The story of the infamous murder of Genovese mobster Johnny Coca Cola
Showing posts with label Michael Coppola. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michael Coppola. Show all posts
Friday, December 12, 2014
Judge lowers bail for broke Genovese associate
A Superior Court judge lowered bail Wednesday from $400,000 to
$300,000 for a reputed associate of the Genovese crime family who is
accused of heading a multi-million-dollar sports gambling business.
Vincent Coppola, 37, of Union, the son of jailed Genovese capo Michael Coppola, was among 11 members and alleged associates of the crime family who were arrested in October on charges of running a number of illegal financial schemes, which also included elaborate loansharking and check-cashing operations.
Coppola, arrested a day after the others, did not attend a bail hearing with his co-defendants on Oct. 23 because the Morris County jail would not immediately accept him due to "medical conditions," Deputy Attorney General Vincent Militello said during the bail hearing.
Coppola, who sat in a wheelchair as he appeared in Superior Court in Morristown via closed-circuit television on Wednesday, spent six weeks at Morristown Medical Center for treatment of his undisclosed ailment before being transferred to the jail, Militello said.
At the time of the arrests, Acting Attorney General John Hoffman said Coppola ran the sports betting operation from an offshore "wire room" located in Costa Rica to process wagers. During 2011, Coppola allegedly handled more than $1.7 million in bets, bringing in more than $400,000 in profits to the Genovese family.
But in court Wednesday, Coppola said, "I can't afford any attorney" and wants to be represented by a public defender.
"I have a 13-year-old autistic son, and he really needs my help," Coppola said.
Judge Robert Gilson reduced the bail to $300,000, but when he told Coppola he must pay the full amount with no 10 percent option, Coppola shook his head, indicating there's no way he can make that bail.
Militello said Coppola was arrested at a rest stop on the Garden State Parkway, where he was "involved in more criminal activity."
"He had newspaper articles related to the matter," Militello said. "He knew he was being charged, but he kept on with his criminal activity."
Coppola was arrested after state troopers spotted him snorting heroin in a parked car with other individuals at a rest stop in Woodbridge, said Peter Aseltine, a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office. Coppola was in possession of "multiple wax folds of heroin" and after he identified himself, he was charged in the drug case and in the gambling case, Aseltine said.
In the organized crime case, Coppola faces first-degree charges of racketeering and money laundering. He is also accused of conspiracy and money laundering.
No further court date was set for Coppola because his case is being sent to a grand jury for a possible indictment.
Others arrested in October included a Genovese "capo," Charles "Chuckie" Tuzzo, 80, of Bayside, N.Y., and a "made" soldier, 55-year-old Vito Alberti of New Providence. The cases are being tried in Morris County.
At the helm of the alleged check-cashing scheme, Hoffman said, was Domenick Pucillo, 56, of Florham Park, who oversaw operations at Tri-State Check Cashing Inc., located in Newark's Ironbound district, and other places.
Fucillo extended lines of both cash and credit to customers who paid annual interest rates of between 52 and 56 percent, Hoffman said.
http://www.nj.com/morris/index.ssf/2014/12/bail_dropped_to_300k_for_reputed_genovese_associate_who_says_hes_broke.html
Vincent Coppola, 37, of Union, the son of jailed Genovese capo Michael Coppola, was among 11 members and alleged associates of the crime family who were arrested in October on charges of running a number of illegal financial schemes, which also included elaborate loansharking and check-cashing operations.
Coppola, arrested a day after the others, did not attend a bail hearing with his co-defendants on Oct. 23 because the Morris County jail would not immediately accept him due to "medical conditions," Deputy Attorney General Vincent Militello said during the bail hearing.
Coppola, who sat in a wheelchair as he appeared in Superior Court in Morristown via closed-circuit television on Wednesday, spent six weeks at Morristown Medical Center for treatment of his undisclosed ailment before being transferred to the jail, Militello said.
At the time of the arrests, Acting Attorney General John Hoffman said Coppola ran the sports betting operation from an offshore "wire room" located in Costa Rica to process wagers. During 2011, Coppola allegedly handled more than $1.7 million in bets, bringing in more than $400,000 in profits to the Genovese family.
But in court Wednesday, Coppola said, "I can't afford any attorney" and wants to be represented by a public defender.
"I have a 13-year-old autistic son, and he really needs my help," Coppola said.
Judge Robert Gilson reduced the bail to $300,000, but when he told Coppola he must pay the full amount with no 10 percent option, Coppola shook his head, indicating there's no way he can make that bail.
Militello said Coppola was arrested at a rest stop on the Garden State Parkway, where he was "involved in more criminal activity."
"He had newspaper articles related to the matter," Militello said. "He knew he was being charged, but he kept on with his criminal activity."
Coppola was arrested after state troopers spotted him snorting heroin in a parked car with other individuals at a rest stop in Woodbridge, said Peter Aseltine, a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office. Coppola was in possession of "multiple wax folds of heroin" and after he identified himself, he was charged in the drug case and in the gambling case, Aseltine said.
In the organized crime case, Coppola faces first-degree charges of racketeering and money laundering. He is also accused of conspiracy and money laundering.
No further court date was set for Coppola because his case is being sent to a grand jury for a possible indictment.
Others arrested in October included a Genovese "capo," Charles "Chuckie" Tuzzo, 80, of Bayside, N.Y., and a "made" soldier, 55-year-old Vito Alberti of New Providence. The cases are being tried in Morris County.
At the helm of the alleged check-cashing scheme, Hoffman said, was Domenick Pucillo, 56, of Florham Park, who oversaw operations at Tri-State Check Cashing Inc., located in Newark's Ironbound district, and other places.
Fucillo extended lines of both cash and credit to customers who paid annual interest rates of between 52 and 56 percent, Hoffman said.
http://www.nj.com/morris/index.ssf/2014/12/bail_dropped_to_300k_for_reputed_genovese_associate_who_says_hes_broke.html
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Former Longshoreman gets 30 months in Genovese racketeering case
A Readington man has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for
conspiring to extort longshoremen on the New Jersey piers for
Christmastime tribute payments.
Edward Aulisi, 53, pleaded guilty to the charges in Newark federal court on May 16, 2012.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court, Edward Aulisi conspired with his father, Vincent Aulisi — a former president of International Longshoremen Association Local 1235 who succeeded another co-defendant, Albert Cernadas — and Michael Coppola, a Genovese organized crime family captain, in the scheme.
Members of the Genovese family were charged with conspiring to collect “tribute” payments from New Jersey port workers at Christmastime each year through their corrupt influence over union officials, including several presidents of Local 1235.
The timing of the extortion typically coincided with the distribution of “Container Royalty Fund” checks, a form of year-end compensation, the government said.
Investigators said that Edward Aulisi was caught on tape assuring crime boss Coppola that the tribute money would continue after his father became president of the local, and in fact had doubled.
Coppola was convicted in July 2009 of racketeering and racketeering conspiracy, based in part on acts relating to extortion and wire fraud concerning the Local.
Edward Aulisi admitted that, in March 2007, he spoke with Coppola by phone furthering the extortion scheme, telling him that his father would make the collections.
The younger Aulisi admitted that it had been his intention to deliver Christmastime tribute money to Coppola had Coppola not been arrested shortly after the phone calls.
In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge Dennis M. Cavanaugh sentenced Aulisi to two years of supervised release and fined him $10,000.
Coppola is serving a 16-year prison term on his conviction.
Another local defendant in the case is Thomas Leonardis, 57, of Lebanon Township, who also served as Local 1235 president.
Pre-trial motions in the Leonardis case are set for oral argument on Feb. 12 before Judge Cavanaugh, according to U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Matthew Reilly.
U.S. Attorneys Paul J. Fishman and Loretta E. Lynch credited the FBI in New Jersey and New York and the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General with the investigation leading to Aulisi’s guilty plea.
http://www.nj.com/hunterdon-county-democrat/index.ssf/2013/02/readington_man_sentenced_to_30.html
Edward Aulisi, 53, pleaded guilty to the charges in Newark federal court on May 16, 2012.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court, Edward Aulisi conspired with his father, Vincent Aulisi — a former president of International Longshoremen Association Local 1235 who succeeded another co-defendant, Albert Cernadas — and Michael Coppola, a Genovese organized crime family captain, in the scheme.
