Five Families of New York City

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

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Niagara Falls mobster dies at 73

  September 13, 2012    Dapper_Don


“That’s the end of an era in the Falls, that’s for sure… Everyone is devastated… I was sad because he had been there for me during my time in prison, and helped a ton with hooking me up with the right guys…Guys all around the country that knew him are shocked, but life goes on…”

With those words, a convicted Niagara Falls racketeer and former federal inmate who spoke on the condition of anonymity described reaction to the death of Benjamin “Sonny” Nicoletti Jr., 73, named by federal law enforcement officials as the head of organized crime in this city and the man in charge of illegal gambling and loan sharking in Western New York, and beyond, for the last 40 years.

Sonny or “Mr. Nick,” as he was often referred to locally, died last week of complications from a stroke. He had been in ill-health for the better part of a year, and sources close to the family told the Niagara Falls Reporter that he’d been in a coma for a week prior to his Sept. 3 passing.

Like his mentor, Stefano Magaddino, old age and bad health combined to lay Nicoletti low where generations of underworld enemies and law enforcement types had failed.

“The consensus is, he's not suffering any more,” said one Pine Avenue businessman. “I’m still shocked because he’s been around a long time and it doesn't seem real. Now you have a few old-timers left in Buffalo, but it seems we won’t see his likes again.”

Sonny Nicoletti was born into the life. His father, Benjamin Nicoletti Sr., was a top man in the old Magaddino mob here and his cousin, Joseph Nicoletti of Brooklyn , was a so-called "made man" in Brooklyn’s Bonnano family.

Sonny was frequently arrested, but rarely convicted and, even when he was convicted, barely served any time. "When they gave out the name, 'Teflon Don,' they should've gave it to Sonny instead of Gotti," said one old- timer.

His first serious arrest came on the afternoon of Nov. 26, 1968, when – along with his father and Peter Magaddino, Sam Pugelese, Gino Monaco, Pasquale “Patsy” Passaro, Augustine Rizzo, Louis Tavano and Michael Farella – he became a part of the infamous “Niagara Falls Nine,”charged by federal authorities along with Don Stefano Magaddino with conspiracy and violation of the Interstate Transportation in Aid of Racketeering Act.

The feds wasted no time before crowing to the newspaper hacks that they had “broken the back” of organized crime in Western New York.

But the euphoria was short-lived. Federal charges against Magaddino and the rest of the Nine were dropped because the feds refused to name one of their informants in the case and they had used illegal wire taps.

The following year, Sonny was picked up along with his father in North Tonawanda, where they were running the Varsity Restaurant and the Oliver Social Club as fronts for an illegal gambling operation. Again, cops and a local judge screwed up the search warrant, and all charges were dropped for lack of evidence.

By 1970, Sonny was running a little casino at the old Ivanhoe Inn on Buffalo Avenue. Niagara Falls police, with nothing better to do, busted the joint. Police surveillance of the saloon showed it was frequented by known gamblers, and informants reported that gambling operations were being conducted there. Based on this information, an eavesdropping warrant was secured to tap a telephone in a room at the inn believed to be used in the gambling operation.

Numerous incriminating conversations were intercepted, according to police. The defendants were then arrested, and indictments followed.

The entire case was thrown out on appeal when it was shown that the tapes had been taken home by cops, who spliced and edited them to create a “greatest hits” package.

Following Stefano Magaddino’s death in 1974, the feds arrested acting boss Joseph Todaro, Russell Buffalino of the northeastern Pennsylvania Buffalino family, racketeer Frank Valenti and Sonny Nicoletti, who had been promoted and was in control of gambling operations for the Buffalo mob. The Feds failed to prove their case and Sonny walked away a free man.

During the 1980s, Buffalo-based federal agents again arrested him, locating voluminous records concerning loan sharking, bookmaking, and infiltration of legitimate businesses. Again Sonny walked.

While he had been arrested for gambling activity on more than a dozen occasions, Nicoletti was remarkably successful in avoiding prison time, serving just a year in jail following a plea agreement in 1993.

Still the feds dogged him.

On Sept.12, 2002, Nickoletti was arrest on federal charges of racketeering, conspiracy and extortion. Arrested with Nicoletti was Adam Thomas, a former banker from St.Catharines, Ont.,who has been associated with Nicoletti since 1996 when authorities say they created a new type of gambling racket.

Nicoletti and Thomas set up a 1-800 betting service based in the Dominican Republic, where gambling is legal. What was not legal, authorities say, was sending thugs to the homes of bettors in the United States who were slow in paying.
One of these, Willie Tyrone Crittendon, was found guilty of perjury after he denied assaulting a deadbeat gambler on Nicoletti's behalf.

At the time, Sonny was named by federal law enforcement authorities as the head of the Niagara Falls "crew" of the Buffalo organized crime family, known nationally in underworld circles as "The Arm." Federal officials said Nicoletti controlled illegal gambling throughout Western New York and Southern Ontario, a charge denied by Nicoletti and his attorney, Joel L. Daniels.
"This is ancient history," Daniels said at the time. "We'll take it to trial."

Sonny got probation. Daniels doesn’t earn the big bucks for nothing.

In 2004, Sonny was convicted of violating federal weapons charges for having a couple of high-priced shotguns in his home and whisked off to jail. The Italian pigeon guns were pieces, made by Bernadelli and Beretta - but that didn’t stop law enforcement and a federal jury agreed that possessing the shotguns found in his home during a probation department inspection constituted another felony.

There was never a newspaper story about Sonny’s philanthropic work with the no-kill Northtowns Animal Shelter, or any of his other efforts to save dogs, cats, horses and other animals victimized by human beings. There were no stories because Sonny didn’t want any.

And the boilerplate is this; Survivors include his beloved wife, Marguerite M. (Trasatti) Nicoletti; children Debra A. (Edward) Macri of Sanborn, Benjamin J. Nicoletti (Linda Folino) of Lewiston, Anthony Nicoletti (Beth Lauzonis) of Niagara Falls, Ronald J. (Lisa) Nicoletti of Lewiston; grandkids Dominic Macri, Nicholas Harvey, Alexa Nicoletti, Olivia Nicoletti and Marco Nicoletti; sibling of the late Paula (Ben) Cafaro of Las Vegas, Nevada, Mario Nicoletti, Jennifer Nicoletti, both of Florida, and special friends and confidants Adam Thomas of Niagara Falls, Ont., and Tim Shiah of Las Vegas.

As Nino might have said, “Cosa si puo dire?”

http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/Stories/2012/Sep11/BenjaminNicoletti.html

  

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Wednesday, September 12, 2012

New England mob boss to plead guilty in strip club extortion scheme

  September 12, 2012    Dapper_Don

The suspected former head of the New England mafia will plead guilty to a charge of racketeering for participating in a scheme to extort protection payments from Rhode Island strip clubs and adult bookstores.

Anthony DiNunzio, 53, of East Boston, Massachusetts agreed to enter the plea in federal court in Rhode Island on Thursday, the Justice Department said in a statement on Wednesday.

DiNunzio faced up to 20 years in prison, but as part of the agreement federal prosecutors will ask for a reduced sentence of between five and six and a half years.

DiNunzio was arrested in April and charged with overseeing a scheme to extort payments of up to $6,000 per month from Providence area clubs including the Satin Doll, the Foxy Lady and the Cadillac Lounge.

Prosecutors say DiNunzio had been boss of the New England mafia since 2008 after Louie "Baby Shacks" Manocchio stepped down as chief. Manocchio was sentenced to nine years in prison for his role in the scheme in June.

As part of the scheme, clubs such as the Cadillac Lounge were forced to hire mafia members as bookkeepers and bouncers to ensure payments were made.

DiNunzio and his colleagues held meetings to supervise the plan at Boston area Italian restaurants with names like My Cousin Vinny's and Carmen's Kitchen, court papers show.

