Five Families of New York City

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

Showing posts with label Ralph Scopo Jr.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ralph Scopo Jr.. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Colombo soldier dodges jail sentence after dying of liver and heart failure

  October 15, 2013    Dapper_Don


Colombo goon Ralph Scopo Jr. (center) died at 63, avoiding conviction on extortion charges..

Feds 110, Colombo crime family 1.

That’s the scorecard for the government in its historic takedown of the city’s five Mafia families in January 2011.

Reputed Colombo soldier Ralph Scopo Jr. died last week of liver and heart failure, making him the only gangster from the massive sweep to escape conviction.

“He has to answer to a higher judge,” said a law enforcement source.

Scopo, 63, had been filing letters to Brooklyn Federal Judge Kiyo Matsumoto for nearly two years detailing his deteriorating medical condition, as wiseguy after wiseguy pleaded guilty to charges in more than a dozen separate indictments in New York.

Charged with extorting coffee errand-runners of the Cement and Concrete Workers Local 6A, Scopo was confined to his Long Island home under electronic monitoring with leave for doctor visits and to exercise in a swimming pool at the gated community where he lived.

When last convicted of racketeering, Scopo claimed at his 2006 sentencing that he had less than two years to live, according to court papers.

Scopo’s father, Ralph Sr., was a gangster who died in prison and his brother, Joseph Scopo, was whacked during the Colombo family civil war.

While Scopo beat the rap by going to the big social club in the sky, the feds’ impressive convictions include Gambino capo Bartolomeo "Bobby" Vernace for killing two men in a Queens bar over a spilled drink in 1981; Colombo acting boss Andrew "Andy Mush" Russo and underboss Benjamin Castellazzo, and Gambino consigliere Joseph "Jo Jo" Corozzo.

Scopo’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/mobster-ducks-jail-heart-failure-article-.1485741#ixzz2houEWnvN

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Saturday, November 10, 2012

Colombo soldier claims he is too sick to stand trial

  November 10, 2012    Dapper_Don

Ralph Scopo (seen here in a 2005 file photo) was removed from his position as business manager of concrete workers Local 6A because of suspected Colombo family mob ties.
And then there was one.

With guilty pleas locked in from 38 Colombo mobsters arrested last year in a historic Mafia takedown, reputed soldier Ralph Scopo Jr., is the last wiseguy standing.

But just barely.

Scopo, 63, claims he is suffering from liver failure and thus is too sick to stand trial on extortion charges relating to the Cement and Concrete Workers Union Local 6A, according to court papers.

He was scheduled for trial in January but Brooklyn Federal Judge Kiyo Matsumoto adjourned the trial date Friday until April due to his claims of deteriorating health.

Defense lawyer Kevin Keating revealed that Scopo is not eligible for a liver transplant, is morbidly obese and suffers from pulmonary disease, diabetes, irregular heartbeat, asthma and high blood pressure.

“It is clear to me that Scopo will continue to be unable to assist in his defense in any fashion,” Keating wrote to the judge.

Scopo previously pleaded guilty to extortion charges in Manhattan Federal Court and sought a merciful sentence then, too, citing liver disease.

That was in 2006 and Scopo claimed at the time in sentencing papers that he had less than two years to live. He paid a $40,000 fine and was sentenced to time served.

Federal prosecutors racked up the final five guilty pleas in the Colombo case on Friday stemming from the January 2011 arrests of more than 100 mobsters in the United States and Italy.

“These ensuing prosecutions have decimated the Colombo family infrastructure as we have removed both the old guard and the new blood,” said Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch.
 

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Sunday, August 21, 2011

Mob son says he's not in the "family business", files suit over ouster

  August 21, 2011    Dapper_Don

Hey, yo! I ain't no mobster.
An ousted cement-workers union official whose dad and grandfather were full-fledged Colombo gangsters swears he's not in that family -- and is suing his former bosses for lumping him in with his criminal kin.
Ralph Scopo charged he was stripped of his position in Concrete Workers Local 6A by a "kangaroo court" because he shares the family name with his grandfather, Ralph "Little Ralphie" Scopo, who died in prison while serving a 100-year sentence, and his father, Ralph Scopo Jr., another Colombo member.
"Not only have I never engaged in criminal activity, but the FBI has confirmed that on more than one occasion," he said yesterday.
RALPH SCOPO - Family in Mafia.
RALPH SCOPO
Family in Mafia.
 
