Five Families of New York City

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

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Whitey Bulger claims US attorney granted him immunity while he was informant

  October 25, 2012    Dapper_Don


A lawyer for James "Whitey" Bulger has identified the federal official who he says gave the Boston mobster immunity to commit crimes while he was an FBI informant.
In court papers filed late Wednesday, attorney J.W. Carney says former US Attorney for Massachusetts Jeremiah O'Sullivan granted Bulger immunity for past or future crimes.
The revelation was made in a defense motion for Judge Richard Stearns to recuse himself from the case.
Bulger's lawyers say Stearns has a conflict of interest because he worked in the US attorney's office in Boston at the same time as O'Sullivan, who died in 2009.
The 83-year-old Bulger is accused of participating in 19 murders. He fled Boston in 1994 and remained one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives until his capture in California last year.
Prosecutors have said Bulger never received immunity from anyone.

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Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Skinny Joey Merlino's father dies in federal prison

  October 23, 2012    Dapper_Don


http://af11.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/chucky-merlino.jpg?w=510
Convicted mobster Salvatore "Chuckie" Merlino - the father of former Philadelphia mob boss Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino - died Monday in a federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas.
The elder Merlino was 73 and had spent the last quarter century behind bars. The federal Bureau of Prisons listed his potential release date as August 2016.
Local attorney Joseph Santaguida confirmed Merlino's death on Tuesday, but offered little other information. He said simply that Merlino had been "sick for a while."
He said he did not know about any funeral arrangements.
"They're waiting for the body to be shipped back," he said.
Merlino's death comes amid the region's biggest mob trial in years: Current Philadelphia boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and six other defendants are facing federal racketeering charges. The trial was on break Tuesday.
Prosecutors in that case filed documents asserting that Joseph Merlino remained at the top of the Philadelphia mob's organization chart. The court papers described Ligambi as "acting boss" and suggested that Merlino had been running the crime family while serving a 12-year prison sentence.
Joseph Merlino was released from federal prison to a Florida halfway house in March 2011. He is barred from associating with organized-crime figures during his three-year supervised release.
His attorney, Edwin Jacobs Jr., said last year that Merlino planned to remain in Florida - far from the temptations of his former life. Jacobs also represents Ligambi.
Salvatore Merlino rose through the crime family to become underboss to Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo in the 1980s. Salvatore Merlino even served for a time as acting boss while Scarfo was jailed on a weapons violation.
Salvatore Merlino and his brother, Lawrence "Yogi" Merlino, were convicted of racketeering in 1988.
Lawrence Merlino became a cooperating witness and died in the witness-protection program in 2001.
Salvatore Merlino was serving a 45-year sentence when he died at a low-security prison in Fort Worth.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20121023_Mobster_Chuckie_Merlino_dies_in_federal_prison_in_Texas.html

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Monday, October 22, 2012

Philly mobster wanted to kill Frank Sinatra

  October 22, 2012    Dapper_Don


It was a trip down underworld memory lane, a nostalgic look back by a couple of 70-something wiseguys talking about custom-made shirts and cops on the take and laughing about the time Tony Bananas wanted to whack Ol' Blue Eyes.
Yeah, that Ol' Blue Eyes. Frank Sinatra, the chairman of the board, the quintessential American saloon singer, a guy who had his own mob ties and whose career, many believe, was launched when a North Jersey wiseguy named Willie Moretti made bandleader Tommy Dorsey an offer he couldn't refuse.
But that's a story for another day.
Last week, jurors in the racketeering trial of Philadelphia mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and six codefendants got the inside scoop on a 1968 dust-up that is part of underworld folklore.
The story was outlined for the jury by defense attorney Christopher Warren in his opening statement at the start of the trial on Thursday.
Warren represents Joseph "Scoops" Licata, a 71-year-old North Jersey mob capo whose voice will be heard on several tapes made by the late Nicholas "Nicky Skins" Stefanelli, a mobster-turned-informant who recorded dozens of conversations for the FBI.
Prosecutors in the Ligambi trial have already filed documents indicating those tapes will be part of the evidence played for the jury.
Warren has challenged the relevance of the tapes, arguing that nothing his client or the other mobsters said had anything to do with the charges in the pending case.
"It was just a bunch of geriatric gangsters" talking about old times, he said. And to underscore the point, he told the jury about a third Stefanelli tape, not yet made public, that may also be introduced as evidence.
Licata and Stefanelli, 69, were breaking bread at the American Bistro in Belleville, N.J., in April 2011 with Louis Fazzini, 45, and Nicholas Mitarotunda, 74, according to a transcript of the meeting.
The talk eventually got around to the hard feelings Antonio "Tony Bananas" Caponigro had for Sinatra. Caponigro was the Newark-based consigliere of the Philadelphia crime family.
He has long been suspected of orchestrating the 1980 murder of mob boss Angelo Bruno, a killing that sent the Philadelphia crime family spinning out of control. Caponigro was found murdered a few months after the Bruno hit.
But in 1968, the time of the story Licata told, things were still fine between Bruno and Caponigro.
Licata said he and some other mobsters had planned a trip to Miami, intending to stay at the Fountainbleau Hotel. Caponigro decided to go along.
"He said, 'I'm going with youse,' " Licata said. "Cause he had to meet Angelo Bruno . . . at that time they were trying to do something in the Bahamas."
Sinatra was performing at the Fountainbleau, Licata said, but Caponigro nixed plans to take in the show. Instead, he, Licata and several other wiseguys went to see Don Rickles, who was performing at the Eden Roc.
Why?
"Tony hated Sinatra," Licata said.
"He left the next day and we were right in that Fountainbleau. How could you bypass Sinatra? . . . That was Tony . . . He just hated him, 'cause, you know why, a couple of years before at one of the shows . . . they were talking."
Warren, in his opening statement, clarified the issue for the jury.
"Sinatra was in the middle of a performance and Caponigro was talking. Sinatra stopped singing and said, 'People didn't come here to hear you talk, they came here to hear me sing.' "
"Tony wanted to . . . kill him," Licata said on the tape. "You know what I mean? He made a remark like, 'I'm singing.' "
Sinatra could be nasty, Licata added. He was a perfectionist, and when he was performing, "Nobody could move around."
Mitarotonda agreed.
"I was there one time; he stopped. He said, 'These people paid a lot of money to hear me sing. Please sit down.' "
Mitarotonda, a North Jersey-based capo in the Gambino family, said Ol' Blue Eyes was "not the best entertainer I ever saw . . . To me, the best I ever saw? Elvis Presley."
From there the wiseguys discussed their favorite singers. Bobby Darin and Tom Jones were both praised.
Fazzini, the youngest mobster at the table, then weighed in with a comment that some in underworld and entertainment circles might consider sacrilegious.
"Elvis sings "My Way" better than Sinatra," he said.
Indicted along with Ligambi, Licata, and several others, Fazzini recently pleaded guilty to a racketeering conspiracy charge and awaits sentencing.
The trial, before U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno, resumes Thursday after a three-day hiatus for a judicial conference.
It is expected to last eight to 12 weeks. Still unclear is when the government will play the Stefanelli tapes. Though prosecutors hope to use them to offer a snapshot of the violent history of the Philadelphia mob, Warren and other defense attorneys plan to put a different spin on the conversations.
"None of this has anything to do with the case," Warren said. "It's old guys talking about the good old days."
The Stefanelli tape he referred to in his opening statement to the jury included a discussion about custom-made shirts.
"Nobody dresses no more," Mitarotonda complained.
There was also consensus that you sleep better in prison because you don't have to take phone calls from people pestering you with their problems.
"I slept like a baby," said Licata, who has done two four-year terms for racketeering and could get substantially more if convicted in the pending case. "There ain't no phones ringing or nothing."
Licata, Stefanelli and Mitarotonda also complained about the way the criminal justice system now worked. In the old days, they said, a "pinch" for racketeering might bring a six-year sentence.
"Nobody got you a dime," said Stefanelli, using slang for a 10-year term. "Every cop was on the take. Nobody to pinch you. Do anything you want."
"Not only that, you know how much money was around then?" Mitarotonda asked."
"Forget about it," Licata said.

