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 John Palazzolo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Palazzolo. Show all posts

Saturday, March 19, 2016

Judge sends Bonanno soldier back to prison for attending crime family's Christmas party

  March 19, 2016    Dapper_Don

Just when Ronald Giallanzo thought he was out, they pulled him back in.
The party's over for a Bonanno gangster who was caught mingling with mobsters in violation of his supervised release.

Ronald Giallanzo, a made man and the nephew of acquitted Lufthansa airport robber Vincent Asaro, was sentenced Friday to a year and one day behind bars.

The jail term was an early Christmas present for Giallanzo, 45, who was caught on surveillance camera attending the Bonanno crime family's holiday party at Bocelli's restaurant on Staten Island in December as well as three other prohibited meetings with fellow gangsters, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Lindsay Gerdes.
 
Giallanzo, convicted of racketeering and extortion in 2007, admitted that he was meeting with people on his "do not associate list" under the terms of his prison release.
 
Vincent Asaro, Giallanzo’s uncle, was found not guilty last year of charges stemming from the infamous Lufthansa heist of 1978.

Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis, who has presided over the criminal cases against scores of Bonannos, said he understands full well what goes on at mob get-togethers.

"Doesn't everyone have parties in December where they pass around envelopes of money?" he said sarcastically. "You think I just got off the boat from the South Sea islands and I don't know what's going on?"

Giallanzo and his infamous Uncle Vinnie both sport the same "Death Before Dishonor" tattoos.

The prosecutors were seeking a two year term while Giallanzo's lawyer argued for the same year-and-a-day sentence that capo John Palazzolo got last year for a similar violation. But Palazzolo got a break from Garaufis because the 77-year-old mobster was afflicted with a medical condition that rendered him unable to stop urinating.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/bonanno-mobster-back-prison-violating-release-terms-article-1.2569512

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Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Judge sends Bonanno mobster back to jail for violating parole

  June 23, 2015    Dapper_Don


Bingo just wasn’t going to cut it for this aging Bonanno.

A Brooklyn federal judge​ scolded a geriatric mobster for violating his supervised release by meeting up with old criminal colleagues after getting out of jail for attempted murder.

After sentencing reputed Bonanno Bronx street boss John Palazzolo, 77, to a year and a day behind bars, Judge Nicholas Garaufis ​lectured the teetering hoodlum for falling back into his life of crime.

“The court is extremely concerned about the behavior that brings us to this day,” Garaufis said. “It’s rather astonishing that a person in your medical condition, Mr. Palazzolo, would be engaged in meeting with persons who are maybe involved in organized criminal activities.”

Palazzolo served ​10 years in prison before his 2012 release. He was arrested in March for convening with several of his old cohorts in what the feds assert was a bid to take over a Queens Bonanno crew.

The frail thug, who hobbled into court and used a chair during the proceeding, claims that he suffers from several undisclosed medical ailments.

“Instead of your family taking care of you, you now have the United States Bureau of Prisons taking care of you,” Garuafis said.

The geezer gangster’s probation officer told the court that he repeatedly warned him against sidling up to his old pals.

“I was trying to avoid getting us to this point,” said Lawrence Goldman.

http://nypost.com/2015/06/23/judge-sends-elderly-mobster-back-to-prison-for-meeting-with-criminal-pals/

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Monday, April 6, 2015

Bonanno captain turns down crime family promotion to consigliere

  April 06, 2015    Dapper_Don

Jack Bonventre is facing 21 to 27 months in prison when he’s sentenced this month for collecting a loanshark debt.
They made him an offer he refused.

Getting promoted to the powerful position of consigliere in a Mafia crime family apparently isn’t what it was once cracked up to be.

So says the lawyer for reputed Bonanno capo Jack Bonventre, who prosecutors say declined the high-ranking post.

“He (Bonventre) turned it down, he didn’t want it,” Bonanno gangster Vincent Asaro blabbed in a conversation with an associate that was secretly recorded on March 8, 2013. “Jack didn’t want no part of this no more.”

