by Dellacroce » Thu Nov 19, 2015 6:56 am
Jury Had Plenty Of Evidence To Convict Asaro Of Storied Lufthansa Heist
No matter what you may have heard or read elsewhere, jurors had plenty of evidence — much more than they needed — to convict Bonanno capo Vincent Asaro of the $6 million Lufthansa Airlines robbery. The stunning acquittal shocked everyone, including Asaro, who morphed from the grouchy curmudgeon he was both in court and on the FBI's tapes, into a quick-witted, engaging funnyman when he walked out of court last week, tasting free fresh air for the first time in 22 months.
Like the losing prosecution team, the six men and six women jurors all slinked away from Brooklyn Federal Court without talking to news reporters, so we have no real insight about their reasoning. But all 12 had to have been either distracted or day dreaming at the trial in order to acquit Asaro in less than two days of deliberations, especially given the unchallenged testimony offered by two old Queens denizens a week or so after the key government witness testified.
This is not to say that the prosecution team, headed by Nicole Argentieri, the deputy chief of the U.S. Attorney's organized crime unit, shouldn't be blamed for the truly spectacular loss. She chose the jury, was the case's key strategist, and gave the all-important rebuttal summation. Argentieri, and U.S Attorney Robert Capers, who showed up to hear the verdict, would surely have hung around to talk about it if it had gone their way.
Unlike John Gotti, whose acquittal after 11 days of deliberations in the same courthouse 28 years earlier was tainted, Asaro beat the case fair and square. He played the I'm just a tired old man role well and got sympathy simply for being on trial at 80 years old.
And he got a big break when the government opted to use turncoat underboss Salvatore Vitale instead of boss Joseph Massino to finger Asaro for passing along jewels from the heist. Vitale was forced to reveal that he had gotten a previously undisclosed $250,000 "reward" for being a snitch, and his info was not as insightful as Massino's, who was Asaro's mob superior at the time.
Attorneys Elizabeth Macedonio and Diane Ferrone did a great job painting the government's mob turncoats as liars for hire by the feds, and of ridiculing 33 current and retired law enforcers whom prosecutors used to introduce photos of Asaro into evidence, claiming they were merely picture takers, not crime stoppers. During Macedonio's energized closing arguments, jurors smiled as Ferrone flashed a graphic with the names of all 33 investigators with two pairs of binoculars superimposed over them on a big screen.
Even so, there was something wrong with that jury. Not a single juror held out for conviction for even two full days. The We have reached a verdict note was sent to Judge Allyne Ross at 2:45 PM Thursday, after about 11 hours of talks.
The undisputed words of witnesses John Tagliaffero and Ronald Ceschini, whose testimony is being reported for the first time today, back up the testimony by key witness Gaspar (Gary) Valenti. That should have been enough to convince at least one juror to hold out for conviction for at least three days — if not for the 11 days that it took Gotti's 1987 trial jurors to fold under intense pressure to acquit from a juror who had gotten a $60,000 bribe.
Neither witness is a criminal, or a so-called "rat," or even a suspected stool pigeon. Each was subpoenaed, and neither man was thrilled to be in court. Each testified very briefly, and neither was asked a single question by the defense. Their words give credence to Valenti's testimony that after the heist he and cousin Vinny Asaro gave sealed packages of up to $150,000 of Lufthansa loot to several non-gangster friends "for anywhere from months to a year" for safe-keeping.
John Tagliaferro testified that he grew up in East New York next door to an Asaro cousin and became friendly with Asaro over the years. Now 81, he worked "as a milk man" until 1977 when he "got sick" and had to stop working, he said. He never explained his illness, but during a sidebar, prosecutor Argentieri said he had suffered three heart attacks.
On October 27, he testified that sometime between the day he stopped working on July 13, 1977 and when his mom died in 1980, Asaro gave him a "little black attache case" and asked him to hold it. "I never asked any questions," he said, noting that he "hid it well."
