Patsy Parrello: Genovese Oldfella

The mafia never stops delivering a story. I often wonder what to write about, but every week I have a few fresh stories to choose from.  This week is no different.  

The FBI really screwed up their big mafia takedown that was all the news last summer. They arrested 46 people from various east coast families, all interconnected.  They snared some big fish, like one time Philly Boss Joey Merlino and Genovese capo Pasquale (Patsy) Parrello.  The FBI had some issues with their informant and at least two special agents working on the case.  The majority of those picked up during the sweep have opted to take generous plea bargains offered by the US Attorney’s office.

Parrello is one of those who decided not to roll the dice and plea out this week. He copped to three counts of conspiracy to commit extortion for sending guys to collect his loanshark debts.  He will face between five and six and a half years in federal prison.  This deal is a far cry from the 60 years Parrello was facing for three racketeering counts he was charged with.

The FBI had a confidential human source who was close to Parrello and Merlino.  He recorded hundreds of hours of tape, but they failed to debrief him properly and some other problems came to light.  So rather than lose the case, they group was offered reduced charges.  

Merlino, who has spent a lot of time in prison, has not bitten on the deal as of yet.  Merlino was still on supervised release and did time for a violation while the FBI was making this case.

Parrello, a Genovese family capo and the owner of Pasquale's Rigoletto Restaurant on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, is no stranger to trouble.  In 2001 Parrello was charged in a 98 count indictment of embezzling funds that totaled more than one million dollars from Local 11 and Local 964 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters.

He and some other Genovese used S&F Carpentry, a unionized company based in Tuckahoe, N.Y., To pay and use non union workers.  They destroyed payroll records and threatened members of the union if they complained about non union workers on jobs.

He would end up doing a 7 year sentence for that case.  

This case involved having his guys attack a panhandler who was bothering people outside his restaurant. Threatening debtors, running gambling and other assorted scams.

Most people would be happy with just owning Pasquale's Rigoletto Restaurant.  The problem is, Parrello is no normal person, and I suspect if he lives till the end of this sentence it will not be the last we have heard of him.

For any of you who have not been to Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, it is worth the trip.  It is the real Little Italy, unlike the three small blocks called that in Manhattan.  Stop by Pasquale's Rigoletto Restaurant, they put out a great plate.

Bonanno Capo Vincent Asaro, known for his involvement in the famous Lufthansa airlines heist made famous in the movie Goodfellas, is a degenerate gambler who lost what little of the loot he got from the robbery.

Last year he beat the case the government brought against him for the robbery and murder.

He is now locked up on another case.  This week the government claimed he wanted to have the federal prosecutor on his case murdered. The Feds do not want him released on bail because he reportedly told another defendant in this case, ‘we need to take care of this bitch,’ and not  to ‘f**k it up like Vinnie.’  He was referring to Vincent Basciano, the boss of the Bonanno family who was taken down by the former boss of the family who recorded him while they were locked up together.

Like I said, the mafia always delivers!

Court Updates: Colombo's Persico Denied Appeal & Gambino Connected Former NYPD Gets Off Easy

The escort business business paid off big time this week for Michael Rizzi, a former NYPD officer connected to the Gambino family.  The judge sentenced him to a mere fifteen months in prison.  Rizzi took control of Pure Platinum Models when the former owner, Marc J. Shulman, pleaded guilty to money laundering back in 2015.  The prosecution claimed they had links between Mr. Shulman's holding companies and Michael Rizzi’s BJM company.  BJM catered to big money clients staying at the nicer hotels in Manhattan.  BJM had a dozen drivers to shuttle the girls to clients.

They charged hourly rates between $400-$2000 an hour and offered package deals, for example, $7,200 for twelve hours or $8,400 for fourteen hours. BJM had over two million dollars in credit card charges while in business. This was Rizzi’s second brush with the law since he retired from the NYPD due to a back injury.  He was arrested in a gambling sting and was said to be a super agent by the NYPD Organized Crime Investigation Division.  He was able to plead that case out to misdemeanor gambling.