DiNunzio also negotiated with New York's Gambino crime family to divide racketeering proceeds from one adult entertainment figure who owned multiple businesses in the Northeast.

At least eight other New England mafia figures have been sentenced for their roles in the scheme.

The announcement comes 21 months after the biggest single-day sweep against organized crime in U.S. history, when law enforcement arrested more than 125 organized crime suspects, targeting New York's five Mafia "families," as well as New Jersey and New England mafia families.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/12/us-usa-crime-mob-idUSBRE88B1OD20120912

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Monday, September 10, 2012

FBI agent who brought down Gambino family opens speaker series at Las Vegas Mob Museum

  September 10, 2012    Dapper_Don

Image
As if sitting in the historic courtroom of The Mob Museum isn’t goose bump-inducing enough for fans and scholars of organized crime history, in comes a lineup of guest speakers to nudge them over the top.
Joaquin Garcia, a Cuban-born FBI agent who infiltrated the Gambino crime family as Italian jewel thief Jack Falcone, will kick off “Inside Stories,” a new speaker series starting September 19 at the museum.
Garcia, author of Making Jack Falcone, had spent 20 years with the FBI by the time he created Falcone and gathered evidence against the Mob. His success as an agent in La Cosa Nostra resulted in convictions of roughly three-dozen mobsters, including notorious wise guy Greg DePalma, who received a 12-year sentence and died in prison.
Following Garcia’s appearance in The Mob Museum’s limited-seating “courtroom” will be author and transnational organized crime specialist Mark Galeotti (October 17), who will discuss the rise and international spread of organized crime in Russia. As the author of the blog In Moscow’s Shadows, he writes on current events dealing with politics, crime and corruption.
On November 13, attorney and Notre Dame Law professor G. Robert Blakey will discuss organized crime’s role in the JFK assassination. Blakey, an organized crime expert, drafted the RICO Act (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act), enacted in 1970. As former chief counsel to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, he’s recognized for his extensive investigations into the JFK assassination, and he’s the co-author of the book The Plot to Kill the President.
Tickets for the Garcia engagement (priced at $35) go on sale August 22 by phone (724-8641) or online at themobmuseum.org/tickets.

http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2012/aug/21/mob-museum-brings-mob-mole/

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Taped mafia meeting sheds light on the Philadelphia crime family

  September 10, 2012    Dapper_Don

http://af11.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/20101226_inq_jmob26-a.jpg
Joe Ligambi, the reputed Philadelphia mob boss, spent a decade operating in the shadows.

Unlike his predecessor, the flamboyant Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino, Ligambi, 73, seldom spoke to the media, avoided public displays of bravado, and preferred to spend his nights at home rather than in bars and nightclubs.

But secretly recorded conversations from a mob meeting at a New Jersey restaurant two years ago offer a rare opportunity to listen in as Ligambi breaks bread in a gossip-filled gabfest with several other mobsters.

It's Ligambi, in his own words, discussing the murderous and the mundane as the wine flowed during a five-hour luncheon meeting at La Griglia, a restaurant in Kenilworth.

A federal judge ruled last week that most of those conversations can be used as evidence in the racketeering trial of Ligambi and seven others scheduled for October.

A federal prosecutor has likened the restaurant session to a meeting of the board of directors of organized crime, but Ligambi's mocking tone and critical asides were often more reminiscent of the banter in a high school locker room.

"That's the kind of nuts you're dealing with," he said during one story about an alleged mob murder plot, drawing laughter from those at the table.

At another point, he joked that a hapless 78-year-old North Jersey mobster was so poor "he's selling cakes out of the trunk of his car."

Again, the table burst into laughter.

But federal prosecutors may get the last laugh.

The conversations were recorded by cooperating witness Nicholas "Nicky Skins" Stefanelli in May 2010. Ligambi and several of his associates met that afternoon with high-ranking members of New York's Gambino crime family, authorities allege.

During the session, Stefanelli, a soldier in the Gambino organization, drew praise from Ligambi, who described him as "a good man."

Stefanelli, who committed suicide earlier this year, was wearing a body wire for the FBI at the time. According to authorities, the North Jersey mobster had begun cooperating in 2009 and over two years recorded dozens of conversations up and down the East Coast.

The Ligambi trial will be the first at which Stefanelli tapes will be introduced as evidence. The tapes include conversations from the mob confab at La Griglia and from another meeting at the American Bistro in Belleville.

Though Ligambi unwittingly had nice things to say about a mobster who was a government informant, he didn't hesitate to mock several other mob members and associates.

He told a story about Vincent "Beeps" Centorino, a down-on-his-luck member of the North Jersey faction of the Philadelphia mob who, Ligambi said, "was selling cakes out of the trunk of his car."

"I can't make three cents with him," added Joseph "Scoops" Licata, 71, a mob capo to whom the aging Centorino reported.

Licata, a codefendant in the pending case, drew more laughs when he said, "We'll run a benefit for him."

In that same conversation, Ligambi made an aside about Centorino's girlfriend, describing her as "the broken-down broad he was going out with in Florida," and complained about how Centorino had cornered him at a mob gathering in South Philadelphia.

"At the Christmas party we had, he was sitting next to me," Ligambi said. "He was giving me a ditty how broke he is."

In another discussion, Ligambi alluded to problems with Danny D'Ambrosia, a South Philadelphia bookmaker and reputed mob associate whose underworld allegiance has often been questioned.

Ligambi said that a few years earlier, D'Ambrosia's father had come to see him at his South Philadelphia home, claiming the FBI had told him the mob was going to kill his son.

"His father comes over to my house about three or four years ago," Ligambi said. "Said the FBI said you was going to kill my son. He was telling me this on the step. I said, 'What . . . are you talking about? Don't ever come around this house again. I don't know what you're talking about.' I mean that's, that's the kind of nuts you're dealing with."

Ligambi also joked about the murder of John "Johnny Gongs" Casasanto and made a passing reference to Fox 29 reporter Dave Schratwieser, although his exact words were too garbled to be understood, according to the transcript.

At the time, Schratwieser was doing in-depth reports on the Philadelphia mob and had focused several times on the unsolved Casasanto hit.

Whatever Ligambi said drew laughter and led Licata to add, "At least we finally got to get him."

Casasanto was killed in his home in South Philadelphia in November 2003.

Defense attorneys have challenged the government's transcription of many of the conversations, including that comment from Licata. They contend Licata was not talking about the Casasanto murder and had, in fact, said, "At least we finally got to get together," referring to the restaurant meeting.

Ligambi and Licata also made fun of an aging North Jersey mob figure who had been proposed for membership by Peter "Pete the Crumb" Caprio. Caprio later became a cooperating witness, and the North Jersey mobster's chances to be formally initiated died there.

Licata said he told the mob wannabe to "leave it alone."

But Ligambi said the mobster called his house.

"I said, 'How'd you find my phone number?' " Ligambi told the others at the table.

The mobster told Ligambi he got the number from Rita Merlino, Skinny Joey's mother.

"He said Rita gave it to me," Ligambi recalled as the others laughed. "It was Joey's mother. I told her, 'What're you giving this guy my number for? What the hell's the matter with you?' "

Merlino is mentioned several times by Ligambi and others during the restaurant meeting. At the time, the flamboyant mob leader was still in jail, finishing a 14-year sentence for a racketeering conviction. He was released the next summer.

"Joey sends word," Ligambi said.

Others at the table chimed in on a discussion about how and when Merlino, 50, would be released and where he would go.

Authorities now contend that based on these secretly recorded conversations, Merlino is still the boss of the Philadelphia mob, even though he has settled in Florida.

Ligambi, authorities say, is "acting boss."

How the mobsters at the table felt about Merlino is difficult to determine from the conversations.

Louis Fazzini, a Licata associate and codefendant in the pending case, referred to Merlino as "slippery," but it was impossible to determine whether that was meant as criticism or a compliment.

