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.

A Tale of Two Capos

Life in a mafia family is never dull, and many times when you feel like you are finished with that life you end up getting pulled back into it.

Two capos - Anthony Pipitone & Bobby DeLuca Sr. - have vastly different stories.  They both end up in the same place.

Anthony Pipitone, a capo in the Bonanno family, was taken down down in October of 2009 in a 33 count indictment along with 14 others.  The FBI had taken down the Bonanno ruling panel in the case.  They caught Pipitone discussing his part in a stabbing of two men he thought broke windows in a Queens restaurant.  The problem was that Pipitone and the others stabbed two teenagers who did not break the windows.  Pipitone received 46 months in a plea deal for that indictment.  

Pipitone promised the judge he was finished with the Mafia life.  I am surprised the judge was lenient.  Pepitone, who was out on supervised release, had a “do not associate” list.  You are to have no police contact and no contact with felons. The Bonanno family held their annual Christmas party at a restaurant on Staten Island last year.  There were no paparazzi, but the FBI was present to capture it all on video.

They also caught him having a capo meeting at a house in Queens and at a barbershop.

This time the judge had enough, and he gave him two more years behind bars a few weeks ago.

The good news is he will be off the street.  The bad news?  He will go back to his position when he returns.

Bobby DeLuca Sr. was a longtime New England Patriarca family capo until 2011 when he agreed to cooperate with the FBI.  

He signed the deal and agreed to be complete and truthful when being debriefed by the FBI.

The FBI must have been satisfied with his cooperation because in 2014 a judge sentenced him to one day in jail.

He had the chance to come clean and he did not. DeLuca was arrested at his Fort Lauderdale home on June 30 for lying to the FBI.

DeLuca told the FBI he did not know where nightclub manager Steven A DiSarro was buried.  

DiSarro had run a club for Frank Salemme and his son Frank Jr., and he was murdered because he was called before a grand jury.  

The FBI just unearthed DiSarro’s remains behind a Providence Mill.  Billy Ricci, who is part owner of the property and used to be a member of DeLuca’s crew, gave up the location.

Ricci was arrested on charges of cultivating marijuana.

Deluca did not come clean when he had the chance.

The old saying proves true - three people can keep a secret, if two are dead.