In other court news, the Colombo boss Carmine Persico, now 83 years old and supposedly, “old and feeble,” had his appeal of his 100 year sentence denied.  Persico had appealed under the old Rule 35, because he was convicted over two decades ago in the Mafia Commission case.  He claimed that his sentence was unfair because he was not given all the evidence, such as Greg Scarpa being an informant. Scarpa had supplied a lot of the information the government used in Persico’s sentencing.  Persico claimed that Scarpa gave them information on murders he was involved in. Scarpa also gave the FBI different accounts of who was boss of the family at the time as did a number of other informants.  Persico claimed he did not have the power to order a hit.   He also fought back against the use of information given to the court by Donnie Brasco aka Joe Pistone.

He cited new information that came to light after Joey Massino flipped to Team USA about the murder of Carmine Galante.  The Government had always claimed the Galante murder was ordered by the Commission, which Persico was a member of at the time. Massino claims it was never Commission business, just Bonanno family business that they conducted.

Carmine Galante made himself the boss of the Bonanno family while the real boss Philip Rusty Rastelli was locked up.  Galante also tried to control the Sicilian heroin traffickers whom he had around him.

The Appeals court did not see that any of the evidence was explosive enough to grant him a resentencing.  He is 32 years into a 100 year sentence and he now is the only remaining person incarcerated who was convicted in the Commission case.

Considering the half a century of mayhem that the whole Persico clan has created in Brooklyn, many would say that Carmine Persico is where he belongs.

The Carmine Galante murder took place shortly after he had finished eating lunch and was enjoying a cigar. A picture taken shortly after he was shot dead in the courtyard of a Brooklyn restaurant shows him with a cigar still clenched in his mouth.

One of the men who was with Galante, but not shot at the time was then 27 year old Baldassare Amato aka Baldo. Baldo was supposed to be one of Galante's bodyguards.  Baldo was convicted in 2006 of racketeering, which included the murders of Sebastiano Di Falco and Robert Perrino.  The murder of DiFalco was carried out because he didn't agree to give up his restaurant.  Baldo is said to have pulled the trigger himself in the Perrino murder after he was lured to a social club.  The Bonanno family was afraid Perrino was going to help with the investigation of the mafia infiltration of the the New York Post newspaper delivery operation.  Perino's body was buried and then reburied, but the FBI still found it.  

Baldo was sentenced to a life sentence and he had tried to appeal claiming that his lawyer did not represent him because he had formerly represented Bonanno boss Joey Massino who later became a witness against him.

The judge recently rejected his appeal and let his sentence stand.

If you read much about guys in the life all this is pretty normal.  Others will take their places and life on the streets will continue moving forward.

Gambino Cash & Escorts

Business on the street keeps moving no matter how many people go down.  There are always others waiting in the wings to step up and replace them.  I wrote before that crime does not pay.  A large number of people disagreed with me and argued that it does indeed pay.   One person posted an article claiming that a crime group made more than McDonald’s.  They missed my point.  It is the toll it takes on the person, I am talking about - the consequences for their family and friends.  It was not the balance sheet I was referring to, it was the fact that there are no real happy endings to the stories involving the Mafia.

Michael Rizzi an ex-NYPD officer who branched out into the lucrative business of escort services.   Rizzi went before a judge this week for sentencing.  He told the judge that he initially started off with a completely legal escort service, and it grew out of hand.  The judge laughed at him.  Rizzi has plead guilty to laundering money from the illicit sex workers and is awaiting his sentencing.  He had over two million dollars in credit card charges from October 2012 until May of 2016.

The escort girls went on dates for up to two thousand dollars an hour. The judge did not believe that anyone would pay that amount of money for dinner.  Rizzi is on a disability pension from the NYPD and he also owns an adult store.  Rizzi controlled over eighty adult websites and the parent company BJM-Manhattan Stakes and Entertainment.

There were some customers of the escort service that had spent over one hundred thousand dollars with the service. A few that paid in excess of twenty five thousand for one night.  In 2009, Rizzi was taken down in Queens because of his involvement with a mafia backed sportsbook.

Rizzi had married into the Gambino crime family.  His wife Jill is the daughter of Gambino soldier Richard Juliano Jr., and the niece of Gambino capo Joseph "Sonny" Juliano.

Sonny has a long history with gambling, loan sharking and adult businesses.  When I first began spending time in NYC, he was said to control some Manahatten stripbars.  He also had some large loans out, including some documented in a book that were photographed for the FBI.