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Sunday, October 21, 2012

Montreal godfather spotted at old stomping grounds

  October 21, 2012    Dapper_Don

Vito Rizzuto seen in Montreal: sources
Reputed mob boss Vito Rizzuto has been spotted in Montreal after his return to Canada nearly two weeks ago from the United States, sources say.
Police in Montreal have been supplied with information that Rizzuto, 66, returned to Montreal last weekend and recently attended a weekday appointment in Saint-Léonard this week. A police source told The Gazette the information appears to be "very credible." The sources said it is still unclear whether Rizzuto has decided to reside again in the city he called home since his family arrived in Canada, from Italy, in 1954.
Rizzuto still owns a luxury home on Antoine Berthelet Ave. in northern Montreal even though it has been up for sale for months. The city had been the base of the Rizzuto organization for decades, while Rizzuto allegedly operated as the head of the Mafia in Montreal until he was arrested in 2004 and extradited, in 2006, to the U.S. where he was charged in a racketeering case involving the 1981 murders of three mafia captains in Brooklyn, N.Y.
He pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced, in May 2007, to a 10-year prison term. The sentence expired earlier this month and Rizzuto was automatically turned over to U.S. immigration and was escorted on a flight back to Canada on Oct. 5. His deportation had been prepared weeks before his release. The flight landed in Toronto and Rizzuto has apparently lain low since. A few recent media reports have quoted police sources as saying that it appeared Rizzuto remained in Toronto after arriving there. One report, published by the Journal de Montréal last week, cited police sources as saying Rizzuto met with "representatives from New York Mafia families" in the days after he arrived in Toronto.
During the years that Rizzuto was incarcerated in the U.S., the criminal organization that bore his family's name was weakened significantly by a major police investigation, murders and kidnappings. His eldest son, Nick "The Ritz", was killed in December 2009. A few months later his brother-in-law, Paolo Renda, was apparently kidnapped, near Antoine Berthelet Ave., and Rizzuto's octogenarian father, Nicolo "Zio Cola", was murdered in November 2010.

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Mob associate pleads guilty to collecting strip club extortion payments

  October 21, 2012    Dapper_Don

One of the suspects arrested in the racketeering/extortion ring that involved collecting extortion payments from Providence-area strip clubs has agreed to change his plea to guilty, federal and state officials reported Friday.
Theodore "Teddy" Cardillo, 69, a manager of the Cadillac Lounge, was indicted in early March. He will admit to being an associate of the New England La Cosa Nostra enterprise to shake down strip clubs and that he used implied threats of injury, serious damage or death to extort cash, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Peter F. Neronha.
The government will recommend a sentence of 5 years' probation with the first six months on home confinement, the plea agreement said. The parties agreed that he played a minimal role.

http://news.providencejournal.com/breaking-news/2012/10/cadillac-lounge-manager-cardillo-changes-his-racketeering-plea-to-guilty-re.html

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Saturday, October 20, 2012

Brooklyn Federal Judge Writes Tell All Book

  October 20, 2012    Dapper_Don

Federal Justice Frederic Block's new book 'Disrobed' takes readers behind the bench.
U.S. District Court Judge Frederic Block can’t suppress a smile while evaluating the state of his 78-year-old mind.
“I’m at the DGS stage of life: Don’t give a s---,” Block chuckles in his ninth-floor chambers at the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse. “I don’t care what any of you say. I feel freed up to do what I really feel is the right thing.”
For Block, his freedom came with an eight-month sentence: Hard labor on a laptop, writing his 400-plus page memoir. The book details his improbable ascension from debt-chasing suburban lawyer to big city federal judge.
“Disrobed” is unlikely to storm the best-sellers lists occupied by fellow attorney John Grisham or the new Arnold Schwarzenegger autobiography — much to its author’s dismay.
“My book is more valuable than his book — I know it!” Block says of the Governator. “His book is going to sell . . . I just think this information is more important to know about than Arnold’s girlfriends.
“But,” he muses, “our society and our value system is all screwed up.”
“Disrobed” offers a behind-the-robes peek into several major cases, including the Peter Gotti mob trial — featuring movie star Steven Segal as a key witness — and the Crown Height riots.
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A 'good-looking' young Frederic Block with Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.), before Block became a federal judge.

