Bonanno family underboss sentenced to 21 months in prison

Bonanno family underboss sentenced to 21 months in prison

  March 24, 2015    Dapper_Don

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High blood sugar, stress, swelling of kidneys, swelling of skin, lung problems, vision issues: These were some of the medical problems enumerated by lawyers for Thomas DiFiore, a 71-year-old Mafia member, at his sentencing on Tuesday in Brooklyn.

The lawyers were seeking to have Mr. DiFiore sentenced to just the 14 months he has already served in jail since his arrest on a debt collection charge. Judge Allyne R. Ross of Federal District Court instead gave him a 21-month sentence, which means he will be released in seven months.

Judge Ross said that Mr. DiFiore “had experienced some significant health problems, about which we have had numerous conferences and hearings over the past year — I’ve considered those factors.”

“On the other hand,” she added, “I am in agreement with the government that the defendant’s criminal conduct was serious.”

Mr. DiFiore is one of the “oldfellas,” aging Mafia members who have been sentenced in recent years in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. While defendants facing sentencing often focus on a harsh upbringing or good works or family, these men have highlighted their faltering health and advancing age as they seek leniency.

“I want to thank Your Honor for taking such an interest in my medical problems here,” Mr. DiFiore said on Tuesday.

A heavyset man, Mr. DiFiore was dressed in navy prison scrubs and wore his gray hair combed away from his face and glasses. He added that he had missed the previous summer with his grandchildren, and “I really don’t want to miss another summer — I don’t know how many I have left.”

Sally J. M. Butler, one of Mr. DiFiore’s lawyers, argued that the plea agreement allowed Judge Ross to consider Mr. DiFiore’s medical history as she created his sentence. Ms. Butler then detailed Mr. DiFiore’s blood-sugar levels for the judge, explaining that they had “again gone through the roof.”

“It’s just not stabilized, as hard as everyone’s tried,” Ms. Butler said, as Mr. DiFiore shook his head and mouthed “Never.”

Ms. Butler criticized the health care staff at the Metropolitan Detention Center, the federal jail in Brooklyn where Mr. DiFiore is being held. They were late in giving him his insulin shot on Monday, she said. They have given him compression socks for the swelling, but they have not helped. He was supposed to have regular CT scans, and those were not being performed. He still needed a full work-up on his kidneys, and on his eyes.

That criticism made the end of the proceeding all the stranger. After sentencing Mr. DiFiore, Judge Ross offered to recommend a transfer to a medical facility run by the Bureau of Prisons. His lawyers declined.

“To have him moved to a different facility would be counterproductive because of the stress that that takes,” one of the lawyers, Steve Zissou, said, requesting that Mr. DiFiore be kept at the Metropolitan Detention Center.

The sentence was in the range sought by prosecutors — 21 to 27 months.

“He’s getting these illicit earnings off of other people’s backs,” Alicyn L. Cooley, an assistant United States attorney, said.

The charge, of conspiracy to collect unlawful debt, stemmed from a 2013 dispute over a loan. A man affiliated with the Bonanno crime family, for which Mr. DiFiore was the “street boss,” had lent money to a carwash employee who was affiliated with the Gambino crime family. But the Bonanno affiliate did not have clearance from his higher-ups to make the loan, and the loan was not being repaid.

Bonanno members intervened, including Vincent Asaro, 80, who is scheduled to go on trial this fall in Brooklyn in connection with the 1978 Lufthansa heist, among other offenses. “Stab him today,” Mr. Asaro told a friend about the Bonanno affiliate. “Today!”

The Bonannos resolved it by getting a $30,000 payment. Mr. Asaro figured $10,000 for himself, $10,000 for his son, $6,000 for the friend and $4,000 for Mr. DiFiore, though Mr. Asaro said he had taken Mr. DiFiore’s portion.

That apparently did not sit well with Mr. DiFiore, as Mr. Asaro described in a June 2013 conversation with an informer.

“Did you give, what’s his name, Tommy the money?” the informer asked. “Tommy, the $4,000?”