Bonventre is facing 21 to 27 months in prison when he’s sentenced this month for collecting a loanshark debt, and defense lawyer Gordon Mehler argues in court papers that the job offer for consigliere — Italian for counselor — should not be held against his client.

Mehler complains that the feds are exaggerating the relevance of the alleged promotion.

“Assuming that this is even true, traditional organized crime families in New York are now weaker than 20 or 30 years ago and the Bonanno family in particular has been largely decimated by arrests and defections. Being considered for consigliere does not have the same meaning as it once did,” Mehler wrote to Brooklyn Federal Judge Allyne Ross.

Robert Duvall (l.) played the consigliere in the "Godfather" films. He's seen with Al Pacino in a scene at the Senate Hearing in "The Godfather II."
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The Bonannos’ last publicly identified consigliere is Anthony "Fat Anthony" Rabito.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nicole Argentieri and Alicyn Cooley disagree, contending that it shows Bonventre holds a powerful and prominent position among the Bonannos.

Bonventre, 46, is described by his lawyer in the sentencing papers as a hardworking owner of an auto body shop in upstate Orange County and submitted letters from two Catholic priests attesting to his good deeds, which included the donation of fuel to his former parish, St. Helen in Howard Beach, Queens, after the area was devastated by Hurricane Sandy.

A mob consigliere is a respected and wise member of a crime family who is consulted on various matters and is “devoid of ambition” to take over as boss, according to “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Mafia,” by Jerry Capeci. The consigliere is part of the crime family's top hierarchy, along with the boss and the underboss.

Consiglieres operate in the shadows, settling disputes and advising the boss. One of the most famous is the fictional Tom Hagen, portrayed by actor Robert Duvall, who counseled Don Vito Corleone in the classic film “The Godfather.” In real life, Salvatore "Sammy Bull" Gravano was consigliere to the late Gambino boss John Gotti for a time.

Bonventre was one of five people arrested for the robbery of a Lufthansa Airlines shipment in 1978. Pictured, Vincent Asaro (c.), believed to be involved in that infamous heist, is taken from FBI Headquarters in 2014.

The Bonannos’ last publicly identified consigliere, Anthony "Fat Anthony" Rabito, has been dogged by criminal charges in recent years and was recently observed by NYPD detectives doing something not so wise — having a long meeting with the family’s Bronx street boss John Palazzolo in a Queens diner.

Sources say the beleaguered Bonannos are run by a panel that keeps changing as they’re arrested, while the reputed boss, Michael "Mikey Nose" Mancuso, serves a 15-year sentence for his role in the murder of a mob associate.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/exclusive-alleged-mob-promotion-offer-not-relevant-lawyer-article-1.2174668

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Saturday, March 28, 2015

Mob war feared as feds arrest Bonanno street boss for parole violation

  March 28, 2015    Dapper_Don


John Palazzolo, 77, a reputed street boss of the Bonanno crime family’s Bronx faction, got locked up Friday after federal law enforcement officials caught him meeting with other mobsters — a violation of his parole terms.

The Bonanno crime family may have lost its youth, but its wiseguys still have plenty of chutzpah.
John Palazzolo, 77, a reputed street boss of the clan’s Bronx faction, got locked up Friday after federal law enforcement officials caught him meeting with other mobsters — a violation of his parole terms.
The feds feared the old gangster was conspiring to take over Bonanno operations in Queens — which could possibly unleash a wave of violence among rival factions.
Citing allegations of “a conspiracy to conduct a war to control the Bonanno crime family,” federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis ordered the ailing oldfella to jail pending a hearing next month.
Palazzolo, who was released in 2012 after doing 10 years for attempted murder, is barred from associating with fellow mobsters.
But in past weeks, he was caught by surveillance having a suspiciously long meeting in the parking lot of a diner in Bayside, Queens with “Fat Anthony” Rabito, a consigliere of the Bonannos.
He also met with a mafioso with ties to reputed mob boss Michael “Mikey Nose” Mancuso, who has three more years left in federal prison for a murder rap and is believed to rule the family from the inside.
Those pow-wows are in violation of Palazzolo’s parole, prosecutors said in court.
“Is there still a leadership of the Bonnano family?” asked a puzzled Garaufis.
“Unfortunately, yes,” said assistant U.S. attorney Nicole Argentieri.
 