Sonny was arrested in a 2003 gambling case was based in Albany, New York. The business had over ninety runners who picked up bets and paid out.  They also had a huge numbers business that was based on race track handles and state lotto numbers.  The business netted over three million dollars a year, yet Sonny claimed only one hundred and six dollars of income on his 2000 income taxes.

It is laughable that the Attorney General at the time was Eliot Spitzer, who served two terms in that office before being elected governor.  He had to step down as governor when he was caught paying for high end escorts.

It was alleged that he spent over eighty thousand dollars on the escort, including some campaign funds.

Sonny took a plea deal in his case and was given 1-1/2 to 4-½ years in state prison.  He forfeited $550,000 in gambling cash and paid $37,000 in taxes.

Richard plead guilty and face two to four years in prison.

Michael Rizzi will face up to four years next week.

So how does crime pay?

Bonanno Family: Locked Up Again

The FBI hit the Bonanno family with another big indictment this week. This time they took down ten guys with a 37 count indictment.  The Bonannos just cannot seem to get a break from the FBI.  Ronald Giallanzo aka Ronnie G has been a high roller for awhile, and the Feds were already moving to seize his home in Howard Beach, Queens.

Ronnie G was involved in pump and dump stock scams with my old buddy John Baudanza who is a Lucchese guy. He has made a lot of money from running sportsbooks and a large loan sharking book.  The Feds want to take in excess of twenty six millions dollars he has made over the years with gambling and loan sharking.

They claim at one point he had over three million dollars in loans out on the street.  They also had to make a big deal out the fact he kept running his loan sharking business while he was locked up in federal prison. I guess it is hard for some feds to fathom that a guy going away for a short time will not walk away from his business.

They are charging him with running a sportsbook way back in 2005.  I still do not know how I feel about arresting people for loan sharking. I understand that it is against the law. But why do they only enforce certain federal laws and not others?  

I have written about loan sharking before, and I still do not understand why they must protect people from their own bad decisions. Loan sharks never force a debtor to take their money and spend it.  The debtor seeks them out and asks for the loan.  In return, they agree to make certain  payments.

It is like the so called “predatory lending banks” with home loans.  No matter how a bank writes up the paper work and what it entails, the debtor is the one with the choice whether or not to agree and sign.

I do not gamble, but I used to be involved in sportsbooks.  We never forced anyone to place a bet.  The one thing I do understand is why the feds get involved when the bookie threatens his debtors.

Ronnie G and three other Bonanno soldiers are indicted in this case.  They claim Ronnie G is an acting capo. Michael Padavona, Michael Palmaccio and Nicholas “Pudgie” Festa are soldiers in the family.  

Ronnie G would give Michael Padavona, Michael Palmaccio and Nicholas “Pudgie” Festa cash at low interest rate to put out on the street.  They would collect on the loans and pay him every week.

One time Ronnie G and another Bonanno associate grabbed a guy, threw him into a car and beat him over a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar loan.  The guy was so afraid he pissed his pants.

Another time, Ronnie G and Michael Padavona wanted to deal with a guy who robbed their crew, so they had guys out looking to kill him.  They even exchanged shots with the guy in 2006 on the streets of Howard Beach for a few months.  

The indictment charges all the guys with a lot of racketeering acts, ranging  from selling drugs to robbery.

Just last week they charged Vincent Asaro, Ronnie G’s uncle, with more crimes after he beat them in the decades old Lufthansa robbery case.

The FBI seems to have a lot of great informants placed in the Bonanno family.  I am sure they have them in all the families right now and soon we will know. A Bonanno capo has flipped, so there should be more indictments in the pipeline.

This is their life, but does crime really pay?

Merlino's Luck

Joey Merlino, the flashy former boss of the Philadelphia crime family, is one of the luckiest mobsters in the mafia.  Merlino has survived numerous assassination attempts and gotten away with murder.  He has done a lot of time, but none that took him off the streets for good.  He has lived a charmed life with lots of toys.  

He was out in Los Angeles and even made it on TMZ at the airport with Howard Stern wack packer Johnny Fratto. I wonder if he actually got one of these wannabe Hollywood types to buy his life’s rights?