Gambino family racketeer Gotti wound up with a nine-year jail term; his mistress committed suicide after his conviction.
The tome also offers insights into the war on drugs, gun control and the death penalty.
And it gives Block — a far freer spirit than those usually found on the federal bench — the chance to even one old score.
Ex-Assistant U.S. Attorney John Kroger, now the president of Reed College in Oregon, provided an unflattering description of Block in a 2008 book. Kroger quoted rumors that the judge, when not turning hearings into “unpredictable free-for-alls,” spent his time wearing leather and downing martinis in Manhattan clubs.
Block writes in his book that the comments summed up the unwarranted skepticism that greeted his appointment by President Bill Clinton. In person, he’s a bit more ... direct.
“Did you read about that guy John Kroger, that a------, what he wrote about me in his book?” his honor asked the Daily News. “This guy’s an absolute a------.”
The self-deprecating Block is not above taking a shot at himself.
His first day on the bench, Block notes, was Halloween 1994. “That sounded like the appropriate day for me to put on my judicial costume for the first time,” he jokes.
As a kid, Block’s passion was music — “I learned to play boogie-woogie on the piano” — not the law.
But he wound up hanging a shingle in remote Patchogue, L.I. — hardly the high-profile habitat for an aspiring federal judgeship, a position that comes with a lifetime appointment. “No way in a million years did I think I would end up in Brooklyn,” he says.
Block was a Democrat in the heart of die-hard GOP country, ruling out a patronage appointment. And he never worked on any level as a prosecutor — often a stepping stone to a judgeship.
He once leaked a story to Newsday about then-Gov. Hugh Carey trying to condemn a neighbor’s Shelter Island vacation home — a huge embarrassment for the governor.
Block also wrote an Off-Broadway musical, “Professionally Speaking,” that opened to good reviews (including one from the Daily News) before a six-week run in 1985.
Two decades after his rave, the News panned Block for declaring the government’s efforts to win the death penalty against a murderous drug lord were “absurd.” The News headline deemed him “JUDGE BLOCKHEAD.”
The jury, however, took less than an hour to reject the death penalty.
The veteran jurist says he doesn’t share too many opinions in the memoir, fearful that some defense lawyer might start quoting passages in the courtroom — as happened to mob killer/book collaborator Salvatore "Sammy Bull" Gravano.
“I was very sensitive about saying anything about anybody that would be so-called questionable in terms of a judge speaking out,” said Block, whose circle of judicial friends includes Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. “But I wanted to make it an interesting read.”
He succeeded. In one instance, Block recounts how he begins every trial by instructing his jurors to bend the truth. If anyone asks for details about the case, Block advises, tell them their judge is a Brad Pitt-lookalike who forbade them to speak.
So has the balding Block ever been confused with the hunky “Benjamin Button” star?
“Hmmmm ... no,” he says with a sigh, but adds: “I was just as good-looking as him when I was (younger). I had Elvis Presley hair!”

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Witness says he introduced two undercover FBI agents to mobster

  October 20, 2012    Dapper_Don

Anthony Staino.
A South Philadelphia bookmaker who owed reputed mob leader Anthony Staino between $60,000 and $80,000 rarely made his loan payments on time, and usually paid less than was due.
Yet, Henry Scipione testified Friday, Staino seldom threatened him or demanded more money.
Scipione, the first witness the prosecution called in the racketeering trial of Staino, reputed mob boss Joseph Ligambi, and five others, spent nearly six hours on the witness stand Friday detailing his role as a reluctant FBI informant between 2003 and 2007.
"It's not the way I was raised," said Scipione, 55, who spent most of his life in South Philadelphia. "You don't tell on your friends."
At another point, the former postal worker and admitted degenerate gambler said: "What I'm doing, they just don't do."
Scipione told the jury he began cooperating with the FBI in May 2003 after falling deeply in debt to Staino who, he said, worked for Ligambi. A month before he cut his deal with the FBI, Scipione said, Staino had threatened "to put a bullet in my head" in a dispute over the unpaid loan-sharking debts.
But over the next four years while he was cooperating with the FBI and recording dozens of conversations with the reputed mob capo, Scipione said, Staino never again threatened him.
Speaking in a low voice and never making eye contact with Staino, Scipione acknowledged that they had been friends and that he borrowed money in part to support a gambling addiction, although he said he told Staino he needed the money for living expenses.
Scipione also acknowledged that he left his job with the Postal Service after a "bag of cash" that he was responsible for disappeared. Later, he said, he stole thousands of dollars in state lottery proceeds while operating a neighborhood convenience store that had a lottery franchise.
Scipione said that as part of his cooperating agreement, he introduced two undercover FBI agents to Staino, describing them as associates to whom he had lent some of the money he borrowed from Staino. The agents used the names "Vinny" and "Dino."
In all, Scipione told Staino he had 24 loan-sharking customers. In fact, he said, he fabricated all of the names and their debts.
At least one of the agents is expected to testify later in the trial and play recordings he made of conversations with Staino.
Ligambi, Staino, and their codefendants are being tried on racketeering conspiracy charges built around allegations of gambling, extortion, and loan-sharking.
The trial, expected to last eight to 12 weeks, will resume Thursday before U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno. Court will be recessed Monday through Wednesday for a judicial conference.
In addition to Scipione's testimony, the jury heard nearly a dozen tape-recorded conversations in which he and Staino discussed the loan-sharking debts and Vinny's failure to make payments that were due.
On one, Staino said he had "two gorillas" who would "chop" Vinny up. On another, he told Scipione, "I'm telling you right now, I'm going to kill him."
But under questioning by defense attorneys for Staino and Ligambi, Scipione acknowledged that Staino never acted on those threats and that he was often cordial and friendly despite the failure to pay off the loans.
Over the four years while he was cooperating with the FBI, Scipione made payments totaling $50,250 to Staino. The FBI supplied the cash.
He also received an additional $53,755 for "services and expenses," and, under questioning by Gregory Pagano, Staino's lawyer, acknowledged that he could be in line for an additional bonus payment.
But Scipione said he paid a personal price for his cooperation. His wife divorced him once she learned he was an FBI informant, he said.
And he testified that in June 2003, shortly after striking his deal with federal authorities, he attempted suicide.
After sending an e-mail to his FBI handlers in which he said, "I can't take life, I can't take all the lying that I've been doing," Scipione checked into a motel near Philadelphia International Airport and swallowed a handful of prescription pills, including Xanax and Percocet.
"What happened after that?" Scipione was asked as he recounted the events from the witness stand.
"I woke up," he said.
He said he tried to commit suicide again a few days later, then was hospitalized for treatment. For the next four years, he worked with the FBI, recording conversations with Staino and paying down a loan-sharking debt with cash supplied by his federal handlers.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/20121020_Prosecution_witness_says_Staino_seldom_threatened_him.html

