A New Jersey councilman with a notorious past as a former Gambino crime family enforcer has been arrested on allegations tied to an illegal loansharking operation, according to state authorities.
Attorney General Jennifer Davenport announced charges against John Alite, 63, an Englishtown Borough Council member and former organized crime figure, accusing him of operating a high-interest lending scheme and using threats to collect money from borrowers.
Prosecutors allege that Alite issued loans at interest rates far above legal limits and later intimidated borrowers in an effort to recover cash and property. Authorities have charged him with multiple offenses, including second-degree theft by extortion, second-degree usury, second-degree corporate misconduct, and terroristic threats.
Investigators also claim that Alite used his company, Straightened-Out Entertainment, as part of the alleged criminal enterprise.
From Mob Enforcer to Public Office
Alite is widely known for his former role within the Gambino crime family. A longtime associate of John Gotti Jr., he was once closely connected to the notorious New York crime organization and served as the best man at Gotti's wedding.
After years involved in organized crime, Alite spent approximately 14 years in prison and later became a government witness, testifying during a federal racketeering trial involving Gotti Jr. in 2008.
Since his release, Alite has built a public profile as a motivational speaker, frequently sharing his experiences to discourage young people from becoming involved in criminal activity.
According to previous public accounts, Alite admitted involvement in multiple violent crimes during his time in organized crime, including several murders, shootings, and assaults.
Alleged Illegal Lending Operation
State investigators allege that Alite continued engaging in unlawful conduct despite his transition into public life. Authorities contend that he used threats and intimidation tactics to collect debts connected to illegally issued loans.
Officials have not yet disclosed the full scope of the alleged operation, including how many victims may have been affected or the total amount of money involved.
Another individual, Stephen Locrontondo of Bridgewater, was also arrested in connection with the investigation.
Attorney General Praises Investigation
In announcing the arrests, Davenport credited investigators from the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice and the New Jersey State Police for their work.
She stated that the investigation reflects the state's commitment to ensuring businesses operate within the law and that individuals accused of exploiting or threatening others for financial gain will be held accountable.
Political Career Under Scrutiny
Alite entered local politics in 2025 after being appointed to fill a vacant seat on the Englishtown Borough Council. He later secured the position through both the primary and general elections, facing no opposition in either race.
The latest charges now cast uncertainty over his future in public office as the criminal case moves forward.
Legal Representation
Alite is being represented by attorney Thomas Calcagni, a former federal prosecutor who previously served in both the U.S. Attorney's Office and the New Jersey Attorney General's Office during the administration of former Governor Chris Christie.
As with all criminal cases, Alite and his co-defendant are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
A Brooklyn federal judge sentenced Bonanno crime family turncoat Gene Borrello to six months behind bars for violating conditions of his supervised release Wednesday.
Borrello, 38, breached the terms of his release when he participated in organized crime podcasts and associated with other criminals, prosecutors said.
After helping the feds put more than a dozen members of his former crime family behind bars and serving five years, a judge sentenced him to time served and probation in 2019.
Instead of getting on the straight and narrow, Borrello kicked off a pattern of criminal behavior, prosecutors said, including taking to YouTube to discuss his violent past for entertainment purposes.
“Glorifying the mob is one thing. We’ve watched ‘Godfather’ 1, 2, 3, maybe this is 5,” Judge Frederic Block said at a Wednesday sentencing hearing. “But there comes a time when we need to stop.”
Borrello also violated the rules of his release by associating with felons through his podcast.
He once hosted “The Johnny and Gene Show” podcast with another former gangster who flipped, Johnny Alite. Another mob deserter, John Rubeo, nearly landed back in prison after making an appearance on their show.
“You want to know [why] I went out there?” Borrello said of his YouTube antics. “I’ll be honest with you. Every other cooperator is on there and I’m not allowed to. Sammy Gravano is on there talking about killing people.”
Borrello also visited Florida twice before asking Block if he could visit for a third time.
“I don’t like being made a fool of,” the judge said. “It bothers you, of course — that’s the essence of trust.”
Borrello’s lawyer Nancy Ennis requested that her client be able to turn himself in next week.
“Under the circumstances, I’m not comfortable setting him loose,” said Block.
He’s given up his mob life podcast, but not his life of crime, the feds say.
Bonanno
crime family turncoat Gene Borrello, who recently co-hosted a podcast
the feds say glorified his time as a mob enforcer, could find himself
behind bars again for a string of new crimes in Florida.
Federal
prosecutors in Brooklyn want a judge to toss Borrello, 38, in prison
for three years, alleging he spent his time on probation fighting with a
girlfriend, bragging about Mafia violence on YouTube videos and using a
burner phone to talk about drugs and violence.
As
a government witness, Borrello helped lock up more than a dozen members
of the Bonanno crime family — and after he was jailed from 2014 to
2019, a judge sentenced him to time served and probation. His own crimes
were particularly violent — multiple shootings, home invasions where
victims were tied up, arson and beatings.
After his release, he’s been a blight on society, and his actions have been getting worse, federal prosecutors allege.