Anthony Staino, a top Ligambi associate who is also a codefendant, drew laughter when he talked about Merlino's pending release, but again it was impossible to determine whether he was mocking or praising Merlino.

"They're going to have a caravan wherever he's at," Staino said of the day Merlino was to leave jail. "He sneezes, there'll be five hands giving him a hanky."

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20120910_Taped_mobster_meeting_sheds_light_on_insiders.html?page=2&c=y

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DA probes lawyer's Mafia threat

  September 10, 2012    Dapper_Don

Suspended celebrity divorce lawyer Dominic Barbara allegedly threatened to unleash his Mafia relatives and friends on a client who filed an official complaint against him — and now the Suffolk County DA is investigating, The Post has learned.

In a rambling voice message, Barbara — who has represented Joey Buttafuoco, Jessica Hahn and Michael Lohan — allegedly suggested he would show up at truck driver Ray Young Jr.’s house with mobbed-up goons.

“Ray, it’s Dominic Barbara,” he calmly began the Aug. 30 message, and then read out his own phone number.

“Before you call me back, I’d like you to Google . . . Joseph Barbara. Mafia. That’s my grandfather,” he allegedly said, along with, “Anthony ‘Tony Ducks’ Corrallo, that’s my real godfather.”

He then allegedly said he had a man in the room with him who is “here right now. He’s my best friend my whole life, took care of me since I’m a baby.”

“Maybe we’ll come over and see you later, if you want. I just don’t have your address. So why don’t you call me back.’’

Barbara initially admitted to The Post that he made the intimidating call and confirmed the details, saying he hoped “it would scare [Young] off.’’ Later, he denied making the call and claimed the recording was doctored.

Barbara is “threatening me like a mobster. This is not the TV show ‘Mob Wives.’ I don’t like threats — nobody does,” Young said.

Barbara wants Young to drop his complaint against him to the Bar Association, in which Young claims the lawyer wrongfully kept more than $200,000 in fees he never earned. Barbara believes the claim is preventing him from being reinstated as a lawyer.

With Barbara as his attorney, Young won custody of his two daughters in 2007.

Sources confirm that Barbara is related to or is connected to the two mobsters he allegeldy mentioned in the voicemail.

Joseph Barbara, who is now dead, was Barbara’s grandfather. He hosted the historic 1957 nationwide Mafia Commission meeting at his home in upstate Apalachin. It was broken up by cops and eventually helped confirm the existence of organized crime.

And Anthony “Tony Ducks’’ Corrallo is the late Luchese crime family boss.

Last week, Barbara was arrested in a separate case and charged with violating an order of protection not to contact his ex-wife directly or indirectly.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/att_mob_threat_1HS1KFysMA0fe3YJXuILbJ

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Casino tycoon awarded $20 million in slander case against Girls Gone Wild founder

  September 10, 2012    Dapper_Don

Casino tycoon Steve Wynn hit the jackpot in court Monday, getting $20 million in damages from a jury that found “Girls Gone Wild” creator Joe Francis concocted his wild tale that Wynn plotted to rub him out.

A jury of nine men and three women awarded the higher-than-expected figure in the slander case, which centered on Francis’ claim Wynn threatened to hit him “over the head with a shovel” and “bury (him) in the desert."

Francis earlier told jurors that music legend Quincy Jones, his neighbor and a mutual friend of Wynn's, relayed the threat to him while waving a stack of emails in his face in early 2010.

He said it scared him stiff because he believed Wynn was connected to New York’s feared Genovese crime family, and he was locked in a battle with the gambling mogul over a disputed $2 million debt from a Wynn property in 2007.

Wynn vehemently denied the claim, sued and asked for a minimum of $12 million last week, saying Francis' public accusation harmed his business interests in the ruthlessly competitive, highly regulated gaming industry.

Wynn’s lawyer smiled after the verdict and joked he’ll be upset if Wynn isn’t happy, too.

“Steve Wynn didn’t know who Joe Francis was, had never even met him and didn’t know he owed him $2 million until he started making these comments,” lawyer Barry Langberg said outside court. “Mr. Francis apparently thought that he could intimidate ... Steve Wynn into backing off collecting the legal debt.”

Francis said he expects the verdict to be overturned on appeal due to judicial error.
"I'm startled by the jury's verdict because it's totally unfounded and the evidence does not support it," Francis said in a phone interview.

He said the judge erred by allowing Wynn's attorneys to allow jurors to consider a new claim of slander based on an interview Francis did with "Good Morning America" after the trial started. The panel awarded Wynn $11 million in damages on that claim alone.

"You can't add a cause of action at the end of trial about something that had nothing to do with the trial," Francis said. "Therefore we are 100 percent confident this jury verdict will be reversed on appeal."

Langberg said Jones played a critical role when he told jurors he never received or relayed such a threat to Francis, his next-door neighbor.

“Quincy was very important. With him (testifying), it was pretty clear cut,” Langberg told the Daily News.

Jones, 79, said repeatedly on the stand that Wynn never relayed a murder threat to him.

Asked if he told Francis that Wynn was a "gangster" who "doesn't play," Jones laughed.

“That sounds like a line from ‘Scarface,’” he said. “No, absolutely not.”

The jurors are due back Tuesday for a second phase focused on possible punitive damages in excess of the $20 million compensatory figure.

Neither Wynn nor Francis were in court for the verdict.

Francis said last week that he stood by his story “100 percent” despite Jones’ testimony.

“I am telling the truth and have told the truth under penalty of perjury,” he said in a statement to The News. “My friendship with Quincy Jones will continue to be strong, and (I) am saddened that he was unable to tell the truth today because I believe he was pressured by Steve Wynn and his cronies to lie.”

He said he “strongly believed” his life was in danger when he first mentioned the alleged Wynn threat during a court proceeding involving a Los Angeles Superior Court judge.
“Numerous people, including Quincy Jones, told me that Steve Wynn threatened to kill me,” he said, calling Wynn a “bully.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/steve-wynn-awarded-20-million-slander-case-girls-wild-founder-joe-francis-article-1.1156120#ixzz266fBHL4t

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Sunday, September 9, 2012

Whitey Bulger set for March 2013 trial date

  September 09, 2012    Dapper_Don

Lawyers for mobster James “Whitey” Bulger on Friday accused prosecutors of vilifying Bulger, while prosecutors said the defense is trying to influence potential jurors by denigrating witnesses.
The two sides traded accusations during a contentious hearing in U.S. District Court.
Attorney J.W. Carney Jr. said the U.S. Attorney’s Office “demonized” Bulger — the former leader of the Winter Hill Gang — during the nearly 17 years he was a fugitive, “to an extent never before seen in New England.” Carney said his comments to reporters simply repeat what he says in court. He said a complaint by prosecutors that he is trying to influence the jury pool “doesn’t even pass a laugh test.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Kelly accused Carney of violating a local rule of U.S. District Court which prohibits attorneys from releasing information or opinion if there is a “’reasonable likelihood” that it will interfere with a fair trial. Prosecutors said in court documents they believe Carney has impugned the credibility of government attorneys and law enforcement officials when speaking to reporters.
Kelly asked Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler to order Carney to comply with the rule. Bowler instructed both Carney and Kelly to review the rule. After Carney said he has not violated the rule, Bowler reminded Carney to “re-read the rule and refresh your recollection of it.”
Bulger is awaiting trial for allegedly participating in 19 murders. The trial is set to begin in March, but the defense has repeatedly complained that prosecutors have flooded it with hundreds of thousands of documents in a disorganized and redundant way, making it difficult for them to prepare for the trial.
Bulger’s attorney has said he will take the stand in his own defense at his trial to testify that someone within the U.S. Department of Justice gave him immunity to commit crimes while he was an FBI informant against the Mafia, his gang’s main rival.
Bulger, now 82, was captured in Santa Monica, Calif., last year after fleeing Boston in late 1994, just before he was indicted.
Another one of Bulger’s lawyers, Hank Brennan, complained that the more than 350,000 pages of discovery material turned over by prosecutors is filled with multiple copies of the same document, which has significantly slowed the defense as it prepares for trial. Brennan said the discovery included 45 different versions of one particular document.
Bowler said she was satisfied that prosecutors had properly followed discovery rules and produced more evidence than required under the rules. She said it is up to the defense to organize the documents in its own way.
“To me, that’s trial preparation,” she said. “It will take time, but that’s your job.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/bulger-lawyer-says-prosecutors-hampering-defense-in-trial-preparation/2012/09/07/82634c7c-f92e-11e1-a93b-7185e3f88849_story.html

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Charles "Lucky" Luciano from HBO's Boardwalk Empire

  September 09, 2012    Dapper_Don


I say I don’t wanna be a stereotype as I eat pasta and sausage!” laughs Vincent Piazza as he takes another bite.

