The Farmer: Enrico Ponzo

Marsing, Idaho: a small ranching community located in the Snake River valley that lists a population of 1,316.  

They can update that population to 1,315 because Jeffery John Shaw will now be a guest of a Federal prison for the next 30 years.  

The man, locally known as Jay, lived a peaceful, uneventful life for a decade in Marsing.  He was often seen wearing overalls and a straw hat.  Jay knew nothing about cattle or ranching, but he was a hard worker, so he fit in with the locals.

They may have wondered about his Boston accent, but they say he did his work and the past is the past.

Cara Lyn Pace could tell a different story.  Cara was Jay’s girlfriend for many years and she knew a different side to Jay.

Jay was not Jay but Enrico Ponzo, a Boston area gangster who was part of the renegade faction that tried to murder Francis Salemme, aka “Cadillac Frank,” the man who took over as boss of the Patriarca crime family in New England.

The long time boss Raymond Patriarca died and the family started to fall apart.  The New York Families voted for his son Junior to take over as boss.  

Junior had a sad run as a boss because he did not have the respect his father had on the street.  

He did have the distinction of letting the FBI record an initiation ceremony because his driver was an FBI informant.

So the family had a civil war and some hard times.

Ponzo was in the crew headed by renegade Capo Robert Carrozza aka Bobby Russo and he took part in numerous shootings.  He also helped distribute drugs for the crew.

Then he disappeared three years before the Feds dropped the hammer on the family.  He fled and lived on the lam for almost twenty years.  He was wanted by the US Marshalls.

Ponzo lived off a dirt road quietly all those years, part of them with his girlfriend Cara.  They had two kids. After she left him, he sued for custody.  He made threats and tried to scare her into giving him custody.

The US Marshals watched him for a week in February 2011 and then when he was driving down a dirt road, they arrested him.  

They found 100k in cash, 65k in gold coins, 30 guns and 65,000 rounds of ammunition in his home when they searched it.

If he hadn’t threatened Cara or sued for custody, he would still be living his quiet farm life. Last week he just got another four years added to his sentence for the guns.

The Biggest Mafia Heist

The biggest mafia heist in history was not the legendary Lufthansa heist at JFK Airport in New York.

The heist took place in Boston in the early hours of March 18, 1990 at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. It took just 88 minutes for two crooks posing as Boston Policemen to steal 500 million dollars in artwork.

To this day not one of the stolen paintings has been recovered and nobody has done any time for the crime.  The statute of limitations has passed, but the artwork is still stolen property.

The two thieves went to the museum at 1:20 am, and a guard, who did not follow protocol, buzzed in the two “policemen.”  Once inside, they handcuffed two guards in the basement and started cutting paintings out of their frames.

The did got away with a lot of well known works of art including Rembrandt’s “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee,” but they left behind a Michelangelo, which was by far the most valuable painting in the museum.

That was the last time anyone knew for sure where those paintings were located.

Artwork, unlike cash, gold, diamonds and even drugs is very hard to move in the underworld. After all, it must go to a private collector that will never show it to anyone else.  Who is going to pay millions for something they cannot display?

Cornelius Gurlitt was the son of a well respected art historion who helped the Nazis steal works of art during world war two.

The secret that Cornelius Gurlitt kept until 2012 was a massive horde of stolen artwork.  The German authorities raided his apartment on a tax evasion charge and found 121 framed paintings and over 1200 that were not framed.  They were works of the great masters.

So I guess somebody out there could have all the painting hidden away in some home or apartment.

Despite a $5 million reward and many informants in the Boston underworld, there have been no substantial leads.

A mob associate named Bobby Donati is believed to be the mastermind behind the heist. Bobby was close to and drove around Vincent “Vinnie the Animal” Ferrara a powerful capo in the Patriarca family that ran the New England underworld.  

Bobby D is thought to have gotten a tip from someone who owed the mob cash about the lax security at the museum.  The only problem is Bobby D did not know a thing about artwork.  So he enlisted the help of master art thief Myles Connor.  The two men cased the museum, but Myles was taken down for another heist and given many years in prison.

Vinnie Ferrara went away and so did Bobby D’s protection.  He was found in September 1991 hogtied and beaten to a pulp, dead in his trunk.  A man the FBI thought was one of the fake policemen died of cancer a year later.

