this boils down to is when the government throws mafia around that's the end of the argument.
'We're not here to provide trial arguments. We haven't been handed discovery.' Judge Block questioned the prosecution as to why stringent bail conditions were not enough.
'What do you want to do - short of shoot them?' he asked. 'I am not giving them gold stars but they are presumed to be at liberty.
'They're going to be a lot of things, a couple of million dollars at risk.' The judge ruled that he would release the pair on bail in time for Thanksgiving.
'I will let them out but I have to make sure we have stringent bail conditions,' said Block.
'We all have human aspects. I am very direct and I don't see any risk of flight and a proper bail package can ease concern about wealth.'
Tantillo's defense attorney Andrew Weinstein asked for bail to be set at $1 million for the defendants.
The defense attorneys and prosecution are set to agree on a list of bail conditions on Wednesday, before Tantillo and Gradilone are released.
Tantillo and Gradilone's families were both in court for the appeal and remained calm when the judge said he would release them ahead of Thanksgiving.
They gathered outside the courtroom and celebrated the ruling with hugs and warm embraces.
The Gambino men, from Manhattan, Staten Island, the Bronx, New Jersey, and Long Island, have allegedly been wreaking havoc in New York for the past 27 years.
The infamous Italian-American crime syndicate made up one of the 'Five Families' known for their racketeering, gambling and loansharking. The 10 defendants now variously face maximum sentences between 20 and 180 years' imprisonment.
Among the defendants charged on November 8 were alleged US-based Sicilian Mafia members Vito Rappa, 46, and Francesco Vicari, 46 - who is known as 'Uncle Ciccio.'
Vincent Minsquero, 36, known as 'Vinny Slick'; Kyle Johnson, 46, known as 'Twin'; and the alleged captain of the Gambino crime ring - 52-year-old Joseph Lanni - were also charged with the slew of federal crimes.
Lanni is known by nicknames 'Joe Brooklyn' and 'Mommino.' The four others were Tantillo, James LaForte, Salvatore DiLorenzo, and Robert Brooke.
James Smith, Assistant Director-in-Charge of the FBI, said on November 8 as the arrests were announced: 'These defendants learned the hard way that the FBI is united with our law enforcement locally and internationally in our efforts to eradicate the insidious organized crime threat.
'Those arrested are alleged to have taken part in a racketeering conspiracy in an attempt to control the carting and demolition industries in the city.
'The FBI will continue to lead the fight against organized crime and ensure that individuals willing to cross the line face punishment in the criminal justice system.'
NYPD Commissioner Edward A. Caban also vowed to take down members of any organized crime group, wherever they operate.
He said: 'Today's arrests should serve as a warning to others who believe they can operate in plain sight with apparent impunity – the NYPD and our law enforcement partners exist to shatter that notion.
'And we will continue to take down members of traditional organized crime wherever they may operate.'
According to the federal indictment, Tantillo, Rappa, Vicari and Johnson 'engaged in a violent extortion conspiracy relating to the demand and receipt of money from John Doe 1, who operated a carting business in the New York City area.'
John Doe 1 was threatened 'with a bat, setting fire to the steps to John Doe 1's residence, attempting to damage John Doe 1's carting trucks, and violently assaulting an associate of John Doe 1.'
Images included in the document show the metal bat discovered during a police raid - and the stoop of the victim's home up in flames on September 22, 2020.
One of John Doe 1's business associates was then attacked with a hammer - sending him to the hospital on October 29, 2020. After he was assaulted, Kyle Johnson texted Tantillo three thumbs up emojis for his 'work today.'
The indictment states that Tantillo and Vicari were captured on 'judicially-authorized wiretaps discussing threats they made to John Doe 1 and John Doe 1's father- in-law.'
Rappa stated that Vicari 'acted like the 'Last of the Samurai,' when he picked up a knife and directed John Doe 1's father-in-law to threaten to cut John Doe 1 in half in order to get him to make extortionate payments, according to the documents.
When the victim finally made a payment of $4,000 to Vicari, he and Rappa met and sent Tantillo a photo of Vicari raising a small champagne bottle, cheering in a toast.
The image is included in the indictment pages.
The documents also contain evidence that shows when the men were 'made' into the Gambino family.
One image shows Tantillo being inducted into the family on October 17, 2019, standing with Gradilone.
The unsealed document also claimed that Tantillo, Brooke and Johnson engaged in two separate violent extortion schemes of a demolition company and its owners, known as John Does 2–4.
Their motivation was over purported debts owed to Tantillo, and to a company operated by Tantillo and Brooke, called Specialized Concrete Cutting Corp. They demanded $40,000 from the owners - who did not cough up.
In response, Brooke then violently attacked John Doe 2 on a street corner in Midtown Manhattan, leaving him bloodied with a black eye, the document alleges.
Alongside these charges, some of the men are also accused of thieving and embezzling employee benefit plans, including health insurance and pay checks, when they did little or no work for the companies.
Tantillo is accused of obtaining no-show and low-show jobs for Rappa, Gradilone and Johnson. The document alleges: 'Through the no-show jobs, Gradilone and Rappa received health care benefits, paid for by unions, to which they were not entitled, in addition to receiving paychecks for work they did not perform.'
The alleged mobsters also intimidated people they believed 'ratted' on them to police, which resulted in physical altercations inside swanky New York City restaurants.
In a dramatic scene from February 2021 described in the indictment, LaForte and Minsquero assaulted John Doe 6 while Gambino captain Joseph Lanni sat nearby.
That evening, John Doe 6, his girlfriend, and their friends went to Asian restaurant Sei Less, on West 38th Street in Manhattan, where specialty cocktails cost $20.
As the group was waiting to pay their bill, LaForte and Minsquero approached their table, called John Doe 6 a 'rat,' and hit him in the face with a bottle - before flipping their table over.
Drinks were sent flying and glass was shattered everywhere, witnesses said.
In another incident on September 1, 2023, Lanni and Minsquero caused a disturbance at Roxy's Bar and Grille, a restaurant in Toms River, New Jersey.
The duo got into an argument with another patron that led the restaurant's staff to ask them to leave - and as they were escorted out, Minsquero damaged a painting and punched a wall, and Lanni told the owner he would 'burn this place down with you in it.'
Less than 20 minutes later, video footage from a gas station across the street showed Lanni and Minsquero purchasing a red gas container, walking to a pump, and trying briefly to fill the container with gas.
Lanni was eventually dissuaded by Minsquero and a gas station attendant.
Police were called to the restaurant, but four hours after the scene, the owner and his wife went to get in their car to go home for the night, around midnight.
The owner got into the driver's seat of a car, while his spouse stood outside the vehicle talking with the owner through the open driver's side window.
