Bonanno captain sentenced to six months of house arrest for violating parole restrictions

Bonanno captain sentenced to six months of house arrest for violating parole restrictions

  September 22, 2017    Dapper_Don

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He got the last laugh.
Bonanno crime-family cap​o Robert “Bobby Ha Ha” Attanasio came out on top Wednesday when a judge sentenced him to just ​six months home confinement for violating the terms of his parole​ when he gabb​ed on the phone with other ​wiseguys.
Prosecutors originally tried to lock up the capo claiming he’d been caught red handed playing in a Staten Island bocce tournament against Gambino ​mobster Louis Vallario.
​But it was actually Attanasio’s namesake son who was entered in the ​M​afia-studded games at Angelina’s Restaurant in June and July 2015, defense attorney James Froccaro told Brooklyn federal court judge Nicholas Garaufis.
“So this is a mistake?” Garaufis asked Froccaro and Assistant US Attorney Nicole Argentieri.
Froccaro nodded as he stood next to his hulking, balding client, but Argentieri refused to admit there’d been an error, saying her office had agreed to not pursue the bocce-related allegations if Attanasio copped to the other violations.
The 70-year-old​ Attanasio ​– who served 10 years behind bars for his role in the brutal 1984 rubout of associate Cesare Bonventre​ ​– admitted Wednesday he’d taken part in some 300 calls with former prison pals Vincent “Vinny Goo” Caroleo and Frank “Meatball” Bellatoni.
The convicted wiseguy is not allowed to associate with other mafioso after he was imprisoned in 2006 alongside his brother, Louis “Louie Ha Ha” Attanasio and capo Peter “Rabbit” Calabrese for Bonventre’s murder.
Bonventre’s hacked up remains were found pickled in steel drums secreted away in a New Jersey glue factory after mob boss Joe Massino ordered the hit.
Froccaro tried to convince the court Wednesday that his client’s admission didn’t mean he was turning over on Caroleo or Bellatoni, and had no personal knowledge they were mobbed-up.
“I think that’s a distinction that only matters to a certain segment of people,” Argentieri said dryly.
Garaufis wasn’t buying it either.

“If someone’s name is “Vinny Goo,” or “Vinny Collision,” or “Meatball,” frankly, based on my extensive experience in organized crime cases, these are the kinds of nicknames given to people in the cosa nostra,” he shot back. “I don’t know Vinny Goo. I don’t know Meatball.”
Yet Argentieri and Garaufis suspended their disbelief, and accepted Attanasio’s rat-proof admission, in which he only said: “I had contact with individuals whom the government had alleged were associated with organized crime.”
Froccaro asked Garaufis for home confinement, arguing the men only contacted his client when they learned he had cancer.
“It was just stupid,” the lawyer said.
“I don’t know that there’s an exception for prison for stupidity,” Garaufis responded, noting Attanasio’s wife had also “accused her husband of stupidity” in a letter to the court.
But the argument worked, and the judge let Attanasio off with a warning, 6 months home detention, and 2 years post-release supervision.
“Stay off the phone with anyone who isn’t a close relative,” Garaufis ordered. “Or your priest.”

http://nypost.com/2017/09/20/bonanno-capo-dodges-bocce-bust/

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Bookie linked to Gambino crime family found dead two days after Brooklyn District Sttorney raids home

Bookie linked to Gambino crime family found dead two days after Brooklyn District Sttorney raids home

