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

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Police search home of Staten Island Sanitation worker, find loaded gun, rifles among weapons


Police looking for dirt on a city Sanitation worker’s extracurricular carting business ended up with more than just documents yesterday morning.
After stepping through the wood-carved doors of Anthony Castelle’s Tottenville brick McMansion, officers turned up a stash of weapons — a loaded gun, four rifles, two blackjacks and a switchblade, according to an NYPD spokesman.
The 42-year-old Castelle is the brother of reputed Lucchese capo Eugene "Boopsie" Castelle, and he himself is no stranger to police: Just five months ago, cops busted Anthony Castelle and two other men in Brooklyn, accusing them of running an illegal gambling den.
Yesterday morning, police were looking for evidence of tax and workmen’s compensation fraud in connection with a long-running Business Integrity Commission and Brooklyn district attorney’s office probe of Coney Island Container, sources familiar with the investigation told the Advance.
They descended on Castelle’s 183 Lee Ave. home about 6 a.m., and ultimately arrested him on criminal-possession-of-a-weapon charges there.
Castelle has worked for the city Sanitation Department since 1997.
Police yesterday showed up looking for him at the sanitation garage on Forbell Street in East New York, where he works in derelict-vehicle operations, but he was absent without leave at the time, Sanitation officials said yesterday.
Castelle was cleared to run his own carting firm despite working for the city, but the probe developed as Business Integrity Commission officials took a closer look at his license renewal, sources said.
Fire marshals had also been looking into an April 2009 blaze that burned several of the firm’s dump trucks. That incident remains under investigation, FDNY spokesman James Long said yesterday.
Business Integrity Commissioner Shari C. Hyman declined comment about the arrest, stating that she couldn’t remark on a pending investigation.
No one answered the door at Castelle’s house yesterday afternoon, and a man and woman who identified themselves as his next-door neighbors angrily denied comment, except to defend Castelle and his family.
Back on June 25, Castelle and two other men were arrested on promoting gambling charges after an undercover officer observed them running an illegal card club at 2266 McDonald Ave., in the Gravesend section, according to court papers.
Castelle had the keys to the gambling location, court papers allege.
Castelle’s brother, Eugene, 51, was released from federal prison in August 2008, following a 2002 federal racketeering conviction. That conviction stemmed from a 2000 sweep of a Lucchese loansharking operation out of Bensonhurst that he had helped supervise for 13 years.
Even before that bust, Eugene Castelle had made a name for himself in the Mafia. In 1997, when he was still considered a Lucchese soldier, the feds accused him of bribing guards at the Metropolitan Detention Center to smuggle pounds of mozzarella, veal, eggplant, sopressata, provolone, olives and pepperoni for incarcerated mobsters. The charges in that case were ultimately dismissed.

http://www.silive.com/southshore/index.ssf/2011/11/raiders_turn_up_guns_at_posh_h.html


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