Asked where, he said: "I hid it in a little cubbyhole where we had a ladder going up to the roof, because I was concerned. I didn't know what it was. I wanted to just make sure I took care of it. And I — that's a place where, if you came home it was like snowing out, you took your rubbers off and you threw it in that. Everything went in that area. So, I cleaned out a little stuff and put the case there, and threw rubbers and everything else on that case, and that's where I kept it."
At some point, he testified, Gary Valenti visited and "asked me to get the case. I got it. He opened it and took some money out, turning to me, says, 'Do you need anything?' I said, 'I could use $100.' He gave me $100. Locked it up. He says, 'Here, put it away.' I put it away, and that was that."
Not long after that, Asaro came to his home and retrieved the case, he testified.
The second witness, Ronald Ceschini testified on October 30. He said he became friends with Asaro in the mid-1970s after he and his brother Joseph opened up an auto-body shop in Ozone Park and Asaro stopped by to wish them luck. Asaro later introduced his cousin Gary to him.
At some point in the late 1970s (Cechini recalled it was after he and his brother's car business had closed in the summer of 1978) Gary Valenti rang his bell and "asked me if I would do him a favor and hold a package for him, you know, a small, nondescript package," he testified.
At the time, he was beholden to Asaro, he told co-prosecutor Lindsay Gerdes, because he had enlisted the wiseguy's help after "I started hearing through the grapevine" that a local denizen he had bested in a barroom brawl "was looking to get even," and several bartenders started telling him to "watch out."
Ceschini testified that while he didn't really know whether Vinny had actually spoken up for him, he "felt a little obligated" to Vinny because he felt "much more calm" after Vinny told him "not to worry about it" any more. "I felt that I should do the favor for Gary," he said.
"It looked like a brown paper bag, something you would carry your lunch in. It was taped up with some duct tape," he testified.
He couldn't see what was in the bag but "it was light" and "felt like paper," he testified. "I thought it might have been money."
He "stashed it in his garage," but not too long after that, his mother found it. He called Gary and told him to please take his package back because his mom had suspected that it might have contained drugs belonging to his younger brother, and he didn't want a major crisis at his home.
"Within a short period of time," he testified, "he came and picked it up."
It would be great to know what the jury — what any juror — thought about that testimony, especially since not a word of it was contested by Asaro's defense team. Gang Land wonders whether any of the 12 jurors heard it, recalled it, or mentioned it once during their deliberations. Macedonio told them to ignore them. Argentieri told them not to, but obviously not strongly enough to convince even one juror of their importance.
Gang Land also wonders what Argentieri, U.S. Attorney Capers, and chief assistant Kelly Currie, who was also present in court for the verdict, think about the prosecution, and the verdict. They ducked the media last week, and this week, their official spokesperson, Nellin McIntosh, told Gang Land they still have no comment.
It's almost as if the office — then-headed by current Attorney General Loretta Lynch — which announced the indictment of Asaro in a four page news release back on January 23, 2014, feels that if its current officials ignore the verdict, and don't talk about it, it will go away.
That's too bad, and not the way stand-up prosecutors work.
Back in 1987, after the shocking acquittal of John Gotti, then-U.S. Attorney Andrew Maloney, who like Capers, had not been in office when the original indictment was filed, and the losing prosecutors, Diane Giacalone and John Gleeson, stood tall and faced the media.
Lead prosecutor Giacalone said she could not explain why the jury went against her. "That's not our job," she said. "We presented the evidence the best we could. They did their job, and that's the end of it. My personal feeling is less important than the fact the case was decided by a jury."
Maloney told reporters that both prosecutors had "demonstrated exceptional courage and dedication" during the six-month long trial, and he singled out Giacalone, who had spent years investigating and trying the case, as "a very able, courageous and tenacious" prosecutor.
Asked why jurors had acquitted Gotti and six co-defendants, Maloney, who had gotten confidential FBI reports during the trial that the jury was rigged, bit his tongue and said simply: "They perceived there was something wrong with our evidence."