As they were chatting, a man got into the front passenger door of the car, punched the owner in the head, put a knife to his neck, and threatened to kill him.
The spouse ran to help, but was punched and knocked to the ground by a second man.
Both perpetrators then beat the spouse while she was on the ground. The man with the knife slashed the owner's tires wand pointed the knife at the spouse, before leaving on foot, the documents allege.
The family, led by Salvatore D'Aquila in the early 1900s, made millions of dollars by carrying out extortion, money laundering and fraud.
Frank Cali was the last known leader of the group, and was killed in 2019. It remains unclear who leads the syndicate at this time.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12777143/Gambino-family-associates-Thanksgiving-racketeering-bail.html
Wednesday, September 21, 2022
Newly released FBI files reveal Frank Cali's rise from Soldier to Boss of the Gambino family
A trove of long-hidden FBI files shed light on how slain Gambino boss Frank “Franky Boy” Cali ascended from a family soldier in the 1990s to head of the powerful crime syndicate until his shocking killing in 2019.
The heavily redacted files, obtained by The Post through a Freedom of Information Act request, offer to date perhaps the most revealing look into Cali’s rise to power — as the mafia kingpin was known as a “ghost” who kept an extremely low profile to avoid federal prosecution.
Cali — who was gunned down outside his Staten Island mansion at 53 — was arrested just once in a 2008 extortion conspiracy, despite years of being eyed by the FBI and surveilled by agents in Brooklyn, a testament to his ability to stay off the radar.
After he was shot dead by an apparent QAnon devotee in the Todt Hill neighborhood, one law enforcement official told the New York Times that Cali was the polar opposite of flashy Gambino boss, John “Dapper Don” Gotti.
“He’s basically a ghost,” the official said.
But according to the FBI files, Cali fell on the bureau’s radar
in the spring of 1996, when he was about 30 years old, for helping to
skipper a phone card fraud scheme for the Gambinos from a Park Avenue
office building.
By November of that year, FBI agents in New York believed several Gambinos were involved in the “production and distribution of telephone travel cards” — and that they committed a number of federal crimes as part of the scheme, including money laundering, income tax violation, mail fraud and wire fraud.
“It goes without saying that the telephone card industry is one of the most important sources of illegal income for the Gambino LCN Family,” one FBI official wrote.
At the time, Cali was listed in the FBI file as a “proposed soldier” for the Gambino family — and the feds believed he had not yet been “made,” or taken a blood oath of loyalty to the syndicate he would later lead.
In October 1997, FBI special agents in New York contacted the bureau’s Atlanta field office to appraise them of an apparent $94 million phone card “bust-out scheme” led by the Gambinos that targeted Georgia-based Worldcom.
“The method was to sell as many phone cards as possible on the street by charging the best price per country and offering the best discount to the distributors,” one of the FBI reports states. “[Redacted] paid Worldcom only a small percentage of his outstanding balance throughout the ten-month scheme.”
It adds: “Gambino members such as [redacted] Frank Cali and others lined their pockets with millions in cash from the aforementioned scheme.”
Cali, along with Gambino members John D’Amico and Joseph Watts, allegedly created a company called CNC to distribute the phone cards, flooding the market with the cards that would later be billed by Worldcom.
“Due to the flood of cards, the debt owed to Worldcom grew exponentially. In the beginning, CNC paid their debt and was considered trustworthy by Worldcom. However, CNC did not continue to pay their debt,” a March 7, 1997, FBI document states.
Around that time, the feds appeared to take an increased interest in Cali, according to the documents.
They began tailing him in Brooklyn, photographing him with associates on 18th Avenue in Bensonhurst, and interviewing confidential sources about the Gambino soldier.
In one October 1997 report, an FBI agent recorded doing a “spot check” on a location on 18th Avenue between 72nd and 75th Streets in Bensonhurst, according to the files. The agent recorded an unidentified mark walking with Cali before entering the “Point After Sports Bar and Grill.”
In July of that year, an agent drew up a report titled, “Surveillance of Frank Cali on 18th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY,” which included photographs of Cali and several other people as they visited Tony’s Luncheonette in the neighborhood.
The FBI also listed him as a “recently made member in the Gambino Family” in a March 1997 communication.
A federal grand jury related to Cali was convened in 1998 in the Eastern District of New York, but charges against him were never brought, the documents show.
Federal charges for a phone card scam were later filed against John Gotti Jr., the reputed leader of the Gambino family at the time, but later dropped by prosecutors.
“I was a victim. I lost a lot of money on that deal,” Junior told The Post at the time.
After his one arrest in 2008, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn highlighted Cali’s involvement in the phone card scheme in arguing he be locked up pending trial.
At a detention hearing, prosecutor Joey Lipton told the judge Cali — who had risen to the rank of captain at the time — had been a successful criminal because of his ability to hide from the spotlight.
“Cali, like other members of the family, has sworn a blood oath to the organization to commit criminal activity,” Lipton said. “Cali has been successful in fulfilling that oath, in large part because he’s been careful.”
Lipton also alleged Cali had significant ties to mafia members in
Italy, telling the judge that a number of people in his crew at the time
had been born in the old country.
Lipton said investigators recorded two Italian mafiosos speaking about Cali in Palermo.
“He’s everything over there,” one of the Italian made men said to the other, Lipton said at the hearing.
In the 2008 case, Cali pleaded guilty to extortion conspiracy and was sentenced to 16 months in prison.
After his release, he continued his meteoric rise in the family, reportedly rising to the boss in 2015 after the acting don Domenico Cefalu stepped down.
Cali’s hidden image exploded into international headlines when he was shot and killed outside of his home in March 2019.
The alleged gunman, Anthony Comello, an apparent QAnon conspiracy theorist,
lured Cali outside of his home in Todt Hill on March 13, 2019 by
crashing into the mobster’s parked car, police said at the time.
After a brief conversation between the two, Comello allegedly shot Cali multiple times in the chest, fatally wounding him.
After
a number of bizarre court appearances – including one where he scrawled
the letter “Q” on his hand – Comello was deemed mentally unfit to stand
trial in 2020.
A spokesperson for the Staten Island District
Attorney’s office said in an email Wednesday that they could not provide
any information about the case.
https://nypost.com/2022/09/21/fbi-files-reveal-slain-gambino-boss-frank-calis-rise-to-power/
Saturday, January 16, 2021
Nearly a dozen Gambino family members and associates plead guilty to numerous crimes
A slew of admitted mobsters will now be trading their tony Westchester County digs for the bing.
A Gambino captain and 10 members and associates of the organized crime family pleaded guilty to a laundry list of crimes in Brooklyn federal court this week.