Scopo, 41, who began his career as a construction worker, rose through the ranks of Local 6A to hold posts including business manager and secretary treasurer. He said he was evaluated as doing "a great job" by the local's parent, Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA).
But in March, Scopo and the local's whole executive board were ousted and the local was placed under a trusteeship by LIUNA, which claimed the union was owned "lock, stock and cement mixer" by the Colombos.
"I'm not my father. I'm not my grandfather. I felt I was going to get a fair decision based on my history in the union," Scopo told The Post.
But, he said, "They used double and triple hearsay," allegedly from mob informants. "I thought they would see through all that."
Scopo filed a federal suit in Central Islip, LI, on Thursday against the local, the international and others alleging he was ousted on trumped-up charges involving a vacation-check scam, when it was really all about his last name.
"The sins of the father should not be borne by the son," said his attorney, Peter Famighetti.
Efforts to get a union response to the suit were unsuccessful.
Ties between Colombos -- including the Scopos -- and the cement-workers union stretch back decades. Scopo's grandfather was reported to be a Colombo consigliere while president of the union.
His uncle, Joseph Scopo, was a former vice president of Local 6A when he was gunned down in a mob war in 1993.
Scopo said he was overwhelmed by being ousted.
"I feel devastated," he said. "I'm suffering from chronic osteoarthritis pain. I've suffered enough pain."
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Saturday, March 12, 2011

Union Removes Manager because of Mob Ties

  March 12, 2011    Dapper_Don

Ralph Scopo (seen here in a 2005 file photo) was removed from his position as business manager of concrete workers Local 6A because of suspected Colombo family mob ties.
Ralph Scopo (seen here in a 2005 file photo) was removed from his position as business manager of concrete workers Local 6A because of suspected Colombo family mob ties.


Ratted out by mob informants, the boss of a major city concrete workers union was booted Friday in an effort to break decades of Colombo crime family control.
Concrete workers Local 6A was quietly placed in trusteeship after Laborers Union International of North America (LUINA) determined that "the Colombo family placed Ralph Scopo, the current business manager, in office to assure that the [crime] family had direct control."
The international removed Scopo and the local's entire executive board and will appoint a trustee to run the union, as early as Monday.
Six mobsters, including imprisoned Colombo captain Dino Calabro, cooperated in the investigation. The probe uncovered a 25-year pattern of contractor shakedowns, meetings between mob bosses and union leaders, and no-show jobs for crooks and their cronies.
The mob even managed to siphon hundreds of thousands of dollars from the sale of coffee at city construction sites, according to testimony at LUINA hearings this week.
Calabro, who pleaded guilty to seven murders and eight murder conspiracies in June, took control of Local 6A for the mob in 2002. He named Scopo Jr. to handle day-to-day operations, according to evidence at the hearing.
Six years later, with Calabro's approval, Scopo engineered his son's elevation from secretary-treasurer to business manager, according to informant David Gordon, a member of Calabro's crew who pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges.
Calabro did not have complete confidence in Ralph Scopo, but he "believed his loyalties would always be with the Colombo family because his father, Scopo Jr., was a Colombo soldier," LIUNA said in its decision.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/the_mob/2011/03/12/2011-03-12_concrete_workers_union_removes_manager_ralph_scopo_because_of_colombo_crime_fami.html
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Thursday, January 27, 2011

