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Sunday, October 26, 2014

Sports Betting Fuels the Mafia

Sports betting is the lifeblood of the Mafia.  Just last week, the state of NJ arrested a group of Genovese men for gambling.  The Genovese crew brought in 12 million dollars in sports betting revenue and they cashed millions more in checks.   They take down one gambling group and the next day it is business as usual because people love to bet.  This is another example of wasting our tax dollars, stopping people from providing a service the public wants. The families then use this cash to fund their other enterprises.

One Genovese soldier that was well known around Bay Ridge, Brooklyn was Andy Wilson aka Andrew Gargiulo.  Andy was a bookmaker who ran a huge online book but could be found most days at a real estate office in Bay Ridge.  

Andy was close to Fat Gigi Inglese and I had dinner with the two of them when I lived in Brooklyn.

Andy was a nice soft spoken man who dressed well, so I was surprised to see a few years ago that he was arrested for murder.  

The man he killed, Preston Geritano, was his wife’s brother and at one time was a Gambino associate.  Geritano had an ongoing feud with Bartholomew “Bobby” Boriello and Bobby had even taken shots at him on the streets of Brooklyn but had failed to kill him.

Bobby was very close to John Gotti, in fact he was a favorite driver of the boss of the Gambinos. He would later be assigned to Junior Gotti’s crew and eventually the Capo.

This is where we come full circle because Bobby is another victim of the Mafia Cops.  Vic Amuso and Gaspipe Casso wanted to send a message to John Gotti Sr. So they put Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa on his tail.  They supplied information to Gaspipe who gave the contract to Frank Lasterino.  Lasterino ambushed Bobby in front of his Brooklyn home, shooting him two times in the head and five times in his torso.  The Gambino family immediately blamed Geritano who they had wanted dead.  After Bobby took his shot at Geritano, he went to his friends in the Genovese Family.  There was a sit down between the Gambinos and the Genovese family because Geritano was a Gambino associate.  The Genovese went to bat for him and a deal was struck.  The deal was that Geritano would be released to the Genovese Family and that he would drop the feud with Bobby. If Geritano ever took up the feud again, the Genovese were sworn to kill him themselves.   So when Bobby was killed everyone blamed Geritano.  John Gotti sent Junior Gotti to a sitdown with the Genovese Family.  Junior Gotti met with Barney Bellomo, the Genovese street boss, and demanded that they keep their word.

This is where Andy Garguilo comes into the picture.  Andy owned Amici’s restaurant in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and Geritano came into the restaurant with a stickball bat and hit Andy with it.  The fight spilled out onto the sidewalk where they were rolling around on the sidewalk.  Geritano was stabbed five time with a hunting knife that Andy carried and was killed.  After his death it would come out that he didn't kill Bobby after all.  Andy would get 20 years for the self defense killing, I guess his luck had ran out.  He had forfeited 1.5 million when he was busted for bookmaking but this time he was really going away.  A side note: Amici’s had been owned by Sammy the Bull at one time.

The Mafia and bookmaking will continue to go on no matter how many men are busted and sent away.

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