“He
has shown no regard for the orders of this court or the law. He is a
danger to the community. He has made no progress towards
rehabilitation,” assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Galeotti wrote on Jan.
17, asking Judge Frederic Block to sentence him at a hearing this
upcoming Wednesday.
“In
fact, since the defendant was permitted to leave for Florida, his
conduct has only become increasingly aggressive and dangerous. The
defendant has breached this court’s trust over and over and over again.”
Those
crimes include a January stalking arrest and a December burglary arrest
in Pinellas County, Fla., a September stalking bust where he was
accused of calling his girlfriend 58 times, and another September
incident in which he allegedly threatened a Tampa Bay area bartender.
They’re the latest in a pattern of criminal activity and probation violations since his release in 2019.
Borrello
first started smashing the rules of his release by associating with
felons through his podcast, and by threatening an ex-girlfriend in 2021.
He used to host “The Johnny and Gene Show” podcast with another former
gangster who flipped, Johnny Alite. Another mob turncoat, John Rubeo, nearly landed back in prison after making an appearance on their show.
“In
his podcast, Borrello glorified all aspects of organized criminal
activities and described in detail various acts of violence in which he
and his co-host, John Alite, had participated,” Galeotti wrote.
And in February 2021, Borrello was busted for threatening his ex in audio recordings over Instagram.
“The minute you call the cops on me … I’ll blow your husband’s head right off,” Borrello told his ex,
prosecutors said. “Don’t forget about me. Remember what I used to do. I
will grab your father right now and beat the dogs--t out of him.”
Borrello
did end back in prison, but Block cut him a “break” in March 2021 and
sentenced him to only 120 days behind bars, according to court filings.
But
his bad behavior continued after he served those 120 days — starting
with a YouTube video titled “Getting violated by probation and going
back to jail” in which he disparaged his ex’s husband as “fat” and
“goofy.” In another video titled “Ronnie do you smell that,” he
described how he and Bonanno captain Ronald Giallanzo beat a man so
badly the man soiled himself, prosecutors said.
Last May, he was accused of grabbing his girlfriend and smashing her phone during an unauthorized trip to Florida.
He
avoided being sent back to prison at a hearing the following month, but
immediately ran afoul of probation officers by ginning up two job offer
letters with contact numbers that went back to one of his friends,
prosecutors said.
His latest stalking and burglary arrests followed that.
When
federal agents raided his home in September, they found a cell phone
with text messages referring to tricking probation officials, to
steroids and other drugs, and to a Sept. 3 confrontation with the Tampa
Bay bartender.
“Bro I’m cracking him,” he texted a friend who had a problem with the bartender, according to court filings.
When
the pal responded, “I wish you had a [GoPro] when all this went down
omg,” Borrello texted back: “Bro he’s a herb he can’t talk tuff no
more.”
In
a letter filed on Sunday, Borrello’s lawyer, Nancy Ennis, asked the
judge for leniency, contending that he “is making significant
improvements in his life,” including getting a job as a car valet.
She
also challenged federal prosecutors’ description of his September
stalking arrest, and included a letter from his girlfriend in her
filing.
“Following
a heated argument, Gene perceived that his girlfriend was threatening
to commit suicide, as she had previously threatened to do. This prompted
Gene to pursue her frantically and call her repeatedly,” Ennis said.
“In retaliation, she called the police, and Gene was arrested for
stalking her. Thereafter, however, the charges were dismissed in court.”
Ennis didn’t return a message seeking comment, and attempts to reach Borrello were unsuccessful Monday.
A photo taken during the summer of 2022 shows a grinning former president Donald Trump flashing a thumbs up gesture while posing with John Alite, a podcaster and motivational speaker who was once a hitman for the Gambino crime family.
Alite, who confirmed the authenticity of the photo in a phone interview with The Independent, described himself as a political independent who supported Mr Trump’s push for criminal justice reform, and said his support for the ex-president is well known.
Though he described himself as a media figure who “speaks out against the street” and encourages young people to refrain from engaging in crime or violence, he spent years of his life as an associate of the Gambino family, one of the famed “five families” of the American mob. He has confessed to murdering six people and assaulting many more during that period of his life, which ended when he was arrested in Brazil after several years evading capture following an indictment in federal court.
Upon his extradition to the US, he eventually made a deal with prosecutors and testified against former associates who had fingered him for a slew of crimes, including top Gambino family figures such as John Gotti Jr (whose case ended in a mistrial) and Charles Carneglia (who got a life sentence).
Alite’s help to prosecutors got him a 10-year sentence after he pleaded guilty to numerous offenses including including murder and robbery.
Since his release from prison, he says he has changed his life.
“I'm a guy that's does TV, does movies, those talk shows, does talks for kids, works with the FBI, does events and talks with the FBI against the street to save kids lives. I do things with documentaries against drugs, openly against my past. So I'm a different guy,” he said.
Asked whether he believed Mr Trump was aware of his past when he posed for a photo with him, Alite told The Independent: “I assume he knows who I am, but possibly not”.