Feds Mob Takedown Includes Union Crooks

  January 27, 2011    Dapper_Don

There are few things quite like a mass arrest to serve as a reminder of the Mafia’s continuing presence in American life. The mob roundup last Thursday morning, the largest in U.S. history, at once underscores the large dent that the Justice Department has been making in organized crime and how deeply entrenched so many organized crime operations have been. Some 800 FBI agents, U.S. marshals, state police and New York City cops fanned out and arrested nearly 120 wise guys and associates named in an 82-page, 16-count indictment for acts of murder, racketeering, money-laundering, loan-sharking, extortion and other offenses going back three decades. The takedown includes crime soldiers from each of New York’s “Five Families,” plus the DeCavalcante (Northern New Jersey) and Patriarca (New England) families. A number of the arrestees were heavily involved in labor corruption.
The operation was as swift as it was efficient. Most of the arrests had been made by 8 A.M., with most suspects being held at Fort Hamilton Army Base in Brooklyn, N.Y. until their arraignment in Brooklyn federal court. By the end of the day, 119 of the 127 persons named in the indictments were arrested. Another five already were in prison for separate offenses, while three more were at large. Nearly three dozen arrestees were full-fledged members of New York’s Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese crime families; indeed, the entire leadership of the Colombos and two top Gambinos were taken into custody. But good news shouldn’t instill false public confidence, caution federal agents. “Arresting and convicting the hierarchies of the five families several times over has not eradicated the problem,” remarked Janice K. Fedarcyk, head of the New York FBI office. It is “a myth,” she emphasized, to call the mob a thing of the past.
The bust, the result of years of investigation, is even bigger than the one three years ago, known as Operation Old Bridge, that arrested more than 60 Gambino crime family members and associates, virtually all of whom eventually pleaded guilty (the operation also netted a couple dozen arrests in Italy, in cooperation with that country’s authorities). Federal prosecutors and agents worked in tandem to conduct electronic surveillance and develop key witnesses, especially Bonanno soldier Salvatore Vitale, who until his 2003 arrest and eventual guilty plea had a hand in 11 murders; his testimony helped put away more than 50 mobsters and associates. The latest batch of arrestees included individuals possessed of little compunction about using violence to protect their flow of funds or exaggerated sense of honor. Attorney General Eric Holder, who traveled to Brooklyn to announce the arrests, said: “Many of them (mobsters) are lethal. Time and again they have shown a willingness to kill.” Similarly, Bruce Mouw, the former FBI agent who led the probe of now-deceased Gambino boss John Gotti back in the Eighties, also noted, “(Y)ou still have five families [in New York], you have captains, you have crews; they still control a lot of labor unions, they still control a lot of the construction industry, different companies; still commit crimes; and according to the indictments, they still kill people.”
Control over labor unions remains on the radar screen. Dozens of unions in the New York City and New England can be said to have some connection with one or more of the latest arrestees. A complete flow chart and accompanying discussion would be worthy of a monograph. What follows, then, is a summary of the most flagrantly mobbed-up unions, each likely familiar to regular readers of Union Corruption Update.
Cement and Concrete Workers Local 6A. An affiliate of the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA), Local 6A for many years has operated as a Colombo crime family branch office. And the branch managers are the Scopos. Patriarch Ralph Scopo was a Colombo made man who ran the union for years until his 1986 conviction based on evidence gathered by the President’s Commission on Organized Crime. His sons, Joseph and Ralph Jr., inherited the family business. Joseph served as president of Local 6A until his 1993 murder, part of a bloody Colombo civil war between members loyal to acting boss Victor “Little Vic” Orena and those loyal to imprisoned boss Carmine “Junior” Persico (the Persico faction – what was left of it – prevailed). Reputed Colombo street boss Anthony Russo was charged last Thursday in that killing.
Ralph Scopo Jr. has proven himself something less than a model of virtue. He pleaded guilty in 2005 to extortion, managing to avoid prison by convincing the judge he had only two years to live. He must have had an excellent medical plan because he’s still alive. Federal prosecutors allege Scopo handed out jobs to cronies and took a cut from Local 6 benefit funds. In addition, back in the late Eighties he created the so-called “coffee boy” scheme in which the crime family would receive cash kickbacks from lunch orders taken at union work sites. Scopo the Younger wasn’t above using muscle to make his point. In 2007, for example, when he learned that a Ground Zero reconstruction site foreman had complained about the union being under mob control, he had a chat with the foreman, bringing along Colombo capo Dino Calabro and his own son Ralph III for good measure. After the “discussion,” Ralph Jr. admitted to Calabro that he brought along his son just in case the foreman “needed to be physically assaulted.” Ralph Scopo III, not among those arrested last week, is now president of Local 6A, although the union since last December has operated under LIUNA trusteeship.