Merlino might have hit the prosecutorial lottery in his latest case.  Merlino, along with 46 other members and associates of the mafia, were picked up on charges ranging from illegal gambling to medical fraud in 2016.

The problem is with the informant in the case, John Rubeo, a former Genovese associate.

John Rubeo recorded over 800 conversations with various mobsters including Merlino.  

The problem is, John Rubeo erased a lot of the conversations.  

I have nothing for respect for the FBI.  All the agents I ever had dealings with were consummate lawmen.  They were all by the book and kept their word to me.

I wore two wires most of the time, really small MP3 recorders hidden in things like my watch. It only had an on switch and there was no speaker.  I recorded and dropped them off and then was given new ones everyday. All my calls I recorded through their system and I had no access to the system.  My car was wired, and again I only had an on switch.  I had to meet my handlers and there were always two of them, a couple times a week.  They would debrief me and write it down for 302’s.  I used to forward text and emails via email daily.  I wonder how was it possible for Joph Rubeo to delete any conversations.  How did they not properly debrief him?

Two agents and their supervisor are in hot water over the lapses.

It is possible that Merlino and the 46 others including a Genovese underboss and capo could walk free.  It does leave a huge hole in the case, because as defendants they are entitled to all the evidence even that which maybe exculpatory.

If evidence has been destroyed, how could they possible have a fair trial?

Joey Merlino may actually walk on this case and his life rights could turn into another really bad Hollywood mafia movie.

NYPD Assistant Chief Edward Delatorre, is one of the best real estate investors in New York.

This guy is so good that he was able to get four properties that belonged to various Bonanno family members, including Vinny Basciano and Dominick Cicale, located in the Bronx, at below market rates.

I wonder why he even bothers to work for the NYPD anymore.  A company owned by his wife bought a lot that at one time had a home on it where the Bonanno’s had an initiation ceremony.  The home belonged to Cole's mother.  The home is gone and the lot had a 990,000 dollar loan against it.  Delatorre's wife’s company bought it and sold it to an LLC owned by Delatorre.

Much like many of today’s political elite, these people are excellent investors!  Just look at some of the people in Congress and Senate who never hold a private sector job, yet leave office with millions in the bank.  Why do they not share their investment secrets with us regular people?

Joe Bilotti: Old School Gambino

It was just before 6pm on December 16, 1985 when the black Lincoln pulled up and parked in front of Sparks Steak House in Manhattan.  The streets were busy, but four men dressed in trench coats and fur hats moved with purpose.  The passenger was Paul Castellano, the boss of the Gambino crime family.  As he stepped out of the car, the men opened fire on him. The driver emerged and ducked a little to look towards Paul before he was shot in the back.

The forgotten man was Tommy Bilotti, Castellano’s driver and the new underboss of the family.

Tommy had a brother named Joe that passed away last week.  Joe was real Cosa Nostra, not like the clowns that run around playing the role in Brooklyn and Staten Island.  Guys who were in the life consider Joe the ultimate wiseguy. He kept a low profile, both before his brother Tommy was murdered by John Gotti’s crew and after.

The Billotti brothers were both known as tough guys with their hands.  They used that fear to build up a massive gambling business.  This proved a natural segway into their next business, which was loansharking.  They both prospered because of their talent as businessmen.

One of the men on record with Tommy was a man named Joe Watts, a childhood friend who grew up with the Bilottis in the South Beach section of Staten Island.

Joe Watts was known as “the German” because he was part German.  He managed the loan shark business for Tommy until Tommy was gunned down outside Sparks Steakhouse.

John wanted to get rid of Paul Castellano and Tommy Bilotti because he was caught up in the web of a heroin trafficking case and pure greed. Gotti and a few others plotted to take over the family, but they were not sure when to do it.

One plan was to put plastic down in the Watts home and invite Tommy over and murder him.

Then another man would take Tommy’s place as Paul's driver and murder him.

Instead, they settled on the midtown Manhattan spectacle.

Once Tommy was murdered, Sammy Gravano, the man who would later become John Gotti’s underboss, met with Joe Bilotti at a diner.  He told Joe that his brother’s murder was just business.