Members of the Genovese family were charged with conspiring to collect “tribute” payments from New Jersey port workers at Christmastime each year through their corrupt influence over union officials, including several presidents of Local 1235.
The timing of the extortion typically coincided with the distribution of “Container Royalty Fund” checks, a form of year-end compensation, the government said.
Investigators said that Edward Aulisi was caught on tape assuring crime boss Coppola that the tribute money would continue after his father became president of the local, and in fact had doubled.
Coppola was convicted in July 2009 of racketeering and racketeering conspiracy, based in part on acts relating to extortion and wire fraud concerning the Local.
Edward Aulisi admitted that, in March 2007, he spoke with Coppola by phone furthering the extortion scheme, telling him that his father would make the collections.
The younger Aulisi admitted that it had been his intention to deliver Christmastime tribute money to Coppola had Coppola not been arrested shortly after the phone calls.
In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge Dennis M. Cavanaugh sentenced Aulisi to two years of supervised release and fined him $10,000.
Coppola is serving a 16-year prison term on his conviction.
Another local defendant in the case is Thomas Leonardis, 57, of Lebanon Township, who also served as Local 1235 president.
Pre-trial motions in the Leonardis case are set for oral argument on Feb. 12 before Judge Cavanaugh, according to U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Matthew Reilly.
U.S. Attorneys Paul J. Fishman and Loretta E. Lynch credited the FBI in New Jersey and New York and the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General with the investigation leading to Aulisi’s guilty plea.
http://www.nj.com/hunterdon-county-democrat/index.ssf/2013/02/readington_man_sentenced_to_30.html
Thursday, May 17, 2012
FORMER DOCKWORKER PLEADS GUILTY TO EXTORTION CONSPIRACY INVOLVING CHRISTMASTIME TRIBUTE PAYMENTS
A former International Longshoremen’s Association (“ILA”) member admitted today that he conspired to extort ILA Local 1235 longshoremen on the New Jersey piers for Christmastime tribute payments, New Jersey U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman and Eastern District of New York U.S. Attorney Loretta E. Lynch announced.
Edward Aulisi, of Flemington, N.J., pleaded guilty today to conspiring to extort Christmastime tributes from the ILA Local 1235 members – Count Three of the Second Superseding Indictment against him. Aulisi entered his guilty plea before U.S. District Judge Dennis M. Cavanaugh in Newark federal court.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:
Edward Aulisi conspired with his father, Vincent Aulisi – the former President of ILA Local 1235 who succeeded another co-defendant, Albert Cernadas – and Michael Coppola, a Genovese organized crime family captain, in the scheme. Coppola was convicted in July 2009 following a trial in the Eastern District of New York of racketeering and racketeering conspiracy, based in part on acts relating to extortion and wire fraud concerning ILA Local 1235.
Edward Aulisi admitted he participated in telephone calls in furtherance of the extortion conspiracy in March 2007 with Coppola – who was then a fugitive from a New Jersey state murder after having been served with a summons to provide DNA in 1996. Edward Aulisi agreed that he passed information to Coppola on the calls – specifically that Cernadas had told Vincent Aulisi the Christmastime extortion scheme would cease once Cernadas left the presidency, and Vincent Aulisi stated it would continue. Edward Aulisi also admitted Vincent Aulisi had asked him to tell Coppola the Christmastime extortion collections had almost doubled.
It was Edward Aulisi admitted today that it had been his intention to deliver Christmastime tribute money extorted from ILA Local 1235 members to Coppola had Coppola not been arrested shortly after the phone calls.
The charge to which Aulisi pleaded guilty carries a maximum potential penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Sentencing is currently scheduled for Sept. 4, 2012.
Coppola is serving a 16-year prison term on his conviction. The charges and allegations contained in the second superseding Indictment charging Vincent Aulisi and Cernadas are merely accusations, and the defendants are considered innocent unless and until proven guilty.
U.S. Attorneys Fishman and Lynch credited the FBI in New Jersey and New York and the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General with the investigation leading to today’s guilty plea.
The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jacquelyn M. Kasulis and Jack Dennehy of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New York, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Mahajan, of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of New
http://www.justice.gov/usao/nye/pr/2012/2012may16.html
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Flemington man pleads guilty to role in mafia extortion scheme
In a Christmastime scheme allegedly involving the mafia and maritime union leaders, a Flemington man admitted his role today in conspiring to extort money from longshoremen for a notorious crime family, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office of New Jersey.
Edward Aulisi, 52, pleaded guilty to conspiring with members of the Genovese organized crime family, and former leaders of the International Longshoreman's Association (ILA) Local 1235, to force ILA workers to make Christmastime payments to the crime family, often by "use of actual and threatened force, violence and fear," according to court records.
Edward Aulisi, 52, pleaded guilty to conspiring with members of the Genovese organized crime family, and former leaders of the International Longshoreman's Association (ILA) Local 1235, to force ILA workers to make Christmastime payments to the crime family, often by "use of actual and threatened force, violence and fear," according to court records.
Aulisi is one of 14 defendants named in a 103-count indictment detailing an operation that spanned decades, from Dec. 1982 to Jan. 2011. This indictment superseded and added charges to a previous indictment, according to court records.
In December, Aulisi was named on count three of the indictment, extortion conspiracy, under the Hobbs Act, a federal law used to combat racketeering in labor cases, according to the indictment. Aulisi's father, Vincent Aulisi, former ILA president, and Thomas Leonardis, 54, of Glen Gardner, are also among the defendants charged in the indictment. Leonardis was also named on count three of the indictment, as well as 17 counts of extortion. In addition to count three, Vincent Aulisi faces 11 counts of extortion, court records show.
Today in Newark federal court, Aulisi admitted to participating in telephone conversations that secured the continuation of a long-running scheme to extort thousands of dollars from ILA longshoreman working on New Jersey piers, according to the release. In March 2007, Aulisi told Genovese family captain Michael Coppola that the tradition of Christmastime tributes would continue and double under his father's presidency, according to the release. At the time, Coppola was wanted on a 1996 summons to provide DNA in a murder case in New Jersey, the release says.
Aulisi intended to deliver the Christmastime collections, but Coppola was arrested shortly after these telephone conversations, according to the release. Coppola was convicted in 2009, and is currently serving a 16-year prison term.
Today's guilty plea carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine, according to the release. Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 4. Aulisi's attorney, Robert Lytle, did not immediately return calls.
http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/hunterdon-county/express-times/index.ssf/2012/05/flemington_man_pleads_guilty_t_2.html
Thursday, December 22, 2011
2 Hunterdon men accused of extorting money at Christmastime from longshoremen's union members
For workers on the docks and piers of New Jersey, Christmastime for years meant longshoremen being forced to pay money to union leaders, federal officials say.
Two Hunterdon men who are in the International Longshoremen’s Association union are charged in a superseding federal indictment that adds dozens of counts to a previous indictment charging multiple defendants — including an alleged member and associates of the Genovese organized crime family — with racketeering and related offenses.
The additional charges include conspiring to extort Christmastime “tributes” from ILA members on the New Jersey piers. The defendants are accused of taking money from the workers through “wrongful use of, actual and threatened force, violence and fear.”
The Hunterdon defendants are Thomas “Tommy” Leonardis, 54, of Rocky Run Road, Lebanon Township, president of International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1235 and ILA representative, and Edward “Eddie” Aulisi, 52, of Pleasant Run Road, Readington Township. According to officials, he had a “no-show” job as a longshoreman. He’s the son of Vincent “The Vet” Aulisi, 78, of West Orange, a former Local 1235 president, who was also indicted.
Leonardis is charged with extortion conspiracy and extortion of ILA members. Edward Aulisi is charged with extortion conspiracy. The charges are under the federal Hobbs Act, which is used to combat racketeering in labor cases.
According to government records, as president of the 887-member local, Leonardis received a salary of $206,130 in 2010, plus business expenses of $5,180 for total compensation of $211,310. He moved from Essex County to Lebanon Township in 1999.