'Real Soprano' Turncoat Gets 'Time Served' Reward
Anthony Rotondo, a college educated wiseguy from Brooklyn who rose in the ranks of the so-called "Real Sopranos" crime family and enjoyed watching James Gandolfini depict the TV version on HBO, was quietly rewarded last week for spilling his guts about real life murder and mayhem that he and his mob cohorts engaged in over the years.
Rotondo, who testified at seven trials of wiseguys from his own New Jersey-based DeCavalcante family and at trials of powerful mobsters with the Genovese, Gambino and Colombo clans, was sentenced to "time served" — which translates to about four years behind bars for his life of crime.
With current and former FBI agents and federal prosecutors there to show support, the 58-year-old turncoat capo was sentenced behind the locked courtroom doors of Manhattan Federal Judge Jed Rakoff and then whisked away to a secret location where he's been living for the last 11 years or so. The records of his sentencing are sealed, and neither assistant U.S. attorney Miriam Rocah nor defense attorney Stephen Frankel would discuss it.
Rotondo, who followed his mobster father into the DeCavalcante crime family after earning a degree in business administration from St. Francis College in Brooklyn, flipped in late 2001 following a hugely successful FBI probe that snared dozens of New Jersey-based wiseguys in tape recorded talks with a mob turncoat who was wired up in the late 1990s.
In 1999, Rotondo and several others were picked up raving about the new-found respect they'd earned from their New York peers, and for the way they believed they were being portrayed by fictional boss Tony Soprano and his crew during the first season of the award-winning HBO show.
They were on their way to a mob sitdown when Rotondo, who had taken part in two gangland-style slayings, and soldier Joseph (Tin Ear) Sclafani, agreed that in the 1990s the notorious Five Families — which used to refer to DeCavalcante soldiers as "farmers" — had come to realize that they were a legitimate crime family.
"They know (that) now," said Sclafani, who was quickly echoed by Rotondo's during the tape-recorded car ride they took on March 3, 1999.
"You're in there, they mentioned your name in there," continued Rotondo, as he and the carload of mobsters compared the television mobsters with DeCavalcante wiseguys and talked about familiar landmarks from their home turf they had seen on the tube before Rotondo capped off the discussion with: "What characters. Great Acting."
Rotondo, a capo with close ties to family boss John Riggi back then, took part in the murder of family underboss John D'Amato in 1991. He was also part of the hit team that killed Staten Island Advance publisher Fred Weiss as a favor to John Gotti in 1989 when he feared that Weiss, who had been implicated in a waste hauling scam, would cooperate with the feds.
He did not testify against the Dapper Don, but he did take the stand against Peter Gotti, the Don's older brother and successor boss, and he testified at one of John A. (Junior) Gotti's racketeering trials. He also took the stand against acting Colombo boss Alphonse (Allie) Persico and Genovese wiseguy Federico (Fritzi) Giovanelli.
From the witness stand, Rotondo credited family wiseguy/undertaker Carlo Corsentino with devising a "double decker coffin" that was used to bury murder victims "below the regular customer" during the 1920s and 1930s "when there were a lot of Mafia murders."
At the 2004 trial of DeCavalcante soldier Giralomo (Jimmy) Palermo, Rotondo testified that during the 1990s, Corsentino and another now deceased mobster, Jake Colletti, became family celebrities when they received a Presidential citation.
"They lived to be a hundred," said Rotondo. "And everyone in the family thought it was kind of ironic that the two oldest members of the American Mafia had about 50 bodies between them (and) lived to receive congratulatory letters from President Clinton."
Mob Capo Arrested For Staten Island Sushi Lounge Assault
Bonanno capo Peter Lovaglio was arrested last week and charged with blinding the owner of an upscale Staten Island sushi lounge in one of his eyes by smashing him in the face with a cocktail glass. But the wiseguy's lawyer says his client was only defending himself from an assault by the inebriated restaurant owner — a former NYPD detective.
