Fotios "Freddy" and Ty Geas
Ages: 48 and 43, respectively
Hometown: West Springfield
Last ranks held: enforcers, trusted advisors to Anthony Arillotta; held no official rank in the Italian Mafia because the brothers are Greek.
Criminal histories: Both have lifelong criminal histories dating back to their teens. Ty Geas picked up his first Superior Court conviction in 1989 at age 17. The younger Geas was sentenced to a year in jail after firing an assault weapon into the air during a brawl after a high school hockey game. The elder Geas, then 22, pleaded guilty to threatening to murder a witness in that case. Freddy Geas also pleaded guilty that year to smashing a classic car during a bar fight at a former nightclub in Stearns Square called Sh-Booms.
The brothers racked up criminal convictions throughout their 20s and 30s, amassing 75 adult convictions each by the mid-2000s. Freddy Geas was convicted of a truck heist in the late 1990s and was jailed again for a pair of baseball bat beatings in the city's entertainment district in 2004. Ty Geas received a one-year jail sentence in 2006 for a separate beating at the Mardi Gras strip club. When the brothers were briefly free at the same time in the early 2000s, they rose to the top of the local rackets as recognized "muscle" for Arillotta.
They joined Arillotta in a 2008 acquittal on extortion charges in connection with the alleged shake-down of illegal poker machine proprietors Carlo and Genarro Sarno.
Freddy Geas was the second to be charged federally in the Adolfo Bruno murder. He was headed to trial in U.S. District Court in Springfield solo in 2009 when federal investigators in New York brought the case to that district. They charged eight co-conspirators in a wide-ranging conspiracy to violently unseat Bruno from power to pave the way for Arillotta. They also were charged with myriad other mob-related crimes inclluding the 2003 murder of Gary D. Westerman, a rival drug dealer and Arillotta's brother-in-law. Westerman's body was discovered in an eight-foot grave in a wooded lot in Agawam after Arillotta flipped on his former cohorts.
The Geas brothers and onetime acting Genovese crime family boss Arthur "Artie" Nigro stood trial in 2011. All were convicted and sentenced to life in prison. During the trial, prosecutors presented as evidence recorded jail conversations between the brothers. They showed Ty Geas' apparent resignation over being charged in the Westerman murder after Arillotta decided to cooperate with the government.
"So I guess my time is short here," Ty Geas said to his older brother, referring to the dig for Westerman's body in 2010. Stories in The Republican at the time chronicled the dig to unearth Westerman's remains. "It said they only dug one hole," Ty Geas said of one article.
Arillotta testified that Freddy Geas shot Westerman twice in the head, but Westerman began to struggle as the brothers dragged him toward the grave they dug. Arillotta said he and co-defendant Emilio Fusco began bludgeoning Westerman with shovels to finish the job. He said Freddy Geas later marveled at the teamwork involved in the hit. Freddy Geas recruited the paid shooter in the Bruno murder, Frankie Roche, whom he referred to as his "crash dummy" prison buddy.
Arillotta also told jurors Ty Geas lamented shortly before Bruno and Westerman's murders that they had hatched several plans to take out rivals with no results.
"No one was getting killed! We're about nothin'. We're weak. No one's dying!" Arillotta recounted of Ty Geas' frustration.
The brothers professed their innocence at their sentencings before U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel.
Statuses: The Geases were originally sentenced to serve their life bids at the same federal prison. However, they were separated and transferred to separate high-security penitentiaries after reportedly assaulting another inmate. Ty Geas is serving life at Victorville U.S. Penitentiary in California. His older brother is behind bars at Hazelton U.S. Penitentiary in West Virginia. They lost initial appeals of their convictions but have filed pending motions to vacate their sentences.
Miscellaneous: The brothers' startling rise to power with Arillotta led one Massachusetts State Police investigator in 2006 to wonder: "How do two Greek kids suddenly rise to the top of the pile?" ... Freddy Geas apparently maintains his sense of humor in prison. In 2013, he sent out hand-drawn Christmas cards featuring one snowman in a bandit's mask holding up another snowman with a hair dryer.
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Carmine Manzi, a.k.a. "The barber"
Age: 66
Hometown: East Longmeadow
Last rank held: rogue loan-shark, bookmaker, community barber, fringe player, not part of "Springfield Crew"
Criminal history: Manzi was one of 15 caught up in a sweeping racketeering, loan-sharking and gambling indictment by federal authorities in 2000 and 2001. The longtime barber at Tony's Famous Barbershop in Springfield's South End was one of a handful arrested days before Christmas in 2000, and among nine indicted the day after the holiday. Six more defendants were added in a subsequent indictment.