The original indictment was returned in January 2011. A 103-count superseding indictment was unsealed Dec. 15 in Newark federal court in which previously charged defendants Stephen Depiro, who federal officials allege is a soldier in the Genovese organized crime family of La Cosa Nostra (the “Genovese family”), and three Genovese family associates, Albert Cernadas, former president of ILA Local 1235; Nunzio LaGrasso, vice president of ILA Local 1478; and a Richard Dehmer are charged with racketeering conspiracy.
The new indictment accuses current or former ILA supervisors with extortion conspiracy and extortion. LaGrasso and five other men, including Leonardis and Vincent Aulisi, are charged with additional counts of extortion of ILA members. A total of 28 people are listed as extortion victims.
Members of the Genovese family, including Depiro, are charged with conspiring to collect “tribute” payments from New Jersey port workers at Christmastime each year through their corrupt influence over union officials, including the last three presidents of Local 1235.
The timing of the extortions typically coincided with the receipt by certain ILA members of “Container Royalty Fund” checks, a form of year-end compensation, the government said.
Investigators said Edward Aulisi was caught on tape assuring reputed mob boss Michael Coppola that the Christmas tribute money would continue even after Cernadas left, and in fact had doubled. Documents refer to Aulisi as a “Genovese crime family associate.”
The payments were the focus of some attention during a hearing in October 2010 by the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor. Edward Aulisi, whom officials say held a no-show job at Port Elizabeth, was called as a witness but invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. He had the title of checker, or dockside clerk, at the APM terminal in Elizabeth.
Commission officials showed photographs of him barbecuing and riding a lawn mower while he was scheduled to work. The commission eventually barred him from working on the waterfront for associating with Coppola.
“Those working hard for a living should not have to worry that their bosses and union officers have an allegiance to the Mafia,” said Paul Fishman, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey. “It is an unacceptable risk to this region’s security and economy for organized crime to hold sway over New Jersey’s waterfront.”
According to Loretta E. Lynch, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, “the Genovese crime family allegedly preyed upon ILA members for years through a pattern of racketeering activity” and coerced dock workers “to make ‘tribute’ payments — up to thousands of dollars each year — to the Genovese crime family at Christmastime.”
http://www.nj.com/hunterdon-county-democrat/index.ssf/2011/12/2_hunterdon_men_face_union_tri.html
Two Hunterdon men who are in the International Longshoremen’s Association union are charged in a superseding federal indictment that adds dozens of counts to a previous indictment charging multiple defendants — including an alleged member and associates of the Genovese organized crime family — with racketeering and related offenses.
The additional charges include conspiring to extort Christmastime “tributes” from ILA members on the New Jersey piers. The defendants are accused of taking money from the workers through “wrongful use of, actual and threatened force, violence and fear.”
The Hunterdon defendants are Thomas “Tommy” Leonardis, 54, of Rocky Run Road, Lebanon Township, president of International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1235 and ILA representative, and Edward “Eddie” Aulisi, 52, of Pleasant Run Road, Readington Township. According to officials, he had a “no-show” job as a longshoreman. He’s the son of Vincent “The Vet” Aulisi, 78, of West Orange, a former Local 1235 president, who was also indicted.
Leonardis is charged with extortion conspiracy and extortion of ILA members. Edward Aulisi is charged with extortion conspiracy. The charges are under the federal Hobbs Act, which is used to combat racketeering in labor cases.
According to government records, as president of the 887-member local, Leonardis received a salary of $206,130 in 2010, plus business expenses of $5,180 for total compensation of $211,310. He moved from Essex County to Lebanon Township in 1999.
The original indictment was returned in January 2011. A 103-count superseding indictment was unsealed Dec. 15 in Newark federal court in which previously charged defendants Stephen Depiro, who federal officials allege is a soldier in the Genovese organized crime family of La Cosa Nostra (the “Genovese family”), and three Genovese family associates, Albert Cernadas, former president of ILA Local 1235; Nunzio LaGrasso, vice president of ILA Local 1478; and a Richard Dehmer are charged with racketeering conspiracy.
The new indictment accuses current or former ILA supervisors with extortion conspiracy and extortion. LaGrasso and five other men, including Leonardis and Vincent Aulisi, are charged with additional counts of extortion of ILA members. A total of 28 people are listed as extortion victims.
Members of the Genovese family, including Depiro, are charged with conspiring to collect “tribute” payments from New Jersey port workers at Christmastime each year through their corrupt influence over union officials, including the last three presidents of Local 1235.
The timing of the extortions typically coincided with the receipt by certain ILA members of “Container Royalty Fund” checks, a form of year-end compensation, the government said.
Investigators said Edward Aulisi was caught on tape assuring reputed mob boss Michael Coppola that the Christmas tribute money would continue even after Cernadas left, and in fact had doubled. Documents refer to Aulisi as a “Genovese crime family associate.”
The payments were the focus of some attention during a hearing in October 2010 by the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor. Edward Aulisi, whom officials say held a no-show job at Port Elizabeth, was called as a witness but invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. He had the title of checker, or dockside clerk, at the APM terminal in Elizabeth.
Commission officials showed photographs of him barbecuing and riding a lawn mower while he was scheduled to work. The commission eventually barred him from working on the waterfront for associating with Coppola.
“Those working hard for a living should not have to worry that their bosses and union officers have an allegiance to the Mafia,” said Paul Fishman, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey. “It is an unacceptable risk to this region’s security and economy for organized crime to hold sway over New Jersey’s waterfront.”
According to Loretta E. Lynch, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, “the Genovese crime family allegedly preyed upon ILA members for years through a pattern of racketeering activity” and coerced dock workers “to make ‘tribute’ payments — up to thousands of dollars each year — to the Genovese crime family at Christmastime.”
http://www.nj.com/hunterdon-county-democrat/index.ssf/2011/12/2_hunterdon_men_face_union_tri.html
Monday, February 14, 2011
Reputed North Jersey mobster Stephen "Beach" Depiro a family man of contradictions
Stephen "Beach" Depiro has been described by federal authorities as a major player in the New Jersey underworld, a veteran mobster who has risen through the ranks and now oversees the highly lucrative rackets along the North Jersey waterfront.
The balding, 5-foot-7 Union County resident is, according to one underworld source, a "flashy" wiseguy out of the John Gotti, celebrity gangster mode, favoring fancy cars, nice clothes, and a manicured look.
But court documents filed by his lawyer as Depiro, 55, tries to win release on bail after his arrest last month offer a different picture of the man the FBI has listed as one of the highest-ranking Genovese crime family soldiers in the state.
The contradictions are stark and fascinating:
Depiro, according to his lawyer, goes to Mass every day. But authorities allege that he has used violence and intimidation to enforce the mob's control of gambling, loan-sharking, and labor racketeering along the waterfront.
In a letter to the court supporting Depiro's request for bail, three priests and a deacon at his church - St. Theresa's in Kenilworth - cited "his sincerity" and his "participation in pastoral programs" and added that "some of our parishioners . . . told us they are inspired by his prayerful attitude and kindness." Yet the FBI says he was closely aligned with the late Tino Fiumara, one of the most feared mobsters in New Jersey, and is a top associate of Michael Coppola, a mob capo and suspected hit man who was once part of a murder team known as "The Fist."
His criminal record indicates he's never been convicted of a violent crime. But federal prosecutors say he took over the mob's interests along the docks after Lawrence Ricci, a Genovese crime family soldier, was killed in 2005. Ricci was shot in the head, his body left in the trunk of a car parked behind a North Jersey diner.
Depiro is the lead defendant in a pending racketeering case in federal court in Newark that details the mob's alleged control of the New Jersey waterfront.
He has been held without bail since his arrest on Jan. 20, but his New York attorney, Sarita Kedia, has filed a motion seeking his release pending trial.
Prosecutors have opposed the motion.
Court filings in that dispute have provided the wildly divergent descriptions of the reputed wiseguy.
From law enforcement's perspective, Depiro is a gangster who has sworn an oath "to serve the ends of the Genovese . . . family above all else."
And he has done that, they allege, through the extortion of International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) dockworkers who are forced to kick back to the mob in order to work; through a lucrative illegal sports-betting operation; and through a loan-sharking and extortion racket tied to the gambling enterprise.
