Crime does not pay just ask Teddy and Ronald

Crime never pays, you will always get what's coming.  The latest made guy to find that hard truth out is Bonanno crime family soldier Ronald Giallanzo.   A lifetime criminal who has been with the Bonannos for over 16 years, Giallanzo been involved in everything from stock schemes to bookmaking.  

In fact, he was arrested along with my old friends John Baudanza, Little Craig Marino and Jerry Degerolamo in 2006 when they were busted for their stock pump-and-dump business.

They stole more the 20 million dollars with their penny stocks.

They used familiar sounding stocks to draw victims to buy them.  They had names like, America's Hedge Fund, Orex Gold Mines Corporation, Legends Sports and Motorsports USA, so you can see how people, mostly a lot of retired senior citizens, would fall for it.

They controlled over 20 brokerage houses where they paid brokers commission, over 25%, to push these so called “house stocks.”  The bonuses were paid in cash because most of these businesses brought in little or no revenue.

Giallanzo’s life of crime seemed to pay off. He made millions over the years, managing sportsbooks for the family.  

He was among those caught by the FBI going to a Bonanno family Christmas party a few years back.  He and most of the others were still on parole, and they had “do not associate” rules in effect.

The FBI set up and used video and still pictures to get a number of the mobsters violated.

Giallanzo had to go before a judge because he still had time on his parole.  The US Attorney wanted him to serve 2 years for the violation.

Giallanzo’s lawyer argued that the same judge had given other men in similar situations a year and a day.  The judge ended up giving him a year and a day.

The Federal government now wants their pound of flesh, so they served Giallanzo legal papers to seize his Queens home.  It's a nice 3,500 square foot home on 86th in Howard Beach.  

It is owned on paper by his wife, but the Feds claim the money to construct, remodel and purchase all came from criminal proceeds. The seizure laws are in favor of the government, because anyone that faces seizure of property must prove that it is not from illegal activity.

Last year Giallanzo’s Uncle Vincent Asaro, who was part of the crew that robbed Lufthansa airlines for 6 million in cash, was acquitted on those charges and murder.  Yet Vincent Asaro and the rest are marked men.

Theodore Persico Sr aka Teddy passed away this week.  He was the brother of imprisoned Colombo family boss Carmine Persico.  He was a capo and part of the ruling panel for the Colombos.  He was also one of the point men during the civil war in the 1990’s.  He was one of the reasons his son Teddy Jr. was so eager to give the go ahead to murder Joe Scopo.  Teddy Jr. gave the order while attending his grandmother's funeral in Brooklyn while on furlough from prison.  

I will write more on Teddy Sr next week.

Crime does not pay just ask Teddy and Ronald

Crime never pays, you will always get what's coming.  The latest made guy to find that hard truth out is Bonanno crime family soldier Ronald Giallanzo.   A lifetime criminal who has been with the Bonannos for over 16 years, Giallanzo been involved in everything from stock schemes to bookmaking.  

In fact, he was arrested along with my old friends John Baudanza, Little Craig Marino and Jerry Degerolamo in 2006 when they were busted for their stock pump-and-dump business.

They stole more the 20 million dollars with their penny stocks.

They used familiar sounding stocks to draw victims to buy them.  They had names like, America's Hedge Fund, Orex Gold Mines Corporation, Legends Sports and Motorsports USA, so you can see how people, mostly a lot of retired senior citizens, would fall for it.

They controlled over 20 brokerage houses where they paid brokers commission, over 25%, to push these so called “house stocks.”  The bonuses were paid in cash because most of these businesses brought in little or no revenue.

Giallanzo’s life of crime seemed to pay off. He made millions over the years, managing sportsbooks for the family.  

He was among those caught by the FBI going to a Bonanno family Christmas party a few years back.  He and most of the others were still on parole, and they had “do not associate” rules in effect.

The FBI set up and used video and still pictures to get a number of the mobsters violated.

Giallanzo had to go before a judge because he still had time on his parole.  The US Attorney wanted him to serve 2 years for the violation.

Giallanzo’s lawyer argued that the same judge had given other men in similar situations a year and a day.  The judge ended up giving him a year and a day.

