Feds claim top New York labor leader has extensive ties to organized crime

Feds claim top New York labor leader has extensive ties to organized crime

  December 28, 2020    Dapper_Don

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A top New York labor leader and Gov. Cuomo ally has “extensive ties to organized crime,” federal prosecutors claimed Monday.

James Cahill, the former president of the New York State Building and Construction Trades Council, represented over 200,000 unionized construction workers until his arrest in October on bribery charges along with 10 other current and former members of Local 638. In a new filing, prosecutors say the feds were watching as Cahill met with members of the Gambino crime family and Serbian gangsters.

Cahill, 71, described himself as “the last of the Westies,” referring to an Irish-American crime family based in Hell’s Kitchen that once corrupted the construction industry, prosecutors wrote.

James Cahill, former president of the New York State Building and Construction Trades Council.

“Cahill has deep ties to leading members of organized crime who are known to engage in acts of violence and intimidation, which poses a threat to potential witnesses in this case,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Swergold wrote.

In 2017, Cuomo called Cahill “a good friend to me and my entire family for so long.” A Cuomo spokesman did not immediately respond to an inquiry.

The six-page filing opposing Cahill’s request for more lenient bail conditions reveals that the labor leader, who appeared alongside Cuomo at announcements for major infrastructure projects like the new Tappan Zee Bridge, was also allegedly rubbing elbows with hardcore gangsters.

Cahill was under surveillance as he met with Louis Filippelli, a capo in the Gambino crime family, according to the filing.

A recorded conversation on March 13 featured Cahill regaling a source cooperating with the government about decades-long ties to the Westies, the Gambinos and a Serbian organized crime family called Grupo Amerika, prosecutors claimed.

“John (Gotti) was like this with my brother and brother-in-law and this guy, Bosko. That was his crew. That was his Irish crew,” Cahill allegedly told the source cooperating with the government on March 13.

Cahill was referring to his brother Mickey Cahill — an alleged member of the Westies — his brother-in-law Buddy Leahy, and Bosko Radonjic, the former head of the Westies, prosecutors wrote.

Radonjich fled the U.S. in 1992 and died in Serbia in 2011. In the conversation, Cahil described Radonjich’s “understudy” as a gangster named “Michael Michael.”

Gov. Cuomo embraces Jim Cahill at an upstate trade conference in Lake George, N.Y., in 2015.

Prosecutors identified “Michael Michael” as Mileta Miljanic, the reputed leader of Grupo Amerika.

“He’s my guy,” Cahill allegedly said of Miljanic.

Cahill’s attorney Sam Talkin denied the charges.

“Mr. Cahill denies he has any association with organized crime,” Talkin said. “The Westies have been defunct for three decades. And John Gotti has been dead for nearly two decades. That sums up the accuracy of the government’s allegations.”

During the same alarming conversation, Cahill allegedly said Miljanic was part of a “mass murdering crew.” Cahill boasted that he’d personally intervened after his nephew received a death threat from Miljanic, prosecutors wrote.

“If you bother him, I’m gonna go away from yous, I won’t talk to yous, I’m done,” Cahill said in the recorded conversation.

The feds say they were also spying as Cahill met with Miljanic “on numerous occasions.”

The bribery scheme allegedly earned Cahill and his cronies over $100,000 since Oct. 2018. The indictment claims that Cahill accepted bribes from the cooperating source, who was a non-union employer. In exchange, Cahill pledged to use his influence to make sure the employer was not hassled for using non-union labor on a project in Nassau County, prosecutors charge.

“If you become union, you’ll have 12 f--king guys on your back,” Cahill allegedly told the source in Oct. 2019 after taking a bribe.

“Welcome to the real world.”

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-james-cahill-alleged-organized-crime-ties-20201228-s3fetgkm5jbg3dlt7ogeubui2u-story.html

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Gambino gangster from Stamford gets 71 months

Gambino gangster from Stamford gets 71 months

  October 10, 2013    Dapper_Don

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Back in January 2002, Dean DePreta was warned by a federal judge that he had a choice -- commit to his biological family and live a law-abiding life or return to organized crime with the Gambino family.

DePreta, 45, of Bartina Lane, Stamford chose the later.

"Clearly that was not sufficient to deter you," U.S. District Judge Vanessa Bryant told DePreta.

On Wednesday, Bryant sentenced DePreta, who a federal prosecutor claimed is "the titular head" of the Gambino crime family's southwestern Connecticut operation, to 71 months in prison.

But the judge didn't stop there. She fined DePreta $50,000, ordered him to forfeit $300,000 and required him to be supervised by U.S. Probation for three years following his release from prison.

DePreta was among 20 reputed Gambino associates, bookmakers and gamblers rounded up in June 2012. He was the only one who was denied bond and as a result has spent the past 16 months behind bars. He pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act through extortion and overseeing an illegal gambling operation that included a Costa Rica-based website and high-stakes clubs at 859 East Main Street and 614 Glenbrook Avenue in Stamford as well as at 2965 State Street in Hamden.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Chen said DePreta had as many as 30 bookmakers who paid a yearly fee to operate, and at least 200 committed gamblers. All this provided a $9 million profit in 4 1/2 years to the crime family, the prosecutor said.

One of the local bookmakers who cooperated with authorities was petrified when called to meet with DePreta at a local diner, Chen said. DePreta described the man as "easy pickings" whose family "got money," Chen said.

The man was forced to meet with DePreta and Nicholas "Nicky Skins" Stefanelli, a Gambino solider who was cooperating with the FBI after being caught in a drug deal. Stefanelli wore a wire during the meeting, which took place in a Southport diner. The bookmaker was told he had to come up with $5,000, court documents claim.

Still, Ethan Levin-Epstein, DePreta's lawyer, said his client is not "a loan shark or an arsonist ... not the stereotypical leg breaker ... just the manager and operator of an illegal gambling business -- no more, no less."

Bryant conceded that DePreta is a gambler, and said that like a gambler, "sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Well Mr. DePreta you lost." She added that the prison term and fines were the price he had to pay.

DePreta, a muscular 6-footer with a clean-shaven head and face, stared at Chen throughout the prosecutor's argument to the judge, When given the chance to speak, DePreta told Bryant: "I see I made a big mistake. You won't see me in this courtroom again."

But the judge was not convinced.

She called DePreta "a recidivist who voluntarily chose to commit criminal acts for decades -- at the expense of others."

Bryant called him an "individual who simply refuses to adhere to any standards imposed on him by anyone other than his criminal associates."

During a Jan. 30, 2010 meeting at Paramus, N.J., diner, Stefanelli told DePreta he would inform Gambino captain Jimmy Dellarata that he and DePreta would work together as a team, according to court documents. They would kick up a portion of the tax taken from bookies to both Dellarata and Mario Antonicelli, a ranking Gambino soldier. Dellarata was to get $1,000, court records indicate.

Stefanelli claimed "Bridgeport's mine," in the conversation, according to the documents. DePreta and Stefanelli also discussed other Gambino superiors including Louis Ricco, a soldier and Louis Filippelli, a Gambino captain. During the conversation, DePreta said he was committed to the Gambino family.

"I believe in ... the whole thing, the whole thing. I'm looking out for the principles of the family," he was recorded as saying, according to court documents.

Stefanelli could never be a witness at any trial, however. He killed himself on Feb. 26, 2012 after murdering the man he believed set him up in the drug deal.

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/Gambino-associate-sentenced-to-71-months-4882995.php

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