Five Families of New York City

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

Showing posts with label Gino Galestro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gino Galestro. Show all posts

Saturday, October 22, 2011

A brush with the law: Mobster turns to painting while in jail for haunted mansion murder

  October 22, 2011    Dapper_Don

Maggio began painting while serving time in the witness protection section of the prison.
Maggio began painting while serving time in the witness protection section of the prison.
Some of the mob rat's paintings are displayed in a prison waiting room.
Some of the mob rat's paintings are displayed in a prison waiting room. 
 
He's the mobster turned Michelangelo.
A Bonanno turncoat who traded in his brass knuckles for a paint brush and palette was sentenced yesterday to time served for the murder of a mob associate inside a supposedly haunted mansion in Staten Island.
Michael Maggio has served nearly six years in prison for the gangland killing of Robert McKelvey, who was strangled, dismembered and incinerated at the spooky Kreischer Mansion.
While Maggio was providing information to the FBI to dismantle the crew of Bonanno soldier Gino Galestro, he began painting landscapes and portraits in the witness protection section of prison.
Defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo said the paintings are displayed in the waiting room of the prison, and he provided copies of the artwork for Judge Allyne Ross to review in Brooklyn Federal Court.
"I thought, more eloquently than anything I could say, the paintings show there's good in him," Agnifilo said. "A gentleness, a humility more than I could say."
Agnifilo said Maggio sends paintings to his young children regularly, but he has been cut off from contact with them because their mother is Galestro's sister-in-law.
"Do they get the painting or is it thrown in the garbage?" Agnifilo said, adding that Maggio has no way of knowing.
Even Maggio's father - who stabbed his wife to death when the defendant was a boy - refused to even write a letter to the judge because a cousin, Staten Island restaurateur Frank Fresca, was believed to have been rubbed out because Maggio is a rat.
Maggio testified at the trial of Bonanno associate Joseph Young, who carried out McKelvey's killing. A crew of young wanna-bes who chopped up the victim's body and fed the pieces into an old incinerator at the mansion also pleaded guilty.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Dennehy acknowledged Maggio's assistance in what was essentially a missing person case until he stepped forward.
Maggio wept as he told the judge: "I'm sorry for the life I was living. I'm sorry for everything."
Related articles

   / /

  No Comments

Friday, July 8, 2011

Gambino informant never gave up life of crime

  July 08, 2011    Dapper_Don

He was a major mob informant who aided the FBI in rounding up New York wiseguys and helped crack the grisly Staten Island "haunted house" Mafia-murder case.But federal prosecutors say Volkan Mergen, a former Gambino crime-family associate who became a valuable FBI informant, never gave up his life of crime.
It's a classic case of needing a crook to run with the crooks - but Mergen went too far, prosecutors say.
The feds want Brooklyn federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis to slam Mergen with a stiffer prison sentence for dealing drugs, planning a robbery and helping firebomb a house at the same time he was a government rat.
Prosecutors conceded, however, that Mergen's assistance to the FBI was "particularly significant" and pointed out that the former wiseguy "contributed substantially" to successful prosecutions of several Bonanno mobsters for the Staten Island "haunted house" rub-out.
Mergen secretly recorded a conversation with another mobster about the gruesome March 2005 murder of Bonanno associate Robert McKelvey, the feds say.
Several mobsters took part in the hit at the old Kreischer Mansion, a turreted 19th Century residence built by an industrialist in the Charleston section.
It was there that McKelvey was stabbed, ran away from his attackers, was tackled and stabbed again repeatedly, and then forcibly drowned in a pond. His body was later dismembered, officials say.
Mergen - an ex-con who was known as "The Turk" - began his work for the FBI in 2001, first passing on information about the inner workings of the Gambinos.
Then in 2005, he began associating with a Staten Island-based crew of the Bonanno crime family.
The feds say Mergen eventually made some 275 secret recordings while wearing a concealed "wire," delivering hard evidence about crimes committed by the mob family.
He focused his efforts on a crew lead by Bonanno crime family associate Michael Maggio, who reported to Gino Galestro, a soldier.
But Mergen was also committing extracurricular crimes at the same time he was a rat - something not permitted under federal rules that reward informants for helping catch criminals as long as they keep their own noses clean.
While he was running with the Bonanno crew, Mergen and another wiseguy sold cocaine and marijuana to street dealers, took part in a mob plot to rob the owner of a check cashing firm and played a role in the mob-linked propane tank and gas canister firebombing of a house on Staten Island, according to Assistant US Attorneys Evan Norris and Jack Dennehy.
Mergen was scheduled to have been sentenced on those racketeering convictions today, but the judge postponed the proceeding after Mergen announced at the hearing that he was surprised he could receive a sentence of more than five years in prison.
Garaufis explained to Mergen that he actually was facing a sentence ranging from 30 years to life in prison - a reality the former mobster was informed of at his trial last year.
The judge then adjourned the proceeding so the former mobster could consult with his new attorney and review the case records.
Mergen's former defense attorney, Martin J. Siegel, declined to comment.
Related articles