The Federal government now wants their pound of flesh, so they served Giallanzo legal papers to seize his Queens home.  It's a nice 3,500 square foot home on 86th in Howard Beach.  

It is owned on paper by his wife, but the Feds claim the money to construct, remodel and purchase all came from criminal proceeds. The seizure laws are in favor of the government, because anyone that faces seizure of property must prove that it is not from illegal activity.

Last year Giallanzo’s Uncle Vincent Asaro, who was part of the crew that robbed Lufthansa airlines for 6 million in cash, was acquitted on those charges and murder.  Yet Vincent Asaro and the rest are marked men.

Theodore Persico Sr aka Teddy passed away this week.  He was the brother of imprisoned Colombo family boss Carmine Persico.  He was a capo and part of the ruling panel for the Colombos.  He was also one of the point men during the civil war in the 1990’s.  He was one of the reasons his son Teddy Jr. was so eager to give the go ahead to murder Joe Scopo.  Teddy Jr. gave the order while attending his grandmother's funeral in Brooklyn while on furlough from prison.  

I will write more on Teddy Sr next week.

Nicky the Mouth: Bonanno Capo

Nicky Santoro has had a long run in the Mafia.  He was part of the Sonny Black crew that was taken down by FBI Special Agent Pistone aka Donnie Brasco. He has been part of the Bonanno crime family for decades as an associate, made guy, capo and underboss.  Today he is an inmate with the state of New York awaiting trial.  He has gotten away with a lot over the years, but something he can’t get away from has caught up to him: father time.  He is in a hospital bed,  on a no bail hold, and he has filed a lawsuit against the New York City Department of Corrections for negligent and malicious treatment.

I was down at BaMonte's in Brooklyn one Saturday many years ago, and I met Nicky in the parking lot with a loud mouth Colombo guy.  Nicky gave us some NFL jerseys.  Soon after that he was made a capo, then back to a soldier and finally after the boss Joey Massino flipped, he was briefly the underboss of the family.

He has been locked up on a number of charges in the past, but now he is just old and sick.

The state case of enterprise corruption ended in a mistrial last year after two months of trial.

The state is going to retry it, but they want to keep Nicky locked up.

The heart of the case revolves around an online gambling book and the selling of prescription drugs. This is hardly like the Tommy “Shots” Gioeli case. The problem is he has gotten away with a lot in the past.

In 1994 Genovese associate Michael D’Urso and his cousin Bonanno associate Sabatino Lombarti were playing cards at San Giuseppe social club in Greenpoint, Brooklyn when Giancarlo “John” Imbrieco shot D’Urso in the head and then shot Lombardi.  D’Urso survived the hit, but his cousin was killed.

He went to his Genovese capo Rosario Gangi, who told him not to retaliate.  The shooting went down because another Genovese associate owed them $60,000 for a gambling debt.  D’Urso tried to get one of the people involved in the hit, but failed twice.  He was warned by Gangi that if it was him who was behind the failed attempts, he was in big trouble.  So D’Urso went to the FBI and started wearing a wire.  He wore it for three years and took down at least 60 guys, including two bosses of the Genovese family.

It seems John Imbrieco who is now more than 15 years into his 20 year plea deal has asked the judge who sentenced him to give him some leniency.

Imbrieco wrote Judge Leo Glasser and told him that he was a changed man.  He has been a model prisoner, taking plumbing classes and even spin class.

Imbrieco noted that his coconspirator had their case overturned. The Judge asked prosecutors to work out a timed served deal.

The family of Sabatino Lombarti are outraged.  Lombarti might have been a loan shark, but he didn't shoot two people in the back of the head for money.

Once again more drama in the mafia world. I wonder, since most of these guys are getting up in years, if they will find a litigator to keep on retainer who specializes in mafia “slip and fall” civil suits?

Sonny Franzese will be 100 this year and he has not filed one yet.

Mafia Slip-and-Fall: A Prison Ping Pong Lawsuit

Life in the mafia is never boring and sometimes it is even humorous.  

There was a time when made Colombo soldier Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli was well respected on the streets. He is alleged to have participated in at least eight murders over the years, including that of of a police officer. The police officer’s name was Ralph Dols, and he was murdered because his wife’s ex-husband, Joe Cacace, was a jealous man.  