“I had a big fight with him the other day. We had $30,000 coming, he took $15,000 of it. I want to kill” him, Mr. Asaro responded.

“He’s that type of guy?” the informer asked.

Mr. Asaro described Mr. DiFiore in a term unprintable here, and added that he made a former Bonanno boss “look like St. Anthony.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/25/nyregion/aging-ex-mafia-bosss-bid-for-leniency-on-jail-time-fails.html?rref=homepage&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Home%20Page&pgtype=article

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Older mobsters use health problems against long jail sentences

Older mobsters use health problems against long jail sentences

  March 21, 2015    Dapper_Don

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Not long ago, Thomas DiFiore cut an intimidating figure. For a time, he was the highest-ranking member of the Bonanno organized crime family not behind bars, despite a long record of arrests on charges of kidnapping, assault, promoting gambling and extortion. Even at 70, Mr. DiFiore did not seem to falter when challenging another aging Bonanno leader in 2013 for more than his share of a loan payment, according to prosecutors’ account of a government wiretap.

“ ‘Without me,’ ” the other leader, Vincent Asaro, recalled Mr. DiFiore telling him, “ ‘you wouldn’t a got nothing.’ ” Mr. Asaro, whose words were being recorded by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said Mr. DiFiore made a former Bonanno boss “look like St. Anthony.”

Yet now, as he faces sentencing for federal unlawful debt-collection conspiracy, Mr. DiFiore’s swagger has given way to a shuffle, and he is talking about insulin and statins rather than payback.

He is one of the “oldfellas,” Mafiosi whose lives of crime seem to have succumbed as much to the ravages of age as to the relentlessness of federal prosecutors. In courtrooms, they can be found displaying catheter bags or discussing the state of their kidneys in hopes that a judge will agree to a short sentence.

Many of these geriatric gangsters have been sentenced in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, which covers the key territory of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Long Island inhabited by New York’s five major organized crime families.

Mr. DiFiore, 71, who is to be sentenced in Brooklyn on Tuesday, has outlined his drug regimen for the court: Lantus insulin shots every 12 hours; atorvastatin for cholesterol in the morning; amlodipine and lisinopril for blood pressure; and one 325-milligram aspirin a day.

As members of the Mafia seek to avoid lengthy prison terms, informers are becoming more common, said Belle Chen, assistant special agent in charge of organized crime for the F.B.I.’s New York field office.

The prospect that these turncoats will face violent retaliation has dwindled, experts say, because of both the protection afforded by the witness-protection program and the increasing likelihood that a participant in any such retaliation could wind up helping the authorities himself. “There are too many potential cooperators these days,” Ms. Chen said.

This dynamic has allowed investigators to target decades-old crimes and aging Mafia leaders, as has the federal racketeering act, under which old offenses can yield fresh indictments.

As a result, the federal courthouse in Brooklyn has been filled in recent years with tales from an era when the Mafia loomed larger than it does today, when it was linked to conspicuous acts of criminality like the 1978 Lufthansa heist at Kennedy International Airport — a $6 million armed robbery in which Mr. Asaro, 80, is scheduled to go on trial this fall.

Just this month, federal agents arrested reputed Mafia members and associates in their 60s and 70s connected to the New Jersey-based crime family long thought to have inspired “The Sopranos,” the HBO drama that featured its share of aging mobsters.

Given the age of the some of these defendants, court can occasionally sound less like a legal forum and more like a hospital admissions ward.

Consider Bartolomeo Vernace, who was 65 when he was sentenced last year in the 1981 killings of two owners of a Queens bar in a dispute over a spilled drink. Like Mr. DiFiore, Mr. Vernace had detailed his prescriptions for the judge: diltiazem, Accupril, Norvasc, Crestor, Zetia, Actos, Plavix and Amaryl.

Prosecutors have grown familiar with such litanies, and have contended that some defendants appear to be exaggerating their medical problems in bids for leniency.