Teamsters Local 282. Though under federal receivership for more than 15 years, the arrests last week of Gambino crime family soldier William Scotto and an associate, trucking industry executive Anthony Licata, brought home just how deep the Lake Success, L.I.-based union had been in hock to the Gambinos. International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 282 represents roughly 4,000 truckers and related workers in New York City and Long Island who deliver concrete and building materials to construction sites. It also has a long pedigree of Mafia involvement. John O’Rourke, union president during 1931-65, was a close associate of Lucchese crime bosses Johnny Dioguardi and Anthony “Ducks’ Corallo. Later on, the Gambino family asserted control during the successive Local 282 reigns of John Cody (1976-84) and Robert Sasso (1984-92), both of whom ended up in federal prison on racketeering charges. Frank DeCicco, a Gambino made man, delivered payoffs from union bosses to crime bosses until he died in a 1986 car bombing; Genovese and Lucchese enforcers, enraged that Gotti had seized power the previous year by whacking Gambino boss Paul Castellano, had done the deed.
With Gotti at the helm, Local 282 became more of a Gambino profit center than ever. Aided by underboss Sammy “the Bull” Gravano, Local 282 funneled about $1.2 million a year to mob coffers. Here is how a federal circuit court summarized the process in 2000, in its rejection of the appeal of former President Sasso and four other defendants:
At the pertinent times, the individual defendants were officers of Local 282. Between the late 1970s and the early 1990s, by means of threats of physical, economic and financial harm, including work stoppages, the individual defendants unlawfully obtained cash payments from representatives of companies whose employees were members or were eligible to be members of Local 282. Such companies were assured of lax enforcement of their agreements with Local 282 or were allowed to operate in the absence of a collective bargaining agreement without experiencing labor unrest.
Gravano, whose eventual flipping for the prosecution was crucial in securing Gotti’s conviction in 1992, long had been a ruthless enforcer for Gotti, committing or ordering 19 murders, any number related to Local 282 business. The corruption didn’t end with Gotti’s conviction or Gravano’s subsequent move to Arizona. Federal prosecutors filed a civil RICO suit, winning in 1995 an agreement with the local and the parent Teamsters under an agreement for court-supervised monitoring. More than 50 local officials and shop stewards thus far have been forced from their posts due to links to organized crime. Evidence of corruption continues in fits and starts. One of the defendants in the 2008 Justice Department Gambino takedown was Staten Island, N.Y. trucking executive Joseph Spinnato, who allegedly skimmed scheduled Local 282 health and pension fund contributions by underreporting hours worked. The arrests of Scotto and Licata last week served notice of additional unfinished business.
Longshoremen Local 1235. For decades, the Genovese crime family ran the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) Local 1235, which represents port employees working the docks in Newark and Elizabeth, New Jersey. The arrest of former local President Vincent Aulisi on conspiracy and extortion charges last Thursday was an appropriate coda. According to prosecutors, Aulisi, now 78, and several Genovese associates forced port workers to hand over thousands of dollars in “tribute payments” each year around Christmas bonus time. The ILA Local 1235 extortion racket had gone on for at least three decades until federal prosecutors dismantled it.
This was not the only problem area. In September 2005, then-President Albert Cernadas pleaded guilty to benefit fraud; two months earlier he settled a civil racketeering suit against him in Brooklyn federal court whose defendants had included ILA International President John Bowers. Another alleged co-conspirator in the criminal case, Genovese capo Lawrence Ricci, a witness during the fall 2005 criminal trial, suddenly went missing for weeks – until he turned up dead in the trunk of a parked car at a New Jersey diner. Another Genovese mobster, Michael “Mikey Cigars” Coppola, had spent more than a decade on the run rather than face a trial for the 1977 murder of fellow mobster John “Johnny Cokes” Lardiere. Captured in August 2008, he pleaded guilty to fugitive charges and is serving a 42-month sentence. A federal grand jury in Brooklyn, meanwhile, indicted him for racketeering related to ILA Local 1235 business deals and the Lardiere murder. He went on trial in July 2009. While found not guilty of murder, he was convicted of extortion and flight charges, and in December of that year was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
This is not a comprehensive guide to mob-union links. In the world of organized crime, the dots have a way of connecting in unexpected places. That’s why this latest round of arrests probably won’t be the last. If the recent past is any guide, many arrestees will plead guilty. In exchange for a lighter sentence, some will provide information of use in prosecuting additional suspects. Nobody is suggesting this should become a witch hunt or that the accused should be denied due process. But if evidence is sufficient to convict, defendants should pay a price regardless of how many years ago their offenses took place. Mafia financial rackets, enforced with murderous violence, has corrupted a whole range of American institutions. Labor unions are among them.