Manzi's co-defendants included his son, Giuseppe, "Little Joe" Manzi; the late Anthony Delevo, who was the head of the local rackets at the time; Emilio Fusco, later implicated in the 2003 murders of Adolfo Bruno and Gary Westerman, now serving a 25-year-sentence for racketeering in a separate case; and the late Albert "Baba" Scibelli, who had been entrenched in the Greater Springfield mob for decades.
Investigators said the wide-reaching schemes were all controlled by the New York City-based Genovese crime family, which has had its grip on Springfield for a century.
State police and federal agents recovered nearly $800,000 in cash from Manzi's home and a safe deposit box at a bank during a state police raid in the summer of 2000; he later forfeited the cash in the criminal case. Manzi and his son were charged with gambling and loan-sharking offenses, plus conspiracy to distribute marijuana. The found cash, however, created problems for Carmine Manzi in the underworld, investigators said, as he hadn't handed up any of the required "tribute" to mob higher-ups including Bruno and Fusco.
Debtors told investigators at the time they often went to the popular barbershop to make payments on gambling and loan-sharking debts. Manzi and his son pleaded guilty to the charges in 2003 and both received 3 1/2 year prison sentences. Little Joe Manzi's bail was revoked when he bludgeoned a man with a golf club in a bar parking lot in the spring of that year. The younger Manzi received a separate, three-year sentence for the beating in 2004, which was tacked on top of his federal sentence.
At the elder Manzi's sentencing, many people including a Massachusetts Trial Court employee, another state worker, a school department employee and a Smith College staffer submitted fawning letters about Manzi's sweet nature and flair for hair.
"In a world soiled by selfishness, boasting and small-minded concerns, he stands large as a man of quiet compassion and unrecognized generosity," English professor Robert E. Hosmer wrote.
Status: Carmine Manzi was released from prison in 2007. He still works long hours at the barbershop, six days a week. Law enforcement sources say Manzi still has money on the street while others close to Manzi say he is "retired."
Miscellaneous: Manzi is known to entertain his clients with nonstop, profane and colorful chatter, which has spawned some spoof voice mail messages that have circulated throughout the city. In a recent dust-up with Albert Calvanese and some of his allies in broad daylight at the shop, witnesses say Manzi held his own.
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Amedeo Santaniello
Age: 76
Hometowns: Longmeadow and Florida
Last rank held: Once a wingman for Adolfo Bruno, banished in the 1990s, retreated to Florida, reemerged to front pole position after Bruno's death and in the subsequent vacuum created by death and prosecution; elder statesman for "Springfield Crew," according to law enforcement sources
Criminal history: Dust it off. Santaniello received an 18-month federal prison sentence in 1989 for his role in running a numbers operation in upstate New York for Bruno. Then-special prosecutor for the New England Organized Strike Force (now Springfield Assistant U.S. Attorney) Todd Newhouse described Santaniello's role as to "watch out for Bruno's interests" while six others played various roles in the enterprise.
Bruno was identified as "second-in-command" of the Springfield rackets at the time and was serving a prison stint in a separate case.
Late Judge Frank Freedman dismissed Santaniello's version at sentencing that he was caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"I've never been in trouble before," Amedeo Santaniello told Freedman. "If I can get a break, I'd really appreciate it."
Freedman said he agreed with the government's characterization of Amedeo Santaniello.
"I do see you as the Number 1 man in this conspiracy," the judge said.
Santaniello was released from federal prison in 1990. While imprisoned, he was acquitted of attempting to pay off a woman with $300 who his son, Ralph, allegedly assaulted.
In 1993, government witness John "Sonny" Castagna told a federal jury that Amedeo Santaniello stashed his jewelry and identification cards at his restaurant in the early 1980s while Bruno and others went to fatally shoot Joseph Maruca in a barn in Agawam: a contract hit that failed since Maruca survived. Bruno was acquitted of attempted murder and Amedeo Santaniello was never charged.
Amedeo Santaniello and Bruno had a nuclear falling out in the 1990s and the alliance was shattered. It remained so 'til after Bruno's death.
Status: Has faced no new charges; was a target in the 2005 prosecution of his son and wife, court records show, but was never charged.
Miscellaneous: Scratch golfer, excellent bocce player
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