by Dr031718 » Thu Mar 25, 2021 6:14 pm
Mobsters Are 'Like Vampires' Says Judge As He Gives Probation In First Sentencing In Lovesick Capo Case
Gang Land Exclusive!Krenar SukaHe was looking at up to 21 months in prison at his sentencing this week. But Krenar Suka, the first Colombo associate to face the music in the string of mob cases that began with a lovesick Staten Island capo received probation from a Brooklyn Federal Judge.
But Colombo skipper Joseph Amato, who made the boneheaded decision to plant a GPS device on his girlfriend's car, shouldn't get too hopeful. Judge Brian Cogan indicated that he intends to be a lot tougher at the sentencings for Amato, whom he likened to a ghoul, and the 14 other defendants who have pleaded guilty in the case.
Cogan said that Suka was someone who had simply made "a bad mistake" by getting involved with mobsters who were "like vampires." Judge Cogan gave him three years of probation that includes six months in a halfway house that will enable him to keep his job and continue supporting his family.
Suka, 27, was sentenced on Tuesday, a day after Amato copped a plea deal to close out the case. Amato agreed to spend up to nine years in prison for racketeering charges that include stalking and threatening his girlfriend in 2017 by placing a GPS tracking device on her car during a racketeering enterprise he headed from January of 2014 until September of 2019.
Joseph Amato Sr & Amato JrHours after the 62-year-old skipper bit the bullet, his mob associate son Frank Jr. pleaded guilty to a single loansharking count in a deal calling for a recommended prison term of 21-to-27 months and an agreement to forfeit $10,000 before he is sentenced. His father's deal calls for him to forfeit $60,000 before sentencing. Both Amatos are scheduled to face the music in July.
As part of Amato Sr.'s plea agreement, the feds agreed to drop a total of seven charges of extortion, loansharking and illegal gambling against him that are contained in the 31-count indictment. His advisory sentencing guidelines are 70 to 87 months but Amato will not be able to appeal any prison term of nine years or less.
Amato Jr.'s guilty plea covers a racketeering charge as well as six counts of loansharking, extortion, illegal gambling and marijuana dealing. Like his father, he technically faces a statutory maximum of 20 years, but he will be able to appeal any sentence over 33 months as excessive, according to his plea agreement.
Suka was sentenced for being part of a crazy-mixed-up plot with the elder Amato and four other gangsters to beat up a family loanshark who was involved in a silly senseless feud with a rival Colombo moneylender. The family rival was feeling his oats at the time because he had been inducted into the crime family in December of 2018. The scheme began a month later and ended in March, 2019.
At the outset, Cogan turned down Suka's lawyer's request to lower his sentencing guidelines from 15-to-21 months. But when it was time to sentence Suka, the judge said they were "a little high," noting that Suka had only "tenuous" mob ties to the newly "made guy" Thomas (The Plumber) Scorcia.
Judge Brian CoganCogan said his big quandary was whether to impose "some kind of custody. He's working, and if I put him in for a short time and he loses his job I may have done more harm than good."
In the end, after discussing his options with probation officials, Cogan added six months in a halfway house to begin when the Bureau of Prisons re-institutes its Residential Reentry Center (RRC) program for persons sentenced to non-custodial terms of less than a year. The BOP suspended that aspect of the halfway house program due to the pandemic crisis.
"I have to do something to make it clear to others that people who wear their organized crime badge have to be avoided like they are vampires," Cogan told Suka. "You have to stay away from these people because you get sucked into it, and then there's no telling what can happen," the judge continued. "Life in the RRC will be difficult and unpleasant but you will be able to keep your job and take care of your family. I am not going to impose a fine."
Joseph CorozzoIn seeking probation, lawyer Joseph Corozzo asked Cogan to give Suka "a second chance and avoid incarceration, especially in these hard and difficult times so that Mr. Suka can work and support his family." The attorney stated that his client was not infected with the COVID bug, but he persevered "to find work" even while "he was quarantined trying to take care of his entire family that he lives with," including his father and an uncle who are "disabled."
"I am asking the court to put as much faith in him as I am," said Corozzo, indicating that the retainer he had received from Suka was exhausted. "You saw his finances," the lawyer said. "I do believe he will keep his relationship with my office and make good on his obligations to my office. I'm expecting the court to do the same thing for Mr. Suka as I am doing."
Corozzo won his quest for probation after losing his argument to lower his client's sentencing guidelines three levels to 8-to-14 months on the grounds that Suka, and all five defendants charged with an assault plot against Dominick (The Lion) Ricigliano had abandoned the zany scheme to assault him in March of 2019, after several failed attempts to beat him up.