The defendants – seven of whom live in suburbs north of the Bronx – copped to charges ranging from racketeering conspiracy, fraud, obstruction of justice, tax evasion and offenses related to organized criminal activities throughout the area, prosecutors said.
Andrew Campos, a purported Gambino captain, and soldier Vincent Fiore plead guilty Friday to racketeering conspiracy, participation in predicate acts of wire fraud, money laundering and obstruction of justice offenses.
Campos and members of his crew skimmed millions of dollars off the top of their carpentry company, CWC Contracting Corp, by paying employees in cash and avoiding payroll tax withholdings and payments, feds say.
The mobsters then laundered money by cutting checks from CWC for non-existing construction contracts, when in fact the money was spent on building Campos’ Scarsdale home, according to court documents.
CWC also shelled out hundreds of thousands of dollars of payoffs in the form of free labor and materials on real estate honcho John “Smiley” Simonlacaj’s Scarsdale home.
Mark “Skippy” Kocaj, of Tuckahoe executed the scheme by fraudulently billing another company for the work, feds say.
Benito “Benny” Dizenzo of New Rochelle and Fiore concocted a second fraudulent billing scheme to work on an employee of another real estate development company’s gym, while submitting false bills.
Richard Martino and Frank “Bones” Tarul, a Gambino associate, plead guilty to hiding Martino’s income to avoid paying users of adult entertainment services that he was convicted of defrauding in 2005.
The wise guys reported that Martino worked for Tarul’s flooring company when in reality he operated multi-million dollar companies, prosecutors say.
Earlier this week, James Ciaccia and George Campos, Gambino family soldiers, and Renato Barca, Jr. and Michael Tarul, Gambino family associates, plead guilty for their role in fraudulently obtaining safety cards from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration
“With these guilty pleas, a dozen members and associates of the Gambino crime family are held accountable for committing a litany of crimes in the construction industry that enriched the Mafia at the expense of the American taxpayer, construction companies harmed by their pernicious presence and the U.S. government,” stated Acting United States Attorney Seth DuCharme.
Campos, Cobos, DiZenzo, Fiore, Kocaj, Martino and Frank Tarul each face 20 years in prison.
Barca, George Campos, Ciaccia and Michael Tarul each face up to 5 years in prison. Simonlacaj faces up to 3 years in prison
A December 2019 round up of 13 Gambino members led feds to declare the family is “thriving” following the murder of family boss Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali earlier that year.
https://nypost.com/2021/01/15/11-gambino-family-associates-plead-guilty-to-crimes/
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
FBI raids Staten Island home of self proclaimed boss of the Genovese family
The FBI is investigating a gun-toting, self-proclaimed Genovese mob “boss” who has drugged two girlfriends since 2018, court papers claim.
A search warrant for the Staten Island home of Stephen “Stevie Westside” Blanco quietly unsealed in Brooklyn Federal Court details the feds’ ongoing investigation for illegal gun possession, gambling and interstate stalking. The probe began in June when one of Blanco’s exes walked into an NYPD precinct on the island’s south shore.
“Blanco often carried a firearm and large amounts of cash. Blanco told her, on more than one occasion, that he was a member of organized crime,” FBI Special Agent Joseph Costello wrote in a July 23 document in federal court explaining the investigation.
Blanco “frequently boasted...about being a member and ’boss’ in the Genovese organized crime family of La Cosa Nostra,” the agent wrote. Blanco allegedly told the woman, who was not identified in papers, that he was inducted into the family around the same time as Frank Cali, the reputed head of the Gambino crime family who was gunned down in front of his family home last year.
Notably, the FBI agent does not write that he believes Blanco is actually a mobster.
Reached by phone, Blanco said the feds had the wrong guy and did not search his home. He said he has a pistol permit and no criminal record. “I have a fiancee. I have no idea what all this is,” Blanco said.
His former flame told cops Blanco kept a gun hidden behind a bidet in the second floor of his Ashland Ave. home and a second handgun in a Louis Vuitton handbag stashed in the trunk of his car.
The woman rekindled a romance with Blanco from 2018 to March 2019 and tagged along with him while he collected debts for a Costa Rica-based gambling operation, she said. The relationship took a darker turn when Blanco persuaded her to keep $20,900 in cash at his house, she said. Blanco later told her he gave the money to a neighbor for a piece of property and that she’d agreed to the deal the prior evening, according to the filing. The woman believed Blanco drugged her.
“You know who I am... you’re not going to f--k me, right?” Blanco allegedly told the woman in June 2020 as he returned some of her belongings.
A neighbor of Blanco’s who declined to be named said the FBI and NYPD blocked her driveway while searching his home about a month ago.
“I wish them well. Hopefully everything is okay. We just want to live in peace. That’s what everyone wants. With all the crap that’s going on now, he’s the least of our problems. This city has gone nuts. We need to support the cops. It’s getting ridiculous. You can’t let the criminals rule the streets,” the neighbor said.
Another of Blanco’s ex-girlfriends told authorities she had an abusive relationship with him between 2017 and 2018, according to the FBI agent.
“Woman-2 believed BLANCO frequently drugged her by serving her drinks mixed with Xanax,” the agent wrote.
That relationship ended in November 2018 after Blanco allegedly texted her an audio clip of him raping her while she was under the influence, according to the filing.
The NYPD confirmed a 57-year-old woman had filed a harassment complaint against Blanco at that time, but no arrest was made.
Papers indicate Blanco was convicted in 1999 of conspiracy to defraud the United States.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-genovese-staten-raid-20200905-isuqj655ejcm7doloihtcdkure-story.html
Friday, June 5, 2020
Killer of Gambino mobster deemed unfit to stand trial
Alleged mob-boss killer Anthony Comello has been deemed mentally unfit for trial.
Prosecutors
and the defense confirmed the recent findings during a remote
conference on Wednesday in state Supreme Court, St. George.
In
general, a determination of mental incompetence means the defendant
can’t aid in his defense and doesn’t understand the charges against him.
Justice
William E. Garnett ordered Comello, 25, transferred to a state Office
of Mental Health facility for further evaluation, said Mario Romano,
Comello’s new lawyer.
A court update is scheduled for July 13. A trial date has not been set.
Romano declined further comment.
In
past cases, sources have said it is not unusual for defendants
initially deemed unfit to be able to participate in the case after
further evaluation.
Prosecutors allege Comello, 25, fatally shot Gambino crime family boss Francesco "Franky Boy" Cali, 53, outside Cali’s Hilltop Terrace home on March 13, 2019.
The Eltingville resident is charged with murder and criminal weapon possession.
Authorities have not publicly commented on a possible motive.