The Independent was tipped off to the existence of the photograph after reporting that Mr Trump had recently posed for a snapshot with Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino, who ran the Philadelphia mafia in the 1990s when Mr Trump was a casino operator in nearby Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Merlino spent more than a decade in federal prison after he was convicted on extortion, bookmaking and receiving stolen property charges following a 2001 trial. After his release he moved to Florida but found himself back in the dock in 2016, when he was arrested on another racketeering indictment and tried in a New York federal court. Following a mistrial on racketeering, fraud and illegal gambling charges, he pleaded guilty to illegal gambling and received a two-year prison sentence.
Alite said Mr Trump’s photograph with Merlino is a good indicator that the ex-president doesn’t have anyone around him who can vet who he comes into contact with.
“I just think he doesn't realise all the people he's taking a picture with because he recently took a picture of someone and I guarantee he doesn’t know who that person is,” he said.
In a statement to The Independent, a spokesperson for Mr Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign denied that the ex-president has any awareness of the identity of people he is photographed with in informal settings.
“President Trump takes countless photos with people. That does not mean he knows every single person he comes into contact with,” the spokesperson said.
The existence of two photographs of the twice-impeached ex-president posing alongside people with strong connections to organised crime raises questions about whether Mr Trump is being adequately staffed as he ramps up his third campaign for the presidency.
In November, Mr Trump was photographed having dinner with antisemitic rapper Kanye West and an associate of his, notorious white nationalist podcast host Nick Fuentes.
Despite the denials from Mr Trump’s campaign, it’s possible that he knew of both Mr Alite and Mr Merlino. Both were active in organised crime circles in the 1980s and 1990s, when Mr Trump was active in New York City real estate development.
A bitter mob beef has been playing out in cyberspace, and now pits
late godfather John Gotti’s daughter and grandson against a Mafia “rat”
in court.
Angel Gotti, 60, and her son, Frank Gotti Albano, 37, are suing Gene
Borrello for $10 million, claiming he unleashed a torrent of “heinous”
online abuse against them because of his “sick obsession” with the late
Gambino crime family’s “Teflon Don.”
Borrello threw down the gauntlet last year when he had the coglioni to paint mother and son as drug addicts and superimposed their faces on porn he posted online, they claim in court papers.
Borrello, a reported former Bonanno family associate, allegedly
created a pair of Instagram accounts, insultingly named
@angel_gotti_the_fat_slob and @angel_the_fat_whale_gotti, and used them
to bombard her with nasty messages.
He is also accused of putting faked photos on the Internet of Albano
and his deceased dad, Louis Albano, doing drugs, the Gottis claim in the
litigation.
The hot-tempered Borrello — who helped the feds convict nearly two dozen mobsters in 2016, only to land behind bars last year
after threatening an ex-girlfriend’s husband and father — also wrongly
accused Angel Gotti and her son of the biggest La Cosa Nostra sin of
all: being “rats,” according to the lawsuit.
In a now-deleted YouTube rant, Borrello called Angel Gotti “a f–king
rat,” adding the “whole family is rats … bonafide rats,” and claiming
Gotti was urging people to report him to the FBI and his parole officer,
she claimed.
In one August Instagram post, Borrello allegedly wrote, “Angel Gotti
goes from a dope head to a meth Head and also a child molester,” she
alleged.
In another post he wrote, “Now go get that Needle out of your son’s
arm we all know he was in rehab for heroin,” according to court papers.
Angel Gotti said she landed in Borrello’s social media crosshairs
only because she was “defending her family name” online against his
made-up stories.
Borrello then lashed out, and “appears as though he gets a sick thrill from his ongoing harassment,” she claimed.
He allegedly admitted to creating the vile Instagram accounts during a
recorded phone call with Mobtubers.com Lee Cole, according to the legal
filing. The accounts have since been removed.
Borrello told Cole in August he was “not going to stop” harassing the
mother and son, adding “that everyone knows it is him ‘abusing them,'”
they claimed in the lawsuit.
The Gottis call Borrello’s posts “obscene and unequivocally false.”
They deny being involved in any criminal activity, including drug use.
Borrello’s “relentless defamatory assault” has put the pair at “grave
risk of danger, ridicule and public scorn,” the Gottis maintain in
their legal papers.
Borrello made a name for himself on YouTube after joining forces with
fellow federal informant and Gotti family enemy John Alite for a
podcast called “The Johnny and Gene Show” in 2018.
The Howard Beach hot-head is known to his neighbors for his “despicable crimes,” the Gottis contend in their lawsuit.
Borrello’s rap sheet includes shootings, brutal assaults, home
invasions, armed robberies and arsons, according to Brooklyn Federal
Court filings.
Despite his putting mobsters behind bars — including Bonanno captain Vincent Asaro, who was nabbed for arson after his stunning acquittal in the $6 million Lufthansa heist — Borrello is just a wannabe mobster, Angel Gotti and her son said.
Though Borrello and Alite are “admittedly homicidal and violent
individuals,” neither are “officially members of any known Italian
organized crime groups,” the suit says.