Thomas ScorciaThe lawyer stated that the aborted assault fiasco was similar to the actions of a jittery team of bank robbers who called off the plan after three days. They would still be guilty of a bank robbery conspiracy, but they would be entitled to a reduction of three levels under the sentencing guideline protocol because they dropped the plan to rob the bank of their own volition — not because of an arrest or other law enforcement actions.
Corozzo noted that Suka, The Plumber and their codefendants had decided against assaulting Ricigliano on three occasions. The first time came in a diner where the gangsters decided it was too crowded. Other members of the zany sextet opted not to attack him a second time when they saw surveillance cameras at his home. They also walked away from the scheme a third time for yet other reasons.
Corozzo said there was no question the conspiracy to assault The Lion ended in March though, reminding Cogan that the government and probation officials had each stated in court filings that there was a "resolution, a reconciliation" of the feud between Ricigliano and Scorcia.
Cogan didn't sound impressed. "The fact that there was a subsequent withdrawal does not mean that the guideline reduction applies when the subsequent wouldn't have happened but for events that were not within the defendant's control," Cogan said.
Dominick Ricigliano"This thing would have happened if the diner was not crowded," the judge said. "This thing would have happened if security cameras were not present. And the fact that after those things, there's a withdrawal from the conspiracy to me does not give the defendant the benefit of the guidelines."
But while Corozzo lost his legal argument, he succeeded in his overall goal, which Cogan made sure to remind Suka before concluding the virtual sentencing proceeding.
"I am persuaded by Mr. Corozzo that you do things for the community; you step up, and you take care of your family," said Cogan. "You're going to have to be in front of me for the next three years and show me you can do what Mr. Corozzo said you can do," the judge continued. "I'm taking a chance on you just like he's taking a chance on you because it's the right thing to do. Please do not disappoint me because I am the person you're going to have to look at if you do."
The Lion Ricigliano, the intended victim of the aborted assault plot that was the focus of Suka's case — and who is a focus of similar charges against Amato, Scorcia and three others — is slated to be sentenced today for his loansharking charge. His sentencing guidelines are 21-to-27 months.
'Reshaped' Caretaker Of John Gotti's Old Little Italy Headquarters Wants To Come Home
Norman DupontHe lost a motion for a compassionate release, but after 26 years behind bars for murder, the 71-year-old former caretaker of John Gotti's Little Italy headquarters has won a reversal of one federal gun rap and is hoping that a longshot second victory can earn him a resentencing and a chance to spend his remaining years at home with his still supportive family.
Norman Dupont swept the floors, served coffee and also ran a loanshark business out of the old Ravenite Social Club on Mulberry Street. He was convicted in 1995 of the February 10, 1990 early morning murder of an East Village car service dispatcher. The killing occurred several hours after Dupont celebrated Gotti's last hurrah acquittal of assault charges in Manhattan Supreme Court with the Dapper Don and his Administration at his Manhattan headquarters.
In 2003, Dupont lost a motion for a new trial based on a claim of lousy lawyering, even though his trial attorney testified that he was involved in a "very messy" divorce while defending Dupont, and did not adequately prepare for trial. Last year though, Dupont caught a break when the feds agreed to drop a gun conviction related to an extortion conviction that added a mandatory five years to his life sentence. But they declined to drop a second one that added 20 years to his prison term.
In a filing with Brooklyn Federal Judge Raymond Dearie in August, attorney Robert Georges wrote that the second gun rap, which is based on Dupont's convictions on counts of murder and "conspiracy to murder," should be thrown out because the murder conspiracy charge no longer qualifies as a precursor for a conviction of the so-called "924C" gun charge.
Norman Dupont & GranddaughterGeorges argues that while there "is no dispute that murder is a crime of violence," the 924C gun conviction should be reversed since "the Court, looking back at a trial that occurred almost 25 years ago, cannot be certain as to what was in the jury's mind when Dupont was convicted" of the second weapons conviction.
The lawyer conceded that trial testimony fingered his client "as the shooter," but argued that much of it was from "cooperating witnesses and co-conspirators." Their testimony is suspect, he said, because they "were admittedly involved in mafia-related activities and took part in the crimes for which Dupont was convicted."
"It cannot be said with legal certainty," Georges argued, "that Dupont was not convicted on (the 924C count) with the murder conspiracy charge serving as the predicate offense."