In
court papers, Robert Gottlieb, Comello’s former lawyer, contends the
defendant was deluded by conspiracy theories and was defending himself
when he shot the victim.
Comello drove to Cali’s house to affect a citizen’s arrest on the mob boss, maintains the defense’s court filings.
Comello
believed Cali “held a significant status in a worldwide criminal cabal
bent on the destruction of American values and the American way of
life,” a defense motion contends.
That alleged criminal conspiracy group is commonly referred to as the “Deep State.”
According to the motion, Comello planned to handcuff Cali and deliver him to the military.
The
two men began arguing, and Comello “shot Cali in self-defense” when the
victim made a “furtive action” with his hand, allege the defendant’s
court filings.
In a videotaped interview with a detective after his arrest, Comello gave conflicting and sometimes bizarre accounts of the shooting during the course of the three-and-a-half-hour interrogation.
In fact, at the end of the February court conference, he launched into a strange, rambling 20-second monologue in which he said his phone had contained information on human sex trafficking and drug smuggling.
Then,
in quick succession, Comello referenced Australia, Russia and Ukraine,
as well as “Operation Mockingbird,” without further details.
The
latter is an alleged large-scale CIA program dating to the 1950s which
attempted to manipulate the news media for propaganda purposes.
https://www.silive.com/news/2020/06/alleged-mob-boss-killer-found-mentally-unfit-to-stand-trial.html
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
Killer of Gambino boss has court case adjourned until June
The pretrial conference for alleged mob-boss killer Anthony Comello has been pushed back six weeks.
The conference was originally scheduled for next Monday in state Supreme Court, St. George.
However,
since mid-March, efforts to stop the spread of the coronavirus
(COVID-19) disease have severely curtailed court operations in cases
considered non-essential. There have been no new jury trials.
The conference is now scheduled for June 1, online state court records show.
At Comello’s last court conference on Feb. 7, Justice William E. Garnett said he anticipated holding a final status conference on April 20 and possibly setting a trial date.
Defense
lawyer Robert Gottlieb had said then he has four other trials scheduled
in the coming months in various jurisdictions that may occupy him
through June.
In
view of coronavirus restrictions at both state and federal courthouses,
it is unclear how many, if any, of those cases have gone to trial or
been otherwise resolved.
Prosecutors
allege Comello, 25, fatally shot Gambino crime family boss Francesco "Franky Boy" Cali, 53, outside Cali’s Dongan Hills home on March 13,
2019.
Comello is charged with murder and criminal weapon possession.
Authorities have not publicly commented on a possible motive.
In court papers, Gottlieb contends Comello was deluded by conspiracy theories and was defending himself when he shot the victim.
In a videotaped interview with a detective after his arrest, Comello gave conflicting and sometimes bizarre accounts of the shooting during the course of the three-and-a-half-hour interrogation.
In
fact, at the end of the February court conference, he launched into a
strange, rambling 20-second monologue in which he said his phone had
contained information on human sex trafficking and drug smuggling.
Then,
in quick succession, Comello referenced Australia, Russia and Ukraine,
as well as “Operation Mockingbird,” without further details.
The
latter is an alleged large-scale CIA program dating to the 1950s which
attempted to manipulate the news media for propaganda purposes.
Meanwhile, the defendant appears to have undercut the viability of a potential insanity defense.
At the February conference, Gottlieb said the Eltingville resident refuses to be examined by prosecutors’ psychiatric expert.
The defendant’s failure to submit to the exam would preclude his own psychiatric experts from testifying at trial.
But, lay witnesses could offer psychiatric testimony.
https://www.silive.com/coronavirus/2020/04/alleged-mob-boss-killers-court-case-adjourned-to-june.html
Sunday, February 23, 2020
Feds drop request to revoke bail of powerful Gambino captain
Officials on Thursday decided to drop a request to revoke the bond of an alleged captain of the Gambino crime family who prosecutors say organized a “clandestine meeting” on Staten Island to investigate the death of boss Francesco "Franky Boy" Cali, court records show.
On
Feb. 10, an FBI agent observed Andrew Campos, 50, of Scarsdale, N.Y,
while taking his daughter to a doctor’s appointment in Connecticut,
“with his head down using a cellular phone" -- something Campos was not
supposed to do as part of his bond conditions, wrote Richard P.
Donoghue, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, in a
memo asking a federal judge to revoke the bond.
Three
days later Donoghue notified federal Judge Rachel Kovner that the
government decided “to withdraw its motion to revoke the defendant
Andrew Campos’s bond pending further investigation.”
The decision was based upon new information, court records show.
“A
person’s liberty should not be the subject of the government’s whim,”
attorney Henry E. Mazurek, who represents Campos, said in a written
statement to the Advance. “The government’s motion to detain Mr. Campos
was a scary overreach that could have put an innocent person in jail for
taking his daughter to a doctor’s visit.”
A
federal judge had granted Campos permission to take his daughter to the
doctor’s appointment in Connecticut, court records indicate.
“Next time rather than moving to revoke bail, they should actually investigate first,” Mazurek said.
Campos
was arrested on Dec. 5, 2019, along with nine other alleged members and
associates of the Gambino family, and was charged with, among other
crimes, racketeering conspiracy, including predicate acts of
extortionate collection of credit, wire fraud and obstruction of
justice.
He
was released on Dec. 23 on a $4.5 million bond, home detention and is
“subject to electronic monitoring of his cellular telephone and other
Internet-enabled devices by Pretrial Services," according to court
records.
Shortly after his arrest, federal prosecutors unsealed a detention memo that alleged Campos
met with multiple other high-level crime family members to discuss the
then-unclear circumstances surrounding Cali’s death, the Advance previously reported.
The detention memo does not detail where exactly on Staten Island the group met.
In
the days following Cali’s death, Campos and Vincent Fiore, 57, an
alleged Gambino soldier, actively helped the Gambino family investigate
the murder, the memo alleged.
The
day after the meeting, on March 18, Fiore talked to his ex-wife about
the session and his investigation, telling her that he and Campos met
with “a half dozen” people, prosecutors wrote in the memo.
Fiore
also told her that he had seen the surveillance video of Cali’s slaying
and speculated on a possible motive “relating to a woman” who had been
at the Hilltop Terrace home on the day of the slaying, the memo says.
Prosecutors do not specifically say who that woman could have been.
Cali, the reputed boss of the Gambino family, was shot in front of his house on March 13, 2019. On March 16, Anthony Comello, 25, of Eltingville, was arrested in connection with the slaying.
Comello has been in custody since and made several inconsistent statements to investigators when he detailed what happened that night in March. Prosecutors have not made any statements linking the slaying to the Mafia.