Borrello’s harassment is “still relentless,” said Dana LaMacchia, a lawyer for the Gottis.
“This was something we felt we had to do, that we had no other
recourse,” she said of the lawsuit. “He’s still going full charge ahead
on this.”
In November, Borrello pleaded guilty to again flouting the rules of
his supervised release by producing three YouTube videos about organized
crime, and talking trash about his victims, court records show. He’s
out on supervised release while he awaits a March sentencing date in
that case, according to court papers.
A Bonanno wiseguy-turned-government snitch was busted Sunday — after
threatening to kill his ex-girlfriend’s husband and “beat the dog sh—”
out of her father.
Gene Borrello,
36, had been on supervised release after helping Brooklyn federal
prosecutors convict more than 21 mobsters — including Bonanno captain
Vincent Asaro for arson after his stunning acquittal in the $6 million Lufthansa heist.
But his temper — and mouth — got away from him on Jan. 24 after his
ex-girlfriend refused to give him permission to publish a picture of her
in a book he’s working on, Assistant US Attorney Lindsay Gerdes told a
Brooklyn federal judge Monday at a bail hearing.
“He said, ‘The minute you call the cops on me and grow those balls,
you watch, I’ll blow your husband’s head right off in the middle of the
street,'” Gerdes told US Magistrate Judge Robert Levy.
“Remember what I used to do. I will grab your father right now and
beat the dog sh— out of him. Be happy I don’t grab you and your fat,
ugly husband by the neck and drag you down the street,” she recounted of
the disturbing exchange.
Borrello was arrested Sunday night for violating his supervised
release by threatening his ex —and for associating with convicted felon
John Alite, a former Gambino-hitman-turned-cooperator who testified
against John “Junior” Gotti.
Borrello has hosted several episodes of a podcast with Alite called “The Johnny & Gene Show” —
which Gerdes said “effectively glorifies crime and that type of
activity committed by the La Cosa Nostra.”
She added that the former Howard Beach gangster has been “posting
videos of himself on social media holding thousands of dollars, wearing
expensive Rolex watches, driving around in a high-end Porsche and
wearing thousands of dollars in designer apparel.”
The prosecutor urged the judge to hold Borrello without bail, citing
his inability to control his temper and his expansive criminal history.
He pleaded guilty in 2016 to racketeering conspiracy and was
sentenced to three years’ supervised release and time served, which
amounted to about five years in prison, for more than two dozen crimes
that could have put him in jail for life, Gerdes said.
The offenses included multiple shootings, “home invasions, where
people were tied up, brazen daylight burglaries” arsons and beatings,
the prosecutor added.
An aggrieved Borello — and his mom — repeatedly interjected during Gerdes’ statement.
“I don’t know why you’re doing this to me, Lindsay,” Borrello
pleaded. “I made one mistake with my ex-girlfriend, why are you burying
me like this?”
Borello’s mom also weighed in, begging the judge to keep her son out
of jail. “Gene is a very good-hearted person,” she said. “He’s doing
nothing but the right thing. Yes, he did speak a little bit. He does
have a mouth, but he is bipolar…he didn’t hurt nobody and he’s not going
to hurt nobody.”
She added that his relationship with his ex is over and now, “He has a nice girlfriend, Joanna — she’s from Staten Island.”
The judge was unpersuaded and ordered Borrello locked up without bail on the new charges.
His mom chimed in “he’ll probably get his throat slit” by one of the mobsters he helped put away.
A mob informant who appeared on a podcast
with two other Mafia members where he boasted about destroying evidence
in the prosecution of Philadelphia mob boss 'Skinny Joey' Merlino, has
avoided additional jail time.
John
Rubeo, 45, was blasted during a sentencing hearing on Tuesday by
Manhattan federal judge Richard Sullivan – who accused the former mob
associate of 'making a monkey' out of the court and the FBI, the New York Daily News reported.
'You can make a monkey out of the FBI, you can make a monkey out of the government — fine,' Sullivan said.
'But you're not going to make a monkey out of this court ... You gave a black eye to this court.'
Sullivan
added that the only reason Rubeo would not be returning to court was
because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the New York Daily
News.
Rubeo
served as a star witness during the 2016 racketeering case against
Merlino – who later took a plea deal after his case was ruled a
mistrial.
The former informant later admitted he
'mangled' the case against Merlino and 'committed robberies while I was
cooperating' with the feds, during a podcast hosted by two other former
mob associates.
'I almost felt like I could be a better criminal because I worked for them, because I knew they weren't watching me.
'I
was committing more crimes when I was working for them than when I was
on the street, and they were paying me $15,000 a month,' Rubeo said.
Rubeo was charged with communication with
convicted felons without permission after appearing in the podcast with
former Gambino associate John Alite and former Bonanno associate Gene
Borrello.
Sullivan also ripped the FBI
after it was revealed that Rubeo had discussed appearing on The Johnny
and Gene Show with his former handler, the Daily News reported.
'You covered your a** a little bit, went to the FBI. But the fact is this was premeditated, Sullivan said.
