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.

Rudy Giuliani

Rudolph W. Giuliani has been in the news lately because of his support of Donald Trump.  Most people know him as the mayor of New York City during the  9-11-2001 attacks by Islamic terrorists.

Rudy, as he is known, was the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

He would become famous for prosecuting Wall Street insiders Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken for insider trading.

One of the more famous cases was the Mafia Commission case.

The Mafia Commission was formed by Charles “Lucky” Luciano and the other heads of families in 1931.  They did it to stop the fight over who would be the boss of bosses.  The Commission approved who was boss of a family and set rules.  They also controlled a concrete club that took a peice of any building project that used more than two million in concrete.  

It was called the concrete club.  When a new boss took over the family they would send word to the Commission.  In 1981 when the boss of the Los Angeles family went away, Pete Milano became acting boss.  In 1984 he assumed the boss position and named his brother Carmen underboss. Carmen had worked in Cleveland as a lawyer and he knew all the guys in New York.  Carmen went to New York with some other Los Angeles guys to let the Commission know that Pete was the boss.  They approved it.  

Every boss had the same power, but the commission would settle disagreements between families. They also ordered murders like Bugsy Siegel, who stole money while building the Flamingo casino in Las Vegas.

They had a few moments when they were exposed.  One of those was the Apalachin meeting in 1957 that was raided by the local police.  

Rudy decided to crack down on the Mafia leadership instead of just settling for a few of the lower ranking members.  He used the RICO Act to bring them down.  The FBI had been able to infiltrate the Bonanno family with Donnie Brasco aka Special Agent Joseph Pistone.  He saw the civil war in the family from the ground level.  

They also were able to bug Paul Castellano, the boss of the Gambino family's home.  They bugged the Palma Boys Social Club where the front boss of the Genovese family, Fat Tony Salerno, held court every day.  They were able to bug the boss of the Lucchese family, Tony “Ducks” Corallo, in the car he was driven in everyday.  

They struck gold.  Fat Tony was heard talking to a soldier from the Cleveland family and another from the Buffalo New York family about settling a dispute over the boss of Buffalo.  He used the words, “The Commission.”

They also were able to place a bug in Jerry Langella, the acting boss of the Colombo family’s favorite table in Casa Storta in Brooklyn.  That bug gave them enough evidence to bug Colombo Ralph Scopo’s Union office where he discussed the Concrete Club business.

Rudy even subpoenaed retired boss Joe Bonanno who write the book, “A Man of Honor” about his life.  They were going to use what he wrote about the formation of the Commission to take down the Commission.   

The took down eleven defendants who would all be charged in the Commission's case.

He won a conviction against the eight defendants who made it to the end of the trial.

Rudy would retire from the US Attorney’s Office with a record of 4,152 convictions and only 25 verdicts were reversed on appeal.

As a US Attorney, Rudy Giuliani cleaned up Wall Street and brought down the Commission. As a result he had a large impact on the mafia family’s strength across the US.