Garbage Men

This past Friday a Lucchese crime family capo plead guilty inside a Brooklyn courtroom. That capo was Carmine Avellino, and this would end a case that started with a $100k loan back in 2010.

The case is troubling on a number of fronts for a few reasons.  I understand that shylocking, also known as loan sharking, is against the law. It’s called usury.   On the other hand is the borrower. They are not forced to get a loan from a shylock.  They gladly take the money to use for whatever they wish.  They agree to the terms and give their word that they will pay it back. It comes down to personal responsibility, but they get off by running to the FBI. Maybe in the future when they charge shylocks with usury, they should also charge the borrowers with tax evasion and make them pay back the principle as a fine.   While loansharking is illegal, the government allows these payday loan places, pawn shops and credit card companies to basically do the same thing.  

The two borrowers in this case made most of the payments on the loan, but towards the end they fell behind. So Avellino asked Michael and Daniel Capra to collect it. He instructed them to use violence or whatever means necessary to get the money.  The FBI was watching and had both video and audio recordings of the three men conspiring together.

The Capra brothers went to court in June and July, where they both plead guilty and now all three of them face up to 20 years.

Carmine Avellino’s problem is much more than the shylock charge, and it goes back to August 10, 1989.

The story begins long before the trade group Private Sanitation Industry Inc. was formed in Long Island, New York.  This is a good place to introduce Salvatore Avellino Jr., who ran the trade group which was a front for the Lucchese and Gambino family.  The families used the group to control prices and routes for carting companies on Long Island.  It brought in massive amounts of cash to both families.  Salvatore Avellino Jr. not only ran the group but also was driver to the man who put it all together, Tony “Ducks” Corallo, who was the boss of the Lucchese family.

The trade group was having a lot of problems with two men who ran a garbage hauling service on Long Island known as Kubecka Inc. Robert Kubecka and his brother in law Donald Barstow had taken over Robert’s father Jerry’s garbage hauling service when he retired.  There were over 200 private garbage hauling companies on Long Island at the time, and 180 of them belonged to the trade group.  The routes and the rates were set by the group, which was really just the Lucchese and Gambino family.

Then Kubecka refused to have anything to do with the group, so they started having problems.  Their trucks were vandalized, they were threatened and trash containers were burned.  

They decided to cooperate with the state and federal task force investigating the trade group.  They wore wires and gave intel to the investigators.  They provided enough information to take down Salvatore Avellino Jr. and 9 others.  They also were able to bug Sal Avellino’s Jaguar, where they caught Tony Ducks discussing mafia business.  Tony Ducks would get 100 years, but Sal Avellino caught a break.  Soon Vic Amuso and Gaspipe Casso were running the family and they did not like people who worked with the Feds. They called a meeting in a Canarsie Brooklyn social club.  Sal Avellino Jr, and a capo from the Bronx Bowatt Baratta showed up to meet with Amuso and Casso.  They wanted to use Bowett because he was removed from Long Island and the carting business.  Bowatt was big into heroin and had done many years for it.

They had law enforcement sources that were on the Lucchese family payroll so they knew that they could murder the two men at the Kubecka office.  The task force had left the two men completely exposed with no protection.

On August 10, 1989, Bowat was there with Carmine Avellino and they dropped off the two killers.  Rocco Vitulli and Frankie Federico made their way into the garbage services office where they encountered Donald Barstow in the hallway.  They blasted him right away and then ran into the main office.  Robert Kubecka, having heard the shots, fought the men with his bare hands.  They tore up the small office and fired a number of missed shots until they finally mortally wounded Kubecka.  The shooters took off but Kubecka was able to call 911 before he died.

Years later they would all be arrested for racketeering and the murders, but they would all plead out to lesser charges except for Federico, who was missing.  The FBI caught up with Federico in the Bronx and his DNA was at the scene, so he was giving 15 years for the murders.  The Kubecka family won a large settlement from the state but what good does that really do the family?

Carmine Avellino will keep paying for his crimes.

The Cost of Corrupt Cops

Today there are so many stories in the news about bad guys in law enforcement. Some are true and some are not.  The truth is that there are bad people in every aspect of society.  

Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, formerly of the NYPD, are some of the worst I've ever read about.

They worked for the underboss of the Luchese family, Gaspipe Casso, in New York while they were employed by the NYPD.  These were two sworn officers. Veterans with experience, not rookies. They were both decorated officers with a lot of arrests.

Louis Eppolito came from a family that had deep roots in the mafia. Ralph Eppolito, his father, was a made soldier in the Gambino crime family. Two other family members, an uncle and cousin, were also made men in the Gambino family and were eventually murdered.

Stephan Caracappa joined the NYPD and they were soon working together. They did well in the 1970’s when there was not much oversight. In the 1980’s the NYPD went after Louis Eppolito when he was connected to future Pizza Connection principal Rosario Gambino aka Sal.  He was linked to law enforcement paperwork found in the possession of Rosario Gambino when they raided his home.  The NYPD wanted him to go quietly but he decided to fight and he was found not guilty in court.  He was not only given his job back, he was also promoted.

They did not know that he and partner Caracappa were on the payroll of the Lucchese family to the tune of $4000 a month. They were paid between $375k and $450k by the family for information and murder.  They actually carried out hits for the family, using their badges and police vehicles. They also kidnapped men and gave up the names of informants to the Luchese family.