   / /

  No Comments

Friday, September 11, 2009

Bonanno Bosses dissed recently sentenced Soldier

  September 11, 2009    Dapper_Don

Gino Galestro, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison earlier in the week for orchestrating the murder of Robert McKelvey in early 2005 on Staten Island, was dumped on by former boss Joseph Massino and Vincent Basciano, court records show. Galestro, a reputed Bonanno member, was convicted for his role in the murder and despite pleas for leniency got his with a 240 month term by Brooklyn federal judge Allyne Ross. Readers of "King of The Godfathers" know that Massino taped some conversations he had with Basciano and in one of them both mobsters belittled Galestro's life as a mob guy.

"I got new for you, you know, Gino's not supposed to be in this life either though, Bo," Basciano said to Massino, according to a transcript of the recording. "You happen to be very right," answered Massino. When Massino rhetorically asked what he should do now, Basciano said "you shelf him," meaning make Galestro inactive. "Throw him out of the family...He never did nothin'. He doesn't know any, you throw him out of the family," said Massino, court records show.

McKelvey was killed at a famous mansion on Staten Island.

   / / /

  No Comments

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Bonanno soldier sentenced to 20 years in prison

  September 08, 2009    Dapper_Don



A Bonanno soldier who authorized a grisly mob hit at a “haunted” house on Staten Island was sentenced to 20 years behind bars for racketeering today.
Brooklyn Federal Judge Allyne Ross rejected Gino Galestro’s pleas for leniency after the victim’s sister told a courtroom packed with the wiseguy's supporters that her brother was a “stupid kid” who didn’t deserve to die.
Galestro, 41, who pleaded guilty to racketeering last year, was free on bail in a separate mob case when he gave the green light for his crew to kill mob underling Robert McKelvey, 39, in March 2005.

Robert McKelvey was killed inside the Kreischer Mansion.
“He got a slap. He had a chance,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Winston Chan, noting that Galestro got a 1½-year sentence in the earlier case. “He decided to commit the worst crime he could possibly do, to become involved in a murder.”
Members of Galestro’s crew lured McKelvey to the notoriously creepy Kreischer Mansion when they learned he'd been boasting about his mob crimes. They stabbed and drowned him before dismembering his body and burning it in a furnace.
“Why, Mr. Galestro? It shouldn’t be. It doesn’t make any sense. He was a stupid kid,” McKelvey’s sister Donna Holtermann said during the sentencing. “My brother thought they were so cool. He wanted to be their friend.”
Galestro, a father of a three-year-old girl and who has worked as a delivery truck driver for the Post and the Daily News, wept as he begged for leniency in front of dozens of his relatives, friends and colleagues.
“I know I have caused more grief than anyone should bear,” Galestro said, after his lawyer Joel Rudin unsuccessfully argued for a sentence of 10 to 15 years behind bars. “I apologize to the family of Robert McKelvey, my family and the court.”
Galestro’s mother wailed uncontrollably as Ross imposed the 20-year sentence – a prison term that the judge said was “extraordinarily lenient” considering the crime.
Joseph Young, the mob associate who carried out the crime, went on trial and is serving a life sentence.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/regional/brooklyn/bonanno_soldier_sentenced_to_years_HNsY5vhI6dkkDPphuNvo2M

   / / /

  No Comments

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)