Another Boston mob guy is thought to be the guy who got the okay for the heist, but so far he has kept his mouth shut.

DiNunzio Brothers

The brothers DiNunzio have had a long history around the Mafia going back decades. Last week I wrote about the Boston Mafia or the Patriarca Family based in Providence, Rhode Island.

Carmen has long been thought to be the Underboss of the family, handling business out of his Cheese Shop in the North End.  Anthony DiNunzio is his younger brother who was the acting boss of the family until he became the sixth boss to be taken down in a very short time.

Carmen DiNunzio came out to Los Angeles when he was on the lam from things in Boston.  

He met a former Boston transplant Anthony Fiato in Los Angeles where he had done well in Organized Crime circles.  Anthony Fiato had hooked back up with Los Angeles Capo Mike Rizzi and they had gone to New York and met with the Administration of the Gambino Family.  They wanted to do their own thing in Los Angeles, start their own family.  Pete Milano the boss of Los Angeles would eventually bring Anthony into the family.  He was made and then he did his own thing.  Anthony would have over a million dollars in shylock loans on the street when Carmen hit town.  Anthony did not want to take Carmen in so he brought him to his old friend Joe Sica.

Joe Sica and his brothers were long time players in Organized Crime on the West Coast. That is why I find it very amusing when Hollywood makes movies about Mickey Cohen the so-called “Boss of Los Angeles.”  One of the guys that was close to Joe was Chris Petti who would end up in San Diego. Chris was close to Tony Spilatro and others in the Chicago Outfit.  Chris came up with a plan to get in on the ground floor of the Rincon Indian Casino. The Rincon Tribe was looking for groups to bid on, build and ultimately run a Casino on their reservation.  Chris had the perfect backers… The Outfit, and they had a long history of getting inside Casinos and skimming them.  

They had an inside man in the tribe, but the Outfit told Chris to find other investors because they had another casino that was losing money.  That is where the FBI came in with an Undercover Agent posing as a Colombian dealer looking to launder cash.  They would end up taking down Chris, the administration of the Outfit, Carmen DiNunzio and his brother Anthony.

Luigi Manocchio became the boss of the Boston Family in 1996 after many years of fighting inside the family.  In 2004 he made Carmen his underboss.  Anthony was a Capo in Boston using the Gemini Social Club as his base.

Carmen was soon involved in a scheme to sell the Massachusetts Highway Department 300,000 cubic yards of loam soil from a company he had an interest.  He then decided to bribe a man he thought was an agent of the Highway Department (who was actually an FBI Agent). The FBI had flipped the middle man in the deal and he set up Carmen.  Carmen gave the informant $10,000 to give to the agent and then he gave him another $5,000 in cash at another meeting.  Then they provided the agent with a sample of the loam that they would supply.  It would have been a great score getting a contract to supply loam to the Big Dig but the FBI took him down.

Manocchio was a greedy boss and his men did not like him and there started to be decent, so he would step aside for Peter Limone.  Peter Limone had been locked up for 33 years for a murder that the FBI and their informant Joseph Barboza set him up.  He was released after the FBI found “real” evidence and it only took 33 years. He was released and won a 26 million dollar settlement from the FBI.  He then got right back into the family and busted again.

In steps Anthony DiNunzio as acting boss of the family and what he finds makes him very unhappy.  He went right to work in Rhode Island to beef up their rackets and one of them was

the adult sex industry business (strippers, escorts, porn). The family had made big money from these businesses and Anthony wanted to bring that back to profitability. He had a Eddie Lato a Capo in the family start picking up from the businesses in Rhode Island.  Then he had sitdowns with senior members of the Gambino Family to let them know they would be hitting up a guy who ran stripclubs and adult Bookstores in Rhode Island.  They contacted the Gambinos because the guy was friends with some soldiers in the family.  In the 1980’s the guy was close to Chris Richichi a Capo in the family based in Las Vegas. The Gambinos gave Anthony the green light to shake the guy down.

The crew would meet at a Chinese restaurant in Boston Billy Tse’s until they found out the whole place was wired up and the Feds had taped them.  The FBI then grabbed some of them after a meet and found cash from the stripclubs on them.  