Prosecutor Anna Karamigios dismissed that claim. She responded that Georges's "argument is meritless because there is no possibility that the jury's verdict on (the 924C charge) rested solely on conspiracy to commit murder in aid of racketeering." As evidence, she cited the "government's theory of the prosecution" and the trial testimony that Dupont shot the murder victim "with a nine millimeter handgun."
Ralph Dupont & SonIn addition, the prosecutor wrote, "the Court declined to provide an instruction that would have allowed the jury to convict Dupont on (the 924C charge) if it rejected (the cooperator witnesses') testimony that Dupont was the shooter."
Judge Dearie's ruling denying Dupont's compassionate release does not bode well for a positive outcome for the defendant.
"I do not consider the matter a close question," the judge wrote. "The brutal and senseless killing in this case warrants the punishment imposed, and neither Mr. Dupont's medical situation nor his claims of rehabilitation begin to invite the Court's favorable consideration."
But hope springs eternal. Seven months later, Dearie is still pondering Dupont's motion for an unusual second habeas corpus petition to vacate his conviction, one that was authorized by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. And in any event, the reversal of the extortion-related gun rap is likely to earn Dupont a resentencing, at which time he will be able to further plead his case.
In a letter to Gang Land, Dupont stated he has "reshaped" his life and would be a "productive, law-abiding member of the community" if he returns home. No matter what, he wrote: "My wife and family have stood by me for the past 26 years and I have been extremely blessed with an enormous amount of love and support."
Suspect In Racketeering Probe Looks To Resolve His Gun Charges
Mielta MiljanicGambino associate Mileta (Michael Michael) Miljanic, the reputed head of a Serbian-American gang implicated in labor racketeering activity in the construction industry with powerful capo Louis Filippelli, is negotiating a plea deal to federal gun charges stemming from racketeering investigations by federal prosecutors in Manhattan and Brooklyn, Gang Land has learned.
Miljanic's Ridgewood, Queens apartment was searched on February 23 along with more than a dozen other locations as part of probes by both U.S. Attorneys' Offices of alleged bribery, bid rigging, and extortion. He remains detained as a danger to the community while his lawyers and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn work out the details of the plea, according to court filings.
Sources say a task force of detectives and FBI agents visited Michael Michael's home, as well as construction companies and related businesses in New York, New Jersey, and the suburbs east and north of the city in court-authorized raids seeking out books and records. They also seized cell phones and other electronic devices linked to both probes.
Louis FilippelliThe 61-year old Miljanic is a former cohort of Bosko Radonjich, the late Serbian freedom fighter and longtime Gambino associate who fixed Gotti's 1986-87 racketeering trial by bribing a juror. Miljanic was arrested after detectives and agents found a semi-automatic handgun "in the top drawer of his nightstand next to (his) bed," according to an arrest complaint.
Lawyer Lawrence DiGiansante and assistant U.S. attorney Mathew Miller say the "ongoing plea negotiations" are "likely to result in a disposition of the case," according to a court filing with U.S. Magistrate Judge Lois Bloom, who postponed a March status conference to accommodate the plea negotiations.
Sources familiar with the case say the sentencing guidelines for the weapons possession charge against Miljanic, which carry a maximum sentence of 10 years, should shake out with a recommended prison term "between two and three years."
Frank CamusoMiljanic, the alleged leader of a violent gang known as Grupo Amerika, was publicly linked to racketeering activity with Filippelli in tape-recorded statements in a Manhattan Federal Court filing in a pending labor racketeering case against James Cahill, a former plumbers union official and head of the NY State Building and Construction Trades Council.
In the filing, by prosecutors Jason Swergold, Danielle Sassoon, Jun Xiang, and Laura de Oliveira, Cahill was heard stating that he got Filippelli to intervene after a death threat was made against one of Cahill's nephews by Miljanic's gang. The two gangsters hit it off after that and became fast friends, Cahill said.
"So what does Louis do?" Cahill is quoted as telling a wired-up confidential informer on March 13 of last year. "He goes partners with Michael Michael in the construction business, and they're happy as pigs in shit."
At his arraignment, Miljanic sought to post four properties owned by friends and family members as sureties for his release on bail. But the gangster, who previously served 20 months in prison for wire fraud and is barred from possessing a firearm, was detained without bail as a danger to the community.
As Gang Land reported earlier this month, Staten Island based Gambino capo Frank Camuso, as well as soldiers Diego (Danny) Tantillo and Angelo (FiFi) Gradilone, who are both former employees of Waldorf Demolition Company of Englewood, NJ, are also targets of racketeering probes by the feds.