Joe Watts was urging John Gotti Sr. to murder Joe also, lest he seek revenge.  Joe agreed that he would accept it and not cause trouble.

John Gotti rewarded Joe Watts with Tommy’s loansharking book/business and it made him a millionaire.  No wonder Joe Watts was in on the murder of the boss.  He was one of the shooters.  Joe Watts might have made some money and had a few good years but he has been locked up for years.

In 2011 Joe Watts was handed another prison sentence of 13 years for his participation in another murder. At 69 years old who knows if he will see freedom.

Joe Billotti outlived John Gotti.  He was able to see him go away after Sammy Gravano helped team USA put him away.  Gotti would die inside, never again a free man.

He continued to take part in Gambino family business.  He was seen meeting with members of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra family in Florida in recent years.

Joe was a successful guy who most people don't know had a cigar factory in the Dominican Republic.  

So we say goodbye to another old timer who lived the life.

Say Goodbye to the Saint

On November 7th one of the last vestiges of the old Patriarca crime family in New England, Anthony "The Saint" St. Laurent, a one time capo, cashed in his chips.  

He had not been well for a long time and he was released from Federal prison less than two weeks before his death.  I am sure they knew he was not going to make it.

He died in a Providence Rhode Island Hospital of natural causes.

The Saint was once a trusted member of Raymond Patriarca Mafia family that was run from the Coin-O-Matic business on Atwells Avenue on Federal Hill.  The Saint took care of a lot of the bookmakers in and around Providence Rhode Island.

The Patriarca family takes its name from the long time boss Raymond LS Patriarca who made the family into a powerhouse that encompassed Boston and surrounding cities.

He did not found the family, but he made it a more powerful organization.

The family that was once able to murder Joe Barboza, an informant then hiding in California, and controlled most of the Boston area bookmaking thanks to its underboss Jerry Angiulo and his brothers in the North End.

The Saint was a capo in 1993 when he was busted for running a bookmaking operation out of the Foxy Lady in Providence.  Law Enforcement called it the largest operation ever taken down in the state.  The Foxy lady itself was a huge money maker. It was a stripclub that was two stories of debauchery.  It had three stages and cream wrestling.  It also had the ever popular Legs and Eggs 6am breakfast buffet.

The Saint was also one of the rare few that were inducted into the Nevada gamings so called Black Book. He was placed in after his many convictions, but one has to wonder why because he was 2,600 miles away from Las Vegas.  I am sure he didn't lose any sleep from not being able to set foot in a casino.

He would go down again in 1999 for extortion because he was shaking down bookmakers.

Then he was accused by another family member of being an informant. The man who accused him was Bobby DeLuca, a capo in the family.

The irony in that is that Bobby DeLuca became an informant and then later lied to the FBI about a murder and a hidden body.

The Saint admitted in 2011 that he tried to hire a man to murder DeLuca for accusing him of being an informant.

He met the hitman in a parking lot and he drove him to a restaurant in Providence, where DeLuca was working.  He promised the hitman cash.  After Deluca was murdered he planned to get cash from a local bookmaker who was paying DeLuca protection money.

One thing he wanted the hitman to tell DeLuca is that  it was from the Saint before he died.

The problem was, the hitman was an informant for the FBI.

Old age, failing health and changing times caught up to the Saint.

Mafia Justice

This week I have three stories and three different takes on justice.  

The first one is takes us to Rhode Island where the former boss of the New England family, Frank Salemme, is facing charges for allegedly murdering Steven DiSarro, a nightclub manager, in 1993. DiSarro ran a Boston nightclub for Salemme and his son.  Frank and his son were worried that DiSarro would talk to the Feds.  They also believed he was stealing money from the club.  So Frank Salemme Jr. strangled him while Paul Weadick held his legs.  Salemme's son is dead now.  Paul Wedick and Salemme are facing charges of murdering a federal witness, which can carry the death penalty.  A former capo, Robert Deluca, and Steve Flemmi, a former partner of Whitey Bulger, both agreed to testify against the two men.  You have Robert Deluca telling the Feds that he told Salemme to get rid of him, only now coming forward after many years in the witness protection program. Steve Flemmi is also cooperating after being charged with murdering a lot of people.  