Last week Comello appeared in court and, during
bizarre and rambling 20-second monologue, said his phone had contained
information on human sex-trafficking and drug smuggling.
Then,
in quick succession, Comello referenced Australia, Russia and Ukraine,
as well as “Operation Mockingbird,” without further details.
https://www.silive.com/crime/2020/02/good-news-for-now-for-alleged-mobster-who-feds-say-probed-calis-murder.html
Sunday, February 9, 2020
Young man accused of killing Gambino family boss rants about conspiracies in court
The Q-Anon conspiracy theorist accused of killing a Mafia kingpin ranted wildly in court on Friday about an alleged CIA program called “Operation Mockingbird” and possessing evidence of global crime syndicates.
Anthony Comello, 25, said during a hearing on Staten Island that he has evidence stored on his phone of worldwide human-trafficking and drug-smuggling rings.
“I just want to say there is a lot on my phone and a lot of data about drug smuggling, human sex trafficking all over the country,” Comello said.
“I have everything from Australia to Ukraine to Italy to … Russia,” he continued.
Comello launched into the bizarre screed after his lawyer, Robert Gottlieb, asked Staten Island Supreme Court Justice William Garnett if his client could speak in court.
“Good luck, Wanda. Operation Mockingbird,” Comello said to Assistant District Attorney Wanda DeOliveira.
Operation Mockingbird was an alleged CIA program that used journalists to spread propaganda.
Comello — who is pursuing an insanity defense — is accused of killing the 53-year-old Francesco “Frank Boy” Cali in a brazen assassination in front of the purported Gambino boss’s house in Todt Hill.
Comello, who once appeared in court with symbols associated with the far-right “Q-Anon” conspiracy inked on his palm, allegedly confessed to the hit on Cali after his arrest.
But Comello’s possible motives for allegedly putting 11 rounds into the Gambino boss have been scattershot.
Following his arrest, law enforcement sources said that Comello allegedly killed Cali because the Mafia don wouldn’t let Comello date his daughter.
But in a court appearance in July, Comello’s lawyer said that his client was rubbing out someone he thought was a “prominent member of the ‘deep state’” — and that he pulled the trigger after failing to pull off a ‘citizen’s arrest.’
Garnett has ordered Comello to be interviewed by a psychiatrist on Monday — but Gottlieb said Comello is declining to comply with the order.
Cali’s death sent shockwaves through La Cosa Nostra — and touched off a brief whodunit for police, who initially suspected that the assassination was part of an intra-Mob struggle between Americans and Sicilians.
Federal agents allegedly picked up chatter on wiretaps put up on a few Gambino soldiers as part of a separate criminal investigation into the family that the don’s death could allow them to move up in the ranks.
In an intercepted conversation between Gambino soldiers Vincent Fiore and James Ciaccia, Fiore said Cali’s death “a good thing” because they both reported to a capo power whose star might rise within the family, court papers say.
Comello is due back in court on April 20.
https://nypost.com/2020/02/07/conspiracist-accused-in-gambino-boss-killing-goes-on-bizarre-courtroom-rant/
Thursday, December 5, 2019
Gambinos held secret meeting on Staten Island days after murder of underboss Frank Cali
Four days after Gambino underboss Francesco "Franky Boy" Cali was killed outside his Hilltop Terrace home, members of the mob family organized a “clandestine meeting” on Staten Island, as they launched their own investigation into the murder, prosecutors say.
Andrew
Campos, 50, who prosecutors identified as a captain in the Gambino
family, and Vincent Fiore, 57, an alleged Gambino soldier, met with
multiple other high-level crime family members to discuss the
then-unclear circumstances surrounding Cali’s death, the U.S. Attorney,
Eastern District of New York, wrote in a detention memo that was
unsealed on Thursday afternoon.
The detention memo does not detail where exactly on Staten Island the group met.
In
the following days, Campos and Fiore, of Scarsdale, N.Y., and
Briarcliff, N.Y., respectively, actively helped the Gambino family
investigate the murder, the memo alleges.
The
day after the meeting, on March 18, Fiore talked to his ex-wife about
the session, telling her that he and Campos met with “a half dozen”
people, prosecutors wrote in the memo.
Fiore
also told her that he had seen the surveillance video of Cali’s slaying
and speculated on a possible motive “relating to a woman” who had been
at the Hilltop Terrace home on the day of the slaying, the memo says.
Prosecutors do not specifically say who that woman could have been.
The
accused Gambino soldier affectionately called Cali “Frankie” and
described him as someone who “was loved," according to the memo.
‘A GOOD THING’
Fiore,
however, had started discussing Cali’s murder the morning after he
died, when he received a call from James Ciaccia, 51, of the Bronx, an
accused Gambino family soldier, according to the memo.
During
the phone call, Fiore said Cali’s death was “a good thing” because
Campos, to whom both Fiore and Ciaccia reported, was likely to gain more
power in the family, prosecutors allege in the memo.
On March 16, Anthony Comello, 25, of Eltingville, was arrested in connection with the slaying.
He has been in jail since then and made several inconsistent statements to investigators when he detailed what happened that night in March.
On Thursday morning, Justice William E. Garnett denied a motion to suppress the statements Comello made to investigators.
MOB BUST
The
details about the Gambino family meeting were revealed after the Eastern
District of New York announced the arrests of 10 alleged members and
associates of the Gambino family on Thursday.
The
defendants are facing charges that span from racketeering conspiracy,
bribery, loansharking, fraud, obstruction of justice and related
offenses.
None of the people arrested are from Staten Island.
“The
outstanding investigative work by this office’s prosecutors and our law
enforcement partners uncovered a litany of crimes allegedly committed
by members and associates of the Gambino organized crime family, who
still don’t get it – handcuffs and a jail cell are waiting for criminals
who threaten violence and commit fraud, money laundering and bribery in
furtherance of their enterprise,” said United States Attorney Richard
P. Donoghue.
The
arrests, conducted in conjunction with the FBI, the NYPD, the IRS and
the Queens County District Attorney’s Office, were based on alleged
crimes that occurred since 2013.
https://www.silive.com/news/2019/12/feds-gambinos-held-clandestine-meeting-on-si-to-investigate-francesco-cali-killing.html
Monday, July 22, 2019
Man who murdered Gambino boss is delusional with conspiracy theories
The man accused of gunning down a Mafia kingpin on Staten Island wasn’t intending to kill a mob boss that day, his lawyer says.
In his eyes, Anthony Comello was taking out “a prominent member of the deep state” — whom he allegedly tried to “arrest” at first.