Lovaglio was at the Takayama Sushi Lounge in Tottenville at 2:40 AM on November 1 when the brouhaha erupted. He was accused of using a beverage glass as a deadly weapon causing "permanent damage" that included "loss of sight" for owner Fred Forte, according to the arrest complaint by Detective Michael Levay. Lovaglio was released from federal prison in March.
At his arraignment, the prosecutor noted his numerous past arrests and stated that Forte might lose the sight of an eye permanently thanks to the vicious assault, and asked Staten Island Criminal Court Judge Alan Meyer to set bail at $150,000. The judge set bail at $25,000 which Lovaglio quickly posted and was released, according to court records.
For allegedly causing "serious physical injury" to the victim, Lovaglio, 54, was charged with first degree assault, which carries a maximum prison term of 15 years. Forte underwent eye surgery and was treated for cuts on his face following the fisticuffs, according to Levay's complaint.
"My client was not the instigator," attorney Patrick Parrotta told Gang Land. "He was defending himself from the complainant," said Parrotta, stating that Forte was part of a large group of 10-to-12 revelers "that was drinking heavily and became rowdy" and were "responsible for starting the altercation."
"We have several eye-witnesses who say that they were intoxicated," said Parrotta. "I haven't seen the hospital medical records yet but am interested in getting them to confirm that," the attorney said, referring to Forte's treatment for the injuries he suffered.
Lovaglio, who is due back in court next month, has had to deal with his own problems with John Barleycorn.
In June of 2013, while he was awaiting sentencing and under federal home confinement, Lovaglio was arrested for drunk driving when he crashed into a parked car two blocks from his home after getting permission to leave his home to do some grocery shopping. Lovaglio, who was still seated in his car when cops arrived, blew twice the legal level (.18) on the police administered breathalyzer test.
The DWI charges were ultimately dismissed. But they didn't sit too well with Brooklyn Federal Judge Dora Irizarry. Later that month, she gave him the maximum two years behind bars he faced for violating post prison supervised release charges he had been hit with for meeting up with top Bonanno wiseguys, including then acting boss Thomas (Tommy D) DiFiore and capo Gerald Chilli in late 2102.
Jury Had Plenty Of Evidence To Convict Asaro Of Storied Lufthansa Heist
No matter what you may have heard or read elsewhere, jurors had plenty of evidence — much more than they needed — to convict Bonanno capo Vincent Asaro of the $6 million Lufthansa Airlines robbery. The stunning acquittal shocked everyone, including Asaro, who morphed from the grouchy curmudgeon he was both in court and on the FBI's tapes, into a quick-witted, engaging funnyman when he walked out of court last week, tasting free fresh air for the first time in 22 months.
Like the losing prosecution team, the six men and six women jurors all slinked away from Brooklyn Federal Court without talking to news reporters, so we have no real insight about their reasoning. But all 12 had to have been either distracted or day dreaming at the trial in order to acquit Asaro in less than two days of deliberations, especially given the unchallenged testimony offered by two old Queens denizens a week or so after the key government witness testified.
This is not to say that the prosecution team, headed by Nicole Argentieri, the deputy chief of the U.S. Attorney's organized crime unit, shouldn't be blamed for the truly spectacular loss. She chose the jury, was the case's key strategist, and gave the all-important rebuttal summation. Argentieri, and U.S Attorney Robert Capers, who showed up to hear the verdict, would surely have hung around to talk about it if it had gone their way.
Unlike John Gotti, whose acquittal after 11 days of deliberations in the same courthouse 28 years earlier was tainted, Asaro beat the case fair and square. He played the I'm just a tired old man role well and got sympathy simply for being on trial at 80 years old.
And he got a big break when the government opted to use turncoat underboss Salvatore Vitale instead of boss Joseph Massino to finger Asaro for passing along jewels from the heist. Vitale was forced to reveal that he had gotten a previously undisclosed $250,000 "reward" for being a snitch, and his info was not as insightful as Massino's, who was Asaro's mob superior at the time.