Nicky Rizzo, a Colombo family soldier who was 86 when he was sentenced for racketeering conspiracy in 2013, said his health conditions included bad hearing, prostate cancer, bladder cancer, poor blood circulation in one leg, 20 medications a day and a need to use a pump with a catheter for urination.

“He stands in the bathroom for five-, ten-, 15-minute time period, he attempts to urinate,” said his lawyer, Joseph Mure Jr. Mr. Rizzo lifted his pant leg to show the catheter and urinary drainage bag to the judge.

Prosecutor Allon Lifshitz responded that Mr. Rizzo’s “behavior in court today, shuffling in from the back and the purported inability to hear, and the groaning, should get zero weight.” He added, “It’s a joke.”

Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto, citing Mr. Rizzo’s health and age, sentenced him to six months in prison, compared to the year and a half to two years sought by prosecutors.

Some judges have questioned the aging defendants’ conditions. Judge Matsumoto, for instance, sentenced Colombo family member Richard Fusco to just four months in prison for extortion conspiracy after he listed ailments that included kidney failure, hearing loss and early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, though reporters observed that his condition seemed to improve dramatically after he left court.

“If Mr. Fusco made a fool out of me, then shame on me,” Judge Matsumoto said at a later sentencing.

Thomas Gioeli, a Colombo family member convicted of racketeering conspiracy charges, detailed his health woes at his sentencing last year: back problems, a cardiac episode, diabetes and arthritis. The formerly fearsome mobster was also, literally, toothless.

“I have no teeth,” Mr. Gioeli told the court during his case. “I can’t chew my food. I’m choking more frequently. My back is out, my hips are out, my knee pops out.”

Just 61 when he was sentenced, Mr. Gioeli was “a very old 61 years,” his lawyer, Adam D. Perlmutter, argued.

“These medical conditions are not feigned, they are real,” Judge Brian M. Cogan said. Nonetheless, he sentenced Mr. Gioeli to almost 19 years in prison, saying that the federal prisons system offered decent medical care.

Whether prisons can in fact adequately handle aged and sick inmates is a question that many lawyers and defendants have raised.

Mr. Perlmutter, Mr. Gioeli’s lawyer, complained that the staff at Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where Mr. Gioeli was held, had not refilled his prescriptions.

The lawyer representing Dennis DeLucia, a Colombo family captain sentenced in 2013 to 34 months in prison for racketeering crimes at age 70, pointed out that a year had passed since a dentist at the Metropolitan Detention Center had recommended that Mr. DeLucia have a tooth removed.

As Mr. DiFiore said while pleading guilty in October, “My health has spiraled downhill, but I’m happy to say I am alive in spite of the stellar medical treatment that I have received at M.D.C.”

Prosecutors have said that the federal prisons do have good medical facilities. Though they concede that Mr. DiFiore’s health is relevant to the sentence he will receive on Tuesday, they are asking for a prison term of roughly two years, as recommended by federal sentencing guidelines.

And while Mr. DiFiore’s age may have contributed to his health problems, prosecutors suggest it worked to his advantage as well, with his many years in crime earning him “formidable” power and profits.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/nyregion/before-judges-the-godfathers-become-sick-old-grandfathers.html?_r=0&referrer=

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Bonanno family mobsters negotiate plea deals

Bonanno family mobsters negotiate plea deals

  October 03, 2014    Dapper_Don

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They may have watched the legendary Lufthansa heist in “Goodfellas” — but these Bonanno hoods want no part of it in real life.

Four of the five reputed Bonanno crime-family bigs swept up in a January bust that netted the famous heist’s alleged mastermind are negotiating plea deals to settle their cases, according to a Brooklyn federal court filing.

That would leave the accused Lufthansa point man — capo Vincent Asaro — all alone to face trial for a slew of raps including murder and racketeering that could put him behind bars for life.

Lawyers for three of Asaro’s co-defendants — acting capo Jack Bonventre, soldier John Ragano and acting street bos/underboss Thomas Di Fiore — argued that publicity surrounding the 1978 JFK robbery was too prejudicial and that their clients were involved in more mundane crimes with no connection to the famous heist.