“He ardently believed that Francesco Cali, a boss in the Gambino crime family, was a prominent member of the deep state, and, accordingly, an appropriate target for a citizen’s arrest,” said Comello’s attorney, Robert C. Gottlieb, in court documents filed Friday.
“Mr. Comello became certain that he was enjoying the protection of President Trump himself, and that he had the president’s full support,” Gottlieb added, according to the New York Times.
The 24-year-old had been convinced that Cali was connected to the infamous QAnon conspiracy, which claims there’s a political “deep state” secretly running the country from within the government, among other things.
“Mr. Comello’s support for ‘QAnon’ went beyond mere participation in a radical political organization,” his lawyer said. “It evolved into a delusional obsession.”
Gottlieb intends to argue in court that Comello’s delusions about the QAnon conspiracy drove him to commit murder — and that they are enough to prove he is not guilty by reason of insanity. He’s seeking to have Comello placed in psychiatric care rather than prison.
According to Gottlieb, the young man’s obsession with the “deep state” and other QAnon conspiracies — like the belief that certain Democratic politicians are secretly pedophiles — led to him making multiple “arrest” attempts earlier this year.
In February, Comello allegedly tried to take Mayor Bill de Blasio into custody on two separate occasions, one of which involved him showing up at Gracie Mansion.
He then attempted to place two California Democrats under arrest — Reps. Maxine Waters and Adam Schiff — and even tried getting the US Marshals Service to help. But they reportedly denied his request.
The incidents were later confirmed by law enforcement officials.
Over the years, Comello made “thousands and thousands” of posts, messages and forum comments about the QAnon conspiracies, which Gottlieb plans to use in court as evidence.
“Patriot sleeper cells are awake,” he wrote on one occasion.
Gottlieb said Comello believed that Cali, a member of the Gambino crime family, had been connected to the deep state after seeing a post online that suggested Mafia figures were also part of the conspiracy.
He is accused of killing the mob boss on March 13 outside his Todt Hill home. The slaying was believed to be “premeditated” — with prosecutors charging Comello with second-degree murder.
“The defendant fired 12 bullets, striking him 11 times,” said Staten Island Assistant District Attorney Carrie Low at Comello’s bail hearing. “He drove by the victim’s house several times hours before the attack.”
During his first court appearance in March, Comello showed up with his palm covered in drawings of symbols and phrases tied to QAnon. Low described him at the time as a member of the “far-right organization.”
“He believes that only their laws are the laws he and the rest of this country should follow,” she said.
Comello is due back in court on Aug. 13.
https://nypost.com/2019/07/22/suspected-mob-boss-killer-thought-victim-was-prominent-member-of-the-deep-state/
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
Joint raids in Italy and USA bust 19 mobsters
New York’s Gambino crime family and its cronies in the Italian Mafia got slammed during a series of coordinated, international police raids that were triggered by a trans-Atlantic WhatsApp message.
Italian authorities on Wednesday announced the arrests of 18 reputed mobsters, some of whom were paraded in handcuffs through the streets of Palermo, Sicily, by state police and FBI agents.
A 19th suspect was also being sought in the US, and law-enforcement officials searched the homes of reputed gangsters on Staten Island and in Philadelphia, an FBI spokeswoman said.
The crackdown capped a joint investigation — dubbed “New Connection” — that the feds and Italian state police conducted into ties between the Gambinos and Sicily’s Inzerillo crime family.
The probe uncovered a “strong bond established between Cosa Nostra Palermo and US organized crime,” according to Italian police.
Law-enforcement officials made their moves simultaneously at 3 a.m. in Italy and 9 p.m. Tuesday in the New York region, based on a message sent via the WhatsApp messaging service, Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper said.
The app is not only free to use, but also allows communications between American and European cellphones that employ different wireless technologies.
The mob roundup “will definitely have effects in New York City and 18th Avenue in Brooklyn,” where the Gambinos maintain their base of operations, a law-enforcement source told The Post.
“The Sicilians have become the power in the Gambino crime family since John Gotti went away,” the source said, referring to the “Dapper Don” who died in prison in 2002.
“They are the money earners and the enforcers in the family.”
Among those busted was Thomas Gambino, 47, who’s suspected of holding a key position in the Gambino family, CBS News reported.
Italian police said Gambino was caught on video while meeting with ranking members of the Inzerillo clan on a speedboat off the coast of Palermo last summer.
The group was allegedly discussing the sale of property formerly owned by then-Gambino boss Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali, according to the BBC.
The Sicilian-born Cali married into the Inzerillo family, which fled Italy following a bloody, early 1980s war with the rival Corleonesi faction, but has been making a comeback since the 2017 death of Sicilian mob boss Salvatore “Toto” Riina, also known as “The Beast.”
Cali, 53, was gunned down outside his Staten Island home in March in a killing allegedly committed by construction worker Anthony Comello, 24.
Cali’s killing hasn’t been tied to his role in the mob, with law-enforcement sources instead saying that Comello — whose lawyer plans to mount an insanity defense — may have been seeking revenge against Cali for ordering his niece not to date Comello.
Others arrested include Salvatore Gambino, the mayor of Toretta, a small town outside Palermo, and Rosario “Sal” Gambino, a former New Jersey resident who was deported to his native Italy following his conviction for heroin trafficking.
https://nypost.com/2019/07/17/italian-cops-and-fbi-agents-bust-19-mafia-suspects-in-joint-raids/
Thursday, May 9, 2019
Killer of Gambino boss knew he was a marked man right after shooting
Anthony Comello knew he was a marked man as soon as he pulled the trigger.
Within
moments after gunning down Gambino crime boss Frank “Franky Boy" Cali
outside his Staten Island home, the unhinged 24-year-old murder suspect
frantically fired off a text, reading “I’m on the run.”
“My family is marked,” he wrote, according to Staten Island prosecutors at a bail hearing for Comello Thursday.
Comello
has been indicted for the execution-style killing of Cali in front of
his victim’s home on March 13. Police sources said that Comello was
outraged that Cali demanded that his niece stop seeing the Staten Island
resident.
Cops arrested Comello three days later at his family’s New Jersey home.
His
attorney, Robert Gottlieb, asked that Comello be released on $1 million
bail at Thursday’s hearing but a judge refused the request, claiming
that he had already showed that he was flight risk by leaving the state
after the murder.
At previous court appearances, Gottlieb expressed fears about the accused killer’s continued safety behind bars.
Mob-style retribution against Comello is expected.
FBI
perp walk Frank Cali Prosecutors claimed that Cali acted as the Gambino
ambassador to the Sicilian mobsters and as a liaison between D'Amico
and the Sicilian connections to the Inzerillo family. Cali was charged
with racketeering, extortion, and conspiracy along with D'Amica and
DiMaria.