The next case is Colombo capo Luca Dimatteo.  His doctors claim he will be dead within the year due to cancer.  DiMatteo was charged with running an offshore bookmaking operation and shylocking.  He collected money from loans on a weekly basis once when he finished up his chemotherapy.  In 2004 he received a 57 month sentence for racketeering and went right back to the life within months of his release.  This time, Judge Leo Glasser did not want to hear about how sick he was.  DiMatteo was asking for home confinement, but the Judge gave him 33 months in prison.  The Judge told him, “You’ve done this to yourself.”

The third case brings us to New Jersey, where lawyer Cory Leshner helped Nicodemo Scarfo Jr. and other Lucchese family members loot a Texas mortgage company.  The lawyer helped them take over Firstplus Financial Group and steal 14 million dollars, which they then used to buy homes, yachts and a plane.  Before the case went to trial, Leshner agreed to cooperate and he testified against those he helped.  He agreed to a five year plea deal and admitted they stole millions.

Retired FBI Agent Joe Gilson testified last week at Lehshner’s sentencing hearing.  He told the court of a phone call he got from Leshner in the summer. Leshner told him he just wanted to call and thank him for saving his life. The Judge at the sentencing hearing gave him three years instead of five and three years of supervised release.  

The Judge has never lowered a sentence before, but he felt Leshner went above and beyond with his testimony and he had truly changed his life around. Nicodemo Scarfo Jr., on the other hand, was handed a 30 year sentence for his part in the fraud.

The Disappearance of Little Tony Zizzo

You may not be familiar with the name Anthony Zizzo, or “Little Tony” as he was also known. Little Tony was a Chicago Outfit guy who may have assumed the underboss position for a short period of time.

The FBI is offering a $10,000 reward for information on the disappearance or the whereabouts of Little Tony.  Little Tony is presumed to be dead.  

He left his town home in Westmont, Illinois for a meeting on Rush Street in Chicago.  When he kissed his wife goodbye, she had no idea she would never see him again.  Little Tony drove to a restaurant in Melrose Park where he parked his Silver Jeep Cherokee and got into another car that would take him for his sitdown.

The sitdown was supposed to take place at a Rush Street restaurant where it was to be mediated by Joseph Andriacchi a well respected former underboss of the Outfit. What the FBI thinks, is Little Tony was kidnapped and murdered someplace where there were less eyes.  

The killers “disappeared” Little Tony’s body, and so far no informant has given up it’s location.

Little Tony came up in the crew of Outfit boss Sam Carlisi, along with James Marcello, who would also become boss one day.  

Little Tony and Marcello were taken down together in the early 1990’s. The indictment refers to Little Tony as a guy who handed out juice loans to gamblers and a boss.

When Marcelo was released in 2003 he took over as the boss of the Outfit.  He would not last long because he was soon swept up in the Family Secrets case.

Little Tony was not caught up in that case and some Outfit members may have felt a little uneasy with that.  He still remained underboss as well as representing Marcello’s interest on the street.

He got into a dispute with Mike Sarno, who was from the same crew but was moving up quickly over the Joker Poker trade.  Things soon were out of hand and word was sent  from Marcello to Little Tony to let it go.  He could not and he kept the fight going.

MIke Sarno decided that life would run smooth without Little Tony around.  Marcello did not put up a fight and the sitdown was arraigned.  

The disappearance of Little Tony is one of the Outfit’s last big hits, and now the FBI is looking for answers.  Someone out there knows and will someday be willing to trade on that information.

I wonder how soon it will be?  Little Tony’s wife passed away 5 years after he went missing and the rest of the parties are doing long stretches in prison.  

The Arrests Continue

The past has a way of catching up with you when you live the mafia life.  If you committed murder you are safe only when you are the last one alive. In the last two weeks the FBI arrested two men who were formerly the boss and a capo in the New England family.  

The FBI took down Robert DeLuca, now 70, at his Coral Springs home in Florida.  DeLuca was a capo in the family and started cooperating in 2011.  DeLuca was sentenced to one day in prison in 2014 for his cooperation.