Anthony was caught on tape speaking about his leadership of the family.  He said when he took over he changed everything and that anyone who did not toe the line was shelved (meaning they were no longer active members of the family) Then he told the guy that anyone who did not follow his rules would be buried alive until they died.  He also claimed that even if he was locked up he was still the boss.   He would continue to dig a deeper hole for himself when he was a senior Gambino guy he spoke about sponsoring a guy to be made and then afterward the guy telling him he is 100% with him.  

Anthony would end up pleading guilty and taking a 6 year sentence on November 14, 2012.  His brother Carmen took a 6 year plea deal in 2009 so they are for now off the streets.

The Gangster Brothers- Anthony Fiato

Its important to talk about the Gangster brothers before we move on into the 1980's in the Los Angeles Mafia Family.

Who are the Gangster Brothers?  The Fiato Brothers! They were two tough Boston transplants that moved to LA and made people stand up and take notice.  The first time I ever heard about these brothers was when I was being questioned by an FBI Special Agent named Carl.  He had an LA Times paper and he said to me. "You think you are tough? These guys are tough!" He handed me the paper and it was folded so I could see the LA Times story written about them. My thought on seeing the article was how tough could they be if they flipped. This was long before I flipped and it was before I grew up.  I used to look at guys who went away or went straight as weak. After I lived life and got older, I started to see the life for what it was...A dead end.

Anthony Fiato and his family had moved to LA from Boston in 1960.  From the stories he told me, Los Angeles blew his mind. He had a cousin who worked at the record store on Sunset and Laurel where he would go and listen to records. Anthony's father had come to LA to give his family a better life.  He had a job waiting for him at the Villa Capri, a well known Italian restaurant in Los Angeles.

The Villa Capri is where Anthony Fiato met the LA Underworld. Michael Rizzitello aka Mike Rizzi was a Bartender, Johnny Roselli and Jimmy Frattiano were regulars, along with many of the LA Family guys.  If anyone ever read Jimmy Frattiano's the Last Mafioso, he describes taking a woman out to the Villa Capri and being treated like royalty.  That would not be the first or last time that Anthony would interact with LA Guys.  One time Jimmy Frattiano and a few others came in for a private dinner.  Anthony put them in a private room which really pissed off the Gangster Squad, who was following everyone.  

I had a lot of long talks with Anthony and the guy is smart. He knows Cosa Nostra better than anyone and he was around during the Golden age of the Mafia.  There was no RICO or WitSec and the Mafia had a long memory and a longer reach.

One of the guys Anthony would get to know well was Joe Sica. I’ve blogged before about Joe Sica and his brothers, what they were able to do in the Southern California Underworld was huge.  So many successful Mobsters got their start around Joe, it is really crazy that not many people have heard of them. I only wish I could have met them. Anthony would meet him at the Formosa Cafe.  He did a lot of work for LA guys down in Watts.  

When his family decided to head back to Boston, Anthony went also, and he soon learned that he had been in the Mafia Minor Leagues. He returned to Boston, to the North End and it was locked down by guys in Patriarca Family. He was soon hooked up with Nicky Giso and JR Russo, heavy hitters for the family.  I can only imagine what he learned from these guys.  The fact that he was well respected by all of them is a testament to how he operated.

He later made his way back to LA where he hooked up with his old buddy Mike Rizzi.  Anthony was older and his younger brother Larry was now also grown up.  The two of them made a fearsome pair in a time when most people were smaller.  These two brothers were well over six feet tall.  They didn't take crap from anyone and soon they made names for themselves.  Anthony is the most feared of the two because he was sharp and he would get you. He knew how to hustle and make money.  He ran clubs, collected money and soon became a shylock’s shylock.  He had his own Shylock business going and he was bringing in cash from the vig every week. A Shylock makes loans to people who cannot get a loan from a bank or someone who needs cash now. I always liked drug dealers or guys who could steal because they would have huge fluctuations in their cash flow.  Gamblers are always a steady source of vig because no gambler wins every time.

He had built up his reputation as a fierce guy who got things done.  This is when Robert "Puggy" Zeichick came to Anthony to provide him muscle and protection for his Shylock business.  Anthony was soon the biggest Shylock in LA and everyone wanted to be around him.  