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Friday, October 19, 2012

Dead con's money mystery is solved

  October 19, 2012    Dapper_Don

The mystery began when a Boston ex-con dropped dead on a New York train platform with a backpack stuffed with $180,000.
It has ended with the government getting most of the money.
The former bank robber-turned-aspiring-movie producer who tried to claim it is back to prison.
And the source of the money? Prosecutors won't comment, but a defense attorney and a Philadelphia entertainment promoter say it was connected to a failed concert deal.
The 75-year-old bagman was William Coyman, a longtime resident of Boston's Charlestown section who had been a fixture at a union local once known for organized crime ties and for shaking down movie producers in New England. He died of a heart attack in New York City.
Just what Coyman was doing with so much cash was unclear. His family told investigators he had been delivering the money for a company called 180 Entertainment, which listed a Philadelphia home as its business address.
Federal prosecutors went to court in February and asked to keep the money, saying they suspected it was related to narcotics trafficking. They had little hard evidence, except that a drug-sniffing dog had detected something in Coyman's luggage. But they cited Coyman's decades-long criminal record, which included prison time for a department store heist.
Another Charlestown native and ex-con, Joseph Burke, filed legal papers claiming the cash.
Now 48, Burke went to prison in 1988 after admitting to sticking up at least 18 banks and armored cars in several states. He got more time tacked onto his sentence when he was caught trying to organize a cocaine ring from behind bars. He was finally released on a combination of probation and parole in 2010.
When The Associated Press first wrote about Coyman and his mysterious $180,000 package in May, Burke's lawyer declined to tell the AP what the cash was for or where it was headed.
He also wouldn't discuss 180 Entertainment. But public records show that the company's business address was a house owned by a friend of Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino, the onetime boss of the Philadelphia Mafia. Merlino and Burke were incarcerated together at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., in 2009 and 2010.
Last month, a federal court in New York approved a settlement in which Burke agreed to forfeit $143,984 of the money found on Coyman. He got to keep the remaining $35,996. Federal prosecutors in New York declined to comment on the settlement.
No criminal charges were filed in connection with the cash, but Burke was sentenced to eight months in jail for violating the terms of his probation.
His offense: In March, Burke flew to Europe to meet with another old prison buddy, Zvonko Busic, a Croatian nationalist who served 32 years for hijacking a jet and planting a bomb that killed a New York City police officer.
In a brief interview with the AP last week, Burke's lawyer, Steven DiLibero, insisted there was nothing nefarious about his client's visit to the former terrorist, now 66. The men had simply become close friends in prison.
Burke and Busic were both in the federal prison in Lewisburg, Pa., from 1989 to 1995, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. They also spent time together at the prison in Terre Haute from 2007 to 2008, when Busic was paroled.
A more complete explanation of the trip came from Burke's partner in 180 Entertainment, Anthony Fedele.
Fedele, a former business associate of the late Philadelphia music producer Stephen Epstein, told the AP in a phone interview Tuesday that he was interested in transitioning into the movie business, and had gotten interested in Burke after hearing about him from Merlino, a longtime friend.
The two talked. Fedele was impressed. They decided to make movies together and thought that Busic would make a good film subject.
"This guy has a great story. And it would be a great story to get out there," Fedele said. "It has love, romance, tragedy, triumph, you name it."
In 1976, Busic, his American-born wife and two accomplices seized a TWA jet leaving New York and ordered it to fly to Paris in an attempt to draw attention to Croatian nationalists who wanted independence from communist Yugoslavia.
The hijackers used fake dynamite to take the jet, but the group also had put a live explosive in a locker in Grand Central Terminal. The device later detonated accidentally while police officers were examining it at bomb squad facility in the Bronx, killing a police officer.
Fedele said Burke had persuaded Busic to give them the film rights to his story.
Unfortunately, the ex-con never cleared the trip with his probation officer. The investigation into Coyman's death caused additional complications.
As for the $180,000 in cash, Fedele insisted it was not drug money and didn't have anything to do with organized crime or with Merlino.
Burke had been working on a concert-promotion deal, but it had fallen through, and he was trying to return the cash to a North Carolina business associate, said Fedele and DiLibero, Burke's lawyer.
Why didn't Burke just send a check?
"He went to jail when he was 23, so, his process is ... He does things the way he would have done them back then," Fedele said. "Joe has a primitive way of thinking."
The Federal Bureau of Prisons said Burke's projected release date is December. Fedele said he still hopes to find a producer willing to make an independent film about Busic, although he acknowledged that any movie about a protagonist responsible for the death of a police officer is a challenge.
"There are some sensitive things. I'm figuring it out," he said.
As for Burke, Fedele said, "He's going to be out in a few weeks, and we're going to get back to work."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/17/william-coyman-cash-haul_n_1975390.html

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Mob Wives star Renee Graziano enters drug rehab

  October 19, 2012    Dapper_Don


“Mob Wives” star Renee Graziano was admitted to rehab on Monday, Page Six can exclusively reveal, after a year of drama that included her father’s being sent to prison after her ex-husband ratted on him to the feds.
Graziano, the daughter of former Bonanno family consigliere Anthony “TG” Graziano, has entered Transitions in Miami, a drug- and alcohol-rehabilitation center.
A source told us the temperamental Graziano “has had issues with pills in the past but she was clean when she went in on Monday.”
Graziano’s rep confirmed to Page Six: “Although Renee Graziano has been admitted to a rehabilitation center, it is not for any current drug or alcohol use of any kind. Her choice to enter rehab was made entirely on her own. She has made this decision for the betterment of her son AJ [Pagan]’s life, as well as to improve her physical, mental and spiritual health.”