The actor is sitting in a Wall Street-area restaurant picking at a bowl of orecchiette. “Italian-American actors can be pigeonholed,” he continues. “I worked hard at the beginning of my career to not play Italian characters. But this was too good to pass up. It’s quintessential Italian-American.”

Piazza is speaking of his role as a young Charles “Lucky” Luciano on HBO’s stellar 1920s gangster epic “Boardwalk Empire.” Piazza exudes great presence in the large ensemble cast. Luciano, who would become the father of organized crime and the man who separated the mob into the five families, is one of the only household names on the show. But this tricky part requires the subtlety to portray not a legend, but a legend-in-the-making — and play backup to Steve Buscemi’s Nucky Thompson.

“Historical figures like Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, are peripheral,” Piazza says. “It would be too obvious for us to be front and center all the time. They tell the stories of these other guys, but right around the bend we’re looming.” So is Piazza’s potential as a leading man.

“Boardwalk Empire’s” hotly-anticipated third season premieres on Sept. 16. Piazza is careful not to leak any spoilers. Earlier this month, the crew filmed the destruction of an actual warehouse in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. “I won’t say if I was there,” Piazza says, “but I won’t say I wasn’t. The ‘20s didn’t get roaring until 1923, which is where this season starts. It is full-on speakeasies, gangsters and culture clashes. This season is shoot ‘em up and intriguing.”

In his newsboy cap, Piazza admits that his personal style has been affected by constantly being in period garb for the show.

“I learned how things fit,” he says. “The care that these guys went through. Off-the-rack wasn’t prevalent like it is today. If you got a suit you were going to the tailor to get the neck and shoulders right. Now when I buy a suit or collared shirts, I’m really, ‘Nah, this hangs a bit.”

Piazza has been dating Ashlee Simpson since 2011. On that subject, Piazza politely demurs, and will only say, “We’re in a very happy place.”

He’s more than comfortable talking about his gangster character. Maybe too comfortable, as he describes in precise detail the era’s harrowing treatment for gonorrhea Luciano endured. Hearing it would make any guy double over. “It was like the male giving birth,” he adds in a chipper tone.

Luciano died at age 64 in 1962 of a heart attack. But Lucky’s longevity doesn’t get Piazza complacent about his place in the “Boardwalk” universe.

“You won’t die by the bullet,” Piazza says, “but they can always shift the camera and move focus to other people.” The show has to be cutthroat with the cast for art’s sake. In Season 2’s devastating finale, one of the leads, Jimmy Darmody (played by Michael Pitt) was whacked.

Despite his paisano name (and looks), Piazza is half Italian (the other half is German). He grew up in Maspeth, Queens, the younger of two brothers.

Piazza’s first love wasn’t acting, but ice hockey. He attended Villanova University to play on their team with a dream to go pro. “I had a shoulder injury,” he says of leaving the sport, “and a realization I’m just not good enough to go to the next level. So, I decided to look out for another career. I went into finance, which was bizarre. But it wasn’t for me. It didn’t feel like home I felt like I was visiting.”

He then began studying acting and went on to stage work and parts in the “Law & Order” franchise. Next year he will appear in the indie road-film “3 Nights In The Desert” alongside Wes Bentley and Amber Tamblyn. An early gig that stands out for him was his guest role in the sixth season of “The Sopranos.” “I had a one-line interaction with Tony and it was amazing!” Piazza recalls, smiling at the memory.

Before “Boardwalk” was on the horizon, Piazza geeked on gangsters. In 2008, he bought a 1915 children’s book at a Chelsea flea market for $35. “I thought I’d like to do a monologue of a gangster talking to his son,” Piazza says. “I learned one of the stories and asked a buddy to film it. I put on a suit and to this make-believe kid off-screen, I went into this whole spiel. I gave it to my agent.”

His agent held onto the footage. “Two years later she called and said, ‘You’re never gonna believe this, Martin Scorsese and HBO are looking for a young Lucky Luciano,’ ” Piazza recalls. “She sent them the tape.” Piazza was called in to read.

“I was aware of Vincent from his work on ‘The Sopranos,’ ” says “Boardwalk Empire” creator and executive producer Terence Winter, who also worked on that show. “But since he was playing a completely different character, I didn’t know what to expect when he came in to read for the role. What was required was someone who would come across in some ways like a kid, but still carry enough weight so that it was believable that he’d become one of the most powerful and feared gangsters in history. I knew within 30 seconds of watching Vincent’s audition I’d found the guy.”

“He is a joy to work with,” Winter says. “Because of his research, he knows more about Luciano than I ever will.”

Piazza still finds wonderment in production. “I was shooting a street scene a few weeks ago,” he says. “I saw laundry hanging from fire escapes. I looked closer and saw a few open windows. They must have rented the apartments and they had extras in them, a woman beating a rug on a balcony. And this is maybe a pixel of a frame! They went through those pains to create authenticity. I’m proud to be on the show.”

http://www.nypost.com/alexa/p/original_gangster_UxyhuX14xUbOS7LZhcw3DM

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New book opens sheds light on the Buffalo mafia

  September 09, 2012    Dapper_Don

Stefano (aka Steve) Magaddino, American mobste...
Mafia is one of those words that instantly evokes a certain level of excitement and interest by pretty much everyone who hears or reads it.
As such, the new book by local author and tour guide Michael Rizzo automatically draws some level of interest. When you combine that with the local angle he takes on La Cosa Nostra — succinctly outlined in the title of his book, “Gangsters and Organized Crime in Buffalo” — you have a book that would appear to be a natural must-read for any Western New Yorker or organized crime enthusiast.
And he delivers a book that is loaded with names, dates and various news accounts of the Niagara Frontier’s most notorious turn-of-the-century criminals. While it’s informative, “Gangsters” is a bit too heavy to digest, as it reads more like a textbook than a casual Buffalo criminal background check.
What Rizzo does not do is leave any stone unturned. He lists seemingly every low-level street thug and second-rate bank robber who ever menaced the public. While 20th century crime-fighting methods resulted in a decent number of arrests, it’s compelling how many of these criminals disappeared without a trace — something that would be pretty much impossible in the age of cell phones and “CSI” investigative work.
When it comes to hardcore gangsterdom in Western New York, the solar system of thugs revolved around the sun that was Stefano Magaddino. And much of “Gangsters” is devoted to the Niagara Falls don, who had his hands in pretty much every misdeed conducted in the northeastern United States and southern Ontario for some 50 years.
His family — just like his influence — stretched far, ensuring local mobsters a share of the take from gambling and other rackets as far away as Ohio. He abhorred the drug trade — although he didn’t mind its profits as much — and he ran several legitimate businesses to mask his criminal activities, including a Falls funeral home through which he was said to dispose of his victims in the caskets of paying customers.
From Magaddino’s home in the Town of Lewiston — he bought houses for himself and family members along one road that became known as Mafia Row — to his dealings in Buffalo and his downstate affairs, “Gangsters” takes the reader through every major event in the don’s life that’s known to the public.
The book also does that for its other profiled criminals. One of the book’s highlights is that it lists every known address for every event that took place in every criminal’s life, allowing crime-lovers to retrace the steps of the region’s past champions of crime. Many of these buildings are vacant, renovated or torn down, but literally being handed a guide of what once were the area’s criminal hotspots is — let’s face it — pretty darn cool.
Rizzo also does a decent job of detailing the mob’s brutal methods of “taking care of” people who stood in its way. In one particularly gruesome case, he described a death by which the victim had his hands tied behind back and his legs pulled back behind him while attached to a noose around his neck. As much as the victim wanted to, he’d eventually have to relax his legs, which would slowly hang him. Countless other victims were shot, beaten, brutalized and carved up in all sorts of gory methods, which mobsters would use as a sign to others to steer clear.
You will not want to steer clear of this book, though. It is not light bedtime reading — this scribe found it impossible to read for more than a few chapters at a time due to its information-heavy style.
The book could have been about 50 pages shorter while being written in a more conversational tone. But the knowledge it shares is worth ingesting if — for no other reason — than because it pertains to the mafia.
The author clearly knows what he’s talking about, and thankfully he’s willing to share the secrets mobsters worked so hard for decades to keep.