http://www.nlpc.org/stories/2011/01/26/feds-mob-takedown-includes-union-crooks

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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Key Colombo Snitches Include Capo, Two Soldiers say Feds

  January 25, 2011    Dapper_Don

Federal Bureau of Investigation 2007 federal p...Joel CacaceThe feds’ big takedown of the Colombo family leadership last week was aided by key wiseguys turning rat — among them a captain, Dino "Big Dino" Calabro, and two soldiers, Sebastiano "Sebby" Saracino and Joseph "Joey Caves" Competiello, a source said yesterday.
But there are even more rats yet unidentified — "multiple cooperators'' who together made "hundreds of hours of recordings ... over the past three years," according to another source and court documents.
Calabro may be one of the main Colombo informants.
Last week, the FBI finally managed to arrest reputed mobster Anthony Coladra on charges related to an old double-murder in which Calabro participated.
Federal prosecutors charged Colandra with lying to the feds about the March 1992 Long Island murder of Colombo soldier John Minerva and Michael Imbergamo, his friend, during a factional war. Colandra had allegedly told investigators he was at a bar at the time of the killings.
In fact, "several cooperating witnesses, including his former co-conspirators, will testify that Colandra in fact did commit the murders and that Colandra even bragged about doing so," wrote Brooklyn Assistant US Attorney Elizabeth Geddes in a court document.
Calabro, who is in the federal witness-protection program, has already been charged in that double hit.
Colandra, who plans to fight the charges, appeared in Brooklyn federal court yesterday and was released on bail.
Another court hearing yesterday also suggested that Calabro may be a major rat.
During the court session, a judge heard how a Colombo captain wore a wire while supervising a subordinate and discussing the details of mob business — and a law-enforcement source later confirmed that the snitch was Calabro.
On the wiretap, Colombo soldier Ralph Scopo, Jr. can be heard discussing his shakedown of a union, prosecutors said.
A judge ordered that Scopo be detained without bail. Scopo’s lawyer insisted his client is innocent.
Meanwhile, another Colombo mobster arrested in last week’s sweep was Calabro’s own brother, Anthony "Nooch" Calabro, raising questions about whether "Big Dino" may eventually testify against his own sibling.
Calabro had originally cut a deal with the feds over the 1997 murder of cop Ralph Dols, who was killed after the officer married another gangster’s ex-wife.
The marriage reportedly angered the woman’s former husband, onetime Colombo consigliere Joel "Joe Waverly" Cacace, who allegedly ordered the August 1997 hit of the off-duty officer as he returned to his Brooklyn home.
Calabro was charged with the murder, as was Saracino’s brother, Dino "Little Dino" Saracino. Calabro’s wife Andrea, has already helped the feds by obtaining photo albums from the home of Colombo acting boss Thomas "Tommy Shots" Gioelli, presumably showing mob ties between reputed members.
"Sebby" Saracino, who turned rat last month and is expected to testify against his brother, "Little Dino," also played a role in helping the feds in the recent Colombo case, a source confirmed. So did Competiello, who has been charged several mob rubouts, the source confirmed.