He has also consistently associated with mob figures, they say, even while free on bail or under supervised release and despite court-ordered prohibitions.
Depiro was one of several crime family members, prosecutors say, who helped Coppola live in hiding for more than a decade as he avoided arrest in a murder case.
And since at least 2005, they allege, Depiro "has managed and controlled the crime family's waterfront rackets," which some estimate generate more than $1 million annually for organized crime.
Defense documents, on the other hand, paint Depiro as a family man in the most honorable sense of that term, and as someone who cares deeply for his loved ones.
He is, according to those filings, a man who sought court permission while under house arrest last year to visit his mother's grave on Mother's Day; to take his elderly aunt to the cemetery on another occasion and then join her for lunch; to visit his father's grave on Father's Day; and to fete family members celebrating birthdays and graduations at such restaurants as La Campagna in Millburn, La Griglia in Kenilworth, and the posh Stella Marina in Asbury Park.
His fiancée and self-described "life partner," Michele Caruso - they have been together 15 years, she wrote in a letter to the court - said Depiro had been "a second father to my son, from toddler to high school graduate."
She called him a "dedicated and personable man," a "role model in our family" who is "capable of handling any situation with thoughtfulness and maturity."
That, of course, is not the picture emerging from snippets of wiretapped conversations that are now part of the racketeering case in which Depiro and 14 associates have been charged.
In those conversations, Depiro is picked up discussing the extortion of the ILA locals with both Fiumara, who died in September, and Coppola, who was jailed last year after his conviction in another racketeering case.
The kickbacks from dockworkers alone, prosecutors say, generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash for the mob each year.
Prosecutors also cite other conversations in which a top associate threatened a deadbeat gambler with a baseball bat if he didn't come up with the money owed to Depiro's gambling operation.
"He needs his hands to work," reputed mob enforcer Richard "Dickie" Dehmer said of his target. "He ain't working no more for a while."
FBI surveillance reports also detailed Depiro's meeting on several occasions with Fiumara at a Long Island restaurant and associating with mobster Daniel Dellisanti, whose criminal record includes convictions for drug dealing and murder, prosecutors said.
Whether Depiro goes to Mass every day, and even if he is a caring son and father figure, authorities argued that he was "the most recent successor" to Fiumara and Coppola and head of a "violent crew that has controlled the crime family's port-related rackets for decades."
He has, they pointed out, no legitimate source of income. Yet he clearly lives well, dining at fine restaurants and driving a Jaguar and a Mercury Mountaineer.
He has, according to his own lawyer, been approached several times by FBI agents who wanted him to cooperate. It was, apparently, an offer he could refuse.
"Each time, the FBI agents found Mr. Depiro in the same church, where he . . . attends services each morning," the lawyer wrote.
Prosecutors say Depiro's mob associations and the charges outlined in a 53-count indictment returned last month support the argument that he is a danger to the community and should be denied bail.
But not everyone in the community agrees.
The priests and deacon at the Church of St. Theresa, in a letter written Jan. 27, conceded that the charges Depiro faces are "serious."
But, they wrote, "through the years of consistently seeing him in church and from our countless conversations with him, we all agree to the fact of his sincerity and his desire to live his life consistent with what our Christian faith teaches."
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20110214_Reputed_North_Jersey_mobster_Stephen__Beach__Depiro_a_family_man_of_contradictions.html?viewAll=y
The balding, 5-foot-7 Union County resident is, according to one underworld source, a "flashy" wiseguy out of the John Gotti, celebrity gangster mode, favoring fancy cars, nice clothes, and a manicured look.
But court documents filed by his lawyer as Depiro, 55, tries to win release on bail after his arrest last month offer a different picture of the man the FBI has listed as one of the highest-ranking Genovese crime family soldiers in the state.
The contradictions are stark and fascinating:
Depiro, according to his lawyer, goes to Mass every day. But authorities allege that he has used violence and intimidation to enforce the mob's control of gambling, loan-sharking, and labor racketeering along the waterfront.
In a letter to the court supporting Depiro's request for bail, three priests and a deacon at his church - St. Theresa's in Kenilworth - cited "his sincerity" and his "participation in pastoral programs" and added that "some of our parishioners . . . told us they are inspired by his prayerful attitude and kindness." Yet the FBI says he was closely aligned with the late Tino Fiumara, one of the most feared mobsters in New Jersey, and is a top associate of Michael Coppola, a mob capo and suspected hit man who was once part of a murder team known as "The Fist."
His criminal record indicates he's never been convicted of a violent crime. But federal prosecutors say he took over the mob's interests along the docks after Lawrence Ricci, a Genovese crime family soldier, was killed in 2005. Ricci was shot in the head, his body left in the trunk of a car parked behind a North Jersey diner.
Depiro is the lead defendant in a pending racketeering case in federal court in Newark that details the mob's alleged control of the New Jersey waterfront.
He has been held without bail since his arrest on Jan. 20, but his New York attorney, Sarita Kedia, has filed a motion seeking his release pending trial.
Prosecutors have opposed the motion.
Court filings in that dispute have provided the wildly divergent descriptions of the reputed wiseguy.
From law enforcement's perspective, Depiro is a gangster who has sworn an oath "to serve the ends of the Genovese . . . family above all else."
And he has done that, they allege, through the extortion of International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) dockworkers who are forced to kick back to the mob in order to work; through a lucrative illegal sports-betting operation; and through a loan-sharking and extortion racket tied to the gambling enterprise.
He has also consistently associated with mob figures, they say, even while free on bail or under supervised release and despite court-ordered prohibitions.
Depiro was one of several crime family members, prosecutors say, who helped Coppola live in hiding for more than a decade as he avoided arrest in a murder case.
And since at least 2005, they allege, Depiro "has managed and controlled the crime family's waterfront rackets," which some estimate generate more than $1 million annually for organized crime.
Defense documents, on the other hand, paint Depiro as a family man in the most honorable sense of that term, and as someone who cares deeply for his loved ones.
He is, according to those filings, a man who sought court permission while under house arrest last year to visit his mother's grave on Mother's Day; to take his elderly aunt to the cemetery on another occasion and then join her for lunch; to visit his father's grave on Father's Day; and to fete family members celebrating birthdays and graduations at such restaurants as La Campagna in Millburn, La Griglia in Kenilworth, and the posh Stella Marina in Asbury Park.
His fiancée and self-described "life partner," Michele Caruso - they have been together 15 years, she wrote in a letter to the court - said Depiro had been "a second father to my son, from toddler to high school graduate."
She called him a "dedicated and personable man," a "role model in our family" who is "capable of handling any situation with thoughtfulness and maturity."
That, of course, is not the picture emerging from snippets of wiretapped conversations that are now part of the racketeering case in which Depiro and 14 associates have been charged.
In those conversations, Depiro is picked up discussing the extortion of the ILA locals with both Fiumara, who died in September, and Coppola, who was jailed last year after his conviction in another racketeering case.
The kickbacks from dockworkers alone, prosecutors say, generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash for the mob each year.
Prosecutors also cite other conversations in which a top associate threatened a deadbeat gambler with a baseball bat if he didn't come up with the money owed to Depiro's gambling operation.
"He needs his hands to work," reputed mob enforcer Richard "Dickie" Dehmer said of his target. "He ain't working no more for a while."
FBI surveillance reports also detailed Depiro's meeting on several occasions with Fiumara at a Long Island restaurant and associating with mobster Daniel Dellisanti, whose criminal record includes convictions for drug dealing and murder, prosecutors said.
Whether Depiro goes to Mass every day, and even if he is a caring son and father figure, authorities argued that he was "the most recent successor" to Fiumara and Coppola and head of a "violent crew that has controlled the crime family's port-related rackets for decades."
He has, they pointed out, no legitimate source of income. Yet he clearly lives well, dining at fine restaurants and driving a Jaguar and a Mercury Mountaineer.
He has, according to his own lawyer, been approached several times by FBI agents who wanted him to cooperate. It was, apparently, an offer he could refuse.
"Each time, the FBI agents found Mr. Depiro in the same church, where he . . . attends services each morning," the lawyer wrote.
Prosecutors say Depiro's mob associations and the charges outlined in a 53-count indictment returned last month support the argument that he is a danger to the community and should be denied bail.