Attorneys Elizabeth Macedonio and Diane Ferrone did a great job painting the government's mob turncoats as liars for hire by the feds, and of ridiculing 33 current and retired law enforcers whom prosecutors used to introduce photos of Asaro into evidence, claiming they were merely picture takers, not crime stoppers. During Macedonio's energized closing arguments, jurors smiled as Ferrone flashed a graphic with the names of all 33 investigators with two pairs of binoculars superimposed over them on a big screen.
Even so, there was something wrong with that jury. Not a single juror held out for conviction for even two full days. The We have reached a verdict note was sent to Judge Allyne Ross at 2:45 PM Thursday, after about 11 hours of talks.
The undisputed words of witnesses John Tagliaffero and Ronald Ceschini, whose testimony is being reported for the first time today, back up the testimony by key witness Gaspar (Gary) Valenti. That should have been enough to convince at least one juror to hold out for conviction for at least three days — if not for the 11 days that it took Gotti's 1987 trial jurors to fold under intense pressure to acquit from a juror who had gotten a $60,000 bribe.
Neither witness is a criminal, or a so-called "rat," or even a suspected stool pigeon. Each was subpoenaed, and neither man was thrilled to be in court. Each testified very briefly, and neither was asked a single question by the defense. Their words give credence to Valenti's testimony that after the heist he and cousin Vinny Asaro gave sealed packages of up to $150,000 of Lufthansa loot to several non-gangster friends "for anywhere from months to a year" for safe-keeping.
John Tagliaferro testified that he grew up in East New York next door to an Asaro cousin and became friendly with Asaro over the years. Now 81, he worked "as a milk man" until 1977 when he "got sick" and had to stop working, he said. He never explained his illness, but during a sidebar, prosecutor Argentieri said he had suffered three heart attacks.
On October 27, he testified that sometime between the day he stopped working on July 13, 1977 and when his mom died in 1980, Asaro gave him a "little black attache case" and asked him to hold it. "I never asked any questions," he said, noting that he "hid it well."
Asked where, he said: "I hid it in a little cubbyhole where we had a ladder going up to the roof, because I was concerned. I didn't know what it was. I wanted to just make sure I took care of it. And I — that's a place where, if you came home it was like snowing out, you took your rubbers off and you threw it in that. Everything went in that area. So, I cleaned out a little stuff and put the case there, and threw rubbers and everything else on that case, and that's where I kept it."
At some point, he testified, Gary Valenti visited and "asked me to get the case. I got it. He opened it and took some money out, turning to me, says, 'Do you need anything?' I said, 'I could use $100.' He gave me $100. Locked it up. He says, 'Here, put it away.' I put it away, and that was that."
Not long after that, Asaro came to his home and retrieved the case, he testified.
The second witness, Ronald Ceschini testified on October 30. He said he became friends with Asaro in the mid-1970s after he and his brother Joseph opened up an auto-body shop in Ozone Park and Asaro stopped by to wish them luck. Asaro later introduced his cousin Gary to him.
At some point in the late 1970s (Cechini recalled it was after he and his brother's car business had closed in the summer of 1978) Gary Valenti rang his bell and "asked me if I would do him a favor and hold a package for him, you know, a small, nondescript package," he testified.
At the time, he was beholden to Asaro, he told co-prosecutor Lindsay Gerdes, because he had enlisted the wiseguy's help after "I started hearing through the grapevine" that a local denizen he had bested in a barroom brawl "was looking to get even," and several bartenders started telling him to "watch out."
Ceschini testified that while he didn't really know whether Vinny had actually spoken up for him, he "felt a little obligated" to Vinny because he felt "much more calm" after Vinny told him "not to worry about it" any more. "I felt that I should do the favor for Gary," he said.
"It looked like a brown paper bag, something you would carry your lunch in. It was taped up with some duct tape," he testified.
He couldn't see what was in the bag but "it was light" and "felt like paper," he testified. "I thought it might have been money."
He "stashed it in his garage," but not too long after that, his mother found it. He called Gary and told him to please take his package back because his mom had suspected that it might have contained drugs belonging to his younger brother, and he didn't want a major crisis at his home.