“He
must know his life is worth nothing,” one-time Bonanno family associate
Joe Barone told the Daily News in March. “He doesn’t have a chance in
hell. It’s a matter of time. Even if the wiseguys don’t get him, he’ll
get whacked by somebody looking to make a name.”
Comello
is accused of driving his truck to Cali’s Todt Hill home and crashing
the vehicle into the mobster’s parked SUV. When Cali came out to
investigate, Comello opened fire on the unsuspecting mob boss,
prosecutors say.
Sources indicated the suspect’s fingerprint was recovered from a license plate on the victim’s damaged Cadillac Escalade.
Comello
pumped 10 bullets into the doomed boss, officials said. During an
extradition hearing following his arrest in New Jersey, he had inked
“United We Stand” and “MAGA Forever” on the palm of his hand.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-mob-killer-hearing-staten-island-20190509-uh6hoal2rbe5tf3lyjrgdh63cm-story.html
Thursday, April 25, 2019
Accused murderer of Gambino family boss indicted and held without bail
The man accused of gunning down Gambino mob boss Francesco “Frankie
Boy” Cali on Staten Island was indicted for murder and ordered held
without bail at his Wednesday arraignment.
Anthony Comello, 24, was charged with second-degree murder and two
counts of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon at state Supreme
Court in the cold-blooded killing of Cali outside the mobster’s Todt Hill home last month.
Cops said Comello open fire with a 9mm pistol after luring Cali, 53,
outside by backing a pickup truck into the gangster’s Cadillac Escalade
SUV.
Investigators suspect the killing was revenge for Cali ordering his niece not to date Comello, law enforcement sources have said.
Comello pleaded not guilty to the slaying.
The case is due back in court on May 9.
https://nypost.com/2019/04/24/accused-gambino-boss-killer-indicted-for-murder-held-without-bail/
Sunday, April 14, 2019
Feds relocate Rhode Island mobster in wake of shooting
Federal authorities have relocated a made member of the Patriarca crime family in the wake of Sunday's brazen shooting in Pawtucket, the Target 12 Investigators have learned.
Sources say Joseph DeLuca, 79, of North Providence, was moved to an undisclosed location out of an abundance of caution, amid concerns that there would be a flare-up of violence in the underworld.
DeLuca and his younger brother - former mob capo Robert "Bobby" DeLuca - both testified against Francis "Cadillac Frank" Salemme, the former don of the New England crime family, during his trial last year.
Following weeks of testimony at federal court in Boston, Salemme and codefendant Paul Weadick were found guilty of murder this summer and sentenced to life in prison.
Robert DeLuca is currently serving a federal prison sentence, also at an undisclosed location, for lying to FBI agents.
On Sunday, Napoleon Andrade, 37, of Central Falls, was gunned down shortly after leaving a Pawtucket halfway house where he was completing a federal sentence.
As Target 12 previously reported, detectives are looking to see whether Andrade was killed in retribution for a 2010 home invasion during which he tied up an associate of New York's infamous Gambino crime family.
On Wednesday night, the reputed Gambino crime boss Francesco "Franky Boy" Cali was assassinated outside his Staten Island home. But law enforcement sources tell Target 12 they believe the two shootings are unrelated.
In another development, Pawtucket detectives have obtained video surveillance from the day Andrade was murdered.
The video was taken from security cameras attached to St. John the Baptist Church, which is across the street from the halfway house.
The cameras did not capture the shooting, but they did show a car speeding away after the shooting.
Target 12 has learned investigators are trying to determine if the car was involved in the hit.
Another mob capo, Edward “Eddie” Lato, is currently staying at the halfway house as he nears the end of a nine-year prison sentence in a case that he shook down strip clubs for protection money.
There is no indication Lato has been moved.
https://www.wpri.com/target-12/feds-relocate-ri-mobster-after-pawtucket-shooting/1849272552
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
FBI and NYPD look on as slain Gambino family boss is laid to rest
The murdered head of the Gambino crime family was buried on Staten Island on Tuesday after a service attended by a little more than a dozen mourners — all under the watchful eye of authorities armed with high-powered cameras across the street.
Around 9:30 a.m., several cars including black Mercedes and a Chevy Suburban pulled up to the Scarpaci Funeral Home in Tottenville and drove around back for a service for Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali.
A pewter-gray Maserati Quattroporte remained in front of the funeral home as its male driver hopped out and went inside, leaving a woman dressed in black in the car.
Meanwhile, four unmarked black law enforcement cars were parked across the street, each with a male driver armed with a hand-held radio that they used to communicate with each other — and cameras with 500mm lenses about a foot wide.
As the cars drove by, the authorities snapped photos. At least two of them confirmed to The Post they were “law enforcement,” and a source separately said they were both FBI and NYPD.
“That’s just Standard Investigation 101,” the source said of the authorities’ photos. “They want to know who shows up, who the players are, who’s going to possibly take over, who’s active, who‘s not, the pecking order.
“Unfortunately, it’s very limited,” the source added of the scope of the group. “But they have to take what they can get.”
Then at 10:30 a.m. on the dot, cars began racing from the funeral home and headed to the Moravian Cemetery in New Dorp, where Cali was buried.
He was gunned down last Wednesday night outside his home, allegedly by right-wing nut and construction worker Anthony Comello.
https://nypost.com/2019/03/19/slain-mob-boss-frank-cali-laid-to-rest-as-authorities-look-on/
Mafia associates pay $45k cash for burial plot for murdered Gambino boss
It’s a burial spot to die for — and bought in true Mafia style.
Slain Gambino crime family boss Francesco “Franky Boy’’ Cali was laid to rest in a white-pillared, red-marble mausoleum on Staten Island on Tuesday — after his associates “came in with a suitcase on Saturday and paid my boss $45,000 in cash,’’ a gravedigger there told The Post.
“He’s up in the mausoleum, in the middle section,’’ the longtime worker said of Cali’s final resting place at the Moravian Cemetery, pointing to the top of a sprawling hill where the murdered mob chief now occupies a space on the lower level of the two-tiered structure — with a view of the ocean.
About three dozen long-stemmed white roses were scattered in front of Cali’s crypt, which bore a temporary white-tape label that read “FRANCESCO CALI 1965 2019.’’
The worker said that after Cali’s entombment, the small group of people who attended it walked down to the parking area, which is near the cemetery’s chapel and office.
“Some guy from ABC was asking a question in the office. And [a] mob guy said, ‘Get the f–k out of here before I blow your f–king head off,’ ” the worker said, chuckling.
https://nypost.com/2019/03/19/mafia-allegedly-paid-45k-in-cash-for-mob-boss-burial-spot/
Cops let shooter of Gambino boss loose a month before murder
The right-winger accused of killing a Mafia boss landed on the NYPD’s radar last month for erratic behavior — but cops let him walk away without investigating further, police officials acknowledged Tuesday.