These two men operated above the law for many years and they lived well.  One look at Eppolito and you can see he ate his extra cash.  When they retired they moved to Las Vegas and lived on the same street.  They were sure that they had gotten away with murder.

The wheels of justice turn slowly, but justice had not forgotten about these two.

Burton Kaplan, a Lucchese-connected drug dealer, turned on them in prison after being locked up for many years, and gave them up. Then, Stephan Corso, a CPA who was caught stealing cash from his clients started wearing a wire and also caught them on tape.

The cost to the people of New York and the family of their victims is enormous.  

Barry Gibbs - not to be confused with one of the Bee Gee’s is the name of a man that served 19 years in prison for a murder he did not commit.  The media fails to mention him when they write about the Mafia Cops. Barry Gibbs was convicted of murdering a prostitute after a witness came forward that claimed to see him dump her body.  The lead law enforcement officer was Louie Eppolito.  The FBI found the murder file in his home when they arrested him in Las Vegas. They reopened the case and it turned out the witness was threatened and paid by Eppolito to lie.  Barry Gibbs was released and he was awarded 9.9 million dollars.

Last week the City of New York settled the last case with the victims of the Mafia Cops families.

The family of Nicholas Guido, who was gunned down in his car because he had the wrong name, settled for 5 million dollars.  The family of Luchese soldier Anthony Dilapi, who left the life and moved to Los Angeles, settled for $1.85 million. The family of John Heidel settled for $1.75 million. The family of Bobby Borriello, a Gambino soldier settled for $1.5 million. The family of James Bishop, an informant, settled for $1.75 million. The family of Gambino Capo Eddie Lino, killed on the Belt Parkway by the two cops settled for $1.5 million.

The last one was diamond dealer Israel Greenwald and his family received $5 million.

The cost is huge and the worst part is these two men still get their pensions.

Franky Boy & the Sicilians

How does a kid who started out working at his fathers Video and Record shop on 18th street in Brooklyn become the main contact between the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the American Cosa Nostra? Meet Franky Boy aka Francesco Paolo Augusto Calì.  He was born in March of 1965 in New York to an immigrant shopkeeper from Palermo. Franky Boy’s father has a clean record, but he had business ties to some of the Pizza Connection heroin dealers.  

This week I spoke to a few former Gambinos and they thought it was pretty strange Franky is now the Underboss, as they knew Franky Boy as a kid who worked in a record store and was never in the streets. They expressed surprise that he has morphed into a big deal because he never did any of the high risk cowboy crimes that the rest had done on their way up.

Franky Boy is part of the "NEW" American Cosa Nostra that relies on blood and clan ties to do its business.  He became close to Jackie "Nose" D'Amico, a Capo who ran a crew on 18th Ave in Brooklyn.  Franky was later heavily involved in the Phone Card scam that a number of the Crime Families took part in the 1990's. He worked with D'Amico and Joe Watts in the phone card business and that is where he made his name as an earner.  

The phone card scam was pretty easy.  I worked with a company that used to take part in the scam with the Colombos and the Luchese Family.  They set up a company funded with capital and then bought time from companies like Sprint, say a million dollars worth.  We would have these cool looking cards printed up and they would be sold in bodegas all over New York.  The scam?  Some of the cards did not have the right amount of time on them, say you bought a 90 min card, and it actually had 45 or less minutes on it.  The company I worked with basically ran a Ponzi.  They used money coming in to pay overdue balances owed to Sprint, but kept getting time and before they knew it the company owed 4 million.  When cell phones killed the phone card and phone booth business, the companies figured out that they could buy bandwidth and time and then wholesale it to huge companies and nations for long distance.  It was a huge money maker and it makes me wonder why those I worked with are still free....... Those out on the street need to look at their buddies who got money from these companies and have never had to pay for it.

Franky Boy married into Mafia royalty when he took Rosaria Inzerillo, a former waitress at Nino's Restaurant in Brooklyn, as his bride.  This week we have come full circle to where I started telling this trilogy.  Rosaria is the sister of Pietro "Tall Pete" Inzerillo, the Gambino Capo and cousin to Tommy Gambino who gave Roger Clinton 50,000.

Franky is also related to John Gambino, the brother of Rosario and Sal and one time boss of the Gambino Family.  The 50,000 dollars that went to Roger Clinton came from John's concrete company G&G Concrete. John would later move into his former partner in G&G’s home on Staten Island.

Franky Boy has attained a lot of power by being the driving force behind the alliance between Sicilian Mafia and the Gambinos.  He helped forge a deal that would let the Inzerillos head back to their homes in Palermo after having been outcasts in America since they fled the second Mafia war.  Today many have moved back to the Passo di Rigano area of Palermo, the first being Francesco Inzerillo the son of Tall Pete and no less than 5 other made men.  

Now we see the Gambinos working with the Sicilian Mafia and the ‘Ndrangheta to put together massive shipments of drugs.  There was a Mafia Summit in Toronto Canada in January of 2004 where men flew from Palermo to Toronto and others came from the US.  They met at Peppino's restaurant and later were together for 9 hours.

The Gambino Family today is looking a lot like the Bonanno Family of the past with a group of Zips or Sicilians taking power.  Franky Boy was arrested a few years ago with Lenny DiMaria and others in an old fashion Mob Extorting of a trucking company, but is now free after serving his time.

The Sicilians have control of at least 4 Mafia families in the US.  How long will the home grown American Mafioso take orders from them?  That only time will tell.

Franky Boy will continue to gain power while running his wholesale fruit and construction companies.