Francis “Cadillac Frank” Salemme was arrested Wednesday at a Connecticut hotel.  The former boss of the New England family had flipped when he found out that Whitey Bulger and Stevie Flemmi were informants in 1999.  He agreed to cooperate against Flemmi, Bulger and their FBI handler John Connolly Jr.  Then Flemmi flipped and told the FBI about the time he walked in on Frank Salemme Jr. strangling Steven A. DiSarro. Flemmi told the FBI that DiSarro was murdered because he was close to someone who was an informant.  DiSarro was the front guy for Salemme and his son in the nightclub The Channel in 1993.

Cadillac Frank has already served 5 years for lying to the FBI during his debriefing about the DiSarro murder.  He has been living in Atlanta in the Witness Relocation Program as Richard Parker.

The FBI just recently dug up Steven DiSarro’s remains when they searched the property of Billy Ricci, a longtime New England family associate. Billy Ricci had a marijuana grow operation on the property and was busted this year.  

They are both charged with murdering a federal witness which can carry the death penalty.

Joey Merlino the one time boss of the Philadelphia family was granted his freedom after his wife and friends posted a 5 million dollar bond secured by property.

The thirty page indictment is really broad, so I am betting that there will be a superseding indictment coming down.  

They claimed at the bond hearing that Joey Merlino was caught on tape acting like a boss and that he was trying to put the Philly family back together again.

The FBI had an undercover agent and a cooperator that vouched for the agent who both made audio and video tapes of Merlino.  The cooperator had a casino style gambling club in Yonkers and he worked with a Genovese family gangster who gave him permission to move to Florida to work with Merlino.

This is how Merlino got sucked into the Healthcare fraud. It involves a compound that can cost up to 10k a tube and the crooked doctors prescribe it on a trial basis with 10 refills.  That means they can stick the insurance companies with a 100k bill.  It is the snake oil of our time. I am sure we have paid for this out of our taxes.

One guy who knows that you cannot keep a secret in today's mafia is Teddy Persico Jr., who is now doing 12 years for a few crimes including ordering the murder of renegade capo Joe Scopo when he was on furlough from prison to attend his grandmother's funeral. Teddy was doing 25 years for drug trafficking at the time.

The FBI had a few witness that told them about his part in the murder, but they were able to seize a picture from Rao’s and some letters Teddy sent to the guy from prison that helped their case. It helped a lot that the guy kept every letter.

Teddy who did 17 years in state prison for dealing drugs was already headed back within hours of his release, he just didn't know it. If you want to read about it, it is detailed in my book Breakshot. What does Teddy have to worry about next? Scooby.

Breakshot Re-Release!

Breakshot Re-Release!

This week my first book Breakshot: A Life in the 21st Century American Mafia has been re-released.  The new version has some updated material and is also available for Kindle.  

It occurred to me when I was proofreading this version for typos, that many of those I wrote about are now dead.  The whole 1970’s Los Angeles mafia family is now gone.  

They tried hard to rebuild the family but the lack of a talent pool and the constant assault by the FBI made it an impossible task.  That part of my life is over now too, but I am thankful that I was able to sit with those men of a bygone era and hear their stories.  Soon the only record left will be those that learned from them.

The dream of having a casino on the Las Vegas strip that started with Jack Dragna and Jimmy Fratianno is dead.  Bobby Milano and Jimmy Caci wanted to have a Titanic themed casino but that died with Bobby and Paulie, the boss of the Denver family.

Jimmy Caci spent his whole life as a criminal, and yet if he gave you his word he would keep it.  If you were around Jimmy you could not swear if there were ladies present.  Jimmy had some great stories from Buffalo, New York.  One I was thinking about today. Jimmy and another guy were cutting into a safe at a clothing store when their lookout signaled to them that a cop was coming.  It was a beat cop on foot and Jimmy was in the display window.  Stores used to put their safes in the front hoping it would deter safe crackers. There was no way Jimmy could get out of the window in time so he posed like the other mannequins until the cop passed.  The cop never gave him a second glance and they soon cracked the safe and took off.  Jimmy would laugh when telling that story.

I wrote about Danny Persico in Breakshot because he was there at the time.  He has passed away and it is a shame.  He was harmless and he was a young guy.  I have no ill feelings toward him at all.  I hope when Teddy Persico gets out of prison he does something else with his life.

Some people just cannot learn from history so they keep repeating the same mistakes. Michael Mazzara, Charles Kerrigan and Anthony Mascuzzio are just those people.