They successfully had their cases severed from Asaro’s and are now hammering out deals, according to a filing by DiFiore’s ­attorney, Steve Zissou.

Asaro’s son, Jerome, is also part of the “global settlement” currently being negotiated, according to the filing.

Vincent Asaro was depicted in Nicholas Pileggi’s book “Wiseguy” — on which the movie “Goodfellas” was based — as the gangster who took the hapless “Spider” character to get patched up after he was shot in the foot by Tommy DeSimone (portrayed by Joe Pesci in the film).

http://nypost.com/2014/10/03/four-of-the-five-bonanno-crime-family-bigs-are-negotiating-plea-deals/

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Judge allows government to read Bonanno boss's emails

Judge allows government to read Bonanno boss's emails

  July 22, 2014    Dapper_Don

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A mafia boss can’t expect his jailhouse emails to be protected from the prying eyes of authorities — even if the communiques are to and from his lawyer, a Brooklyn federal judge has ruled.

Reputed Bonanno crime family boss Thomas “Tommy D” DiFiore and his lawyer, Steve Zissou, had argued that the monitoring of their web-based conversations violated his right to counsel — even though jailhouse rules clearly spell out that inmates’ emails are subject to review.

Judge Allyne Ross had temporarily blocked federal investigators from checking DiFiore’s emails while she considered the argument, but ruled in favor of the government last week.

Ross found that DiFiore had other opportunities to privately communicate with his attorney and that the email snooping did not “unreasonably interfere” with his ability to defend himself in court.

She said that inmates know that they are waiving their confidentiality when using the prison email function.

Ross did concede in her decision that the federal Bureau of Prisons should consider some form of protected e-mail forum for inmates and their attorneys to facilitate communication.

“Certainly, it would be a welcome development for BOP to improve TRULINCS (the jail computer system) so that attorney-client communications could be easily separated from other emails and subject to protection,” the judge wrote.

DiFiore is charged with participating in an extortion scheme with co-codefendant Vincent Asaro, the infamous Bonanno capo charged with the 1978 Lufthansa Airlines heist depicted in the film “Goodfellas.”

http://nypost.com/2014/07/21/judge-rules-investigators-can-see-mafia-bosss-emails-with-lawyer/

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Judge orders feds to stop reading emails of Bonanno boss

Judge orders feds to stop reading emails of Bonanno boss

  June 17, 2014    Dapper_Don

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A Brooklyn judge has ordered federal prosecutors to refrain from reading email communications between reputed Bonanno crime boss Thomas DiFiore and his lawyer until she makes a ruling on the issue.

DiFiore’s lawyer, Steve Zissou, went ballistic after he obtained a memo from the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s criminal division chief stating the prosecutor’s office intends to review all emails between inmates and their lawyers that came through the Bureau of Prisons computer system.

Zissou told Federal Judge Allyne Ross last week he plans to file papers arguing the practice is unconstitutional. She granted his request for the feds to avoid the mobster’s electronic messages — at least for now.

“Frankly I had no idea they (prosecutors) were already doing this,” Zissou told the Daily News. “It’s immoral and unprofessional.”

According to the memo, the feds are on firm legal ground because the inmate waives any confidentiality privilege every time the computer system known as TRULINCS is used to send emails.

“Inmates at the (Metropolitan Detention Center) and their counsel are provided with ample notice that their emails are being monitored,” Assistant Brooklyn U.S. Attorney James McGovern says in the memo obtained by The News.

“Thus, no attorney-client privilege attaches to such communications,” the memo says.

That notification is contained in the TRULINCS user agreement page that appears on the computer screen after logging in to the system and includes a “consent to monitoring” condition, McGovern pointed out.

The inmate must consent to “monitoring and information retrieval for law enforcement and other purposes” before using the system.

The Bureau of Prisons does not monitor in-person visits between lawyers and clients.

McGovern declined to comment, but a law enforcement source with knowledge of the memo said it did not signal a new policy but was merely a reminder to defense lawyers that the emails are subject to monitoring and prosecutors intend to do so.