But not everyone in the community agrees.
The priests and deacon at the Church of St. Theresa, in a letter written Jan. 27, conceded that the charges Depiro faces are "serious."
But, they wrote, "through the years of consistently seeing him in church and from our countless conversations with him, we all agree to the fact of his sincerity and his desire to live his life consistent with what our Christian faith teaches."
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20110214_Reputed_North_Jersey_mobster_Stephen__Beach__Depiro_a_family_man_of_contradictions.html?viewAll=y
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Waterfront Commission Is Back In Action
The hearings commenced last October, and at the first one officials played a purported recording of a 2007 telephone conversation between longshoreman Edward Aulisi from Local 1235 of the International Longshoremen's Association and reputed Genovese capo Michael "Mikey Cigars" Coppola as reported by Richard Perez-Pena for The New York Times:
The two men spoke using code, translated by Joseph Longo, another commission detective: "Christmases" meant kickback payments, for example, and "shingle" meant lawyer. On the recording, the man said to be Mr. Aulisi updated the other man on news — a subpoena served to a Genovese associate, a loan shark customer falling short on a payment — and mentioned that the "Christmases" had doubled in a few years.
Aulisi, whose father Vincent was a former President of Local 1235, repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in refusing to answer questions at the hearing. In July 2009 Coppola was convicted for decades-long extortion against the local.Last week the feds indicted Albert Cernadas Sr., a former vice president of the International Longshoremen's Association and president of ILA Local 1235 in Newark, NJ, for allegedly "shaking down his members under threats of violence, in what was described as a long-running racketeering operation tied to the Genovese organized crime family" as reported by Ted Sherman for The Star-Ledger: "The charges come nearly five years after Cernadas, 75, of Union Township, was removed from the ILA after pleading guilty to corruption charges involving thousands of dollars in union funds being funneled into a pharmaceutical company controlled by organized crime." Cernadas "was sentenced to only two years probation" in that case after U.S. District Judge Leo Glasser received from the NJ political establishment "292 letters asking for leniency" as reported by Bob Ingle and Sandy McClure in their book The Soprano State: New Jersey's Culture of Corruption.
The feds earlier this month busted Robert Ruiz, a delegate for Local 1235 of the International Longshoremen's Association, on extortion charges after he allegedly solicited cash donations from union members intended as tribute payments to the Genovese boys.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
In Waterfront Hearings, Accounts of a Union’s Kickbacks and a Mafia Tie
Image via Wikipedia Edward Aulisi was a dockworker — at least in theory. According to law enforcement officials, Mr. Aulisi, whose father led a longshoremen’s union local, knew of the local’s kickback payments to organized crime, and he was in contact with a Mafia captain who was a fugitive from justice. And, they say, despite collecting about $100,000 a year in pay, Mr. Aulisi rarely, if ever, showed up for his job on the waterfront in Elizabeth, N.J.
This account of Mr. Aulisi’s career was made public on Thursday at the first in a series of hearings being held by the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, whose officials say they will expose favoritism, no-show jobs and organized-crime involvement on the docks.
The port’s thousands of dockworkers and the 64 freight-handling, or stevedoring, companies that employ them all need commission licenses to operate, and after years of lax oversight, the commission has made its background checks and licensing requirements more robust.
The commission was rocked by scandals of its own before new management took over, and the hearings in Lower Manhattan are meant, in part, to demonstrate that the need for its policing functions remains. A powerful Democratic state senator in New Jersey, Raymond Lesniak, has called for elimination of the commission, a position shared by some officials of the International Longshoremen’s Association.
On Thursday, the commission focused on Mr. Aulisi and longshoremen’s Local 1235, which was led for a few years by his father, Vincent. Edward Aulisi was called as a witness to answer the allegations, none of which have resulted in criminal charges, and in response to each question, he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
The commission produced records for two days in September 2009 when Mr. Aulisi was signed in — by somebody — at the waterfront and was paid for working 10-hour shifts, including overtime. But Vincent King, a detective with the commission’s police force, testified that on both days, he had Mr. Aulisi under surveillance, and “he was in fact at home at the time.”
Detective King showed photos he said he had taken on those days, one of Mr. Aulisi holding a spatula at a grill, another of him driving a riding lawnmower.
Detective King said he interviewed two people who were supposed to have worked with Mr. Aulisi tracking the movement of shipping containers for one of the waterfront companies, APM Terminals. One said he had not seen Mr. Aulisi in two years; the other said he had worked hours in Mr. Aulisi’s place several times.
Commission officials played a recording of what they said was a 2007 phone call from Mr. Aulisi to Michael Coppola, a captain in the Genovese crime family in hiding for more than a decade because he was a suspect in a murder case. The two men spoke using code, translated by Joseph Longo, another commission detective: “Christmases” meant kickback payments, for example, and “shingle” meant lawyer.
On the recording, the man said to be Mr. Aulisi updated the other man on news — a subpoena served to a Genovese associate, a loan shark customer falling short on a payment — and mentioned that the “Christmases” had doubled in a few years.
In 2007, Milton Mollen, a retired New York State judge hired by the longshoremen’s international to oversee ethical practices, expelled both Aulisis from the union. But APM continued to employ Edward Aulisi for two years, until the Waterfront Commission revoked his license.
Richard Carthas, senior director of terminal operations for APM, testified that he was aware during those two years that Mr. Aulisi had been stripped of his union membership and accused of working a no-show job.
Commissioner Ronald Goldstock asked, “Did you give instructions to your timekeepers, ‘Hey, let’s make sure Mr. Aulisi is actually showing up?’ ”
Mr. Carthas said he did not. He said APM took no disciplinary action against Mr. Aulisi because a trade group, the New York Shipping Association, advised that it would be difficult under the union’s contract.
The union’s contract requires that three “checkers,” Mr. Aulisi’s position, be hired for a given assignment like loading or unloading a ship, so that they can work in shifts around the clock. But, Mr. Carthas said, how the three divide up the work is entirely up to them.
“As long as that job was covered and there was somebody physically doing that job, that’s what our requirement was,” he said.
The commission contends that the contract produces constant overstaffing, so that people are routinely paid for hours they do not work, including significant overtime pay — a system that is ripe for abuse.
The commission was formed in the 1950s, in response to the same exposés that inspired the film “On the Waterfront.” Most top officials, including its two commissioners, were replaced in 2008 and 2009, after a series of scandals.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/nyregion/15waterfront.html
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Judge slaps Michael 'Mikey Cigars' Coppola with 16 years in prison racketeering
A longtime Genovese gangster full of holiday spirit will be hanging his Christmas stocking in jail for the next 16 years.
Reputed capo Michael (Mikey Cigars) Coppola was hit with a harsh sentence for racketeering after his yuletide greetings apparently didn't sway the judge.
"Merry Christmas," Coppola, 63, said to the jurist about to sentence him for extortion on the waterfront. "I have a good family. I've been surrounded by good friends all my life and I have a good lawyer - bless his soul."
The judge didn't show much mercy in issuing the sentence - though he did give Coppola a small break by not factoring in a mountain of evidence he committed a murder because the jury acquitted him of that charge.
He did return the holiday cheer, however.
"And I mean this sincerely, Merry Christmas to you and your family," Brooklyn Federal Judge John Gleeson said.
Coppola wasn't in the mood for pleasantries by the time Gleeson reminded him of his right to appeal the sentence.
"I certainly am," he shot back.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/12/19/2009-12-19_merry_christmas__now_go_to_jail.html
Reputed capo Michael (Mikey Cigars) Coppola was hit with a harsh sentence for racketeering after his yuletide greetings apparently didn't sway the judge.
"Merry Christmas," Coppola, 63, said to the jurist about to sentence him for extortion on the waterfront. "I have a good family. I've been surrounded by good friends all my life and I have a good lawyer - bless his soul."
The judge didn't show much mercy in issuing the sentence - though he did give Coppola a small break by not factoring in a mountain of evidence he committed a murder because the jury acquitted him of that charge.
He did return the holiday cheer, however.
"And I mean this sincerely, Merry Christmas to you and your family," Brooklyn Federal Judge John Gleeson said.