They were part of a bank robbery crew that cut their way into bank vaults after bypassing the alarms.  They would break into buildings next door, or go through a roof and then cut their way into the vault.  They would then bust into safety deposit boxes, trashing sentimental items but taking cash and jewelry that totaled five million dollars at least.  A lot of people will not be reporting what was really in the boxes, so I am sure the haul was much larger.

Anthony Mascuzzio seems never to learn his lesson.  He had a father who was with John Gotti, but was shot dead trying to shake down a disco. Battista “Benny” Geritano a former of the “Night Drop Crew” is his stepbrother.  I wonder where Anthony got the idea to rob banks?  

The FBI and task force has been watching the crew. They installed a camera on a pole across from Michael Mazzara and Charles Kerrigan's home.  They also had a cooperator in the crew who gave up their cell phones.  They traced the phone near one of the banks they burgled.  It was pinged off towers within a block.  They caught them on video with the same red car that was used in the bank job pulling into a property next to theirs.  They also have video of them driving away with plywood in a truck that was later found at the bank.  They got them buying fire extinguishers and water buckets on a credit card. It should be noted that the red F-250 pickup truck is registered to a relative of Michael Mazzara.  They have video outside the banks with them and even though they wore hats and hoodies they were recognized.

The broke into Maspeth Federal savings bank in May where the haul was 296k in cash and 4.3 million out of the safety deposit boxes.

They hit the HSBC bank in Brooklyn in April and they are believed to have hit at least 8 other banks.  This is an unfolding story.  It will be interesting to see who the informant is and who goes down.

Mafia Drugs & Gambling Busts Continue

The Waterfront Commission of New York and New Jersey began decades ago and is still making cases against the mafia in 2016.  This new case grew out of a broader investigation into mafia activities along the waterfront.  They write that they will announce more developments at a later time.

This week they took down a multi family crew that distributed marijuana and oxycodone as well as ran an online sportsbook.  

The operation worked like this. John Kelly and Richard Sinde were the ringleaders and coordinated the business.  They would buy marijuana from legal farms in California and have it shipped to New York, where it is still illegal and can command a higher price.  

California is the wild west of weed.  They have laws that say you can grow it for medical and personal use.  Yet you can also grow as a collective.  You can get a marijuana card for as little $25 for a doctor visit.  You can get a card from the state for $100.  It’s only for medical use, but that is a joke. There are so many stores and growers, why bother arresting anyone anymore. The whole business is in a grey area because it is not legal for recreational use, but that is what many people use it for on a daily basis.  So it is a highly unregulated business.  They could just make it legal and tax the actual business, or they could make it illegal.  

Destiny Saetern and Michael Giammarinaro worked on some of the grow operations in California.  They would purchase marijuana from different growers and pack 5-15lbs into boxes to mail or ship UPS or Fedex to New York.  Often they would pack 100-150lbs into boxes and it would be driven to New York in a van.

Stephen Gallo would pick up the packages in New York and then take them to various warehouse or homes to repackage for distribution.

Michael “Mickey Boy” Paradiso, a Gambino capo who did a long stretch for dealing heroin, was taken down in the investigation.  

Lawrence Dentico, the grandson of Genovese capo “Little Larry” Dentico, ran part of the operation from his home in California.

The marijuana part of the operation brought in $350k a month in sales.  Over a 21 month period they sold $15 million in marijuana.  

They also particiapated in an online gambling operation Bklynsportscenter.com, which brought in millions.  This was run just like all the other mafia operated sportsbooks.  A better can bet online or call a wireroom.  He can bet his limit or what he has posted with a local connected bookie. He is paid on Tuesdays or Wednesdays by the local bookie.  

They also had another profitable side business selling oxycodone pills.  They made an $18k profit just on the pills they sold to an undercover agent at the end of the operation, but it is unknown how much they made on oxycodone deals that were not caught.

This was a pretty well set up business.  They took in the cash in New York and New Jersey. They collected it and it was laundered through Regional Food Brokers Inc.

They ended up taking down about two dozen members and associates of all five New York mafia families. After all the work law enforcement did on this case, have people stopped gambling, smoking weed or taking pills? No.