http://tonawanda-news.com/feature/x1709875823/BOOK-NOOK-Gangsters-offers-thorough-history-of-Buffalo-mafia

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President Ronald Reagan's Personal Spying Machine

  September 09, 2012    Dapper_Don

Official Portrait of President Ronald Reagan.
IN 1961, when Ronald Reagan was defining himself politically, he warned that if left unchecked, government would become “a Big Brother to us all.” But previously undisclosed F.B.I. records, released to me after a long and costly legal fight under the Freedom of Information Act, present a different side of the man who has come to symbolize the conservative philosophy of less government and greater self-reliance.
When Reagan needed government help, he was happy to take it, which is particularly interesting in light of the current debate over “entitlements,” and which might give pause to members of both political parties who speak glowingly of the Reagan legacy.
The documents show that Reagan was more involved than was previously known as a government informer during his Hollywood years, and that in return he secretly received personal and political help from J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime F.B.I. director, at taxpayer expense.
Reagan’s F.B.I. connection is rooted in the turbulent years of post-World War II Hollywood, a time when, Reagan has written, his worldview was coming apart. His film career, his marriage to Jane Wyman and his faith in the political wisdom received from his father, an F.D.R. Democrat, were all faltering.
The timing was thus significant when, one night in 1946, F.B.I. agents dropped by his house overlooking Sunset Boulevard and told him that Communists were infiltrating a liberal group he was involved in. He soon had a new purpose; as he wrote, “I must confess they opened my eyes to a good many things.”
The newly released files flesh out what Reagan only hinted at. They show that he began to report secretly to the F.B.I. about people whom he suspected of Communist activity, some on the scantiest of evidence. And they reveal that during his tenure as president of the Screen Actors Guild in the ’40s and ’50s, F.B.I. agents had access to guild records on dozens of actors. As one F.B.I. official wrote in a memo, Reagan “in every instance has been cooperative.”
Reagan went on to make his fight against Communism in Hollywood a centerpiece of his talks as spokesman for General Electric in the 1950s. Those eventually became broader warnings about what he saw as creeping socialism. The founding fathers, he declared in his 1961 speech, believed “government should only do those things the people cannot do for themselves.”
But that guidance apparently didn’t apply to Reagan himself. According to F.B.I. records, in 1960 he turned to the federal government for help with the kind of problem families usually handle themselves. That March, his close friend George Murphy reached out to an F.B.I. contact, explaining that Reagan and Ms. Wyman, now divorced, were “much concerned” about their estranged daughter, Maureen, then 19. She had moved to Washington, and, her parents had heard, was living with an older, married policeman.
According to an F.B.I. memo: “Jane Wyman wishes to come to Washington to perhaps straighten out her daughter, get her back to Los Angeles, but before doing so desires to know the following: (1) Is [the man in question] employed as an officer of the Metropolitan Police Department?; (2) Is he married?; (3) Is his wife in an institution and what are the details?; and (4) Any other information which might be discreetly developed concerning the relationship.”
At F.B.I. headquarters, supervisors reviewed a background report on Maureen Reagan that they had prepared the previous year, when she applied to work at a federal agency. It provided a glimpse of her family life and quoted an administrator at Marymount Junior College, in Arlington, Va., from which she had dropped out: “Maureen was the victim of a broken home, and because she had resided in boarding schools and been away from parental contact so much of her life she was an insecure individual ‘who could not make up her mind’ and did not achieve goals set by herself or others.”
An assistant F.B.I. director, Cartha DeLoach, recommended that the F.B.I. grant the Reagans’ request, even while noting that “there does not appear to be any F.B.I. jurisdiction here.” Hoover quickly approved the inquiry. Posing as an insurance salesman, one agent made a pretext phone call to neighbors; another contacted a police source; a third interviewed the maid at Maureen Reagan’s rooming house.
The investigation confirmed that Ms. Reagan was living with the married patrolman, and Mr. DeLoach ordered an agent to tell the Reagans via Mr. Murphy “on a highly confidential basis.”
This government assistance did not solve Maureen Reagan’s problems, however. The officer left his wife and married her, but as Ms. Reagan later wrote, he repeatedly beat her. They divorced in 1962. Nor did it bridge the gap between Reagan and his daughter. “I still haven’t spoken openly to my parents, or to anyone in my family, about the details of what I went through,” she wrote in 1989.
Hoover helped Reagan with another family concern, in early 1965, not long before he embarked on his first political campaign, for governor of California. That January, the F.B.I. was closing in on Joseph Bonanno, known as Joe Bananas, the head of one of New York City’s five Mafia families, who owned a house in Arizona.
F.B.I. agents in Phoenix made an unexpected discovery: According to records, “the son of Ronald Reagan was associating with the son of Joe Bonnano [sic].” That is, Michael Reagan, the adopted son of Reagan and Ms. Wyman, was consorting with Bonanno’s son, Joseph Jr. The teenagers had bonded over their shared love of fast cars and acting tough.
(In my legal fight for these files, the F.B.I. initially redacted Michael Reagan’s identity on the ground that this information concerned “law enforcement” activities. But Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of the United States District Court in San Francisco ordered the F.B.I. to disclose it.)
Joseph Jr. was not involved in organized crime, but he was spending time at his father’s home, the inner sanctum. In October 1964, he had been arrested in connection with the beating of a Scottsdale, Ariz., coffee shop manager. And in January 1965, The New York Times reported that the Manhattan federal prosecutor Robert Morgenthau had subpoenaed him to testify about his father.
Following routine procedure, F.B.I. agents in Phoenix asked agents in Los Angeles to interview Ronald Reagan for any information he might have gleaned from his son. The investigation, after all, was a top priority. But Hoover blocked them from questioning Reagan, thus sparing him potentially unfavorable publicity. Declaring it “unlikely that Ronald Reagan would have any information of significance,” Hoover instead ordered agents to warn him about his son’s worrisome friendship.
Reagan expressed his gratitude to an F.B.I. agent, William L. Byrne Jr., on Feb. 1, 1965. Reagan “was most appreciative and stated he realized that such an association and actions on the part of his son might well jeopardize any political aspirations he might have,” according to an F.B.I. report. “He stated that the Bureau’s courtesy in this matter will be kept absolutely confidential. Reagan commented that he realizes that it would be improper to express his appreciation in writing and requested that SA [Special Agent] Byrne convey the great admiration he has for the Director and the Bureau and to express his thanks for the Bureau’s cooperation.”
Newspapers carried sensational stories about the F.B.I.’s Bonanno investigation, but the boys’ troublesome relationship never came up. During his campaign for governor, Reagan focused on other people’s children, making protests at the University of California, Berkeley, one of the hottest issues.
Days after he took office in January 1967, Governor Reagan called the F.B.I. and requested a briefing on the demonstrations at Berkeley. Hoover again obliged, confidentially providing information from the bureau’s domestic surveillance files.
Here was Ronald Reagan, avowed opponent of overdependence on government, again taking personal and political help from Hoover.
Perhaps now and then we all need a little help from Big Brother. 