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Friday, January 21, 2011

Gambinos and Colombos Besieged By Rats

  January 21, 2011    Dapper_Don

Even Michael Corleone never took out this many members of the Five Families.
Federal agents in New York pulled off the biggest one-day Mafia roundup in US history yesterday, simultaneously bringing the hammer down on more than 120 reputed wiseguys -- a takedown so enormous it required a Brooklyn Army fort to book them all.
The mob-crippling wave of arrests -- for crimes including murder, racketeering, drug-dealing, union extortion, robbery and loan-sharking -- targeted members of every one of the notorious Five Families of New York, as well as New Jersey's DeCavalcante crew and the Patriarca clan that lords over New England.
The 127 defendants, among them top bosses and consiglieres, were charged in 16 separate indictments stemming from investigations in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Long Island, Rhode Island and New Jersey. It was a show of brute force by the Justice Department that was intended to put the Mafia on notice of the government's goal of gutting gangland.
"Today's arrests and charges mark an important step forward in disrupting La Cosa Nostra's illegal activities," said US Attorney General Eric Holder in Brooklyn as nearly all of the arrested mob captains, soldiers, associates and wannabes were booked and fingerprinted in the US Army's Fort Hamilton in Bay Ridge.
"This largest single-day operation against La Cosa Nostra sends the message that our fight against traditional organized crime is strong and our commitment is unwavering."
The indictments promised to cripple the already-reeling Colombo crime family, threatened to take out a key Gambino leader with bombshell wiretap evidence and aimed to pry the Genovese clan's vice-like grip on New York's shipping industry.
Another indictment accuses longtime Patriarca boss Luigi "Baby Shacks" Manocchio, 83, of nearly two decades of crimes, including shaking down porno shops and nightclubs in Providence, RI.
Sources familiar with the cases predicted that many of the accused will become cooperating witnesses and further decimate the Gambinos and Colombos.
The Colombo family's entire not-already-imprisoned leadership was arrested -- street boss Andrew "Andy Mush" Russo, acting underboss Benjamin "The Claw" Castellazzo and consigliere Richard "Ritchie Nerves" Fusco -- along with four family captains and eight soldiers.
One busted capo was Theodore "Skinny" Persico Jr., a former member of the clan's ruling panel and the nephew of imprisoned-for-life family boss Carmine "The Snake" Persico.
An informant used in the case secretly recorded conversations with Russo, who is charged with committing the 1993 murder of underboss Joseph Scopo during the Colombo family's bloody internal war, a source said.
The arrests left just a measly 50 "made" members of the Colombos on the street -- a number that puts them dead last among New York's organized crime families.
The Gambino crime family was also badly bitten by a rat.
The informant, identified as "CW-1" in court documents, had for "several decades been a close and trusted criminal associate of Gambino consigliere Joseph "JoJo" Corozzo, 69, rising capo Alphonse Trucchio, 34, and other defendants busted yesterday.
The informant -- identified by a source as a member of Trucchio's crew named Howard Santos -- became a cooperating witness in 2009 after Santos was busted with several other Gambino associates for an electronics heist, and he wore a recording device during meetings with his gangland friends, a court filing said.
"CW-1 made over 140 . . . recordings of many of the defendants," the filing said.
Corozzo was in prison -- where he will remain until June -- for racketeering crimes while Santos was making the recordings, but the rat's wire caught "numerous co-conspirators of Corozzo's . . . discussing Corozzo's mob activities," which, according to the indictment, include racketeering involving murder, cocaine trafficking, assault, arson and loan-sharking.
Santos also caught ruling Gambino member Bartolomeo "Pepe" Vernace, 61, on tape "discussing the Gambino family's affairs and Vernace's role in the family," court filings state.
Vernace was charged in another indictment yesterday for conspiring to murder the two co-owners of the Shamrock Bar in Woodhaven, Queens, who were slain in 1981 after a dispute involving a drink spilled on reputed mobster's girlfriend.
Trucchio -- whose dad is the imprisoned-for-life Gambino capo Ronald "One Arm" Trucchio -- is heard on a tape made by Santos "directly discussing his own crimes, including narcotics trafficking and crimes of violence," filings said.
And in one tape, Trucchio crew member Todd Labarca -- who was arrested yesterday in the 2002 murder of fellow Gambino associate Marty Bosshart -- indicated "that Trucchio received credit within the mob for orchestrating" that murder.
Another indictment yesterday targeted members of the Genovese family for extorting members of the International Longshoremen's Association union and controlling and influencing that union and companies that work on piers in New York and New Jersey.
Court papers accused Genovese soldier Stephen Depiro of managing the family's machinations on the New Jersey's piers, including its annual Christmastime extortion of ILA members after dockworkers received a portion of royalty payments from shipping companies.

http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/local/mob_bust_packs_city_ft_hood_1mwNtOrw99OEIYzMOs3wFI

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Massive FBI Mafia bust: Organized crime still has firm grip on unions, even at Ground Zero

  January 21, 2011    Dapper_Don

The massive mob takedown shows organized crime's grip on unions is virtually unbroken - even at Ground Zero - despite decades of prosecutions.
Exhibit A: Ralph Scopo Jr.
Scopo, who pleaded guilty to extortion in 2005, inherited leadership of concrete workers Local 6A from his father, who was convicted in 1986 in the Mafia Commission case. His brother, Joseph, was whacked in 1993. Reputed Colombo capo Anthony Russo was charged Thursday with the murder.
Prosecutors say Ralph Jr. gave jobs to cronies and scammed the union benefit funds. Through a so-called coffee boy scheme, he even skimmed money from lunch orders at every jobsite, the indictment charges.
Not all Local 6A members were happy about it.
In 2007 - after escaping jail for extortion by convincing a judge he had only two years to live - Scopo learned that a Ground Zero jobsite foreman was complaining about being under mob control.
Scopo took the foreman for a sitdown with Colombo crime family captain Dino Calabro - bringing along his son, also named Ralph.