"Within a short period of time," he testified, "he came and picked it up."
It would be great to know what the jury — what any juror — thought about that testimony, especially since not a word of it was contested by Asaro's defense team. Gang Land wonders whether any of the 12 jurors heard it, recalled it, or mentioned it once during their deliberations. Macedonio told them to ignore them. Argentieri told them not to, but obviously not strongly enough to convince even one juror of their importance.
Gang Land also wonders what Argentieri, U.S. Attorney Capers, and chief assistant Kelly Currie, who was also present in court for the verdict, think about the prosecution, and the verdict. They ducked the media last week, and this week, their official spokesperson, Nellin McIntosh, told Gang Land they still have no comment.
It's almost as if the office — then-headed by current Attorney General Loretta Lynch — which announced the indictment of Asaro in a four page news release back on January 23, 2014, feels that if its current officials ignore the verdict, and don't talk about it, it will go away.
That's too bad, and not the way stand-up prosecutors work.
Back in 1987, after the shocking acquittal of John Gotti, then-U.S. Attorney Andrew Maloney, who like Capers, had not been in office when the original indictment was filed, and the losing prosecutors, Diane Giacalone and John Gleeson, stood tall and faced the media.
Lead prosecutor Giacalone said she could not explain why the jury went against her. "That's not our job," she said. "We presented the evidence the best we could. They did their job, and that's the end of it. My personal feeling is less important than the fact the case was decided by a jury."
Maloney told reporters that both prosecutors had "demonstrated exceptional courage and dedication" during the six-month long trial, and he singled out Giacalone, who had spent years investigating and trying the case, as "a very able, courageous and tenacious" prosecutor.
Asked why jurors had acquitted Gotti and six co-defendants, Maloney, who had gotten confidential FBI reports during the trial that the jury was rigged, bit his tongue and said simply: "They perceived there was something wrong with our evidence."
'Real Soprano' Turncoat Gets 'Time Served' Reward
Anthony Rotondo, a college educated wiseguy from Brooklyn who rose in the ranks of the so-called "Real Sopranos" crime family and enjoyed watching James Gandolfini depict the TV version on HBO, was quietly rewarded last week for spilling his guts about real life murder and mayhem that he and his mob cohorts engaged in over the years.
Rotondo, who testified at seven trials of wiseguys from his own New Jersey-based DeCavalcante family and at trials of powerful mobsters with the Genovese, Gambino and Colombo clans, was sentenced to "time served" — which translates to about four years behind bars for his life of crime.
With current and former FBI agents and federal prosecutors there to show support, the 58-year-old turncoat capo was sentenced behind the locked courtroom doors of Manhattan Federal Judge Jed Rakoff and then whisked away to a secret location where he's been living for the last 11 years or so. The records of his sentencing are sealed, and neither assistant U.S. attorney Miriam Rocah nor defense attorney Stephen Frankel would discuss it.
Rotondo, who followed his mobster father into the DeCavalcante crime family after earning a degree in business administration from St. Francis College in Brooklyn, flipped in late 2001 following a hugely successful FBI probe that snared dozens of New Jersey-based wiseguys in tape recorded talks with a mob turncoat who was wired up in the late 1990s.
In 1999, Rotondo and several others were picked up raving about the new-found respect they'd earned from their New York peers, and for the way they believed they were being portrayed by fictional boss Tony Soprano and his crew during the first season of the award-winning HBO show.
They were on their way to a mob sitdown when Rotondo, who had taken part in two gangland-style slayings, and soldier Joseph (Tin Ear) Sclafani, agreed that in the 1990s the notorious Five Families — which used to refer to DeCavalcante soldiers as "farmers" — had come to realize that they were a legitimate crime family.
"They know (that) now," said Sclafani, who was quickly echoed by Rotondo's during the tape-recorded car ride they took on March 3, 1999.