Mobsters Are 'Like Vampires' Says Judge As He Gives Probation In First Sentencing In Lovesick Capo Case
Gang Land Exclusive!Krenar SukaHe was looking at up to 21 months in prison at his sentencing this week. But Krenar Suka, the first Colombo associate to face the music in the string of mob cases that began with a lovesick Staten Island capo received probation from a Brooklyn Federal Judge.
But Colombo skipper Joseph Amato, who made the boneheaded decision to plant a GPS device on his girlfriend's car, shouldn't get too hopeful. Judge Brian Cogan indicated that he intends to be a lot tougher at the sentencings for Amato, whom he likened to a ghoul, and the 14 other defendants who have pleaded guilty in the case.
Cogan said that Suka was someone who had simply made "a bad mistake" by getting involved with mobsters who were "like vampires." Judge Cogan gave him three years of probation that includes six months in a halfway house that will enable him to keep his job and continue supporting his family.
Suka, 27, was sentenced on Tuesday, a day after Amato copped a plea deal to close out the case. Amato agreed to spend up to nine years in prison for racketeering charges that include stalking and threatening his girlfriend in 2017 by placing a GPS tracking device on her car during a racketeering enterprise he headed from January of 2014 until September of 2019.
Joseph Amato Sr & Amato JrHours after the 62-year-old skipper bit the bullet, his mob associate son Frank Jr. pleaded guilty to a single loansharking count in a deal calling for a recommended prison term of 21-to-27 months and an agreement to forfeit $10,000 before he is sentenced. His father's deal calls for him to forfeit $60,000 before sentencing. Both Amatos are scheduled to face the music in July.
As part of Amato Sr.'s plea agreement, the feds agreed to drop a total of seven charges of extortion, loansharking and illegal gambling against him that are contained in the 31-count indictment. His advisory sentencing guidelines are 70 to 87 months but Amato will not be able to appeal any prison term of nine years or less.
Amato Jr.'s guilty plea covers a racketeering charge as well as six counts of loansharking, extortion, illegal gambling and marijuana dealing. Like his father, he technically faces a statutory maximum of 20 years, but he will be able to appeal any sentence over 33 months as excessive, according to his plea agreement.
Suka was sentenced for being part of a crazy-mixed-up plot with the elder Amato and four other gangsters to beat up a family loanshark who was involved in a silly senseless feud with a rival Colombo moneylender. The family rival was feeling his oats at the time because he had been inducted into the crime family in December of 2018. The scheme began a month later and ended in March, 2019.
At the outset, Cogan turned down Suka's lawyer's request to lower his sentencing guidelines from 15-to-21 months. But when it was time to sentence Suka, the judge said they were "a little high," noting that Suka had only "tenuous" mob ties to the newly "made guy" Thomas (The Plumber) Scorcia.
Judge Brian CoganCogan said his big quandary was whether to impose "some kind of custody. He's working, and if I put him in for a short time and he loses his job I may have done more harm than good."
In the end, after discussing his options with probation officials, Cogan added six months in a halfway house to begin when the Bureau of Prisons re-institutes its Residential Reentry Center (RRC) program for persons sentenced to non-custodial terms of less than a year. The BOP suspended that aspect of the halfway house program due to the pandemic crisis.
"I have to do something to make it clear to others that people who wear their organized crime badge have to be avoided like they are vampires," Cogan told Suka. "You have to stay away from these people because you get sucked into it, and then there's no telling what can happen," the judge continued. "Life in the RRC will be difficult and unpleasant but you will be able to keep your job and take care of your family. I am not going to impose a fine."
Joseph CorozzoIn seeking probation, lawyer Joseph Corozzo asked Cogan to give Suka "a second chance and avoid incarceration, especially in these hard and difficult times so that Mr. Suka can work and support his family." The attorney stated that his client was not infected with the COVID bug, but he persevered "to find work" even while "he was quarantined trying to take care of his entire family that he lives with," including his father and an uncle who are "disabled."
"I am asking the court to put as much faith in him as I am," said Corozzo, indicating that the retainer he had received from Suka was exhausted. "You saw his finances," the lawyer said. "I do believe he will keep his relationship with my office and make good on his obligations to my office. I'm expecting the court to do the same thing for Mr. Suka as I am doing."
Corozzo won his quest for probation after losing his argument to lower his client's sentencing guidelines three levels to 8-to-14 months on the grounds that Suka, and all five defendants charged with an assault plot against Dominick (The Lion) Ricigliano had abandoned the zany scheme to assault him in March of 2019, after several failed attempts to beat him up.