  January 30, 2016    Dapper_Don

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A New Jersey bookie who suffered "panic attacks" over a loan he took from a Gambino crime family associate to help pay for his wife’s cancer treatment was found dead days after the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office searched his home, law enforcement sources said.
The body of bookie Patrick Deluise was found with a gunshot wound in a car in Holmdel, N.J., at 2 a.m. Friday, according to sources.
The Holmdel Township Police Department declined to comment on Deluise’s death, stating that it was an open investigation. However, sources said his death appears to be a suicide that occurred sometime between Thursday night and Friday morning.
Two days before Deluise's body was found, Brooklyn DA investigators had executed a search warrant on his property — the culmination of a 17-month probe of interstate gambling operations that also involved the Gambino associate, Anthony Vallario, according to court documents obtained by DNAinfo.
Deluise was expected to be indicted on felony charges for running a $10 million gambling ring, according to the court documents, which are connected to a civil forfeiture proceeding.
Brooklyn prosecutors said in the documents filed Monday that within the next 120 days, they plan on arresting Deluise’s two sons and three of his associates for their involvement in the ring.
Vallario and an associate, Joseph Mancuso, will also face charges within the next 120 days for running two illegal betting rings that took in nearly $5 million in proceeds, the court documents say.
Brooklyn prosecutors said in the court documents that Vallario, his wife, his daughter and his son-in-law face felony loan-sharking charges for forcing Deluise to pay $2,400 a month in interest on a $50,000 loan.
Vallario, 76, of Staten Island, is the brother of Louis Vallario, a reputed Gambino captain and a onetime aide to the family's former boss, John Gotti.
Vallario's loan to Deluise funded experimental cancer treatment for Deluise’s terminally ill wife in Germany.
Deluise is believed to have paid $129,600 in interest on the loan to Vallario in the past four-and-a-half years, prosecutors said in the court documents.
The bookie was so distraught after years of paying the interest without making a dent in the principal that he desperately asked friends to float him money and sought advice on securing a legitimate second mortgage to cover the debt, the court documents say.
The documents include transcripts of wiretaps in which Brooklyn DA investigators caught Deluise complaining to a friend about Vallario.
“I just can’t pay it anymore. I can’t. The f------ guy. He don’t want to give me a break and I can’t catch up,” Deluise told the friend in a Jan. 25, 2015, phone conversation.
During the conversation, the friend asked Deluise if Vallario was a buddy he could reason with about the excessive payments.
“I don’t know. I thought he was, I, but, you know, he’s, he’s a f------ wiseguy,” Deluise responded.
Vallario’s lawyer, James J. DiPietro, declined to comment on the Brooklyn DA’s allegations because he had not yet received the civil forfeiture court documents.
But DiPietro said Vallario gave money to Deluise when he was desperately trying to save his wife.
“My client, being the good soul that he is, tried to accommodate that man,” the lawyer said. “No good deed goes unpunished.”
A spokesman for the Brooklyn DA's office declined to comment on the gambling probe, but acknowledged the death of Deluise.
"We are aware of the death Mr. Deluise in New Jersey and that incident is being investigated by the local police," the spokesman said.
Deluise's sons did not respond to requests for comment.
Prosecutors filed the civil forfeiture documents on Monday in Brooklyn Supreme Court in order to freeze property and financial assets connected to Deluise, Vallario and the nine other suspects.
Deluise’s ring took in $10 million in proceeds and involved using online gambling sites set up offshore, including one called Wagerspot.com, the court documents say. But Deluise, who lives in Hazlet, N.J., and his associates are accused of taking wagers from local bettors over the phone and via text.
Deluise and his associates would collect payments and drop off winnings at Bay Ridge bars and in the parking lot of a Nathan’s restaurant in Dyker Heights, the court documents say.
One of Deluise’s associates, Pasquale Marrone of Bay Ridge, is accused of running a similar illegal-gambling ring connected to Deluise that took in more than $2 million in proceeds.
Vallario, who drives a Cadillac and lives in the Charleston neighborhood of Staten Island, has a history of loan-sharking and mob ties, according to prosecutors.
The Brooklyn DA’s court documents describe Vallario as an associate of the Gambino family.
DA investigators said in the documents that, to avoid detection from law enforcement, Vallario had his son-in-law Stephen Cucich collect payments on the loan from Deluise.
Vallario’s wife, Rosanne, and daughter, Joan Cucich, are accused of facilitating the administrative side of the loan-shark scheme.
Aside from shaking down Deluise, Vallario is believed to have lent money at exorbitant sums to other unnamed victims, according to the court documents.
In 2005, Anthony pleaded guilty to one count of making extortionate extensions of credit in Brooklyn Federal Court. He received two years of probation, court records show.
Before his sentencing in 2005, Anthony asked a judge for leniency, claiming he had a heart condition. At the time, Stephen Cucich wrote a letter to the judge also asking for leniency for his father-in-law.
“In a time where family values seem to be a lost part of society, he has made it a priority that his family will always be together,” Cucich wrote.
Deluise isn't the first person to end up dead after the Brooklyn DA's Office executed a search warrant.

https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20160127/charleston/bookie-tied-mob-found-dead-2-days-after-brooklyn-da-raids-home

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