Peter Kirchheimer, chief of the Brooklyn federal defender’s office, said he intends to make a request to each judge presiding over every one of his cases to order the government not to snoop on email communications between him and his jailed client.

Kirchheimer said it is not clear to him that the notification to inmates of monitoring is adequate to waive the confidentiality privilege.

DiFiore was arrested last year on extortion charges and is being held without bail.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/judge-orders-feds-stop-reading-mob-boss-emails-article-1.1832118#ixzz34u1vSTQu

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Bonanno underboss gouges on food in desperate attempt to get bail from jail

Bonanno underboss gouges on food in desperate attempt to get bail from jail

  May 11, 2014    Dapper_Don

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If Bonanno crime boss Thomas "Tommy D" DiFiore was trying to eat his way out of jail, he was done in by Pringles and peanut butter.

DiFiore, 70, has been desperately seeking bail since he was arrested on extortion charges in January, claiming his Type 2 diabetes is raging out of control.

But DiFiore broke a cardinal rule of canny mobsters, leaving a trail of commissary purchases that showed he's been stuffing his face with junk food high in sugar and carbs.

The damning evidence came when federal prosecutors called in a surprise witness at DiFiore's bail hearing last month in Brooklyn Federal Court — Dr. Robin Edwin of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

Dr. Robin Edwin of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn told the court that DiFiore bought Pepsi, peanut butter and Hershey's chocolate from the commissary, adding that these items 'would cause his sugars to go up quite high and it would be very hard to control diabetes.'

"In terms of Mr. DiFiore, what items have you seen him purchasing at the commissary based on MDC records if you're able to comment on that?" Assistant U.S. Attorney Alicyn Cooley asked in Perry Mason fashion.

Edwin ticked off the gruesome details: Ramen-flavored chili noodles; Hershey candy bars 6-pack; Pringles potato chips; jalapeno wheels; jalapeno squeeze cheese; peanut butter.

DiFiore allegedly washed it all down with Pepsi soda.

The main thing is to reduce the amount of ... potatoes, pasta and fries.

"These all would cause his sugars to go up quite high and it would be very hard to control diabetes while they're consuming these foods," Edwin said, according to a transcript of the proceeding.

The doctor added that he schooled DiFiore about the benefits of a "plate diet," in which half the prison grub on his plate should be veggies, a quarter proteins, and the other quarter carbohydrates.

Edwin's advice would have sent shudders up the spine of Tony Soprano: "The main thing is to reduce the amount of ... potatoes, pasta and fries," the doctor said.

Vincent Asaro was also arrested in the alleged extortion plot in January. He's believed to have been involved in the infamous 1978 Lutfhansa Heist.

Federal Judge Allyne Ross rejected DiFiore's bid for release on $4 million bail, ruling that he's a danger to the community — not mentioning whether he's a danger to himself.

Defense lawyer Steve Zissou threw cold water on the feds' food facts.

"The commissary purchases are for other inmates — he does not consume them," Zissou told the Daily News. "There is an informal barter system in some jails."

Pringles chip purchases were another piece of evidence in prosecutors' claims that DiFiore has been pigging out on junk food and raising his blood sugar. Defense lawyers say he bought the food for other inmates.

Last week prosecutors updated the judge on DiFiore's condition, reporting that he had a consultation with a dietician and was told what he should and should not eat. Sources said DiFiore has been stocking up on tuna fish since he learned the feds were monitoring his commissary purchases.

DiFiore, of Commack, L.I., is charged with participating in an extortion scheme with co-defendant Vincent Asaro, the Bonanno capo who is also charged with the infamous Lufthansa heist at Kennedy Airport in 1978 immortalized in the film "Goodfellas," which also depicted mobsters feasting on steaks, lobsters and homemade tomato sauce in prison.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/mob-boss-difiore-devours-junk-food-jail-article-1.1772373#ixzz31T7Nyd3K

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Feds pick up 5 Bonanno mobsters for the infamous 1978 Lufthansa heist at JFK

Feds pick up 5 Bonanno mobsters for the infamous 1978 Lufthansa heist at JFK

  January 23, 2014    Dapper_Don

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The FBI escorts Vincent Asaro (center), considered a ruling member of the Bonanno crime family, Thursday. He was arrested in connection to the 1978 heist at Kennedy Airport. He also faces a murder charge.