'I
don't think you appreciate the harm that you caused. You made the FBI
look foolish. I'm not going to have you making the court look foolish.'
Rubeo
also received charges of lying to his probation officer and association
with convicted felons for the purpose of participating in an
audio-visual podcast, records show.
The former informant pled guilty to all three violations last month and faced up to five years behind bars on Tuesday.
The former informant previously spent about five years wearing a wire and two years in jail, he said on the podcast.
'I was pretty confident I wouldn't be seeing Mr. Rubeo again,' Sullivan said.
'This is a person who was given an opportunity and squandered it. I'm really troubled by it.'
A chatty Mafia turncoat witness will learn next month whether a recent
podcast confessional will return him to prison after admitting Wednesday
to three probation violations linked to his incriminating interview
with two ex-mobsters.
One-time Genovese family associate John Rubeo, who testified against
reputed Philadelphia mob boss Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino, could face
up to five years behind bars after acknowledging his unapproved
oversharing during a September appearance on the “Johnny and Gene” show.
Rubeo, 45, acknowledged that he failed to truthfully answer inquiries
from his probation officer, associated with convicted felons on the
podcast and communicated with those same felons without contacting his
probation officer.
The defendant could face up to five years in prison, with a guideline
range of 3-to-9 months, at his scheduled Jan. 19 resentencing for
violating parole, said Manhattan Federal Court Judge Richard Sullivan.
The judge could alternatively impose an additional period of supervised
release for the gangster who bragged about continuing his lucrative
illegal income while working undercover for the feds.
“I was committing more crimes when I was working for them than when I
was on the street,” bragged Rubeo during his visit to the show co-hosted
by ex-Gambino family associate John Alite and former Bonnano associate
Gene Borrello. “And they were paying me $15,000 a month.”
Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino is seen leaving Manhattan Federal Court Feb. 20, 2018.
Rubeo received a sweetheart sentence of 15 months in jail for his
cooperation, but an irate Sullivan demanded answers after Rubeo ran his
mouth for 85 minutes on the podcast — even confessing that he destroyed
evidence in the Merlino case.
The Philly mob boss, after a hung jury in his first trial, took a plea
deal and a 2-year jail term in 2018. He’s currently back on the street.
Sullivan noted during the Wednesday court session that Rubeo bragged
during recent social media exchanges about a continued upscale lifestyle
after cutting his deal to become an informant. In one, he referenced
ownership of a Range Rover and a Mercedes, and in another offered a
hefty wager that he would pass a drug test.
“One thing I was interested in ... was a post from Rubeo in which he
boasts about his Mercedes and his ability to bet $100,000 on things,”
said Sullivan. “It’s troubling because at the time of the violations, he
hadn’t yet paid his $80,000 (court-ordered) forfeiture.”
A sentencing date of Jan. 19 was set for Rubeo. Defense attorney in
court papers proposed a possible sentence of home detention for the
remainder of their client’s supervised release.
Rubeo told the judge that he was subjected to a barrage of social media
hate, including a death threat from a former close associate of
Merlino.
The bad blood is boiling over again between members of the Gotti family and Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa.
The family is livid about a Page Six story on a wedding Sliwa and John Gotti Jr. attended over the weekend. We wrote that Sliwa and Junior — who was accused of kidnapping and attempting to murder Sliwa back in the ’90s — were kept on the opposite sides of the room at the Staten Island nuptials.
Sliwa even told us that he was “mad-dogging” — translation: shooting
nasty looks at — Junior all night and that “people were reminding me
this was my friend’s wedding — don’t make a scene; don’t get into a
dust-up.” (Sliwa only said he was staring at Gotti Jr., and not vice
versa.)
Now, the Gottis are accusing Sliwa of playing up the situation for press. Gotti Jr.’s sister Angel tweeted
in response to our story, “Sliwa still whoring I see. Big mouth trouble
makers NEVER change, always desperate for attention … It was a
BEAUTIFUL wedding you Doofus!”
She told us when reached for comment, “[Sliwa would] sell his kids
for attention and publicity. I don’t know who is worse, he or [Gambino
family turncoat] John Alite. Two [people] who can’t seem to get
attention unless they’re lying about Gotti, Gotti, Gotti!”
Either way, Frank Gotti Albano, grandson of the Dapper Don, chimed in by tweeting: “I sat next to my uncle the entire wedding we had a great time.” He added of Sliwa,
“I think he was jealous that more people from the wedding came to our
side of the room and lined up to take pics [with] my uncle and my family
and no one gave a s–t he was there wearing his goofy red beret.”
Sliwa — who founded the Guardian Angels in 1979 and is now a radio
host — was kidnapped in a stolen taxi in 1992 and shot multiple times by
a gunman who had been hiding in the front seat. Gotti Jr. was tried but
never convicted. (An online commenter darkly joked of Sliwa’s
attendance, “Did he come in a cab?”)
The colorful nuptials were for AM 970 host Frank Morano and Rachel O’Brien.