"You're in there, they mentioned your name in there," continued Rotondo, as he and the carload of mobsters compared the television mobsters with DeCavalcante wiseguys and talked about familiar landmarks from their home turf they had seen on the tube before Rotondo capped off the discussion with: "What characters. Great Acting."
Rotondo, a capo with close ties to family boss John Riggi back then, took part in the murder of family underboss John D'Amato in 1991. He was also part of the hit team that killed Staten Island Advance publisher Fred Weiss as a favor to John Gotti in 1989 when he feared that Weiss, who had been implicated in a waste hauling scam, would cooperate with the feds.
He did not testify against the Dapper Don, but he did take the stand against Peter Gotti, the Don's older brother and successor boss, and he testified at one of John A. (Junior) Gotti's racketeering trials. He also took the stand against acting Colombo boss Alphonse (Allie) Persico and Genovese wiseguy Federico (Fritzi) Giovanelli.
From the witness stand, Rotondo credited family wiseguy/undertaker Carlo Corsentino with devising a "double decker coffin" that was used to bury murder victims "below the regular customer" during the 1920s and 1930s "when there were a lot of Mafia murders."
At the 2004 trial of DeCavalcante soldier Giralomo (Jimmy) Palermo, Rotondo testified that during the 1990s, Corsentino and another now deceased mobster, Jake Colletti, became family celebrities when they received a Presidential citation.
"They lived to be a hundred," said Rotondo. "And everyone in the family thought it was kind of ironic that the two oldest members of the American Mafia had about 50 bodies between them (and) lived to receive congratulatory letters from President Clinton."
Mob Capo Arrested For Staten Island Sushi Lounge Assault
Bonanno capo Peter Lovaglio was arrested last week and charged with blinding the owner of an upscale Staten Island sushi lounge in one of his eyes by smashing him in the face with a cocktail glass. But the wiseguy's lawyer says his client was only defending himself from an assault by the inebriated restaurant owner — a former NYPD detective.
Lovaglio was at the Takayama Sushi Lounge in Tottenville at 2:40 AM on November 1 when the brouhaha erupted. He was accused of using a beverage glass as a deadly weapon causing "permanent damage" that included "loss of sight" for owner Fred Forte, according to the arrest complaint by Detective Michael Levay. Lovaglio was released from federal prison in March.
At his arraignment, the prosecutor noted his numerous past arrests and stated that Forte might lose the sight of an eye permanently thanks to the vicious assault, and asked Staten Island Criminal Court Judge Alan Meyer to set bail at $150,000. The judge set bail at $25,000 which Lovaglio quickly posted and was released, according to court records.
For allegedly causing "serious physical injury" to the victim, Lovaglio, 54, was charged with first degree assault, which carries a maximum prison term of 15 years. Forte underwent eye surgery and was treated for cuts on his face following the fisticuffs, according to Levay's complaint.
"My client was not the instigator," attorney Patrick Parrotta told Gang Land. "He was defending himself from the complainant," said Parrotta, stating that Forte was part of a large group of 10-to-12 revelers "that was drinking heavily and became rowdy" and were "responsible for starting the altercation."
"We have several eye-witnesses who say that they were intoxicated," said Parrotta. "I haven't seen the hospital medical records yet but am interested in getting them to confirm that," the attorney said, referring to Forte's treatment for the injuries he suffered.
Lovaglio, who is due back in court next month, has had to deal with his own problems with John Barleycorn.
In June of 2013, while he was awaiting sentencing and under federal home confinement, Lovaglio was arrested for drunk driving when he crashed into a parked car two blocks from his home after getting permission to leave his home to do some grocery shopping. Lovaglio, who was still seated in his car when cops arrived, blew twice the legal level (.18) on the police administered breathalyzer test.
The DWI charges were ultimately dismissed. But they didn't sit too well with Brooklyn Federal Judge Dora Irizarry. Later that month, she gave him the maximum two years behind bars he faced for violating post prison supervised release charges he had been hit with for meeting up with top Bonanno wiseguys, including then acting boss Thomas (Tommy D) DiFiore and capo Gerald Chilli in late 2102.