But in past weeks, he was caught by surveillance having a suspiciously long meeting in the parking lot of a diner in Bayside, Queens with "Fat Anthony" Rabito (pictured), a consigliere of the Bonannos. 
A source said that Palazzolo had recently lost influence in the organization’s power structure and was about to take matters into his own hands.
“He’s pissed,” the law-enforcement official said. “Once we found out, we had to stop it.”
Defense lawyer Flora Edwards argued the run-in with Rabito could have been “a casual meeting” and pointed to her client’s litany of health issues.
A resigned-looking Palazzolo, wearing track pants, a black hoodie and holding a plastic bag from Target, shuffled into the lock-up.
“I thought someone’s who’s 77-years-old and has medical problems will be happy to live a quiet life,” the judge told him.
He added that the power struggle involves another imprisoned mobster, calling it “one nightmare on top of another.”
The Bonanno family has been working to replenish its ranks following dozens of convictions in the past decade, many obtained after its boss and underboss turned into rats and testified.
New recruits and old timers are still engaged in loan sharking, racketeering and other illegal activities, said a source.
“It never ends,” he added.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/mobster-locked-meeting-mobsters-violating-parole-article-1.2165308

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Restaurant owner knocked up my wife and paid $50G to live, mobster testifies at Vinny Gorgeous trial

  April 27, 2011    Dapper_Don

Mobster Salvatore Volpe (right) testified in murder trial of Vinny Gorgeous (left) on Tuesday.
Mobster Salvatore Volpe (right) testified in murder trial of Vinny Gorgeous (left) on Tuesday.


A saucy Staten Island restaurateur who impregnated a Bonanno crime associate's wife had two choices once word got out about the bun in the oven: Pay with his life or cough up a lot of dough.
Cuckolded gangster Salvatore Volpe testified Tuesday that the unidentified restaurateur shelled out $50,000 to escape getting whacked - with $10,000 of the amount going to a Garden State crime family for brokering the deal.
"Instead of [the restaurant owner] getting killed, he'd have to pay a tax," Volpe said in Brooklyn Federal Court at the murder trial of Bonanno boss Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano. "It was basically a penalty."
In his debut as a government witness, Volpe dished about the "Sopranos"-like breakup with his wife after learning of her affair with the owner of Trattoria Romana restaurant on Hylan Blvd. and her attempt to pass off her unborn child as Volpe's.
The mobster said he didn't initially seek counsel from a divorce lawyer, but from his crew leader, Bonanno soldier John Palazzolo.
Palazzolo confronted the gigolo, who also didn't lawyer up but, through a contact, reached out for protection from the New Jersey-based DeCavalcante crime family, according to Volpe.
While the DeCavalcantes believed the restaurant owner should have been killed in his trattoria's basement, the Bonannos sought a more realistic ending to the daddy drama.
They agreed on a $50,000 tax - and the DeCavalcantes kept $10,000 for changing their minds about killing the guy they were supposed to protect.
The tax was a welcome sum for Volpe, who testified that aside from the homes of a capo and his daughters, the Bonannos barely steered any work to his plumbing business.
Volpe's testimony is part of the case against Basciano, who is accused of ordering the hit on Randolph Pizzolo.
The mob rat said on the stand that Pizzolo had once taken $5,000 from him.
Volpe also testified Pizzolo sealed his death warrant after drunkenly boasting in a Queens restaurant that he was going to "level the Bronx" in retaliation for not getting inducted into the crime family. That was a reference to Basciano, who was the acting boss in 2004 and based in the Bronx.
Volpe said there was also discussion of whacking defense lawyer Gerard Marrone after he proposed himself for membership in the Bonannos.
But Marrone said Tuesday he never asked to join the crime family.
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