Mobsters
and ex-mobsters — even those who have been exiled to the Witness
Protection Program — gossip like schoolgirls. So when Gambino crime
family boss Frank Cali was shot dead Wednesday
night in front of his Staten Island home, the stunning break in decades
of relative mob peace set phones of members and alumni of La Cosa
Nostra alight with speculation as to the actors and motive behind his
murder.
“Is
it buzzing?” former Gambino captain Michael “Mikey Scars” DiLeonardo
asked rhetorically about the current state of the mobster rumor mill.
“It’s on fire!”
DiLeonardo,
63, was a powerful figure in the crime family who lived in a Staten
Island manse of his own before he testified against former associates,
including John A. "Junior" Gotti, and temporarily entered government
protection. DiLeonardo says he knew Cali when the future crime boss was
only the broke young son of a Brooklyn storeowner and “a kid who hung
around the Gambinos.”
“I
used to shylock him every week,” DiLeonardo said fondly, meaning he
gave him high-interest loans. He also took credit for Cali getting
“straightened out” — or “made” — and elevated to captain status on his
way to the crime family’s highest rungs.
Michael
DiLeonardo, right, accused of being a member of the Gambino crime
family, right, followed by his attorney Craig Gillen, left, leave the
federal building in Atlanta, Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2001. With no
explanation from defense attorneys and prosecutors, testimony in the
Gold Club trial was abruptly canceled Wednesday, and the proceedings
were put on hold.
DiLeonardo,
confessed former Gambino hitman John Alite and convicted Genovese
killer Anthony Arillotta, all mobsters-turned-informants, in interviews
with USA TODAY expressed shock over Cali's murder considering he was
known as a nonviolent mob boss who ran his crime family like a
corporation.
The
ex-gangsters, each of whom have firsthand experience in responding to
mob crises, said that while authorities attempt to solve the murder,
wise guys associated with Cali are likely conducting their own
investigation. The result could be a lasting return to the violence of a
flashier, more trigger-happy era of organized crime.
“If
this is still the Mafia, that guy’s got to get killed that did the
shooting,” mused Alite, 56, who has confessed to involvement in several
murders and has since authored books including Darkest Hour II, his
second mob tell-all. “And anybody that helped them. Anybody who was
associated with this murder, whether it was mob related or not, a couple
of guys got to get killed now.”
Arillotta
— a Massachusetts gangster who confessed to two murders, testified in
New York City mob trials and spent eight years in prison — echoed
Alite’s assessment.
“It
could be a freak thing, wrong place, wrong house, wrong time,”
Arillotta said. “They'll kill that guy. Either way there’s going to be
more violence.”
Retired
FBI supervisor Bruce Mouw said that rampant speculation among mobsters
follows every hit and was likely even stronger this time because Cali’s
murder was the first rubout of a Gambino made man in decades.
Mouw
called mob-related murders “the hardest cases to investigate,” and
cautioned that the public might never learn who was behind Cali’s death,
or only after a cooperating witness comes clean about it years from
now.
“I
can’t really remember one that they solved in a traditional way in
twenty years, because nobody sees nothing, especially in Staten Island,”
Mouw said.
He
downplayed the idea that revenge was imminent and recalled advice he
used to give: “I always told my agents, don’t speculate — find out.”
The
ex-mobsters USA TODAY spoke with didn’t follow that discipline. Drawing
from spare details released in early news reports and the grist of
fellow chattering gangsters, they discussed the possibilities that the
hit was a sanctioned killing, a “personal matter” gone wrong (like an
illicit affair) or even a road rage incident completely unrelated to
Cali’s organized crime status. They also said there were rumors that
Cali was involved in the drug trade.
But
they acknowledged that each of these motives are unsatisfying in that
they clash with Cali’s reputation as a buttoned-up gangster who tried to
move the crime family away from the attention-grabbing violence of its
former patriarch, the elder John Gotti.
Cali
was reportedly shot six times, and neighbors saw a pickup truck fleeing
the scene. The ex-mobsters leaned on their expertise to deduce that the
number of vehicles involved could reveal whether this was a true
gangland hit.
“Until
I find out how many cars there were, I won’t know,” said DiLeonardo,
speculating that a true mafia murder plot would involve hitmen in
multiple vehicles.
Alite
used the same logic: “When you hit a boss there are three cars — two on
each corner and one in front,” said the former Gambino gunman. “He’s
not getting away.”
Alite
said that the fact that Cali was apparently alone and unguarded outside
of his Staten Island home was an indication of how much the mob had changed. Gone are the days when regular violence necessitated fortified compounds and armed entourages for its bosses.
DiLeonardo
partly credited Cali’s own management style for the recent peace. He
said Cali took a foothold in the family in the 1990s due to a power
vacuum created when its top figureheads, including Gotti, were
imprisoned or dead. Following Gotti’s murder conviction in 1992,
DiLeonardo said, “we didn’t have one sanctioned hit,” though “there was a
couple of sneak things” resulting in murders without official
permission.
FBI
supervisor Mouw, who said he first met Cali when the future top
mobster was a young grifter involved in an alleged calling card scheme,
took issue with the post-mortem chorus declaring him the Steve Jobs of
crime.