WireImage
Renee Graziano
We’re told that a VH1 camera crew is following Graziano through the program, as “Mob Wives” is in the middle of taping its third season. The mafia daughter is expected to stay at the treatment center for 30 days. “Positive thoughts bring positive results,” Graziano tweeted yesterday.
VH1 didn't get back to us.
Graziano’s personal and family problems have been well documented on “Mob Wives.” In November, her ex-husband Hector “Junior” Pagan was arrested on a weapons charge, but it was revealed he wore a wire to collect evidence on Graziano’s father for the feds. Cops then arrested Graziano Sr. for extortion, and he’s currently serving a 19-month prison sentence. Pagan is now in witness protection.
Before that, buxom Graziano suffered a life-threatening emergency after a botched “full-body lift,” which included a tummy tuck and butt lift. Graziano declared on the show that she lost 6 pints of blood after her stitches ruptured.
Her surgeon, Dr. Andrew Klapper, filed a lawsuit against Graziano, claiming her allegation she was near death after the procedure was false and hurt his business.

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New cast members joining the Mob Wives for upcoming season

  October 19, 2012    Dapper_Don


'Mob Wives” is opening up the books — and adding two new women to the cast, says the show’s creator, Jennifer Graziano.
The show, about a group of Staten Island women all with family ties to the mob, began filming a new season — its third — last month.
Neither of the two new cast members — who have not been identified — has yet taken part in the filming.
“All the original women are back,” says Graziano, younger sister of Rene Graziano, the lightening rod of the series.
The Graziano sisters are the daughters of Anthony “T.G.” Graziano, a reputed higher-up in the Bonanno crime family.
SIGN UP: Rene Graziano is getting some company.
SIGN UP: Rene Graziano is getting some company.
The two new cast members are close to signing a deal but can’t be identified until they do, says Jennifer.
She described one as an old friend she’d known since her teen-age years.
“The other brings something to the show that I think is needed — someone who is really into her career,” says Jennifer.
To keep relationships on the VH1 show fresh, it added a new cast member to the show last year, Romona Rizzo, the granddaughter of the old-line gangster portrayed by Al Pacino in the movie “Donnie Brasco.”
Meanwhile, plans are under way to do a third spin-off of what has become one of reality TV’s most fruitful reality franchises — behind only Bravo’s “Real Housewives.”
Versions of “Mob Wives” set in Philadelphia and Miami are in the works, according to Jennifer.
“Both are cast,” says the producer. “It’s now up to VH1 to decide which one to do”
About three episodes of the new season have already been filmed.
The last season ended on a rare peaceful note — with all five women and their kids at a dinner party thrown by Big Ang, the good -time elder who dispenses wisdom and ladies cocktails from her bar, the Drunken Monkey, in the Westerleigh section of Staten Island.

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Thursday, October 18, 2012

Philly mobsters paint themselves as victims

  October 18, 2012    Dapper_Don

When reputed Philadelphia mob boss "Uncle" Joe Ligambi and six co-defendants entered a courtroom for the start of their federal racketeering trial Thursday morning, they were focused on matters other than the loansharking, illegal-gambling and extortion charges which brought them there.

Joseph Licata, a 71-year-old nicknamed "Scoops," addressed concerns that just one of two bags with courtroom attire had shown up at the lockup.

When a supporter pointed out that George Borgesi — the 49-year-old still serving his sentence connected to the Joey Merlino mob trial of 2001 — looked like a college student with dress-shirt collar emerging from his sweater, he responded "I am!" with a beaming smile.

And Ligambi, who federal prosecutors say took over the Philadelphia crime family when Merlino went away, asked "How ya been?" of relatives including his sister. She replied she was not doing well, considering she had to attend another "witch hunt."

Then, all seven defendants and their individual attorneys, took their seats at two tables in U.S. District Judge Eduardo C. Robreno's 15th-floor courtroom for opening arguments in a case expected to take anywhere from two to three months.

Prosecution: Mob intimidation produced illicit profits

Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Labor and Ligambi defense attorney Edwin C. Jacobs — who represented Merlino when he beat beat several murder charges, but was convicted of a litany of charges similar to this case 11 years ago — painted two divergent pictures of the events that led everyone to the packed courtroom.

In a prosecution opening argument lasting just over an hour, Labor told the jury that the seven defendants were engaged in a criminal enterprise "that carried the weight and power of the Philadelphia La Cosa Nostra."

While no charges involve violence, Labor said that threats of it, and the mob's history and reputation in Philadelphia, enabled the men to run their enterprise, stoking fear in others.

"They exploited that reputation for violence to make money in the commission of their crimes," he said. He cited an exchange when someone who owed money through gambling debts was told, 'I got two f------ gorillas and they're going to f------ chop you up.' Those words define what this case is about. ... When they said [that], people paid up."

Addressing the lack of violence in the case, Labor noted there was good reason for that.

"Dead men don't make payments," he said. "Terrified men make payments."

Labor drew an analogy to the Philadelphia Eagles in defining mob hierarchy and staying power: While the roster changes, the organization stays intact one season to the next.

The racketeering prosecution will feature testimony from cooperating witnesses including former members and associates and recordings of conversations recorded since the investigation started more than a decade ago.

It was designed to take down a mob with a long history of crime in Philadelphia, he intimated.

"Ten years of gathering evidence was not done to land a couple illegal-gambling convictions," Labor told the jury. "That was done to paint a full picture of this criminal enterprise."

Defense: Even "the mafia says we're not the mafia"

Labor's words contrasted starkly with those of Jacobs, who offered his opening arguments before lunch.

The attorney said the defendants "shouldn't be here," but are because they're Italian Americans from South Philadelphia who have rumored organized-crime connections.

"We've been targeted, 13 years under a microscope," he said, maintaining that 40 warrants were served, more than 15,000 conversations recorded and 61 law enforcement agents from the FBI and Pennsylvania State Police spent working a case that discovered shoddy evidence. "We're not villains. We're victims in this case."

Noting that the investigation linked defendants to 30 of 1,000 video-poker machines scattered throughout clubs and bars in the city and an estimated $30,000 in loansharking claims, Jacobs said, "That would not even make an episode of 'The Sopranos.' They found some mole hills and made a mountain out of it."