He also helped chase down one of the makers of the film Deep Throat, Joseph Peraino Sr., along with his son Joseph Jr. This confrontation took place in a Gravesend Brooklyn neighborhood.  Tommy Shots blasted the father and son, and also a former Nun named Veronika Zuraw who was completely innocent. As a result, Veronika and Joseph Jr. were both killed and Joseph Sr. was paralyzed.

Tommy Shots was rewarded for his lifetime of crime in 2004, when he was upped to Street Boss of the Colombo family.

In 2014 he was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison, where he has been crying ever since.  

He was given the nickname Tommy Shots because he survived getting a bullet in his shoulder and in his stomach.  The man who took two bullets is now suing the government for ten million dollars after slipping and falling while playing a game of ping pong in prison.

He filed the negligence lawsuit after his slip and fall, blaming the injury on a wet floor in the Metropolitan Detention Center.  The obese Tommy Shots slipped and fractured his kneecap.  

Here is another good one.  The grandson of the late Gambino boss John Gotti, was arrested last year twice for dealing drugs.  He was pulled over in what has been called a traffic stop for tinted windows.  He was caught with a couple hundred pills and over $7,000 in cash.  Then the police busted him in the former Howard Beach home where his grandfather used to live.

In that bust they confiscated over $200,000 and 800 pills.  They also caught him (just like his grandfather) on a bug, bragging he sold over a $100,000 a month in pills and $1.6 million overall.

This week the whole ordeal came to a conclusion when John Gotti took a plea deal for 8 years with 5 years of supervised release.  He also gave up any claims to the seized cash.

He now joins the ranks of his family before him, heading to prison.

Criminals Crossing Borders: Salvatore Marciante

Lately the media is filled with outcries against President Trump's strengthening of the US borders.  What nation is able to let anyone who wishes to enter do so with no vetting at all? A nation that will not be sovereign long.  

It is not just Mexican and South American criminals crossing borders, it's terrorists and criminals from around the world.  Last week a small article appeared about a man named Salvatore Marciante, also known as “Baby Face,” who was arrested for entering the country in Nogales, Arizona.

Baby Face was born in Italy and brought to the US by his parents as a child. He grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn on 18th Ave. Some would consider that a bad neighborhood.

His parents came here for a better life.  Instead, Baby Face fell in with a Zip crew from 18th Ave.

"Zips" are what American mafia call the Sicilians operating in the US, because they speak such fast Italian.  

According to a childhood friend of Baby Face, he was a really good guy before he embarked on his life of crime. However, he became deeply involved with the Zips, moving large quantities of cocaine and heroin in what would come to be known as the Pizza Connection II case.

Baby Face and a crew also started robbing wealthy Italian restaurant owners they knew, mostly in Pennsylvania, but also New York and New Jersey.  They targeted them because they knew they had a lot of cash in their homes from unreported income.

Baby Face's best friend was Vincent Carini. Vincent and his brother Eddie botched a hit that was ordered by Carmine Persico, the boss of the Colombo family. They were supposed to kill a federal prosecutor, William Aronwald, who had angered Carmine Persico.  

Persico had given the hit to Joel Cacace, then acting boss of the Colombo family. Cacace scouted out the law office and gave the hit to the Vincent and Eddie - the Carini brothers.  They mistakenly killed George Aronwald, the father of the prosecutor, instead of William the prosecutor.

As a result, Vincent and Eddie were killed. They were found dead inside their cars, parked together on Ave X in Brooklyn.  That's when Baby Face lost his best friend.

In the 1994 Pizza Connection II, the indictment claims Baby Face ran a crew that sold multi kilos of heroin and lesser amounts of cocaine. He was arrested while still locked up for his involvement in what would later be known as the Petrified Forest case. He did his time for the heroin case and the home invasions, and he was then deported to Italy.

He moved to Canada, where he opened a restaurant that did well.  He was found out by the Canadians and was deported for overstaying his visa.

He lived in Italy for twelve years, and apparently kept out of trouble.

He recently made his way to Mexico where he attempted reentry into the US. People ask why we need to strengthen our borders. Salvatore Marciante, formerly of Staten Island, is one good reason.