Coppola wasn't in the mood for pleasantries by the time Gleeson reminded him of his right to appeal the sentence.
"I certainly am," he shot back.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/12/19/2009-12-19_merry_christmas__now_go_to_jail.html
Friday, December 11, 2009
Murder charge is dismissed against reputed N.J. mob boss
A Superior Court judge today dismissed the murder charge against a reputed mob boss accused of gunning down a man 32 years ago in a Bridgewater motel parking lot.
Michael Coppola, 63, was accused of shooting John “Johnny Cokes” Lardiere, 68, of Maplewood multiple times outside the Red Bull Inn on April 10, 1977.
He wasn’t linked to the crime until 1996, when a mob turncoat told investigators that Coppola had bragged about the killing during a party in the 1980s. The informant told investigators Coppola was formally inducted into the Genovese crime family upon completion of the homicide, court papers say.
Coppola disappeared after he was ordered to provide a DNA sample and remained at large until his 2007 capture in New York City.
Defense attorney Thomas Cammarata filed a motion to dismiss the complaint in 2008, accusing the state Attorney General’s office of taking too long to seek an indictment, denying his client’s rights to due process and a speedy trial.
Superior Court Judge Paul Armstrong initially denied the motion May 6. He gave the state 120 days to go before a grand jury, or else he would be inclined to grant a dismissal.
Following through on that ruling, Cammarata filed another motion, and Armstrong granted the request following a hearing in Somerville. That does not stop the state from continuing its investigation or presenting the matter to a grand jury in the future, Armstrong said.
“The state and the defense are fully aware that there is no statute of limitations on a charge of murder,” Armstrong said.
Coppola is currently serving a 42-month sentence in federal prison after pleading guilty to a fugitive charge last year. In July, he was tried in federal court and was found guilty of conspiracy to violate RICO, but the alleged murder “was not proven” as one of the acts of racketeering. He is to be sentenced Dec. 18.
“As far as we’re concerned, he’s not guilty of the charge,” Cammarata said regarding the murder allegation.
When he first denied the motion in May, Armstrong said length of the delay was not unreasonable given the legitimate reasons, including the ongoing investigation into the overall crime operation.
“Defendant did not assert his right to a speedy trial until after he was apprehended following an 11-year stint as a fugitive,” he said in court papers.
At the hearing, Cammarata said the state’s delay was tactical. They wanted to wait for the outcome of the federal trial, giving them a distinct advantage.
There are 1,875 pages of transcripts that Deputy Attorney General Christopher Romanyshyn says he needs to review, but, the defense says, only about 250 are relevant.
“Two years and nine months is simply too long,” he said. Giving the state more time to investigate means his client’s rights to due process and a speedy trial continue to be violated. “The state of New Jersey’s investigators can’t do a better job than the FBI,” he said.
Romanyshyn said Cammarata was being disingenuous when he said there are only 200 or so relevant pages within the transcript.
“I would be remiss if I simply rushed into another case, subjecting Mr. Coppola to another trial, without taking the time to assess that case,” he said.
“I need to do my job the best way I know how without regard to whether the defense thinks there is some sort of ulterior motive,” he insisted.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/12/murder_charge_dismissed_agains.html
Michael Coppola, 63, was accused of shooting John “Johnny Cokes” Lardiere, 68, of Maplewood multiple times outside the Red Bull Inn on April 10, 1977.
He wasn’t linked to the crime until 1996, when a mob turncoat told investigators that Coppola had bragged about the killing during a party in the 1980s. The informant told investigators Coppola was formally inducted into the Genovese crime family upon completion of the homicide, court papers say.
Coppola disappeared after he was ordered to provide a DNA sample and remained at large until his 2007 capture in New York City.
Defense attorney Thomas Cammarata filed a motion to dismiss the complaint in 2008, accusing the state Attorney General’s office of taking too long to seek an indictment, denying his client’s rights to due process and a speedy trial.
Superior Court Judge Paul Armstrong initially denied the motion May 6. He gave the state 120 days to go before a grand jury, or else he would be inclined to grant a dismissal.
Following through on that ruling, Cammarata filed another motion, and Armstrong granted the request following a hearing in Somerville. That does not stop the state from continuing its investigation or presenting the matter to a grand jury in the future, Armstrong said.
“The state and the defense are fully aware that there is no statute of limitations on a charge of murder,” Armstrong said.
Coppola is currently serving a 42-month sentence in federal prison after pleading guilty to a fugitive charge last year. In July, he was tried in federal court and was found guilty of conspiracy to violate RICO, but the alleged murder “was not proven” as one of the acts of racketeering. He is to be sentenced Dec. 18.
“As far as we’re concerned, he’s not guilty of the charge,” Cammarata said regarding the murder allegation.
When he first denied the motion in May, Armstrong said length of the delay was not unreasonable given the legitimate reasons, including the ongoing investigation into the overall crime operation.
“Defendant did not assert his right to a speedy trial until after he was apprehended following an 11-year stint as a fugitive,” he said in court papers.
At the hearing, Cammarata said the state’s delay was tactical. They wanted to wait for the outcome of the federal trial, giving them a distinct advantage.
There are 1,875 pages of transcripts that Deputy Attorney General Christopher Romanyshyn says he needs to review, but, the defense says, only about 250 are relevant.
“Two years and nine months is simply too long,” he said. Giving the state more time to investigate means his client’s rights to due process and a speedy trial continue to be violated. “The state of New Jersey’s investigators can’t do a better job than the FBI,” he said.
Romanyshyn said Cammarata was being disingenuous when he said there are only 200 or so relevant pages within the transcript.
“I would be remiss if I simply rushed into another case, subjecting Mr. Coppola to another trial, without taking the time to assess that case,” he said.
“I need to do my job the best way I know how without regard to whether the defense thinks there is some sort of ulterior motive,” he insisted.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/12/murder_charge_dismissed_agains.html
Thursday, September 24, 2009
NJ Gov Candidate has Family Links to Reputed Feared Genovese Boss
For Christopher J. Christie, it was inescapably an uncomfortable family connection. Tino Fiumara, the brother of his aunt’s husband, was a fearsome and ranking member of the Genovese crime family: twice convicted of racketeering, sentenced to 25 years in federal prison, and linked by investigators to several grisly murders, including one in which a victim was strangled with piano wire.
Tino Fiumara in 1979.
Mr. Christie, 47, who rose from a boyhood in Livingston to become a corporate lawyer, then United States attorney in New Jersey and now the Republican candidate for governor of New Jersey, does not appear to have talked much about Mr. Fiumara over the years.
He once acknowledged bumping into his uncle’s brother at a restaurant in the mid-1990s. And there was a 1991 visit Mr. Christie made to a Texas prison to see Mr. Fiumara — at the request, Mr. Christie said, of a relative.
But when Mr. Christie became New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor in January 2002, his distant tie became a potential problem. Mr. Fiumara was already under investigation by the federal prosecutor’s office for aiding the flight of a fugitive suspected of murder.
Mr. Christie recused himself from the case. Mr. Fiumara was arrested that April. Prosecutors and defense lawyers say Mr. Christie was never involved in any way.
But Mr. Christie, whose office issued news releases about a plea bargain and Mr. Fiumara’s eight-month prison sentence, never revealed his connection to the defendant or his sensitive decision to distance himself from the handling of the case.
“My view at the time was, I had had nothing to do with the case, I’d had no involvement with it, and I didn’t think it was of any import to anyone why I’d recused,” he said in an interview. “It was a personal matter; it was not a professional matter.”
Mr. Christie says his relationship to Mr. Fiumara never came up in his F.B.I. background check after his appointment as United States attorney, and he never raised it, though he says he assumed investigators were aware of it.
So as he runs for governor, the connection to one of the state’s more notorious and violent gangsters emerges as a somewhat startling footnote in the biography of a man who has built his campaign, and career, as a crime fighter.
Mr. Christie says that as United States attorney he was always tough on organized crime, though it did not rank as high among his priorities as public corruption, terrorism, violent street gangs or human trafficking did. And he says he stands by a 2007 remark that “the Mafia is much more prominent on HBO than in New Jersey.”