He then attacked the credibility of government witnesses expected to testify over the course of the next eight to 12 weeks. According to Jacobs, they told investigators what they wanted to hear in exchange for immunity or cooperating and plea agreements. One has received $51,000 in return, and another witness tied to committing and planning murders served just five years in prison.

"Plus, they bought him a car," Jacobs said. "A Ford Taurus."

Then, he jumped on the Eagles analogy cited by the prosecution.

"If the quarterback was taking bets in 2002, the right tackle and left tackle lent money in 2005 and the coach was running a video-poker operation in 2009, then, the Eagles are a racketeering enterprise. That's what they're trying to say," Jacobs said. "They're stretching the proof in the case to the breaking point.

"One side is right and one side is wrong. We're not on the wrong side."

After Jacobs' opening, attorneys for all six co-defendants were scheduled to offer their own throughout Thursday afternoon with testimony starting Friday.

http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local//item/45758-at-issue-as-philadelphias-latest-mob-trial-opens-does-the-mob-actually-exist/

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Use of public defender holds up massive Lucchese gambling trial

  October 18, 2012    Dapper_Don

A sweeping investigation into an alleged multibillion-dollar international gambling scheme allegedly operated by the Lucchese crime family has become bogged down in a fight over whether one of the defendants can afford his own lawyer.
A public defender for Alfonso "Tic" Cataldo, a reputed mobster from Florham Park, argued before the state Supreme Court on Thursday that prosecutors should not have access to financial information he provided while seeking to be represented at taxpayers' expense.
Giving that information to prosecutors would set a dangerous precedent and damage "the smooth operation of the criminal justice system," said John J. McMahon, Cataldo's public defender. He noted that the document that the state is seeking, known as an intake form, also includes questions about drug use and mental illness and is used to determine whether defendants qualify for pretrial diversion programs.
Two lower-court rulings have agreed, saying the records are protected by attorney-client privilege.
Cataldo faces 17 counts in connection with the gambling scheme, which prosecutors allege operated in locations from Bergen County to Latin America and netted more than $2 billion in wagers over a 15-month period. The ring allegedly received and processed wagers using password-protected websites and tallied and recorded bets using a wire room in Costa Rica.
He is one of 35 people — including two alleged heads of the family — charged in connection with the gambling ring and a separate scheme to smuggle drugs and prepaid cellphones into East Jersey State Prison in Avenel in partnership with a faction of the Bloods gang.
Cataldo, dressed in black pants and a black leather jacket, sat quietly in the front row of the public seating area during the hearing, occasionally fiddling with a hearing aid he held up to one ear. He declined to comment.
The indictment against Cataldo, returned in 2010, arose from a state investigation dubbed Operation Heat that led to an earlier wave of arrests in 2007 in connection with the same alleged gambling scheme. That sweep netted many of the same defendants who were arrested in 2010 — including Cataldo, who posted $350,000 bail in connection with the earlier proceedings.
Real estate equity
The case against Cataldo has been put on hold until after the Supreme Court rules on prosecutors' subpoena request.
It's not unusual for reputed mobsters to claim poverty when facing criminal charges. What is unusual is Cataldo's alleged real estate holdings.
Prosecutors say he owns three houses in Morris County with combined equity of nearly $1.5 million. Cataldo's attorneys say one of those houses was put up to meet his $100,000 bail in the case and that another is owned by a trust over which he has no control.
Yet Supervising Deputy Attorney General Mark G. Eliades told the justices that he couldn't square Cataldo's holdings with tax filings, in which he reported less than $2,000 in taxable income over three years beginning in 2007.
"This is an ongoing crime if it is a crime," he said, adding that prosecutors have "a duty and obligation to act."
But several of the justices seemed unconvinced.
"You're subpoenaing these documents to be used in the very case in which you are prosecuting the defendant," said Justice Barry T. Albin, who along with several of his colleagues seemed concerned that prosecutors had not sought the intake form through a separate grand jury investigation.
Eliades said prosecutors "always viewed this as a long road." He promised the state would not use financial information gained through its subpoena against Cataldo in his current trial and said he would be open to having a judge privately review the documents before turning them over to prosecutors.
Chief Justice Stuart Rabner, for his part, seemed concerned with McMahon's argument that court rules curtailed any prosecution when a defendant lies about his income to gain representation by a public defender.
"Is there nothing to be done about that?" he asked.
McMahon said that a judge who determined that a defendant was lying about his finances could force the defendant to hire a private attorney but that the courts, not prosecutors, were responsible for investigating this type of fraud.
The information prosecutors are seeking "can't be used before a grand jury or at trial," he said.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/173838671_Use_of_public_defender_holds_up_gaming_trial.html?page=all

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FBI pressured me to ID wrong man in Whitey Bulger murder

  October 18, 2012    Dapper_Don


A man who says he watched in horror as two of Whitey Bulger’s alleged victims were gunned down 30 years ago is breaking his silence. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” says the witness, who did not want his name revealed.
It was 1982, when he was driving on Northern Avenue toward South Boston’s waterfront to pick up some lobster with his family. That’s when he came upon a horrible image on the street. “He was flopping like a flounder,” he says. “I stopped, turned my car around, went the opposite direction, and took off.”
But before he did that, he says he got a good look at two gunmen only about five feet away. “One of them had black hair that shot the passenger. The other had dirty brownish blonde hair, and he had glasses, gold-framed glasses.” He says he didn’t know the victims, Brian Halloran and Michael Donahue. He also didn’t know the now-famous fugitive mobster Whitey Bulger.
The police report from his FBI interview shows 15 suspects agents asked him to look at. James Bulger is conspicuously missing from the list. The witness tells WBZ FBI agents pressured him to ID someone else named Jimmy Flynn. Flynn was eventually charged with the murders, but was ultimately acquitted.
Widow Patricia Donahue says she has no doubt that FBI agents never brought up Bulger as a suspect, because they were protecting him. She hopes the mysterious witness will shed more light. “He’s probably the only real witness that they have,” says Donahue.
The witness says he hasn’t been called to testify in Bulger’s trial so far, and the idea scares him. But he admits, he’s lucky to be alive. If the gunmen had seen him 30 years ago, “oh, I would have been done,” he says.