He later told Calabro that Little Ralphie was there in case the reform-minded foreman "needed to be physically assaulted," the Laborers International Union of North America charged after taking over the corrupt local last December.
The younger Scopo now runs Local 6A. He has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Then there's reputed Gambino crime family soldier William Scotto and his trucking executive pal Anthony Licata, who were charged with extortion yesterday.




                        Colombo street boss Andrew Russo (l.) was arraigned with 126 other wiseguys.


In 2008, they were indicted with Vincent Gotti and 61 other mob bosses and underlings on charges of ripping off the benefit funds of Teamsters Local 282 and Laborers Local 731.
In Newark, the feds indicted former International Longshoremen's Association vice-president Albert Cernadas and Stephen Depiro of ILA Local 1478.
Like Johnny Friendly, the fictional boss played by Lee J. Cobb in "On the Waterfront," the two shook down union members for annual Christmas payments, prosecutors said.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/the_mob/2011/01/21/2011-01-21_massive_fbi_mafia_bust_organized_crime_still_has_firm_grip_on_unions_even_at_gro.html

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Monday, January 3, 2011

Informant: Colombo Family Shakes Down Coffee Boys At Construction Sites

  January 03, 2011    Dapper_Don

Longtime Colombo soldier Dino Calabro (left) said fellow soldier Ralph Scopo Jr. (right) dreamed up the 'coffee boy' union con job.


For the Colombo crime family, nothing is too small to steal. Not even a cup of coffee.
Since the 1980s, the mob has found a way to siphon off hundreds of thousands of dollars from all the cups of coffee bought at New York City's construction sites.
A newly converted mob informant confirmed the three-decade shakedown to the FBI and the international union overseeing the Queens-based concrete laborers Local 6A.
Dino Calabro, a longtime Colombo soldier, described how the mob pulled in $250 a week from every job site the union is working through its control of so-called "coffee boys."
He said it works this way:
Local 6A assigns a union-scale worker as a coffee boy at each site. His sole job is to handle coffee orders - a job that's written into its contracts.
Workers can't place their orders with anyone else, so the coffee boy job is effectively a monopoly.
The coffee boy gets discounted coffee from local delis or buys bulk cases of bottled water and juice, then sells to his fellow workers at a profit.
Before the mob showed up, coffee boys kept all their coffee profits. At times, that meant $1,000 a week.
Calabro told the FBI that in the early 1980s, Colombo soldier Ralph Scopo Jr. came up with the idea of making all Local 6A coffee boys cough up $250 a week to the mob.
Many of the coffee boys came to be trusted mob associates, including members of Calabro's crew. He forced his coffee boys to split their profits with him fifty-fifty.
The coffee boy scheme was detailed in a filing by the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) as it moved to put Local 6A into a trusteeship Dec. 21.
The international's filing makes clear that for some, the coffee boy arrangement appeared mutually beneficial.
Sitting at Farrell's bar in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, coffee boy Rick Suflay told his mob cohorts he had no problem making his weekly Mafia payment, bragging, "I'm making a killing at this coffee boy job."
Based on an internal probe by former FBI agent Bruce Mouw, LIUNA also alleged the Colombo family put numerous gangsters into no-show jobs in Local 6A and used the threat of job action to extort payments from contractors.
Control of Local 6A has been passed down through generations of the late mob soldier Ralph Scopo Sr.'s family, the international charged.
After Ralph Sr. was convicted of racketeering charges in the mid-1980s, his son, Ralph Jr., took over. When Ralph Jr. was kicked out in 1987, his son, also named Ralph, took over. The son remains in the union as business agent.
Authorities say Ralph Jr. dreamed up the coffee boy scheme, which proved quite lucrative. If the local had six jobs going, that could mean $6,000 a month or $72,000 a year to the Colombo family.
When a union monitor challenged Local 6A's practice of designating the same members as coffee boys, the union claimed only laborers with "the necessary experience" were qualified for the job.
"The reality is most laborers are not interested in the headaches and complaints involved in the job and, more importantly, most laborers are not qualified to properly take the coffee and lunch orders for what can be as little as five laborers but often can be for as many as 100 or more," the union said in its response.
The FBI-New York's Colombo squad is exploring criminal charges in the mob's control of Local 6A, sources told the Daily News.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/01/03/2011-01-03_mob_brewed_coffee_con_at_building_sites.html#ixzz1A0KHzr24

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