Seth Rosenfeld is the author of “Subversives: The F.B.I.’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/02/opinion/sunday/reagans-personal-spying-machine.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

  

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Daughter of the Oddfather says she helped him sell his act to the feds

  September 09, 2012    Dapper_Don

It was the most cunning and comical farce in mob history: crime boss Vincent “The Chin” Gigante shuffling dazed through the West Village in powder-blue pajamas, mumbling to himself.
Turns out the daughter of the “Oddfather” was in on the act.
Rita Gigante says her gangster dad used her to sell his ploy and keep him out of jail, making her take his arm as he crept along Sullivan Street while FBI agents watched.
“My father,” she writes in a new autobiography, “was a brilliant actor . . . and I was soon swept into his dramatic world.”
She recounts a scene in September 1983 when her dad, head of the Genovese crime family, summoned her from the living-room couch in an apartment so dark that she called it “the dungeon.”
RITA GIGANTE Dad’s “walker” in crazy street act.
RITA GIGANTE Dad’s “walker” in crazy street act.
“Rita,” he whispered, “walk with me.”
“I knew he wasn’t asking me to go for a leisurely stroll with him through the park. When my father ordered me to walk with him, it meant he had to go to the cafe to do some business . . . and he needed to put on a good show.”
Before heading out, he would change out of his casual slacks and shirt, donning sleepwear that included a black velour bathrobe he got from the Golden Nugget casino in Vegas, she recalls. He’d muss his hair and pull the robe over the newsboy cap on his head.
“Dad’s head would drop so low that half his face was covered by the hood.
“He’d stoop his body over and let his arms fall heavy and limp to his sides, and then he’d start shuffling his feet. Before my eyes, my powerful, in-charge dad had become a fragile, senile old man.”
He would whisper to her, “Hold me closer to you,” or “Walk slower.” She never spoke.
“Sometimes as we walked, he’d teeter as if he couldn’t hold himself up and was about to tip over. That’s when I’d take his cue and pretend to catch him.
“Other times, he’d abruptly stop and point and start mumbling gibberish. If he thought for sure he was being taped or filmed by the feds, he’d really lay it on thick.”
She once nearly cracked up when he stopped at a parking meter and said, “We’re going for a walk. Parking meter. Wanna come?”
“It took all my restraint not to start laughing,” she writes in “The Godfather’s Daughter: An Unlikely Story of Love, Healing and Redemption.”
But the gangster’s charade was no joke to the feds, who charged Gigante with racketeering in 1990, only to watch justice slow to a crawl as witnesses claimed The Chin was nuts.
He eventually was convicted in 1997 and sentenced to 12 years. While serving his time, Gigante pleaded guilty to a second charge, obstruction of justice, for faking his mental illness, admitting to the ruse and getting three more years. He died in jail in 2005.
Rita Gigante, however, suffered from being in the mob mix, tormented by experiences that included witnessing at age 5 her dad beat a rival senseless as she hid under the dining-room table.
She eventually became a massage therapist and “healer” who started a family with her lesbian partner.
“I grew up in the dark and escaped the dungeon to find my way to the light,” she wrote.

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Saturday, September 8, 2012

Suspect pleads guilty after 17 years on the run

  September 08, 2012    Dapper_Don

Paul Sanzaro
After 17 years on the run, Paul Sanzaro's memory was fuzzy on some of the details but the 79-year-old remembered enough about his crime to plead guilty Thursday to a drug-dealing conspiracy charge from the mid-1990s.
The former Hollywood resident disappeared shortly after a February 1995 meeting when federal authorities told him there was a contract out on his life.
Criminal charges from an undercover federal investigation of Sanzaro and several associates were filed several months after he took off. His lawyers said Sanzaro left to save his life and spare his family and only learned of the indictment later.
The feds hadn't seen or heard from Sanzaro until a few months ago when his lawyers began negotiating for Sanzaro to surrender, which he did in late July.
On Thursday in federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Sanzaro pleaded guilty to participating in a cocaine supply conspiracy starting in 1994. Court records show he was part of a drug-dealing organized crime group that operated out of the old Hemmingway's (as the owners spelled it) Restaurant on North 21st Avenue in Hollywood.
Sanzaro admitted he provided cocaine to an undercover agent and a confidential informant in Broward County on a number of occasions. In the first deal he set up for the undercover agents in July 1994, prosecutors said that the $16,000 worth of "drugs" turned out to be flour, not cocaine.
Prosecutors wouldn't explain why they tipped off Sanzaro about the death threat but his Fort Lauderdale attorney, Bruce Lyons, said some of Sanzaro's associates were upset that he didn't get paid for a big deal, which court records indicate was a January 1995 one with the undercover agents.
Sanzaro put a large amount of drugs, inside a shoe box and shopping bag, into the trunk of an undercover agent's car parked outside Sanzaro's Hollywood home. The agent handed Sanzaro a green gym bag "filled with rocks" instead of the $119,000 in cash that Sanzaro was expecting, but he didn't check the contents until after the agent left.
More than a year ago, Sanzaro decided he wanted to reunite with his family and clear his slate with the federal government before he dies, his lawyer said. Sanzaro hasn't said where he was for the past 17 years and his family has not yet agreed to meet with him, Lyons said.
Sanzaro's guilty plea could mean he'll spend the rest of his life in prison. The charge technically carries a life sentence, but the guidelines for Sanzaro suggest a term of about five years. Lyons said he hopes to persuade U.S. District Judge William Dimitrouleas that Sanzaro deserves a much lighter punishment given his decision to surrender when there was little chance authorities would have ever found him.
Sanzaro was overheard grumbling to a U.S. Marshal before the court hearing started Thursday. He wasn't pleased that a newspaper article featuring his jail mug shot was published in the Sun Sentinel last weekend.
"You shouldn't have did that," Sanzaro told the newspaper reporter in court, shaking his head in a disapproving but non-threatening way.
He will remain in jail at least until his Nov. 21 sentencing.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/crime/fl-hollywood-organized-crime-plea-20120906,0,5201475.story

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Friday, September 7, 2012

Gambino associate gets 7 years in prison for dealing pot

  September 07, 2012    Dapper_Don

A Gambino crime family associate who pleaded guilty to dealing nearly a ton of marijuana over 20 years was sentenced in Manhattan federal court yesterday yesterday to the maximum of seven years.
SEAN DUNN pled guilty to narcotics trafficking offenses. From the late 1980s through 2010, Gambino family captain Alphonse Trucchio. and others oversaw the Gambino family’s large-scale narcotics distribution operations, which were primarily located in Queens, New York. Numerous drug suppliers, wholesalers, and street dealers operated under the authority and protection of the Gambino family in exchange for paying the family a portion of their profits.
Over the years, the defendants and others distributed hundreds of kilograms of cocaine and marijuana, and thousands of ecstasy and vicodin pills, all of which generated millions of dollars in illegal proceeds for the Gambino family..
“With all due respect,I was displeased that the judge gave him the maximum under the plea deal,” said defense attorney Bruno Gioffre Jr. “We’re talking about marijuana here.”
In a sentencing letter, prosecutors wrote that “Dunn has been working as a mob-backed marijuana trafficker for over 20 years.”

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/mob_pot_pusher_gets_seven_yrs_pDuUJW2wpHH8o8T7TxznCM

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Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Judge allows citing of violent history at upcoming Philly mob trial

  September 05, 2012    Dapper_Don

The Philadelphia mob's history of violence will be part of the evidence presented to a jury at the racketeering trial of reputed boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and nine codefendants, according to a 59-page legal opinion filed Tuesday by the federal judge presiding over the case.

Judge Eduardo Robreno also ruled that mob informant Louis "Bent Finger Lou" Monacello can testify about alleged acts of violence tied to codefendant George Borgesi, including Borgesi's reputed boast about his own involvement in 11 gangland murders.