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TMZ nabs Skinny Joey Merlino on video at LAX airport

  October 18, 2012    Dapper_Don



Philadelphia mafia boss Joseph"Skinny Joey" Merlino -- who served 12 years in federal prison for racketeering -- says the guys from "Jersey Shore" are a big, fat "disgrace to the Italians" ... seriously.

Merlino -- who was released from the slammer last year -- was at LAX yesterday, where he was picked up from the airport by Howard Stern's favorite mob family member Johnny Fratto.

It's unclear why Joey is in L.A. -- but as Johnny drove off with Merlino riding shotgun, he picked an interesting song choice to bump in his car ... Elton John's "Philadelphia Freedom."

FYI -- Merlino was rumored to have been a heavy gambler before he got locked up ... and when we asked if he had any advice for Harvey (who's been getting killed with his NFL picks) ... "Skinny Joey" had one solid piece of advice ... and it involves one Thomas Edward Patrick Brady.

http://www.tmz.com/2012/10/18/ex-mob-boss-skinny-joey-merlino-jersey-shore-italians-johnny-fratto/

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Lucchese captain suffering from Alzheimer's shown no mercy from judge

  October 18, 2012    Dapper_Don


A reputed Luchese crime family captain suffering from Alzheimer's disease was sentenced Thursday to one year in prison for loan sharking.

Domenico "Danny" Cutaia, 76, is scheduled to be released next month from a federal prison hospital in Minnesota, where he has been serving a previous 39-month term for bank fraud. He appeared in court via video teleconference.

Defense lawyer Michael Rosen said Cutaia had recently suffered a stroke and hoped to go home. "The clock is ticking and he is in very, very poor health," Rosen said.

Brooklyn Federal Judge Eric Vitaliano agreed that the defendant should get less than the 57 months suggested in the sentencing guidelines, but said a get-out-of-jail card wouldn't be appropriate due to his life of crime.

Cutaia could not watch the sentencing from the hospital, but he was told that his wife, daughter-in-law and grandson were all in the courtroom.

"Thank you, tell them thank you," he said.

The longtime mobster had pleaded guilty to supervising the collection of a $48,000 loan from a deadbeat who had fallen behind on his $1,000-a-month interest payments.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/luchese-crime-family-captain-sentenced-1-year-article-1.1186656

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Mob lawyer rips the government during opening of trial

  October 18, 2012    Dapper_Don

The lawyer for reputed mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi ripped into the federal racketeering case against his client and six co-defendants this morning, calling it a case built on half truths and fabrications from cooperating witnesses looking to get out from under their own criminal problems,
"We're not guilty, we're victims," Edwin Jacobs Jr. told a federal court jury in an opening statement at the start of a federal racketeering trial that is expected to last eight to 12 weeks.
Jacobs said there was little of substance to support the allegations of a racketeering conspiracy and argued that "the real charges in this case would never make a single episode of The Sopranos."
Ligambi, 73, is he lead defendant in the case. Authorities allege he headed a criminal organization that engaged in illegal gambling, loansharking and extortion duirng a 12-year period that began in 1999.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Labor, in comments that opened the trial, told the jury that Ligambi and his co-defendants "exploited" the Philadelphia mob's reputation for violence "to make money" and "to intimidate" victims into paying mob shakedowns and tribute payments.
Joseph Santaguida, the attorney for reputed mob underboss Joseph "Mousie" Massimino, picked up on the same theme introduced by Jacobs, telling the jury that the prosecution had overstated its evidence and would not be able to prove the racketeering charge.
Santaguida said Massimino, 62, had no criminal involvement in any of the charges which he said amounted to nothig more than a "glorified gambling case."
Opening statements from other defense attorneys were expected to take up the rest of Thursday's court session. The first witness in the trial is scheduled to be called when the trial continues Friday.
The other five defendants are Joseph "Scoops" Licata, 71, Anthony Staino, 54, George Borgesi, 49, and Damion Canalichio, 42, and mob associate Gary Battaglini, 51.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20121018_Openings_today_in_Ligambi_mob_trial.html

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Sunday, October 14, 2012

The Philadelphia Crime Family On Trial

  October 14, 2012    Dapper_Don

They call him "Uncle Joe," which is both a reference to his age - 73 - and his laid-back style.
Mob boss Joe Ligambi is old school, a make-money-not-headlines crime boss who has had a surprisingly long and relatively peaceful run as Philadelphia's Mafia don.

But that run may be over.

In jail for the last 17 months, Ligambi and six codefendants begin a legal fight for their lives this week when opening arguments are expected in the city's latest organized-crime trial.

Ligambi and the others are facing racketeering conspiracy charges built around allegations of illegal gambling, loan-sharking, and extortion that extend back to 1999. As defense attorneys have pointed out repeatedly since the indictment was handed up more than a year ago, the case is devoid of the acts of violence that marked the city's last three federal mob trials.

Murder and mayhem were the calling cards of mob bosses Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo, John "Homicide John" Stanfa, and Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino, prosecutors argued.

Scarfo, 83, was convicted and sentenced to 55 years in prison. He will likely die behind bars. His earliest parole date is 2033.

Stanfa, 72, is serving five life terms, one for each murder conviction in his 1995 racketeering case.

Merlino, 50, beat several murder raps in a 2001 racketeering trial, leading his defense lawyer to claim victory. But the charismatic South Philadelphia wiseguy was convicted of assorted gambling, loan-sharking, and extortion charges, and was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Released last year, he's living in Florida.

Ligambi took over when Merlino was jailed in 1999 and was given the title "acting boss." Some believe he still holds that provisional position and that Merlino, from the Sunshine State, is still calling the shots.

But the title is almost irrelevant. When the trial begins this week, Ligambi and his codefendants will be the face of the Philadelphia mob.

And in many cases, there will be a voice to go along with the face.

The Philadelphia crime family is one of the most recorded in American underworld history. Since 1989 when mobster-turned-informant George Fresolone began secretly taping conversations for the New Jersey State Police, the local mob has literally been wired for sound.

Classic comments like "Goodfellas don't sue goodfellas. Goodfellas kill goodfellas" and "We'll cut out his tongue. Put it in an envelope and send it to his wife" have enthralled juries and buried defendants.

"The problem," says one defense attorney, "is you can't cross-examine a tape."

In the pending trial, lawyers have already argued at length about the "Stefanelli tapes," recordings in 2010 of two mob meetings at North Jersey restaurants.