Thomas ScorciaThe lawyer stated that the aborted assault fiasco was similar to the actions of a jittery team of bank robbers who called off the plan after three days. They would still be guilty of a bank robbery conspiracy, but they would be entitled to a reduction of three levels under the sentencing guideline protocol because they dropped the plan to rob the bank of their own volition — not because of an arrest or other law enforcement actions.
Corozzo noted that Suka, The Plumber and their codefendants had decided against assaulting Ricigliano on three occasions. The first time came in a diner where the gangsters decided it was too crowded. Other members of the zany sextet opted not to attack him a second time when they saw surveillance cameras at his home. They also walked away from the scheme a third time for yet other reasons.
Corozzo said there was no question the conspiracy to assault The Lion ended in March though, reminding Cogan that the government and probation officials had each stated in court filings that there was a "resolution, a reconciliation" of the feud between Ricigliano and Scorcia.
Cogan didn't sound impressed. "The fact that there was a subsequent withdrawal does not mean that the guideline reduction applies when the subsequent wouldn't have happened but for events that were not within the defendant's control," Cogan said.
Dominick Ricigliano"This thing would have happened if the diner was not crowded," the judge said. "This thing would have happened if security cameras were not present. And the fact that after those things, there's a withdrawal from the conspiracy to me does not give the defendant the benefit of the guidelines."
But while Corozzo lost his legal argument, he succeeded in his overall goal, which Cogan made sure to remind Suka before concluding the virtual sentencing proceeding.
"I am persuaded by Mr. Corozzo that you do things for the community; you step up, and you take care of your family," said Cogan. "You're going to have to be in front of me for the next three years and show me you can do what Mr. Corozzo said you can do," the judge continued. "I'm taking a chance on you just like he's taking a chance on you because it's the right thing to do. Please do not disappoint me because I am the person you're going to have to look at if you do."
The Lion Ricigliano, the intended victim of the aborted assault plot that was the focus of Suka's case — and who is a focus of similar charges against Amato, Scorcia and three others — is slated to be sentenced today for his loansharking charge. His sentencing guidelines are 21-to-27 months.
'Reshaped' Caretaker Of John Gotti's Old Little Italy Headquarters Wants To Come Home
Norman DupontHe lost a motion for a compassionate release, but after 26 years behind bars for murder, the 71-year-old former caretaker of John Gotti's Little Italy headquarters has won a reversal of one federal gun rap and is hoping that a longshot second victory can earn him a resentencing and a chance to spend his remaining years at home with his still supportive family.
Norman Dupont swept the floors, served coffee and also ran a loanshark business out of the old Ravenite Social Club on Mulberry Street. He was convicted in 1995 of the February 10, 1990 early morning murder of an East Village car service dispatcher. The killing occurred several hours after Dupont celebrated Gotti's last hurrah acquittal of assault charges in Manhattan Supreme Court with the Dapper Don and his Administration at his Manhattan headquarters.
In 2003, Dupont lost a motion for a new trial based on a claim of lousy lawyering, even though his trial attorney testified that he was involved in a "very messy" divorce while defending Dupont, and did not adequately prepare for trial. Last year though, Dupont caught a break when the feds agreed to drop a gun conviction related to an extortion conviction that added a mandatory five years to his life sentence. But they declined to drop a second one that added 20 years to his prison term.
In a filing with Brooklyn Federal Judge Raymond Dearie in August, attorney Robert Georges wrote that the second gun rap, which is based on Dupont's convictions on counts of murder and "conspiracy to murder," should be thrown out because the murder conspiracy charge no longer qualifies as a precursor for a conviction of the so-called "924C" gun charge.
Norman Dupont & GranddaughterGeorges argues that while there "is no dispute that murder is a crime of violence," the 924C gun conviction should be reversed since "the Court, looking back at a trial that occurred almost 25 years ago, cannot be certain as to what was in the jury's mind when Dupont was convicted" of the second weapons conviction.
The lawyer conceded that trial testimony fingered his client "as the shooter," but argued that much of it was from "cooperating witnesses and co-conspirators." Their testimony is suspect, he said, because they "were admittedly involved in mafia-related activities and took part in the crimes for which Dupont was convicted."
"It cannot be said with legal certainty," Georges argued, "that Dupont was not convicted on (the 924C count) with the murder conspiracy charge serving as the predicate offense."