"I'm a professional," Monacello has said Borgesi told him during a conversation in the late 1990s.

In his ruling, Robreno seemed to indicate that a controversial tape recording made at a North Jersey restaurant by a mob informant who subsequently killed himself could also be introduced as evidence, but he has not ruled definitively on that.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Labor, one of the prosecutors in the case, had likened the restaurant session to a "meeting of the board of directors of organized crime."

Robreno's rulings set the stage for the racketeering conspiracy trial, which begins with jury selection Oct. 9.

The judge said the conversations at that meeting and other references in the case to the violent history of the Philadelphia crime family established the organization's "reputation ... for using violence, threats, and intimidation to achieve its criminal objectives." And that, he ruled, "is relevant to explaining how the enterprise could effectively enforce its will upon others to carry out its extortionate moneymaking activities."

Defense attorneys had argued that evidence about the violent history of past mob leaders and specific uncharged acts of violence would create undue prejudice and deny defendants a fair trial.

The 52-count racketeering indictment is built primarily around charges of bookmaking, extortion, loan-sharking, and the operation of illegal video poker machines. Ligambi, 73, is also charged with defrauding a Teamsters Union health and welfare fund through a no-show job.

In addition to Borgesi, codefendants include alleged mob underboss Joseph "Mousie" Massimino, capos Anthony Staino and Joseph "Scoops" Licata, members Louis "Big Lou" Fazzini and Damion Canalichio, and associates Louis Barretta and Gary Battaglini.

Two other mob members, Martin Angelina and Gaeton Lucibello, have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20120905_Judge_allows_citing_of_mob_history_in_trial_of_10.html

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Philly mob associate pleads guilty to racketeering

  September 05, 2012    Dapper_Don

Louis Barretta, 48, of Philadelphia, pleaded guilty today to participating in a racketeering conspiracy involving loan sharking and illegal gambling. Barretta is the latest associate of the Philadelphia La Cosa Nostra (LCN) family to plead guilty in what seems to be a major takedown of Philly’s LCN.

Barretta was among 14 members and associates of the Philadelphia LCN family charged with crimes involving racketeering conspiracy, extortion, loan sharking, illegal gambling, witness tampering, and theft from an employee benefit plan in a third superseding indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Philadelphia on July 25, 2012.

At the plea hearing before U.S. District Judge Eduardo C. Robreno of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Barretta pleaded guilty to conspiring to conduct and participate in the affairs of the Philadelphia LCN family through a pattern of racketeering activity. He admitted to the court that he made usurious loans and collected payments on these loans by using extortionate means, and he conducted a sports bookmaking business in furtherance of the racketeering conspiracy.

The other defendants charged in the 52-count third superseding indictment included Philadelphia LCN family boss Joseph Ligambi, Philadelphia LCN Family underboss Joseph Massimino, George Borgesi, Martin Angelina, Anthony Staino, Jr., Gaeton Lucibello, Damion Canalichio, Gary Battaglini, Robert Verrecchia, Eric Esposito, Robert Ranieri, Joseph Licata, and Louis Fazzini.

Lucibello pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy charges on August 2, 2012, and is awaiting sentencing on September 14, 2012. Angelina also pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy charges on August 8, 2012, and is awaiting sentencing on September 17, 2012.

The trial for Ligambi, Massimino, Borgesi, Staino, Canalichio, Battaglini, Licata, and Fazzini is scheduled for October 9, 2012. The trial for Verrecchia, Esposito, and Ranieri has not yet been scheduled. Ligambi, Massimino, Borgesi, Canalichio, Licata, and Fazzini are detained while awaiting trial. Staino, Battaglini, Verrecchia, Esposito, and Ranieri are free on bond while awaiting trial. Barretta’s sentencing is scheduled for November 26, 2012.

http://www.examiner.com/article/la-cosa-nostra-associate-pleads-guilty-to-racketeering

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Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Tony Soprano reunites with his crew on Nickelodeon

  September 04, 2012    Dapper_Don

James Gandolfini
After five long years, the ‘Sopranos’ stars will reunite ... on Nickelodeon.
James Gandolfini is making a cameo alongside tough guys Michael Imperioli, Tony Sirico and Vincent Curatola in Nickelodeon’s upcoming kids TV movie ‘Nicky Deuce,” Deadline reports.
The new film is based on the children’s book co-written by “Sopranos” scribe Steve Schirripa, who also produces and stars in the project.
The film is about a nerdy, over-protected teen named Nicholas Borelli "Noah Munck" who spends a summer with his Italian American family in Brooklyn.
According to the site, Gandolfini plays Bobby Eggs, a shady guy from the neighborhood who unintentionally mixes up with Nicholas.
The film is set to premiere next year on Nickelodeon and Canada’s YTV.


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Sunday, September 2, 2012

New Jersey mob associate surrenders after 17 years on the run

  September 02, 2012    Dapper_Don

Paul Sanzaro, 79, formerly of Hollywood, surrendered to federal authorities in July after spending 17 years on the run.
Soon after federal agents met with Paul Sanzaro in 1995 and told him there was a contract out on his life, he left his family behind and went on the run. It would be 17 long years before the 79-year-old man decided to turn himself in to authorities in Fort Lauderdale.
What Sanzaro wasn't told at the February 1995 meeting was that the feds learned of the threat to his safety because they were operating an undercover investigation of a drug smuggling and distribution ring Sanzaro and seven other men were running out of the popular old Hemmingway's Restaurant on North 21st Street Avenue in Hollywood.
Ten months later, Sanzaro and the others were indicted on federal charges they were part of an organized crime drug ring that imported large amounts of cocaine and heroin to South Florida between July 1994 and January 1996.
The other defendants pleaded guilty and several were sentenced to hefty prison terms, but Sanzaro remained hidden until he chose to surface.
Out of the blue one day in May 2011, Sanzaro walked into the office of Murray Richman, also known as "Don't Worry Murray," a mob lawyer in the Bronx who has also represented New York politicians and the rapper Jay-Z.
"He told me 'Life on the run is no life at all. I can't do this any more,'" said Richman, who knew Sanzaro 30 or more years ago.
The lawyer asked Sanzaro if he knew what he was doing -- facing the criminal charges could mean spending the last years of his life in prison.
Sanzaro told him that he hadn't seen his family since he left, that his grandchildren grew up without knowing him and he didn't want to die without having contact with them. He told the lawyer that he had left his family and gone on the run because he "didn't want to bring heat on them."
"He said, 'I've got a family I want to see again, I'm sick, I have no money, I look like a bum – I want to have a semblance of normality again,'" Richman said.
Figuring out what to do took more than a year. Richman contacted Fort Lauderdale defense lawyer Bruce Lyons and they began negotiating with federal prosecutors to have Sanzaro surrender and finally face the charges of conspiring to import heroin and possessing and distributing cocaine and heroin. The maximum punishment is life in prison and $4 million in fines.
Both lawyers said they have no idea where Sanzaro spent the last 17 years or what he did, but they are pretty sure he remained in the U.S.
The case against Sanzaro and the others featured evidence that drug samples – hidden inside green buttons on traditional African silk outfits and inside the fold of a birthday card – were shipped from Nigeria to South Florida and that bigger drug deals were negotiated at the restaurant, which closed down in the aftermath of the criminal case.
Investigators also had at least one insider – a confidential informant by the name of Mario Adamo who, according to court records, began working with law enforcement in the U.S. after he got in trouble with authorities in his native Italy. Adamo was paid more than $200,000 for his services as a paid informant, worked on more than 50 cases in South Florida and had his application for U.S. residency sponsored by the DEA, according to court records from the 1990s.
Among the evidence compiled against the eight men were dozens of packages of drugs, 40 audiotapes and some video tapes of some of the defendants discussing drug deals, court records show.
The defense lawyers said that during the course of the investigation, federal agents got information that at least one co-defendant was planning to kill Sanzaro because he was being blamed for losing money on a drug deal.
Once the agents found out he was in danger, they had a legal duty to inform him even though it could have jeopardized their operation, the lawyers said.
After his time on the run, Sanzaro has diabetes and possibly some cognitive impairment, his lawyers said.
When the time came to travel from New York to Fort Lauderdale, Sanzaro had to take a Greyhound bus because he didn't have the identification needed to take a commercial flight.
The evening before he surrendered, the two lawyers offered to treat him to dinner. He picked Italian food and they took him to Cafe Vico on Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale, where he ordered veal and peppers.
"He said 'This is a condemned man's meal,'" Richman said. "He ate up a storm. He told us 'I'm never going to eat like this again where I'm going.'"
The next day, July 24, Sanzaro turned himself in at the federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale before being brought to the jail.
"[Sanzaro] stated that he surrendered to make peace with God first and with his family. The defendant stated that he had not seen his grandchildren grow up and he was in bad health," two DEA agents who handled his surrender wrote in their reports.
So far, his family members have refused to meet with him, his lawyers said. The attorneys speculated that the family may be afraid of retaliation from others.
"Leave him alone, he's got enough problems," said a woman who answered the phone at a Bronxville, N.Y., phone number linked to family members. The woman wouldn't give her name but said she was Sanzaro's ex-wife. Attempts to contact other family members for comment were unsuccessful and Sanzaro himself was not immediately available for interview at the Broward County Main Jail.
Sanzaro is scheduled for a change of plea hearing in court Thursday when the terms of a negotiated plea agreement are expected to made public.
His lawyers said he was on the run for so long that he has no useful information to share with investigators and is not expected to reap the potential benefits of testifying against others. At least two of his former co-defendants have died.
"It's a long time to be gone and it makes you wonder why someone, at this point, would want to clean the slate," said Lyons. "He realized that before he met his Maker he had to deal with this."