“He
was a mobster, pure and pure,” Mouw said. “He was Sicilian, very
smooth, a moneymaker and a good businessman, so he’s smarter than your
average mobster. But you can dress him up, buy him a nice house in
Staten Island, he’s still a mobster.”
Mouw
credited the long lull in violence not to Cali but to tougher organized
crime statutes with devastating sentences for those convicted of
mob-related murder. Mouw also stated that though multiple news outlets
have referred to Cali as the reputed boss of the family, his information
is that Cali was underboss, and the top job belongs to another Gambino,
Domenico Cefalu.
DiLeonardo
suggested that jostling at the top of the crime family could determine
the response to Cali’s killing. He said that Cali’s close confidant,
Lorenzo Mannino, will likely be handling the de facto sleuthing of what
happened to Cali. Mannino, who could not be reached for comment, was
previously sentenced to fifteen years in federal prison for racketeering
and a mob rubout that occurred in the late 1980s.
“Lorenzo’s
in the Frank Cali mold,” DiLeonardo said. “Very smart, low key. But
Lorenzo’s a killer. Where Frank wasn’t a killer, Lorenzo is a killer."
A radio-show host says his career was ruined — and he’s now in
hiding — because ex-Gambino enforcer John Alite accused him of
exchanging X-rated photos with John Gotti’s daughter.
Jeff Lowman, known professionally as Jeff Canarsie, says in a new
Brooklyn federal lawsuit that he lost business, including his “Mob Talk
Radio” show broadcast online by Wildfire Radio, because of Alite’s
libelous Facebook rant about him Oct. 3.
“John Alite used to hurt people with gun and knives, and now he’s
trying to hurt people with his words and defamation,” Lowman’s lawyer,
Elio Forcina, told The Post.
Alite had posted, “I was told he [Lowman] was unstable because he
claims his mom as a child molested him beat him and tied him in the
basement of his home,” according to the complaint filed Sunday.
Alite also asserted that Lowman, 39, traded steamy pics with the late Teflon Don’s 54-year-old daughter, Angel, the papers say.
The ex-Mafia goon has a “sick obsession with the Gotti family,’’ the
lawsuit states — while Lowman was forced to leave his show to hide out
in Brooklyn.
“My client feels like his life is in danger,” Forcina said.
Alite — who infamously testified against his ex-best friend, Gotti’s
son, John “Junior” Gotti, in 2009 — also claimed that Lowman “threatened
and robbed” a woman named Amanda, the defamation suit says.
Lowman said Alite convinced him to move in with Amanda to serve as
her “protector.” But the arrangement only lasted a couple months, once
Lowman realized it was just for publicity, he said.
“I quickly saw the light that the guy can’t be trusted,” Lowman said.
The radio jock said Alite was the one exploiting Amanda, an abused
18-year-old who lives in New Jersey, for good press in his newfound
career as a motivational speaker and anti-bullying advocate. Lowman, 39,
said he was targeted by Alite because he was going to expose this.
The radio-show host denied all of Alite’s claims and said he soon
plans to resurrect his popular 2-year-old radio show, which he shut down
three months ago.
“I just had to protect myself a little bit,” he said. “The minute he
started spouting this garbage, a lot of the contacts I have [wouldn’t]
have anything to do with me. Anything from book deals to production
deals — they all went away immediately.”
Lowman is suing for unspecified damages.
Douglas Anton, a lawyer for Alite, said he wouldn’t discuss “any
potential legal matters until he is legally and properly served with the
lawsuit.”
“I advise this simply because there is a set of media-hungry
attorneys and individuals who regularly threaten that they just did or
are going to file legal actions and it never seems to happen,” Anton
said in a statement.
Angel Gotti did not return requests for comment.
In a unique and sensational case, Gov. Rick Scott and the Cabinet on
Wednesday ended the long prison sentence of a robber-turned-mob
informant whose testimony prosecutors say helped break up the Gambino
crime family in Florida and New York.
The four Republican
statewide elected officials commuted the sentence of Kevin Bonner, who’s
serving 24 years of a state sentence at an undisclosed federal prison
and is in the federal witness protection program.
Three federal
prosecutors — U.S. Attorney A. Lee Bentley III in Tampa, U.S. Attorney
Preet Bharara in New York and former U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch of New
York, now the U.S. Attorney General — all sent letters to Scott
supporting Bonner’s release.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Trezevant
and retired Tampa FBI agent Charlotte Braziel urged the state to set
Bonner free and put him on probation as a reward for extensive
cooperation that they said helped solve a number of “cold case” murders.
“This is an exceptional case,” Braziel testified. “Mr. Trezevant
and I have never sought clemency for any witness. Mr. Bonner was an
exceptional witness. He earned this. … Without Mr. Bonner, we would not
have been able to disband an organized crime network that operated in
Florida, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.”
Trezevant said Bonner’s grand jury and trial testimony in Tampa a
decade ago led to convictions of two Gambino crime figures, Ronnie
“One-Arm” Trucchio and John Alite, who had fled to Brazil. Bonner
testified that Alite was John “Junior” Gotti’s “right-hand man” in the
late 1980s and early 1990s.