Mr. Fiumara’s older brother, John, who lived in Livingston, a mile from the Christie home, was the second husband of Mr. Christie’s aunt, Mr. Christie said. He said that he recalled seeing Tino Fiumara at large parties at his aunt’s home when he was a boy.
By then, Mr. Fiumara had built an extensive and violent résumé in the underworld. Jerry Capeci of GangLandNews.com, has reported that Mr. Fiumara cut his teeth in the late 1960’s working for Ruggiero Boiardo, a top Genovese crime family member in New Jersey, known as Richie the Boot, who lived in a sprawling Livingston estate that became a model for the suburban home of the fictional character Tony Soprano.
Mr. Christie said he was 15 when he found out about Mr. Fiumara’s involvement in organized crime, in 1977, reading about it on the front page of The Star-Ledger. Two years later, Mr. Fiumara was sentenced to 20 years for extorting a Parsippany restaurateur.
He was denied bail in that case, according to Mr. Capeci, after investigators linked him to the 1969 murder of a politically connected nightclub owner and bookmaker in Paterson, N.J. In 1980, he was convicted of charges that he controlled the New Jersey waterfront for the Genovese family, paying off union leaders and extorting shipping companies.
A United States Senate subcommittee investigating organized crime in the early 1980s attributed three murders to Mr. Fiumara, including the 1967 slayings of two brothers of one of his codefendants in the 1980 trial.
In 1983, Lt. Col. Justin Dintino of the New Jersey State Police called Mr. Fiumara “a callous killer who has resorted to violence with little provocation,” and said Mr. Fiumara had ordered the murder of the godfather of one of his own children.
Gerald Shargel, Mr. Fiumara’s lawyer, has called the murder accusations “an F.B.I. fantasy.”
Mr. Fiumara, 68, visited on Monday at his home in South Huntington, N.Y., referred reporters to another defense lawyer, Salvatore T. Alfano, who declined to comment.
Mr. Christie apparently has discussed Mr. Fiumara publicly only once before, in a brief item in The Star-Ledger in December 2001. He mentioned a chance encounter at a restaurant while Mr. Fiumara was out on parole several years earlier.
He did not mention having visited Mr. Fiumara behind bars.
In 1991, as a 29-year-old lawyer, Mr. Christie was planning a trip to Dallas to see a football game, he said, when his uncle asked him to visit Mr. Fiumara in the federal prison in Fort Worth.
He said that he remembered little of their conversation. “My best recollection is we updated each other on what was going on with the family,” he said. “It was not a very long visit.”
Mr. Fiumara was paroled from Fort Worth in February 1994. In 1999, he was returned to prison for associating with known criminals. A longtime associate, Michael Coppola, had fled murder charges in 1996, and Mr. Fiumara was caught on a wiretap speaking with him by phone while Mr. Coppola was a fugitive.
Mr. Fiumara was due to be released again in June 2002. But that April, he was indicted again, this time by Mr. Christie’s office on charges of helping Mr. Coppola avoid prosecution. Mr. Christie recused himself. Mr. Fiumara’s lawyers argued that he had already been punished through the parole violation. They sought house arrest, saying incarceration would jeopardize his chances of a kidney transplant. But prosecutors insisted on prison.
“The plea negotiations were very tough,” said Mr. Shargel. “No one was given any gift, that’s for sure.”
He said Mr. Christie had no involvement whatsoever.
Aidan O’Connor, who led the organized crime strike force for Mr. Christie at the time, agreed with Mr. Shargel.
Mr. Fiumara was released in January 2005. Last year he was named as a target of federal investigators who believe he ordered the slaying of an associate who was on trial for fraud in October 2005.
A senior law enforcement official said Mr. Fiumara now sits on a three-person ruling panel that oversees the Genovese family, which has not had an official boss since the death of Vincent Gigante in 2005.
Mr. Christie said that if he learned anything from his connection to Mr. Fiumara, it was at the moment he read about him in the newspaper as a 15-year-old.
“It just told me that you make bad decisions in life and you wind up paying a price,” he said. “Really, for most of my life, he spent his life in prison. That teaches you a lot.”
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
'MIKEY CIGARS' CONVICTED OF RACKETEERING, CLEARED OF MURDER
A Genovese capo who spent nearly 11 years on the lam to avoid arrest for a decades-old mob rubout was convicted of racketeering today, but cleared of the murder.
Michael "Mikey Cigars" Coppola is facing up to 20 years in prison after jurors in Brooklyn federal court found him guilty of extorting a waterfront union for more than 30 years and possessing false identification while he was a fugitive.
The gangster could have faced a life sentence if he was convicted of killing mob associate Johnny "Coca Cola" Coppola in the parking lot of a New Jersey motel in 1977.
Coppola became a fugitive in 1996 after authorities got a tip from a mob turncoat and demanded a DNA sample for comparison to evidence from the crime scene.
After nearly 11 years of evading the feds, Coppola was caught in the Upper West Side, where he and his wife had been living in a studio apartment.
Coppola used a myriad of bogus names including: Jose Quinones, Joseph Carro, Michael Rizzoli, Joseph Rizzoli, Michael Rizzo, Joe Quinn and Hector Carro.
"We're pleased that the centerpiece of the government's case, the John Lardiere murder, was not proven," said defense attorney Henry Mazurek, who argued that Coppola ran because he didn't want to be arrested for a murder he didn't commit.
"As I said at the outset, Michael Coppola never ran because he was guilty of any murder and the jury saw that correctly," Mazurek said.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/07212009/news/regionalnews/brooklyn/mikey_cigars_convicted_of_racketeering___180562.htm
Monday, July 20, 2009
REPUTED MOBSTER 'MIKEY CIGARS' WENT ON LAM TO AVOID JUSTICE: US ATTORNEY
Reputed Genovese capo Michael "Mikey Cigars" Coppola packed up his wife and spent nearly 11 years as a fugitive to avoid what is happening to him today -- his fate being put in the hands of a federal jury.
As jurors prepared to begin deliberating, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Dennehy told the panel not to be fooled by Coppola's claims that he was framed for a 1977 murder and ran from the law to be with his wife.
"He ran because he didn't want to face a jury like you. He hid because he didn't want to face a jury like you," Dennehy said in Brooklyn federal court. "This case is about justice ... it's not about whether Michael Coppola would rather be on the beach with his wife."
Coppola and his wife, Linda, fled the feds in August 1996, when he came under suspicion for the long-unsolved murder of mob associate Johnny "Coca Cola" Lardiere.
During their life on the lam, the couple used numerous aliases to travel between apartments in San Francisco and the Upper West Side of New York, where they were captured by the FBI in March 2007.
Both pleaded guilty to conspiring to harbor a fugitive last year.
Coppola, 63, is facing a maximum sentence of life in prison if he is convicted of racketeering charges, including murder, a three-decade extortion scheme targeting waterfront unions and conspiracy to possess fake identification.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/07202009/news/regionalnews/brooklyn/reputed_mobster_mikey_cigars_went_on_lam_180385.htm
Saturday, July 18, 2009
DNA a pain in ash for "Cigars"
It's never a good day when someone wants your DNA.
Reputed Genovese capo Michael "Mikey Cigars" Coppola wrote in his date book that Aug. 8, 1996 -- the day the feds subpoenaed his DNA -- was a
"sh- - day," a Brooklyn federal prosecutor said yesterday at the wiseguy's racketeering trial.
Investigators needed the sample to compare with evidence from the 1977 murder of Johnny "Coca Cola" Lardiere.
Six days later, entries in the book stopped, and it was nearly 11 years before the feds caught him hiding out on the Upper West Side.
Defense lawyer Henry Mazurek told jurors that Coppola has admitted to making a "rash" decision to flee, but it doesn't prove he's a killer.
"He didn't want to stand trial for a murder he didn't commit," Mazurek said.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/07182009/news/regionalnews/brooklyn/dna_a_pain_in_ash_for_cigars_179967.htm
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Witness To Mob Murder Testifies He Was Having Sex During Slay
A witness to decades-old mob murder testified that he got more action than he'd planned for when he hit the sheets with his first love at a New Jersey motel in 1977.
Raymond Zychlinski, 53, said he and his old flame had tuckered themselves out in a room at Red Bull Inn in Somerset when Johnny "Coca Cola" Lardiere was killed in front of their door on April 10, 1977.
