Scores Gentlemen's Club & the Gambino Family

Scores, the famed Gentlemans Club in New York City in the 1990’s, was a prominent feature on the Howard Stern show.  It secretly added millions to Gambino Family coffers.  How did it all start?  It all started with the takeover of National Heritage Insurance Company in Orlando, Florida by three businessmen and a New York Lawyer named Michael Blutrich.

Opening a stripclub seems to be a strange choice of business for a white collar lawyer like Blutrich. After all, he had been a founding partner in Blutrich, Falcone & Miller.

Blutrich committed fraud to help with the takeover of the insurance company.  Blutrich opened a fake bank account and then wrote a four million dollar check for the company that was no good at the time.  Once they gained control over the company they used it to cover the check.  He then was given a $300k loan from the company for Scores.  David L Davies, the new CEO of the insurance company, then put in $700k to become a secret partner in Scores.  Blutrich did not want to open another “Jiggly Joint,” one of those small seedy clubs that used to pepper Manhattan.  He wanted to open a really upscale club, like those that Miami club King Michael Peter’s Pure Platinum and Solid Gold clubs.

Scores would cater to the high end customer with huge TVs, plush lounge areas and the hottest girls.

In 1991, while building Scores, Blutrich was approached by a Gambino Associate named Mikey Hop, aka Michael Sergio.  Mikey Hop told Blutrich that he would have to pay to open a club, or he would be bombed.  Blutrich took it seriously so he started with a $1k weekly cash payoff.  The Gambinos wanted the coat check concession, the right to put in their own bouncers and the right to run the valet parking.  The coat check alone would bring in more than $200k a year for the Gambinos and the then acting boss Baby Gotti.   The coat check was run by Stephan Sergio, the son of Mikey Hop, who had the great nickname “Sigmund the Sea Monster.”  

The first year the club ran in the red, so Davies wanted out.  The Gambinos let Blutrich bring in another guy named Pfeiffer to buy out Davies and run the club.  

Meanwhile, the Gambinos had taken over almost every aspect of the club.  They decided who hauled the garbage and who sold supplies like toilet paper and booze to the club.  They got a cut from the door and they partied for free.

In 1996 Blutrich and Pfeiffer were indicted for looting the insurance company in Orlando, Florida.  The FBI raided Scores and their office in New York in another investigation into the Gambino family.  Blutrich and Pfeiffer decided to cooperate with the FBI and wore wires when meeting with the Gambino Family.  

Scores was grossing more than a million a year despite the payoffs.  The FBI placed hidden cameras in the Scores offices and they wired up everything including their cars.  They would get over 1000 hours of tape during the investigation.  They caught made Gambino soldier Craig DePalma in their net.  Craig was the son of Gambino Capo Greg DePalma and he was bringing Baby Gotti his end from Scores.

The FBI brought the hammer down on Baby Gotti and  39 others with the Gambino family in 1998 based on the evidence gathered by Blutrich and Pfeiffer.

Domenico Cefalu and the Gambinos Today

The FBI and the press claim that Domenico Cefalu is the boss of the Gambino Family.

Domenico was born in Palermo, Sicily, a traditional Mafia stronghold and he was involved in the importation of heroin in the 1980’s.   He did his 6 years for the heroin beef and went right back to work.  John Gotti inducted him into the family in 1991 and he was placed in the “Sicilian Faction” based in Queens and Brooklyn headed by Pasquale Conte.  He kept his head down but took a few hits because he refused to testify during some grand jury inquiries.

Most people hear the Gambino Family and they think of John Gotti parading around in his $2,000 suits in Midtown Manhattan. Meeting at the Ravenite Social club in Little Italy and taking walk talks around the block.  John Gotti was everything that Gambino Family's namesake Carlo Gambino hated.  He was loud, flamboyant and brought a ton of heat down on ALL the Families.

John Gotti made the FBI’s job easy because the Mafia is supposed to be secret. If any of you want a look inside the family read or listen to some of the stuff he said in the apartment above the Ravenite.  John Gotti was in love himself and his image that the public saw in the papers.

This is not Domenico Cefalu, who lives with his mother and works at a bakery as a salesman.

The family is now much more secretive and more family oriented as seen by the FBI that was looking into Domenico’s family. Domenico has a first cousin who is a Capo in the family named Dominic and could bring in the cash because the FBI picked up some key conversations on its bugs about his shylock business.  

Dominic and his brother Joseph gave out a loan to guy for 150k at a rate of 1k a week in interest. The guy then borrowed another 250k bringing his weekly payments or Vig up to 3k a week.  This is something I've never understood and I might never get.  The guy came to them for a loan, he got the loan and agreed to the terms. So why do the FBI and other Government agencies get involved?  These payday loan places and pawn shops are much more predatory.  They take from the poorest of the poor, working people who get in way over their heads.  In many States the Government has private companies collecting its fines and even probation fees and they have the power to lock people up.  So much for no debtors prison.

The fact is the Government says these Shylocks break the Usury Laws so it can be included in a RICO case.  