Bonner’s volunteer attorney, Carter
Andersen, read part of a letter from Bonner to state officials in which
he described “guilt and frustration” for his victims, even though he
said none were physically harmed.
“I am ashamed of what I’ve done
to get this time,” Bonner wrote. “Yet these years, as tough and painful
as they’ve been, have given me the opportunity to develop into the
person I am today — a more humble, thoughtful and caring human being.”
Under
Wednesday’s agreement, Bonner, 52, will soon get a new identity and a
new life, thanks to the federal government and the state of Florida.
Trezevant
emphasized that Bonner was not involved in any murders. The prosecutor
said Bonner repeatedly robbed dry cleaning stores to support his drug
habit and was serving his term in a Florida prison when he agreed in
2003 to cooperate with authorities and became the “first domino” that
led to convictions of prominent mob figures.
At the time,
Trezevant said, “the Gambino family [made] efforts to plant a flag in
the Tampa Bay area and to use that as a base from which to spread across
the state of Florida.”
“For us, Mr. Bonner was the perfect
witness,” Trezevant said. “He was very bright, he was completely candid
and truthful, and he has an absolute photographic memory.”
The
decision to release Bonner was made by Scott and the Cabinet. Meeting as
the Board of Clemency, they included Attorney General Pam Bondi, Chief
Financial Officer Jeff Atwater and Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam,
who called the case “unprecedented” in his six years on the Cabinet.
Most
requests for clemency are from everyday people who want to regain the
right to vote or own a gun after having committed a crime such as drug
possession or burglary.
The case of Kevin William Bonner, however, reads like the script from the mob movie “Goodfellas.”
Half-Irish
and half-Italian, Bonner grew up in Queens and joined a street gang
known as the “7s-n-9s” that led him to a life of crime.
In a 2009
profile in the Long Island newspaper Newsday, reporter John Riley quoted
Bonner as saying he grew up in a neighborhood known as Woodhaven that
was “overflowing with wiseguys.”
“Everyone was a criminal.
Everyone wanted to be a hoodlum. But they seemed to have a little more
money,” Bonner told the newspaper. “We didn’t have no money.”
He
quit school in the eighth grade, was sent to a juvenile detention center
at 16 and befriended John A. “Junior” Gotti, the mobster son of the
legendary “Dapper Don,” John Gotti Sr., and an emerging member of the
Gambino crime family.
Bonner’s downfall began in the mid-1980s
when he became a drug addict, and moved to Florida to start life anew,
Newsday reported. But he couldn’t escape his dark past. Referring to his
decision to expose mob activities, Bonner told the paper: “It’s against
everything I ever learned.”
Scott read off Bonner’s lengthy rap
sheet — “robbery with a deadly weapon, robbery with a deadly weapon,” he
repeated six times — and seemed reluctant to approve the feds’ request,
noting that Bonner has battled drug addiction for many years.
“I understand I’m out on a plank here,” prosecutor Trezevant said.
Scott
agreed to vote yes on two conditions: that Bonner undergo a drug test
every two weeks for his first year of probation and that he pay about
$3,500 in restitution and court costs.
“I get it,” Scott said. “He has probably saved lives.”
Bonner
has more than five years remaining on his prison sentence. His
attorney, Anderson, said Bonner wants to be able to start a new life “in
a part of the country without organized crime.”
Andersen said he called Bonner in prison and gave him the good news.
“He said his family was so overwhelmed,” Andersen said. “He was just grateful.”
John Alite, a Gotti mob enforcer-turned rat who spent nearly a decade in prison for his involvement in six murders, is being sued by his brother James. The plaintiff says he’s battling cancer and needs the money he’s allegedly owed from business deals the pair made after John was sprung from the Big House in 2011.
According to James, his little brother won’t even return his calls.
“To this day I’d do anything I can for him,” James tells Confidenti@l. “For five years I’ve given him the opportunity to do the right thing.”
The lawsuit, filed in both New York and New Jersey, alleges that John, 53, cut James, 54, out of “lucrative book deal, reality television show, speaking engagements and various other media deals.” James also alleges the pair had a deal to refurbish office spaces in New Jersey that netted $240,000, which went straight to John’s account. He’s asking for $2 million total.
James’ attorney, Elio Forcina, says he filed in Queens and New Jersey because John has homes in both places, but attempts to serve him papers in person have been unsuccessful. He says he also made an attempt to serve John at an anti-bullying campaign on Long Island where the former button man was expected to speak, but the defendant-to-be never arrived.
James is also suing his gangster brother for defamation, claiming that John began a “whispering campaign” encouraging business associates to cut his big brother out of the deals they set up together and telling people that James was “insane, was faking cancer, was a liar, and was a sexual deviant.”
James’ lawyer can’t understand why John is refusing his brother’s offer.
“He’s admitted to murder and he goes on TV and brags about how tough he is, but he’s afraid to face his brother in court because he knows what he did was wrong,” says Forcina.
Lawyers representing John Alite did not respond to requests for comment.
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