He went to New York with Mike Rizzi and they met with Aniello Dellacroce, the powerful underboss of the Gambino family.  This was a far stronger Gambino Family than John Gotti's.  The Gambino's at that time had 23 street crews all over the US and Mike Rizzi was well known to them as a man of action.  Soon after the meeting Mike Rizzi and Anthony were back in California taking care of business for the Gambino's.  Mike Rizzi was a Capo in the LA Family but he had little use for them.

Anthony and Mike Rizzi had their own “family” and they had little use for the LA Family which was now being run by Peter "Shakes" Milano. Pete was known as a bookmaker and “business” guys like Mike Rizzi and Anthony scared him.  Pete was a boss more like Big Paul Castellano of the Gambino Family.  Big Paul had his term cut short on a Manhattan street one winter evening by a thug named John Gotti and his men.  

Pete had started beefing up the family by bringing in new blood.  He Made his brother Carmen, who was a lawyer, who worked with his father and the Family for years.  Carmen had worked with the Unions and even went to New York to meet guys with his father, he was known.  Carmen had been disbarred and now he was the underboss of the family.  Pete had also Made another faction, which I will call the Buffalo faction.  This was Jimmy Caci, Rocco Zangari, Steve Cino and Bobby Milano.  Anthony and Mike Rizzi did not like this at all.  Mike and Anthony were the guys who did all the heavy work for the LA Family.

Anthony had built his Shylock up to the point where he was pulling down 30k a month from it.  He had other bookies laying their action off with his people.  Anthony was a man of action and when people heard that he was coming to see them they were afraid. The problem that was brewing was with Mike Rizzi.  Mike was a heavy guy, but he was a short buck guy.  This was because he was never good at making money. He did everything for the here and now.  Mike's crew with guys like John DiMattia and John Bronco was never good at bringing in the cash.  John DiMattia is a tough talking wannabee who can’t do a thing, the guy is not tough at all.  He was roughed up by a well known lawyer and it would come out that he was talking to the LAPD Vice.  John Bronco, this guy was a guy who could beat up a smaller guy, but he never had the balls to go any farther.  John had done many years in the can for counterfeiting and while he was down his daughter had gotten involved in a plot to kill her husband.  John was released so he could go wear a wire against the killer.  John would later flip again in Las Vegas in the 1990's.

Anthony and his brother were soon making bigger waves in the LA Underworld. This brought the attention of the FBI to their operation.  Soon a man who was close to Mike Rizzi was wearing a wire in their home.  The FBI also bugged the house and one early AM they raided the home.  

Anthony did not know it at the time, but his brother agreed to cooperate. Anthony is a very sharp guy, there are few guys in the life that I have spoken to as much as I did with him.  He knows the world and where things will go. Anthony also decided to go with Team USA and wear a wire.

The LA Family had wanted to bring Anthony into the fold but he had rebuffed all their attempts until now.  He went with them and soon they wanted him in the family   The guy to step up and propose him was Consigliere Jack LoCicero and later Capo Louie Gelfuso would be the second guy to propose him.  You need two made guys to propose someone to be made in the family.  Anthony’s family was well known to the LA guys so that part was out of the way.  Anthony had done work for the family years before so they knew about him.  Pete, always the careful one, had Louie Gelfuso reach out to Frankie Skyball aka Scibelli, a Capo in charge of Genovese Family's Springfield, Connecticut crew. He knew all the guys in Boston and Providence and he knew Anthony.  

I was told this by Louie Gelfuso after The Animal in Hollywood was out in bookstores. Louie also told me that they were going to have a ceremony to induct members into the family but when Jimmy Caci and his faction arrived they did not like the fact that Fat Bobby Paduano was at the house.  So they left and called it off.  So Anthony was short changed in the ceremony department much like Mike Rizzi.  Louie Gelfuso came to him and told him he was in the family.  Later Pete sent for him and went over the rules and spoke to him about having a legit business.

Anthony and his brother took down over 60 guys from West Coast to the East Coast.

If it was not for Anthony, I would not be here now writing this blog.  So many times I wanted to just bail out of the informant thing with the FBI.  Anthony made me realize that it was all a waste and the guys in the life were all users. I made it through the program and started writing. For the whole Fiato story, buy his book “The Animal in Hollywood” or read his blog.