On Feb. 21, “There was an incident at the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan where he showed up asking to make a citizen’s arrest of a number of elected officials,” said NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller of Anthony Comello, 24, who is suspected of fatally shooting Gambino crime family chief Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali last week.
“These were rambling statements, but it involved that he wanted to make citizen arrests of Maxine Waters, Congressman Schiff,” Miller said.
Waters and Adam Schiff are both Democratic representatives from California.
Comello also “blamed Nancy Pelosi and all kinds of other people for stealing the election,” the deputy commissioner added.
Pelosi is the Democratic House speaker from California.
“Based on that incident and the language used there, his description and image, police officers who were assigned to Gracie Mansion recognized him as an individual they encountered the following day, Feb. 22, as somebody who showed up asking to make a citizen’s arrest of the mayor,” Miller said.
“They engaged in conversation with him, and while they were waiting for a sector car to show up, he walked off. That was the extent of the contact.”
Less than a month later, Comello gunned down Cali in front of the mafioso’s Staten Island home, possibly in a snit over being barred from dating the mobster’s niece, law enforcement sources have said.
Comello showed up in court Monday covered in scrawls related to President Trump and the conspiracy-theorist QAnon movement.
The suspect’s pals told The Post that in recent months, Comello appeared to become unhinged as he posted anti-Democrat and pro-Trump posts.
https://nypost.com/2019/03/19/erratic-behavior-landed-accused-mob-boss-killer-on-cops-radar/
Shooter of Gambino boss exhibited erractic behavior before alleged murder
The construction worker charged in the murder of Gambino godfather Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali seemed unhinged leading up to the brazen hit, friends told The Post on Tuesday.
Anthony Comello — who showed up for his first court appearance Monday with “MAGA forever” and references to the conservative QAnon movement scrawled on his hand — managed the Instagram account “realamericasvoice_” which is filled with anti-Democrat and pro-President Trump posts, said the pals, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“He had a secret Instagram. He used to post crazy things about politics and Trump and Democrats,” a source said.
The account kicked off in October with a post about Christine Blasey Ford, the sex-harassment accuser of US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
“Horrible how they can try to ruin a man and his family name and it was all fake just to win. I hope you Dems never get power,’’ raged the writer.
Another post was of Trump and Vice President Mike Pence from Jan. 20 with the caption, “This has been the greatest and amazing two years in this great country (THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA) for god, for country, for family @realdonaldtrump @vp you rocked the world. We the people are blessed for your SELFLESS PATH FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. THANK YOU.”
The 24-year-old suspect also used the social media platform in his bizarre bid to boot Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo out of office.
“He was on Instagram live in front of the mayor’s house a few weeks ago demanding de Blasio comes outside because he was under citizen’s arrest,” a source said. “He was reaching out to people to sign a petition to get the governor and mayor out of office.”
The source said Comello had been messaging him lately to sign the petition.
“I thought he was whacked out so I didn’t call him,” the person said. “In high school, he was a good kid. He hung out with the wrong crowd and did pills and smoked weed and got into fights, but now it’s like he’s someone else. It’s strange.”
Police sources said Comello showed up outside City Hall a few months ago in an attempt to make a citizen’s arrest of the mayor.
Investigators believe Comello may have whacked Cali because the Mafia kingpin barred Comello from dating Cali’s niece.
It’s unclear whether Comello knew whom he was dealing with, one of his friends said.
“I’m not sure if he knew who Cali was but I know that it was over a girl, and if you ask me, he wasn’t all in the head,” said the person. “And it’s sad, because of who he killed, it’s a matter of time before he’s found dead in jail.”
Comello is expected to be extradited to New York to face charges following his court appearance in New Jersey.
His lawyer, Robert Gottlieb, didn’t return messages.
https://nypost.com/2019/03/19/suspect-in-murder-of-gambino-mob-boss-unhinged-ran-pro-trump-instagram/
Sunday, March 17, 2019
Suspected shooter claims Gambino boss came at him with gun first
The
Staten Island man accused in the ambush shooting death of a Mafia
family boss said told cops he smoked pot before the killing and tried to
float a self-defense theory, law enforcement sources said.
Anthony Comello, 24, told investigators that Gambino crime family boss Frank Cali came at him with a gun — forcing him to shoot.
Cops
found no weapon on Cali — and are still trying to figure out what drove
Comello to shoot the 53-year-old mob kingpin right outside his Todt
Hill home.
Investigators
are looking into the possibility the killing was by lovesick rage
unrelated to mob business. Cali may have tried to prevent Comello from
dating his niece, police sources said.
Comello was busted Saturday in Brick Township, N.J., about 50 miles from the scene of the crime, where his family owns a house.
Police investigate the scene where Frank Cali was shot in front home in the Todt Hill Section of Staten Island on March 13, 2019.
Police investigate the scene where Frank Cali was shot in front home in the Todt Hill Section of Staten Island on March 13, 2019.
The
suspect is locked up in the Ocean County Jail in New Jersey. He plans
to waive extradition at a hearing Monday, his lawyer, Robert Gottlieb
told the Daily News.
The
night of the shooting, Comello plowed his pickup truck into Cali’s
Cadillac Escalade SUV around 9:15 p.m., while Cali was enjoying a late
dinner with his family.
Cali left the dinner table to investigate. While he was outside, Comello shot at him 10 times.
Cali,
who kept a low profile after taking over as head of the Gambino crime
family in 2015, collapsed behind the rear bumper of his Cadillac
Escalade SUV.
Comello hit the gas on his pickup truck and headed toward the Jersey Shore, police sources said.
Police searching Comello’s Staten Island home found at least one gun, but it wasn’t the murder weapon, sources said.
Despite
the theory about Cali’s niece, NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea
said Saturday that police are still investigating all angles of the
case, including whether he was acting alone, or working with — or for —
someone else.
Staten
Island Judge Charles Troia signed off an arrest warrant that said
Comello will be charged with murder, assault and weapons possession.
Comello’s friends and family are dumbfounded by the crime, said Gottlieb.
“The people who know him best, his family and friends, cannot believe what they are hearing,” the lawyer said. “There is something very wrong here and we will get to the bottom of it.”
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-metro-staten-island-mob-boss-murder-suspect-20190317-story.html
“The people who know him best, his family and friends, cannot believe what they are hearing,” the lawyer said. “There is something very wrong here and we will get to the bottom of it.”
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-metro-staten-island-mob-boss-murder-suspect-20190317-story.html
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