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-09-01/news/fl-guy-surfaces-after-17-years-20120901_1_mob-lawyer-drug-samples-cocaine-and-heroin

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Big Ang talks about her arrest for cocaine and shares tips on house arrest in new book

  September 02, 2012    Dapper_Don

Reality Star Angela "Big Ang" Raiola with her dog Louie at home while filming for her show on VH1, in Staten Island, New York on July 26, 2012.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, Angela Raiola is the niece of the late Salvatore "Sally Dogs" Lombardi, a former Genovese crime family captain. “Big Ang” now lives in Staten Island, where she runs The Drunken Monkey bar and co-stars in the VH1 “Mob Wives” reality show. In her book, “Bigger is Better,” she dishes on family traditions, hobbies and her killer boobs (on a Catskills vacation, a bat flew directly into her chest and fell, splat, dead on the ground). In this excerpt, she discusses the fine art of living under house arrest.
BY ANGELA "BIG ANG" RAIOLA
I WAS arrested once. The circumstances that led up to it are why my guard goes up when people ask too many questions. I thought I could trust someone — I’ll call her Scumbag — and she stabbed me in the back. Being ratted out feels like a violation. It’s hard to trust anyone again. My guard has been up 24–7 since it happened to me.
The day of my arrest back in 2001, I was driving my car, and three or four cop cars suddenly surrounded me and blocked me in. They pulled me over into a secluded spot. I found out later why they did the roadside intercept. If they’d gone to my house, the word would go out that I’d been picked up. If no one knew about it, they could try to flip me. But they had no idea who they were talking to.
The cops drove me around all day. While I was in the car, they played the tapes that Scumbag had recorded of me. She’d worn a wire and followed me into the bathroom once. On the tapes, I could hear myself peeing. It was gross. I heard myself talking about my side job of selling pot and cocaine out of the bar I was working at the time, talking about the product quality, and the logistics of selling it and cash transfers. As I listened, I fell deeper and deeper into shock. Not only was I in deep s---, someone I had thought of as a friend had put me there.
The detectives drove me around the neighborhood and asked me about my friends, my business, hammering away all day to get me to talk. They had to stop for gas twice (but no food or bathroom breaks, pr---s). They asked me about selling coke and about a couple of friends of mine who’d recently died. They asked if I knew who was responsible. The pressure was on. But the detectives couldn’t flip me. I guess they figured, if we can’t make her crack after ten hours, she probably won’t, ever. They took me in and officially arrested me. The charge was possession of cocaine — I had fourteen bags of it on me when they picked me up — and selling drugs.
People ask me why I did it. I was a single mom, supporting my family, paying $3,000 in rent. I did it for the money. I wouldn’t do it again and haven’t since. I learned my lesson. It’s not worth the risk. But the bigger lesson was to be careful who you let into your life. Scumbag is now in the witness protection program, and she can rot in hell for all I care.
Because of those tapes (and a lot of other evidence), fourteen people were arrested in what the DEA and NYPD called Operation White Heat. On the totem pole of those arrested, I was on the bottom rung. I was only in jail for one day. I put up a $100,000 bond and was sent home.
Two years later, I pleaded guilty to selling cocaine. I was sentenced to three years’ probation and four months of house arrest. Of the other fourteen defendants in the sting, eight also got probation. Six went to prison. Some are still there.
During my house arrest, I had to wear a monitor so the Feds knew where I was at all times
... My girlfriends and family came by every day. That also made me feel less claustrophobic. But for someone like me who needs to be where the action is and loves to go out, being confined to one place was torture. The only way to get through it was to keep myself distracted and busy. Here’re my suggestions if you do find yourself under house arrest:
1. Hire a trainer. Mine came every week and made me sweat. Loved the trainer; hated the workouts. But they did help me burn off a lot of nervous energy and kept me from going bats--- crazy.
2. Mark the experience. Cari-Ann came over with her ink and needles once, and we had a little at-home tattoo party. She gave some of us new tats on our toes of ladybugs and cherries. Of course, we had to open a few bottles of Opus One to dull the pain.
3. Bring the party to you. I should say “parties.” We had a New Year’s Eve party at my place, and everyone came with bottles of champagne and platters of food. I’m sure the Feds enjoyed watching us have a great time from their van down the block. We toasted the New Year, which would bring my freedom. We kept the party going until the next day, and the day after that. What else was I gonna do? Roll into a ball and cry?
4. Have sleepovers. It was like being back in junior high, inviting all the girls to come sleep over to drink, eat, and talk about boys.
5. Draw the blinds. I was so sick of staring at those four walls, I opened all the blinds and curtains. I’d walk around in the house wearing whatever (or not wearing much of anything). It didn’t occur to me that someone might be watching. My neighbor across the street had been tuning in to my front windows like a TV set. I was his personal reality TV show. I guess I might’ve been kind of entertaining in my daily fashion show (I tried on a lot of outfits to kill the time). So this psycho creep started putting love letters in my mailbox, along with little gifts. I had no idea who was sending them, and the letters freaked me out. But, since I was being watched by the Feds, too, a cop was always nearby. I wasn’t scared the creep would do anything. I did draw the blinds, though.
6. Build a strong fence. The one time I violated my house arrest was totally by accident. We had a dog at the time, Joey. That poor dog was going stir-crazy, too. The kids took him on walks, and we put him out in the yard. But he wanted to run. Anyway, one day I open the front door to let someone in, and Joey nosed his way around my legs. He took off like a shot. I said, “Oh, s---,” and ran after him. I was in the moment. I didn’t think about what I was doing. But sure enough, the alarm went off, and the next thing I know, a cop car pulls up alongside me on the street as I’m running after the dog.
The cop said, “Where do you think you’re going?” or something like that, as if I was going to make a break for it in my bathrobe and slippers.
“My dog ran away.”
“Get in.”
I did, and the cops drove me around until we found Joey. I appreciated the help. But I bet they wanted to find the dog just to make sure I wasn’t bulls------- them about why I’d gone on the lam. For half a block.
 

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