"We were young. She was my first girlfriend. We had a room and we were making use of it," Zychlinski said, sending jurors in Brooklyn federal court into fits of laughter. "By that time we were pretty much complete."
As the girlfriend dozed, Zychlinski heard a car pull up outside, followed by a "horrifying scream."
"It was a scream like I'd never heard in my life. He knew he was going to die," said Zychlinski, who testified as a defense witness at the trial of Michael Coppola, 63, a reputed Genovese capo accused of carrying out the hit.
A series of gunshots boomed right outside the window.
"I grabbed my girlfriend and pulled her off the bed," the witness said, adding that he went outside after the car pulled off and saw Lardiere's body lying in front of the door.
Coppola's lawyers called Zychlinski to the witness stand to refute earlier testimony that Lardiere taunted the gunman during the hit, telling him, "What are you going to do now tough guy?"
"I heard no conversation," said Zychlinski.
Prosecutors rested their case earlier in the day and Coppola's defense team is expected to rest tomorrow, which will be followed by closing arguments.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/07162009/news/regionalnews/brooklyn/witness_doing_boom_boom_didnt_hear_bang__179630.htm
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Grumpy old mob rat George Barone is out at Mikey Cigars trial
A reputed mobster on trial for murder caught a break Tuesday when the 85-year-old mob rat testifying against him had one too many senior moments on the witness stand.
George Barone was such a handful as a witness that the prosecutor apparently decided it wasn't worth the risk asking him about the 1977 murder of gangster John "Johnny Coca Cola" Lardiere in New Jersey.
Last summer, out of the blue, Barone fingered Michael "Mikey Cigars" Coppola in the hit, sources told the Daily News.
Barone has been cooperating since 2001, but had never claimed to know who was responsible. His midsummer epiphany could have wrecked his credibility, sources said.
"Have mercy on an old man, can't I go home?" Barone whined after being surly to the prosecutor and Coppola's lawyer.
"We're all thinking the same thing," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Dennehy, provoking laughter.
On cross-examination, Barone couldn't remember how many murders he had committed. "I didn't keep a scorecard," he said, later conceding the total was about 20.
Barone implicated Coppola in a waterfront union scam that involved postponing the shutdown of a clinic where Coppola's brother worked.
Barone's harshest attack was directed at his handlers, insisting he was innocent of the crimes he had pleaded guilty to and complaining his $3,000-a-month government stipend "forced me into poverty."
"Yes, it's a paltry amount of money; I'd like to have more," he fumed. "They're a cheap bunch of people. ... If they didn't subsidize me, I'd starve to death and I wouldn't be a witness sitting here now!"
His testimony completed, the grumpy old man shuffled out, muttering: "Enough, enough."http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/07/15/2009-07-15_grumpy_old_mob_rat_george_barone_is_out_at_mob_trial.html
Monday, July 6, 2009
North Jersey Genovese Enforcer on Trial
Genovese Captain Tino Fiumara via WikipediaMichael Coppola, who goes on trial this week in a racketeering-murder case, was part of a Mafia assassination squad that “performed murders ordered by the Genovese family administration” in the late 1970s and 1980s, prosecutors said in a motion filed last month.
One of those murders, the 1977 killing of mobster John “Johnny Coca Cola” Lardiere, is part of the pending racketeering case against Coppola, who fled New Jersey in 1996 as state authorities sought a DNA sample they hoped would link him to the long-unsolved gangland slaying.
Described in a second government motion as a seasoned Mafia enforcer, Coppola served as “the right-hand man to Tino Fiumara, a powerful and violent . . . crime family captain [and] part of the Genovese family administration,” even while living in hiding, prosecutors allege.
Fiumara was labeled an unindicted coconspirator in the pending case.
Coppola, 63, is facing racketeering and conspiracy charges that include the Lardiere murder and the systematic extortion of an International Longshoremen’s Association union that works the New Jersey waterfront.
The labor-racketeering charge stems from an ongoing federal investigation in which authorities allege that the Genovese and Gambino crime families have used violence, intimidation, and extortion to corrupt the ILA and control the docks in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and North Jersey.
A civil suit filed by the U.S. Justice Department alleges the mob generates millions of dollars through a labor-racketeering scheme that one law enforcement expert said echoes the 1954 movie classic On the Waterfront.
While not part of the current case, federal authorities also allege Coppola and Fiumara, the Genovese crime family’s reputed New Jersey boss, orchestrated the 2005 slaying of Lawrence Ricci, an ILA official then on trial for racketeering.
Jury selection in the Coppola case begins tomorrow in Brooklyn federal court. For security reasons, prosecutors have asked that the members of the panel be chosen anonymously.
The trial is expected to include hundreds of secretly recorded, wiretapped conversations that allegedly tie Coppola to the corruption of ILA Local 1235, based in Newark.
In one phone conversation Coppola is heard bragging about how the mob controlled a former union president.
“We were right next to him all the time during this whole thing,” Coppola is quoted as saying.
The indictment alleges that since 1974, the Genovese crime family has had its hooks into Local 1235. During that time, investigators say, the mob arranged no-show jobs for associates, extorted shipping companies by threatening labor slowdowns and work stoppages, and received hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in tribute payments from the union itself.
Two underworld informants, George Barone, a mob soldier and former ILA official, and Thomas Ricciardi, an admitted Lucchese crime-family hit man, have provided information about Coppola, according to court documents, and are expected to testify in the pending trial.
Identified only as “CW” (cooperating witness) in several pretrial motions, Ricciardi has told authorities that Coppola boasted about the Lardiere killing, which took place in the parking lot of a Somerset County motel on Easter Sunday 1977.
Lardiere was serving a sentence for contempt at the time, but had been granted a two-day prison furlough. Authorities said the Genovese crime family ordered him murdered because, while in prison, he had gotten into a fight with and shown disrespect to a high-ranking mobster who was also in jail.
Coppola became a “made” or formally initiated member of the Genovese organization after carrying out the hit, authorities say.
The shooting, which Ricciardi has said Coppola confirmed to him when they first met in 1983, has taken on folklore status in the New Jersey underworld.
Coppola allegedly approached Lardiere in the parking lot of the Red Bull Inn, pulled out a gun, and tried to open fire. But the gun jammed.
Lardiere laughed and said, “What are you going to do now, tough guy?”
With that, the story goes, Coppola reached for another gun he had in an ankle holster and shot Lardiere five times.
Prosecutors also had hoped to use testimony from Ricciardi to link Coppola to the 1988 slaying of Ray “The Barber” Barberio, who was killed in the Downeck section of Newark. Barberio was slain, authorities say, for failing to pay a loan-sharking debt he owed to the Genovese organization.
Ricciardi told authorities that while having drinks with Coppola a few nights before the murder, Coppola told him he was “on the road,” an underworld phrase that meant he was actively assigned to a murder. He said Coppola also showed him the gun he was carrying.
After Barberio was killed, Ricciardi said, two other mobsters told him Coppola was the hit man.
Prosecutors argued that the slaying and Coppola’s willingness to discuss his “work” with Ricciardi should be admitted because it demonstrates a pattern of criminality and demonstrated Coppola’s relationship with Ricciardi.
A federal judge, however, responding to a motion filed by Coppola’s lawyer, has barred any testimony about the Barberio hit, ruling that it might unduly prejudice the jury.
It was also Ricciardi who told authorities that Coppola, along with Fiumara and several others, comprised the Genovese hit team known as “The Fist.” He said the group was based in the Downeck section of Newark, a once predominantly Italian American neighborhood where, in the 1980s, several crime families maintained clubhouses.
Coppola spent more than 10 years on the run before he was arrested on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in March 2007. Authorities say he and his wife, using aliases and aided by the Genovese organization, lived in an apartment there and in another in San Francisco during the decade that New Jersey authorities searched for him.
The DNA test, which was administered after he was apprehended, proved inconclusive.
A murder charge against Coppola stemming from the Lardiere killing is still pending in Somerset County.
Coppola and Fiumara remain targets of an ongoing federal investigation into the Ricci murder, which, authorities allege, was carried out by Coppola on Fiumara’s orders.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20090706_Trial_for_accused_Mafia_hit_man.html
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