In fact, the defense intends to challenge some of the transcripts, arguing that the prosecution, in a rush to judgment, turned one casual comment - "At least we finally got to get together" - into "At least we finally got to get him" and claimed it was a reference to a murder.

But what has been lost in the legal sound and fury over the tapes made by Nicholas "Nicky Skins" Stefanelli, a Gambino crime-family soldier who committed suicide in March, is the fact that the pending case includes dozens of other conversations that could prove more damaging.

Frank "Frankie the Fixer" DiGiacomo, a low-life South Philadelphia hustler and mob associate, recorded conversations with Ligambi for the FBI, conversations in which, authorities allege, loan-sharking debts were discussed.

And an FBI agent, working undercover, picked up Anthony Staino, 55, discussing the ins and outs of the criminal organization, including one in which he allegedly boasted about being the "CFO" of the criminal family and a member of its "board of directors."

There are also wiretap conversations and testimony from dozens of witnesses - some former associates and others alleged victims of shakedowns and extortions.

Ligambi and his crew didn't have to resort to violence, the prosecution has argued, because they lived off the reputations of Scarfo, Stanfa, and other murderous mobsters who came before them.

Two former mob members, Eugene "Gino" Milano, a Scarfo hit man, and Peter "Pete the Crumb" Caprio, a Newark-based mob capo during the Merlino years, are expected to provide details about the violent ways of the Philadelphia crime family.

Their testimony will help set the stage for some of the Stefanelli conversations in which Ligambi, North Jersey mob capo Joseph "Scoops" Licata, 71, and others talk about murders that occurred in the past and joke about a mob-making - initiation - ceremony.

Ligambi, Staino, Licata, along with reputed mob underboss Joseph "Mousie" Massimino, 62, mob soldiers George Borgesi, 49, and Damion Canalicchio, 42, and mob associate Gary Battaglini, 51, will be at the defense table when opening arguments begin.

The trial is expected to last eight to 12 weeks with the potential of running right up to, or through, the Christmas holidays.

Among other things, the prosecution hopes to offer the jurors, who are being selected anonymously, a history lesson on the Philadelphia branch of La Cosa Nostra.

Some of it will come from the testimony of witnesses and some from the words of the defendants themselves. In the past, that's been a prosecution formula for success.

Reality TV has nothing on the Philadelphia mob.

Its unrehearsed and unscripted audio history, picked up on phone taps, room bugs, and body wires, has fascinated juries for the last two decades. And at trials in which those tapes have been played, juries have returned guilty verdicts that have sent three mob bosses and more than 30 codefendants to prison.
http://mobile.philly.com/news/?wss=/philly/news&id=174057411

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Saturday, October 13, 2012

CIA documents reveal plot to pay Mafia to kill Fidel Castro

  October 13, 2012    Dapper_Don

A CIA document outlining a Mafia-connected plan to assassinate Fidel Castro for $150,000 is among thousands of Robert F. Kennedy documents made public Thursday.
The National Archives and Records Administration and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston released about 2,700 pages of documents Kennedy compiled as attorney general from 1961 to 1964, offering a glimpse into Cold War decision-making. Kennedy advised John F. Kennedy during the Bay of Pigs invasion and the missile crisis, key moments during his brother's presidency.
Though the documents, released just shy of the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis, don't rewrite Cold War history, they do provide insight into the personal thoughts of the era's key figures, historians say.
His title as attorney general "disguised his real position, which was the closest adviser to the president and the president's confidant and the person the president trusted most," said journalist and historian Michael Dobbs, who blogs for Foreign Policy.
"That's the interesting point of this, that he kind of reflects his brother's thinking."
The seven boxes of newly released material include telegrams, reports, meeting transcripts and handwritten notes by Kennedy, some with doodles and quotes in the margins.
"It gives you a sort of insight into what was on his mind, what he doodled," Dobbs said. "It's interesting from a human perspective."
The 1961 botched invasion sought to oust communists with the help of anti-Castro Cuban exiles and veiled U.S. support. More than 100 members of the CIA-sponsored invasion team were killed and many were captured by Cuban forces.
One CIA document offers a profile of Castro: It calls him intelligent but "not very stable" and "touchy, impatient and rash."
Another outlines plans to assassinate Castro, including a 1964 plan with connections to the Mafia. The mob and "patriotic Cuban exiles" settled on a payment of $100,000 for killing Castro, $20,000 for his brother, Raul, and $20,000 for Ernesto (Che) Guevara, plus $2,500 for expenses.

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Man gets life sentence for killing witness linked to Junior Gotti

  October 13, 2012    Dapper_Don

A man has been sentenced to life in prison in the jailhouse killing of a mobster who once testified on behalf of Mafia heir John "Junior" Gotti.
Forty-six-year-old Allen Archie Hurley was sentenced Friday in federal court in in the April 2010 stabbing death of 43-year-old Joseph O'Kane in the federal prison in Wayne County. Hurley had been serving a 37-year a bank robbery sentence while O'Kane was serving a life sentence on murder and racketeering convictions.
Prosecutors said Hurley stabbed O'Kane in the head 92 times, later telling investigators that they'd had a physical altercation earlier and he wanted to finish O'Kane off rather than risk retaliation.
Jurors in June acquitted him of second-degree murder but convicted him of voluntary manslaughter and illegal weapon possession. The life sentence was mandatory due to the earlier felony conviction.
Hurley testified during his federal court trial in Scranton that O'Kane had threatened to kill him and his family. He has vowed an appeal.
"I defended my life, my liberty," he said Friday, and then criticized the court system and whistled loudly as he was escorted out, The (Scranton) Times-Tribune reported.
Before he was sentenced, O'Kane's relatives addressed the defendant, speaking beside a large color photo of him dressed in a tuxedo.
"Knowing that you'll never see the outside world again makes me smile," said the victim's niece, Stephanie Lanza, as Hurley stood next to his attorney.
"Your so-called life is basically over," said the victim's brother-in-law, Michael Lanza, of Queens, N.Y. "Enjoy your death in prison."
O'Kane testified during a racketeering case that ended in a mistrial for the late Gambino crime boss's son.

http://online.wsj.com/article/AP127565457bb0434a8f3d20e7fe1f5852.html

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