Dominic also had two large bookies paying him for protection. The same borrower also had a bad gambling problem and he ended up owing the bookies another 500k. This is the bookie’s fault for not putting a limit within reason on their customer.  They all bled the customer and made him sell some of his property to pay down the loan that they had collected interest on for over a year.  He paid a lump sum of 75k in order to bring down some of the principal amount.  The debtor still had a hard time paying the loan down so they resorted to threats.

The two bookies ran a sports book where they took bets in person and on the web.  A player could call in or login to www.betswi.com.  They had a lot of runners and others working for them and they brought in more than 2k a day in bets.

It is not just his two cousins but also their father Ricardo Cefalu is a made guy in the Gambino family and they were all involved in the heroin business at one time.

Domenico still had his hands in other Gambino business like the Concrete industry.  The Gambinos still control the industry in the New York area and when a guy wanted to start a business there was a number of sit downs that gave the guy a right to open a cement business.

He agreed that after a one year grace period his company would pay the Gambinos 15% or a dollar a yard on every job. They collected over 60k in a year collected by Nicky Corrozzo and Lenny DiMaria.  In the spring of 2007 another company wanted to buy this company so the Gambino’s “allowed” the man to sell his company as long as he paid 100k to the Gambino’s.

Lenny got the cash and he was in charge of dispersing it to the Gambino administration.

Recine Trucking was one of the companies that Domenico controlled on Staten Island and he was able to negotiate some great jobs because of his position.

The Gambino Family is moving along fine without the Gottis and now that the Sicilians are running it, it maybe be a secret organization once again.

LA and New Orleans - Mafia News

Los Angeles and New Orleans have Mafia news this week.  Last week the Los Angeles County Sheriff arrested Joe Isgro, music & movie producer and Shylock. He was being held on a no bail hold in the Van Nuys jail, which was strange because why not men's central?  Some say it was for running a gambling ring, but time will tell when he has his court date.


I will give you a little background on Joe Isgro.  He has been in the record business for a long time.  He was close to Joey Piney Armone who handled it for the Gambino Family. He was an independent record promoter and he worked on some really big albums like Michael Jackson in his glory days.  He would send his people out to radio stations and make sure his artist got airplay.  How he did that is where he almost ran into trouble.  The Government tried to make a case against him in the late 80's saying that he was involved in Payola.  They said he paid station managers and others to get his artists songs on rotation for a lot of airplay.  The case fell apart because the judge said the Government conduct was outrageous. Brian Ross from NBC news claimed to have followed Joe Isgro to the Helmsley Palace Hotel in New York where he had the Presidential Suite and had meetings with John Gotti and Joey Piney Armone. Joe would claim that it never happened.  I do know that Joe used to meet Joe Dente (Genovese Family) at Nicky Blairs on Sunset Blvd.  Joe Dente used to conduct business out of a booth there and Joe was with him a lot. I met Joe at a house in the Valley off Balboa Blvd and he had some questionable people around him.  Uncle Tony, Valentino and Anthony Gambino worked there.  One time he
didn't like a message I was relaying to him from Jimmy Caci (LA Capo) and he jumped up from behind his desk and said,  "I'm a wiseguy, so he cant talk to me that way."   I went back to his Raging Bull records office on Ventura Blvd with Louie Gelfuso (LA Capo) and we all bullshitted for an hour. Joe's luck ran out in September of 2000 when he was sentenced to 50 months in Federal Prison for his Beverly Hills Shylock operation. He is now 66 years old and who knows what this new case will bring.

New Orleans, the Big Easy is the birth place of the American Mafia and was once ruled by one man for decades.  Carlos Marcello ran his family with an iron fist but he did not induct enough people into the family to insure its continued survival after he was locked away. There must still be people down there who operate because the Feds indicted two men for driving around in an assassins van.  This is what went down: the New Orleans police were on routine patrol when their automatic license plate scanner detected a stolen plate on a van.  They pulled over the van and there were two men inside Joseph Gagliano Jr and Dominick Gullo.  Also in the van were two cut down dining room chairs bolted to the floor. They also found a 22cal rifle and a suppressor and 8 inches of cannon fuse.  A scope for the rifle was found in a side panel in the van and it was equipped with custom sliding windows on the side and the rear perfectly in lined with the cut down chairs.This made for a perfect firing position.  In other words, this was a van custom outfitted for murder.

Who were the two guys in the murder van?  Joseph Gagliano is the son of Frank Gagliano, also known as Fat Frank, the underboss of the New Orleans Mafia Family.  Fat Frank passed away in 2006 and the boss of the family Anthony Carollo passed away in 2007.  The FBI and others continue to watch what is left of the organization, but little is known about the membership. Joseph Gagliano once worked with John Vaccaro, an LA Family Soldier in Jimmy Caci's crew. They put together teams of card cheats that had inside help to cheat Louisiana Casino's out of more than 500k!  John Vaccaro was from New Orleans and he knew Carlos Marcello well. Joesph Gagliano was also arrested for participating with Joseph Corrozo and John Gammarano, both high ranking Gambinos in a bid to bring Joker Poker Machines to New Orleans.  This case will take a long time to play out but it will be interesting to follow it and see what there is to learn about New Orleans crime families.