A top Bonanno family “Goodfella,” in a bust 35 years in coming, was nabbed Thursday in the $6 million Lufthansa Airlines heist at the center of Martin Scorsese’s mob classic.

FBI agents rounded up old-school mobster Vincent Asaro and four other suspects, including several top-echelon family members, before their expected Thursday afternoon arraignment in Brooklyn Federal Court.

Asaro, considered a ruling member of the crime family, was arrested with his son Jerome Asaro, capo Thomas Di Fiore, John Rigano and Jack Bonventre on various charges of racketeering, extortion, robbery and solicitation to murder.

Jerome Asaro is walked out of Federal Plaza in Manhattan on Thursday.

The quintet was ratted out by a cousin of Vincent Asaro, authorities said. The informant — a participant in the heist — even wore a wire after the feds reopened the investigation in June 2013.

Asaro and his son plotted to whack the cousin because they suspected that he was a snitch, authorities said.


Thomas Di Fiore (center) was also one of five men charged in Thursday's wide-ranging indictment.

“These ‘Goodfellas’ thought they had a license to steal, a license to kill and a license to do whatever they wanted,” said FBI Assistant Director George Venizelos.

“It may be decades later, but the FBI’s determination to investigate and bring wise guys to justice will never waver.”

The new investigation began after the informant steered the feds to a secret burial site in the backyard of an Ozone Park home owned by the late James "Jimmy the Gent" Burke, the mastermind of the airport heist.

Jack Bonventre (left), another suspect charged in Thursday's indictment.

The victim, Paul Katz, was killed in 1969. Court papers indicated that Vincent Asaro and Burke used a dog chain to strangle Katz in the basement — and buried him beneath the cement floor.

Burke, immortalized in the classic film “Goodfellas” by actor Robert De Niro, died of cancer in 1996 while serving a 20-year murder sentence.


John Ragano (left) was charged with four others Thursday in a wide-ranging indictment that covered a number of crimes and offenders.

But his greatest hit was the well-planned robbery of the Lufthansa cargo terminal on Dec. 11, 1978, with a haul of nearly $6 million in cash and jewelry.

Each bandit was supposed to receive $750,000 in cash, but most were slain or stiffed out of their windfall, court papers indicated.

Among the co-conspirators was mob informant Henry Hill, whose story became the inspiration for the book “Wiseguy” and the Scorsese movie.

A 1978 Lufthansa cargo heist at Kennedy Airport resulted in a $6 million theft of cash and jewelry.

“We never got the right money, what we was supposed to get, we got f----- all around,” Vincent Asaro complained to the informant. “Got f----- all around. That f------ Jimmy (Burke) kept everything.”

Burke, an associate of the Luchese crime family, did not live in the house on 102nd Road where the remains were discovered.

Heist organizer James "Jimmy the Gent" Burke was portrayed by Robert De Niro (second from left) in the film ‘Goodfellas.’

He allegedly asked the Bonanno mobsters to join in the hit as a favor.

Vincent Asaro faces life behind bars if convicted, while his co-defendants all face up to 20 years in prison.

Vincent Asaro’s rap sheet includes 21 arrests since 1957 for crimes including rape, bank robbery, kidnapping and assault. The charges, in many of the cases, were later dismissed.

Even at the spry age of 76, Asaro punched a man in the face at Belmont Park racetrack, kicked another man, and challenged a crew of men associated with the Gambino family outside a social club in Ozone Park.

In 2005, after a group of young men he confronted outside a bodega said they wouldn't fight an old man, Asaro ripped off his shirt and glasses and said, “Let's go.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/feds-charge-mobster-1978-lufthansa-heist-kennedy-airport-article-1.1588523

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