Prosecutor Anna Karamigios dismissed that claim. She responded that Georges's "argument is meritless because there is no possibility that the jury's verdict on (the 924C charge) rested solely on conspiracy to commit murder in aid of racketeering." As evidence, she cited the "government's theory of the prosecution" and the trial testimony that Dupont shot the murder victim "with a nine millimeter handgun."
Ralph Dupont & SonIn addition, the prosecutor wrote, "the Court declined to provide an instruction that would have allowed the jury to convict Dupont on (the 924C charge) if it rejected (the cooperator witnesses') testimony that Dupont was the shooter."
Judge Dearie's ruling denying Dupont's compassionate release does not bode well for a positive outcome for the defendant.
"I do not consider the matter a close question," the judge wrote. "The brutal and senseless killing in this case warrants the punishment imposed, and neither Mr. Dupont's medical situation nor his claims of rehabilitation begin to invite the Court's favorable consideration."
But hope springs eternal. Seven months later, Dearie is still pondering Dupont's motion for an unusual second habeas corpus petition to vacate his conviction, one that was authorized by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. And in any event, the reversal of the extortion-related gun rap is likely to earn Dupont a resentencing, at which time he will be able to further plead his case.
In a letter to Gang Land, Dupont stated he has "reshaped" his life and would be a "productive, law-abiding member of the community" if he returns home. No matter what, he wrote: "My wife and family have stood by me for the past 26 years and I have been extremely blessed with an enormous amount of love and support."
Suspect In Racketeering Probe Looks To Resolve His Gun Charges
Mielta MiljanicGambino associate Mileta (Michael Michael) Miljanic, the reputed head of a Serbian-American gang implicated in labor racketeering activity in the construction industry with powerful capo Louis Filippelli, is negotiating a plea deal to federal gun charges stemming from racketeering investigations by federal prosecutors in Manhattan and Brooklyn, Gang Land has learned.
Miljanic's Ridgewood, Queens apartment was searched on February 23 along with more than a dozen other locations as part of probes by both U.S. Attorneys' Offices of alleged bribery, bid rigging, and extortion. He remains detained as a danger to the community while his lawyers and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn work out the details of the plea, according to court filings.
Sources say a task force of detectives and FBI agents visited Michael Michael's home, as well as construction companies and related businesses in New York, New Jersey, and the suburbs east and north of the city in court-authorized raids seeking out books and records. They also seized cell phones and other electronic devices linked to both probes.
Louis FilippelliThe 61-year old Miljanic is a former cohort of Bosko Radonjich, the late Serbian freedom fighter and longtime Gambino associate who fixed Gotti's 1986-87 racketeering trial by bribing a juror. Miljanic was arrested after detectives and agents found a semi-automatic handgun "in the top drawer of his nightstand next to (his) bed," according to an arrest complaint.
Lawyer Lawrence DiGiansante and assistant U.S. attorney Mathew Miller say the "ongoing plea negotiations" are "likely to result in a disposition of the case," according to a court filing with U.S. Magistrate Judge Lois Bloom, who postponed a March status conference to accommodate the plea negotiations.
Sources familiar with the case say the sentencing guidelines for the weapons possession charge against Miljanic, which carry a maximum sentence of 10 years, should shake out with a recommended prison term "between two and three years."
Frank CamusoMiljanic, the alleged leader of a violent gang known as Grupo Amerika, was publicly linked to racketeering activity with Filippelli in tape-recorded statements in a Manhattan Federal Court filing in a pending labor racketeering case against James Cahill, a former plumbers union official and head of the NY State Building and Construction Trades Council.
In the filing, by prosecutors Jason Swergold, Danielle Sassoon, Jun Xiang, and Laura de Oliveira, Cahill was heard stating that he got Filippelli to intervene after a death threat was made against one of Cahill's nephews by Miljanic's gang. The two gangsters hit it off after that and became fast friends, Cahill said.
"So what does Louis do?" Cahill is quoted as telling a wired-up confidential informer on March 13 of last year. "He goes partners with Michael Michael in the construction business, and they're happy as pigs in shit."
At his arraignment, Miljanic sought to post four properties owned by friends and family members as sureties for his release on bail. But the gangster, who previously served 20 months in prison for wire fraud and is barred from possessing a firearm, was detained without bail as a danger to the community.
As Gang Land reported earlier this month, Staten Island based Gambino capo Frank Camuso, as well as soldiers Diego (Danny) Tantillo and Angelo (FiFi) Gradilone, who are both former employees of Waldorf Demolition Company of Englewood, NJ, are also targets of racketeering probes by the feds.